Posts by Pascal Monett

You think ransomware is bad now? Wait until it infects CPUs

"if exploited by highly skilled attackers"

Well you can bet that they're looking at how to exploit that now.

And since there's no lack of highly skilled attackers, something is going to show up sooner rather than later.

Yolk's on you – eggs break less when they land sideways

"Through hundreds of experiments"

I am thrilled to learn that Science has so much time on its hands to tackle the really important problems that have plagued cooks since time immemorial.

Now all we need is a procedure to ensure that dropped eggs always land on their sides.

Maybe a dash of butter might help ?

US govt's science foundation purges 37 divisions, equity unit among casualties

"it was issued without public notice or comment and violates the law"

I'm sorry, but you voted to put a crminal in the White House and now you're complaining that he's not respecting the law ?

What exactly did you expect, that he would magically change from his first tour in the Oval Office ?

He's doing nothing new, he's just doing it more boldly since he's learned that he is nigh untouchable from behind that desk.

VC behemoth Insight Partners fears top-secret financial info swiped by cyber-miscreants

a "sophisticated social engineering attack"

Sure. This time it was a letter purporting to be from the NSA demanding the list of server logins and passwords to ensure that no server had been unduly accessed.

Information that was sent by Reply To to an address of the type "[e-mail].

Microsoft wants us to believe AI will crack practical fusion power, driving future AI

Yeah.

Item #1 : Windows 11 works fine and is not full of bugs and security holes.

Re: "You'd better take that up with Sir Simon Cowley, as it was a quote in his name"

There's also an obscure scientist by the name Richard Feyman who made some lectures in his time, one of which was explaining the Scientific Method where he said pretty much the same thing.

As US scientists flee Trump, MP urges Britain to do more to nab them

Far be it from me approve whatever the orange baboon decides

However, I have to admit that sending money to Afghanistan so that they can grow poppy which will undoubtedly be used to make opium which will be sold back to the USA at a vastly inflated price is something that must have the Taliban in stitches.

I've heard the the EU wants to replace the US in USAID funding. Have they had a look at that line ? Because I don't want to fund opium production in Afghanistan. I do not approve of that.

This thing about recovering US scientists also has me wondering. I doubt very much that US scientists wotking for the military or the nuclear industry are in any way concerned by this decision. They will not be the minds leaving and we won't be recovering them.

37signals is completing its on-prem move, deleting its AWS account to save millions

So, who gets the fat bonus this time ?

Because I'm guessing that there's going to be a nice bonus for this guy saving so much money for the company.

One question : the guy that convinced the Board/CEO that The Cloud^TM was a good idea in the first place, is he still withthe company, or has he moved on to get another fat bonus check from another company ?

I'm guessing this type of story is not going to help AWS's revenue stream . . .

People find amazing ways to break computers. Cats are even more creative

Re: Fish tank

Yikes ! Now that is what you call a close call.

I have a cat that, in winter, has a curious propensity to find the exact moment when I'm out of my home office (filling my glass of water, or going to the toilet or whatever) to hop on the desk and lay down on the keyboard.

Which has already caused me so many problems that I now have the reflex of puling the lid down just far enough that the cat can't get in under (it hasn't yet figured out that all it has to do is push it up with its head) and yet not far enough to trigger sleep mode.

BOFH: HR tries to think appy thoughts

Once again, the BOFH wins hands down

And I'm sure all the HR people are absolutely overjoyed at the idea of having to go into a trash bin to get their phones back.

Don't mess with the BOFH. You'll always regret it.

If you survive, that is . . .

After that 2024 Windows fiasco, CrowdStrike has a plan – job cuts, leaning on AI

Great idea

Fire the people with experience and replace them hith a hallucinating statistical anaysis machine.

I think that's what you call digging your own grave.

In any case, we'll see just how much this pseudo-AI is going to help you reach $10 billion in revenue.

If I were one of your remaining customers, you have just signed the definitive death knell of our relationship and I would be looking for another security supplier.

You'll never guess which mobile browser is the worst for data collection

I use Brave

And I'm happy to find out that it severely limits the data it slurps (because, these days, I fully expect there will be slurping).

I'm even happier that it cuts out ads, and that me a ton of bandwidth on my smartphone.

I never miss a chance to tell people around me about Brave if ever phone browsers come up in the conversation. I have converted a few people already.

90-second Newark blackout exposes parlous state of US air traffic control

Never forget that the military have a saying : training is a necessity, but you don't know how a man will react until he's being shot at by people who actually want to kill him.

Re: lessons will be learned

And how to blame it all on the previous administration.

Never forget to do that. It's all the fault of your predecessor. Your conscience is clear, as clear as a fogged-up pane of glass after a hot shower.

Trump's wind farm funding freeze is so much hot air, say states as they blow sueball to Washington

Re: he wasn't sure if he was supposed to uphold the constitution

He actually said that ?

Does he remember the televised ceremony when he had one of his pudgy little paws on the Bible and the other raised swearing to do just that, or is it just a thing he learned by heart to pass the test and get back to his position of ultra power where he thinks he can do whatever he wants (and facts are rather thin on the ground to oppose him at this point in time) ?

Citrix finds new use for virtualization: Avoiding PC price hikes caused by tariffs

Billionnairs open working for billionnairs

At last the semblance of respecting rules and democracy has been dropped.

DOGE exists for one thing : to ensure the companies of the billionnairs who have taken part in this sham are allowed to ensure that their profits are secure.

We've known for years that those with money will always have the means to bend things in their favor. Relations, dinners, galas, all those occasions where the cigar-smoking elite agree that the peons are not concerned by their "little" arrangements.

Now, there is a government agency that is specifically meant to enshrine those little arrangements with the force of law.

How convenient.

Teens maintained a mainframe and it went about as well as you'd imagine

Don't you just love the schadenfreud in this ?

I do.

The mentality is simple : if they haven't spent their yearly budget, they are rewarded with a smaller budget the following year.

Since increasing the size of the budget for any "special" project is months of discussions and, quite possibly, all of that ending in a refusal, you spend the effing budget.

Kind of like the fighter jets who, at the end of the fiscal year, spend some time taxiing to and from the runway (without taking off, because that would become "flying time" and treated differently) just so that the yearly fuel budget was spent (obviously, CO2 emissions are not a military concern).

Signal chat app clone used by Signalgate's Waltz was apparently an insecure mess

That would require a level of skill, something that no one in the current goverment has any of any notice or usefulness (apart from kissing ass).

Re: Helluva demotion, waltz. You're foisted onto the UN - a backwater in the middle of nowhere.

What it is does not concern me. What it isn't does.

What it isn't is him in handcuffs going in front of a judge explaining why a National Security Advisor, a prominent figure in the US government directly responsible for the nation's security, is using an unsecure, unvetted app and, from what I've read elsewhere, a direct connection to the Internet that does not go through the secure firewall.

This group of clown led by the orange baboon is a mockery of government, of democracy and of just plain decency.

Meta blames Trump tariffs for ballooning AI infra bills

Well, it's only $7 billion more than they had already forecast, so just about 10% more.

I doubt that will have the slightest effect on their quarterly bonuses.

Soviet probe from 1972 set to return to Earth ... in May 2025

"It is possible the heat shield will have failed after spending so long in orbit"

Hmm. Isn't a heat shield just a slab of metal ?

I know that being bombarded by the Sun's full radiative fury is certainly not a good thing, but isn't that probe still inside the Earth's magnetosphere ? That should protect a slab of metal from the worst of the Sun's fury, no ?

If the heat shield has failed, shouldn't the rest of the probe be a lump of molten stuff as well ?

Could someone please explain this remark ?

Trump wants to fire quarter of NASA budget into black hole – and not in a good way

Well, what's the point of science anyway ?

When your only actual interest is getting spanked by a whore.

AI models routinely lie when honesty conflicts with their goals

Re: So can we make it president?

In any case, this article simply means that we can replace all elected deputies and senators with LLMs.

The end result might actually be better, because LLMs only lie 50% of the time . . .

Microsoft gets twitchy over talk of Europe's tech independence

"When necessary, we're prepared to go to court"

You won't have the chance to go to court.

You'll get a National Security Letter telling you what you need to do to, that you are forced to comply and that you are forbidden from telling anyone about it.

Brewhaha: Turns out machines can't replace people, Starbucks finds

"Culver exited the business at the end of 2022"

Of course. Typical management MBA material.

Talk up a solution that reduces headcount (thus salaries, those annoying costs), then cash in a fat bonus and exit before the fallout hits.

It never fails to work - for the guy cashing out.

Does UK's Online Safety Act cover misinformation? Well, that depends

If I'm not mistaken, it's called politics.

Watch out for any Linux malware sneakily evading syscall-watching antivirus

What a surprise

A tool specifically made to avoid syscalls, which just happen to be what AV tools are actively watching, is hijacked by miscreants for their own nefarious purposes.

I can't help but think that the guy who thought this up must be a serious expert on OSes in general, and on kernels in particular. You have to know the ins and outs of the inner workings of the entire OS stack and the particulars of how it all fits together to dream up a scheme like that and make it work for you.

What a shame that a mind like that decided to employ his formidable intellect for crime, instead of working with Torvalds or Cupertino or even Redmond and making a better world for everyone.

Infosec pros tell Trump to quit bullying Chris Krebs – it's undermining security

"political retaliation puts democracy and national defense at risk"

As if he cared . . .

Windows isn't an OS, it's a bad habit that wants to become an addiction

There's this little niggling little detail called '"work". When you're a self-employed freelancer, you don't work nine-to-five, you work until your customers stop asking you for urgent things to get done.

Then you invoice them and you get paid.

I don't have time to eduate myself on this transition now, but when I'm retired I will have all the time in the world and, by God, I will get it done.

I'e already said this

But I'll repeat myself : the only reason I'm on Windows is because all my customers are.

I am around six years away from retirement: On that day, I swear to God I am setting up a Linux Mint machine in my home and I will transition everything I need or want to do to that machine until I can reformat my Windows machine finally get rid of that bloated mess and once again have a Personal Computer.

Emphasis on "Personal".

What the **** did you put in that code? The client thinks it's a cyberattack

Ah, PowerPoint.

As lead Notes developer in a company that was actively transiting to Sharepoint, Outlook and MSSQL (at least one good decision), I had been called upon to present the current uses of major Notes applications and the future of Notes in the company.

I dutilfully put together the memorandum of all the Notes applications being slowly decomissioned, but I just couldn't help my self and, on the last page of the page of the presentation entitled "The Future f Notes at <company name>", I used this kind of image as background with, at the bottom of the slide, the words "Any questions ?".

Even the IT director chuckled at that, so I consider it a total success.

Google goes cold on Europe: Stops making smart thermostats for continental conditions

Re: "Heating systems in Europe are unique"

Oh, so like Apple when it had to relearn the concept of time zones for its iWtachamacallit ?

Samsung admits Galaxy devices can leak passwords through clipboard wormhole

"sloppy security practices"

Well, we're talking about Borkzilla.

No surprise there.

DARPA to 'radically' rev up mathematics research. Yes, with AI

Oh but of course

"radically accelerate the rate of progress in pure mathematics by developing an AI co-author capable of proposing and proving useful abstractions "

I'm sure that hallucinating AIs are exactly what we need to progress in mathematics.

Amid CVE funding fumble, 'we were mushrooms, kept in the dark,' says board member

Re: Move it to Europe

Move is not the correct word.

It should be replicated to Europe, just like DNS databases are replicated across the world.

Make continental copies, with multiple governments and/or organizations pledging to ensure funding of the operations.

If one continent abandons the project, the replicas will be there to ensure continuity.

This project is very much an essential resource for computing at every scale.

Once again, despite himself, Trump is doing exactly what is needed to ensure that dependance on a single authority is banished - especially when that authority is held by an orange baboon flinging his shit at random walls.

AI-driven 20-ft robots coming for construction workers' jobs

That image

Looking at that image with the puny human standing practically directly under one of the claws immediately makes me think that the robot is going to go "This thing is in my way".

Down goes the claw, clamps around a screaming human futilely trying to liberate his head from the steel grip, and up goes the claw at (literally) breakneck speed, ejecting the obstacle a hundred meters away so it can work in peace.

Signalgate lessons learned: If creating a culture of security is the goal, America is screwed

"an insecure internet connection set up in his office"

I've got the feeling that there's a certain Hillary that must be ROFLing her head off.

Except for the fact that the obvious double standard is totally disgusting.

Techie diagnosed hardware fault by checking customer's coffee

Re: dirty power

I have learned a long time ago the usefulness of an UPS to keep PCs from getting damaged by power surges or cuts.

Funny, because I live not far from a nuclear power station (about 15km, give or take a few). You'd think that the quality of the power line would be reliable so close to the generator, but you'd be mistaken.

All of my electronic equipment is, at minimum, connected to the mains with a surge protector (TV, stereo, fridge, freezer, etc). In my home office I have a 1600 VA UPS to which all my desktops, my NAS, the connection box and the telephone are connected.

If there is a power cut, I power down the computers and leave just the phone and the box connected to ensure that I can still use my laptop's WiFi if required until the power comes back on.

But I am never again going to trust the mains to give proper juice to my computer equipment. Yes, I know that, in the past 20 years, standards have evolved and computers are more resiliant.

I'm still not taking the risk.

Darcula adds AI to its DIY phishing kits to help would-be vampires bleed victims dry

Re: Another proof those criminals are really modern

Yeah.

Such a shame that such good coders aren't working at Microsoft. They'd really get things done there . . .

Assassin's Creed maker faces GDPR complaint for forcing single-player gamers online

It's Ubisoft

I have enough history with Ubisoft to have decided to never buy a game from them again.

From the insane requirement to have to reinstall Battlefield 2 every time there was an update (and I was ADSL at the time - took all evening), to the fact that when wanted to update Battlefield 2142 it asked me for the CD key (hello ? I bought it from your fucking store, remember ?) and when I complained about it, Ubisoft just shut down my account (no, no reimbursement, don't be daft).

I've learned my lesson. Ubisoft can go to hell.

Microsoft mystery folder fix might need a fix of its own

"Microsoft's testing process is under the microscope"

Yeah, you're going to need a microscope to find it.

Devs sound alarm after Microsoft subtracts C/C++ extension from VS Code forks

You still don't get it, do you ?

It is Microsoft's computer, and Microsoft will decide what it lets get done with it.

In this case, you even got a warning. You should count yourself lucky. Generally, when something gets cut off, you find out after you've installed the latest update.

New Intel boss is all about ‘deleveraging’ the x86 giant

"Intel could shed up to 20 percent of its current workforce"

And how many of those will be managers ?

Sorry, stupid question.

Ninite to win it: How to rebuild Windows without losing your mind

I honestly doubt that there will be a wave of new acquisitions purely to get Windows 11.

Prices are up, Trump is doing his damndest to make international trade a nightmare and people just don't have a spare $5000 lying around to "upgrade" a computer that does its job just fine, thank you very much.

Companies will bear the brunt of the upgrade wave because compliance, but I think Windows 1 0 is going to be around for a long while - maybe even longer than XP was.

Not everyone is a gamer.

Booby-trapped Alpine Quest Android app geolocates Russian soldiers

So, digital warfare at work

This is starting to look like a (very high stakes) game of ping pong.

Russia : take this, we disrupt your nuclear reactors

Ukrains : take this, we obliterate your TikTok soldiers

Russia: oh yeah ? Well now we infiltrate your command structure and steal yiour battle plans

Ukraine : Really ? Well now we know where all of your soldiers are and can prdict their movements

. . . (to be continued)

We’re calling it now: Agentic AI will win RSAC buzzword Bingo

Just a minute there

"an agent can analyze an email and determine "this is a bad return address," Lord said. "This is a fake logo. This is a URL that's hosted in a .parks domain and has only been up for the last 12 hours. This is legitimately bad. Filter it to the security team"

I fail to see how you need pseudo-AI to get such results.

I programmed my own personal spam filter that could easily detect when someone claimed to represent (example) Microsoft(*) but the return address was somewhere.iranistan.com. I was capable of going through all http links and check if they were pointing to legitimate Microsoft domains. I had an extensive subject dictionary where I stored the blatant examples of things that spammers would use (mostly spelling errors and references to orders that needed to be confirmed and such). I also had a keyword database that looked through the mail checking for the most obvious things spammers put in their mails (I need someone to recover the money and send it to me, etc).

It was accurate, evolutive, and stored the offending spam in a reference database with the reason for its removal as keyword.

I'd have to go check the code, but I'm pretty sure I didn't write 10,000 lines to get this result, and there were no calls to any external libraries whatsoever.

This pseudo-AI thing is an industrial crusher looking for a walnut to justify its existence.

*Replace Microsoft by any company, bank or official organization

Hyperconverged infrastructure is so hot right now it needs liquid cooling

"HCI is often touted as a fine candidate for installation [..] at the network edge"

So let me get this straight : networking is getting so complex that we're going to have to have a 2U server rack with 6 core Xeons and 2 Nvidia H100s just to read El Reg ?

Maybe we could tone down government snooping a bit and get back to regular GB fiber on a 6cm² box ?

Blue Shield says it shared health info on up to 4.7M patients with Google Ads

Ach, one word too many there

"Upon discovering the issue, Blue Shield immediately initiated a review of its websites and security protocols to ensure that no other analytics tracking software is impermissibly sharing members' protected health information"

FTFY