Posts by Pascal Monett

Apple tipped to go full wireless by 2021, and you're all still grumbling about a headphone jack

Re: Au revoir Pomme

I can't wait to retire and chuck out the effing "smartphone" I have to get an incredibly stupid dumb phone.

I miss the days when a mobile phone would last a week on standby.

Co-op Bank online and mobile banking goes TITSUP*

The UK really is a marvellous country

It's the only country in the world where there is on average an online banking snafu every quarter and yet the inhabitants just continue using those same banks.

I've never heard of the BNP, the Credit Mutuel or the Sogenal having problems with their online banking for years. Does UK banking IT use less reliable hardware, or are UK banking IT managers just not up to the task ?

SIEMs like a stretch: Elastic searches for cash from IT pros with security budgets

"If you think about it,"

If you think about IT security, it is a minefield of ever-changing threats and issues that are a nightmare to manage and impossible to forecast.

I guess that means job security and continuous revenues.

Managing the Linux kernel at AWS: 'A large team of security experts' dealing with fallout from Spectre, Meltdown flaws

Schlaeger is doing the right thing

He his helping the community get the solutions to a very complex problem. Sure, he's doing it because he would prefer not to have to redo the changes for each kernel update, but still, he's trying to help everyone. That is a Good Thing (TM).

The fact remains that hyperthreading is more than 30% of your CPU performance. That's 30% I absolutely cannot do without.

Xerox woos HP stock owners with talk of layoffs, selloffs and cash payouts post merger

Re: Savings

Xerox promises all of this for after the merger :

"On the $2bn of "synergy savings" promised, Xerox said it will consolidate from 8,000 to 3,000 suppliers to cut costs; slash its own IT bill to 1 per cent of revenue from 4 per cent; simplify stock keeping units and beef up inventory management, as well as rationalise (ie sell off) real estate in 555 locations to cut property owning down to just 261 sites."

Why wait ? Go ahead and do all that stuff, it will help you survive a little bit longer.

Amazon: Trump photon-torpedoed our $10bn JEDI dream because he hates CEO Jeff Bezos

Just a minute there

"President Trump [..] puts the very integrity of the government [..] in question"

There, FTFY.

We've heard of spam filters but this is ridiculous: Pig-monkey chimeras developed in a Chinese laboratory

"all died within a week"

So they brought into the world a few monstrous creations only for the poor things to suffer uselessly for an entire week before departing to a better place.

It is cruel what we do in the name of Science.

In tribute to Galaxy Note 7, BBC iPlayer support goes up in flames for some Samsung TVs

Once again, you paid for something but now someone else decides for you

All this "smart" and "connected" hoopla is cesspool of failure waiting to happen and, when (not if) it does, invariably it's the consumer that is left high and dry.

I am boycotting anything with "smart" in the name. I intend to be able to use my stuff for the long run.

Join us on our new journey, says Wunderlist – as it vanishes down the Microsoft plughole

The Age of the Customer is over

We are now in the Age of the Company, which decides what the customer wants and monetizes the customer's private details for maximum revenue.

It is insane to kill off an app that people actually like using. Of course, from Microsoft's point of view, it's obviously insane to keep updating an app that can - gasp - actually work with non-Microsoft platforms.

Get with the program, Microsoft. The future is about Cloud, not platform.

Gee, S/4HANA. Just what I always wanted: Customers are wary of what's in SAP's sack

It really is impressive

I find it astounding that companies are willing to write off decades of SAP ERP investment to start over just so that they can make calculations in columns. I mean, they've been managing so far, what's the problem ?

Honestly, if my company was big enough to need SAP and I had a working system, I'd hate to budget for an entirely new system just because of a new calculation method. I know IT is all about redoing stuff, but this is pushing things a bit far.

I hope there's some other advantage that justifies spending all that money all over again.

Homeland Security backs off on scanning US citizens, Amazon ups AI ante, and more

"extending the process to include American citizens was too risky"

But treating every tourist like a potential terrorist isn't ?

And why do they decide to do that when they just ask the NSA to warn them ? Come on, people, a bit of inter-agency cooperation isn't that hard, now is it ?

WebAssembly gets nod from W3C and, most likely, an embrace from cryptojackers online

Starve.

It's only the Internet, you can live without it.

OpenBSD bugs, Microsoft's bad update, a new Nork hacking crew, and more

"the reason why some companies are behind on their patching"

There's a twofold reason for that : one is that companies, contrary to Microsoft, like it when their databases are accessible 24/7, thus any change is viewed with suspicion because, yes, Microsoft and others have a track record of patches breaking things. The other reason is that there aren't all that many companies that have a dev environment that mirrors the production environment exactly, thus patching the dev environment and testing is not always representative what will happen when the production environment is patched - meaning more suspicion and delays.

Because Microsoft still hasn't understood that patching your production database and then not being able to use it is something companies don't like. At all. And I just can't understand how Microsoft can write code that breaks its own effing tools. It's not like Microsoft doesn't have the ability to actually test its own stuff, but here we all are.

Apple: Mysterious iPhone 11 location pings were because of 'ultra-wideband compliance'

"We do not see any actual security implications,"

Well what if a security researcher does ?

Personally, if I have not activated location services, I expect my phone to not activate them on its own.

I am sick and tired of devices that do their own thing independently of what I actually told them to do.

Another reason for me not to buy Apple - not that I'm lacking any.

Listen up you bunch of bankers. Here are some pointers for less crap IT

"a range of severe but plausible disruption scenarios"

Like, upgrading the software in a single stroke without using a staged deployment scheme ?

Is that one of the scenarios ?

Oil be damned: Iran-based crooks flinging malware at Middle Eastern energy plants again – research

If everyone was doing this all the time, we'd all be having trouble filling up our cars, don't you think ?

Icahn and I will force a Xerox and HP wedding: Corporate raider urges HP shareholders to tell board to act 'NOW'

I feel vindicated

Things are proceeding exactly as I have foreseen.

Re: they can get funding based on their future worth

So that's why the capitalist system is breaking down. Too much stock put into virtual reality, not enough put into actual reality.

Somebody needs to put a brake on the madness.

Windows 10 Insiders: Begone, foul Store version of Notepad!

Notepad++ complicated ?

I have no idea where you get that from.

Open text file, edit text file, save. Nothing complex there. Oh, there are menu options, but it's like Word, you can ignore them if you just want to edit text.

Staffer representation on our board? LMAO! Good one, cackles Microsoft

Indeed

We've lost enough values as it is. Good to see someone is holding on to the ones that work.

Never going to happen.

First of all, in companies the size of Microsoft, there's always something happening that should not be known to the workforce before the appropriate time - decided by the board.

Second, there are some things that need to be kept secret. Having an employee representative is a world of possible leaks waiting to happen.

Third, do you really think these kind of people are going to want to shoulder it with a representative of the peons ? They're above that, and that's where they want to stay.

Onestream slammed for 'slamming' vulnerable and elderly folk: That's £35k to Ofcom, please

"ensuring there can be no repetition of the mistakes that were made."

Sorry, but there was no mistake there. This was a calculated and programmed operation with a specific target market, and the people responsible for putting this in place should definitely go to jail.

And the CEO should be first in line, because that's where the buck stops.

Our society is not going get better any time soon if we can't teach the right lesson to the criminals in white collars.

How to fool infosec wonks into pinning a cyber attack on China, Russia, Iran, whomever

Um, confusing El Reg and the NSA is quite a leap to make. I'm not following you there.

With El Reg, the headlines are to grab your attention. With the NSA, the headlines are to make you go home and lock yourself in.

Feds slap $5m bounty on 'Evil Corp' Russian duo accused of running ZeuS, Dridex banking trojans

What was that ?

"Because many of the victims are small and medium enterprises, their accounts typically don't have the same legal protections afforded to consumer accounts."

What kind of schizophrenic country allows for different levels of legal protection following what entity it is that opens a bank account ? A bank account is a bank account, whether it is held by a corporation, a person or an illegal alien from Mars.

And how ironic that corporations who can potentially lobby to have laws written in their favor have less legal banking protection than voters whose votes don't count.

Reasons to be fearful 2020: Smishing, public Wi-Fi, deepfakes... and all the usual suspects

Hold on a minute there

"The company recommended people take the same precautions with text messages from unknown mobile numbers as they would with emails from unknown sources"

People apparently blindly accept email from unknown sources, clicking the links and forwarding as requested ; telling them to do the same with SMSs is not really a good idea.

Huawei with your rural subsidies ban: Chinese comms bogeyman fires sueball at US regulator

"Everybody I've spoken to is not going to go forward"

And Mexico is going to pay for the wall, and China will pay the tariffs.

Yeah, we know you, Donald. You live in a curious little world that will soon no longer affect us.

Scammy and spammy harassers are chasing veteran pros off crypto-collab platform Keybase

Re: Who in this era ...

Yeah. It's not like these problems are new, right ? These Keybase guys totally ignored everything that happened to Skype and other such platforms and just traipsed into the messaging world believing in unicorns and pots of gold at the end of rainbows.

Idiots.

Your duckface better be flawless: Huawei's Nova 6 mobe has a needlessly powerful selfie camera

No, you're not

I find the whole selfie thing revolting.

Pictures are to record the special things you've seen, to remember them later. If you're in the middle, you're taking up space uselessly. Of course you were there, you took the pic. You don't need to be in it to remember.

But you do need to be in it to show off. I hate that.

Uncle Sam challenged in court for slurping social media info on 'millions' of visa applicants

I wouldn't worry. If you've made negative comments about a French company, you can be sure that there are many, many of my countrymen who have made even worse comments.

It's in our nature to complain. When it's hot, it's always too hot. When it's cold, it's not hot anymore. When there's sunshine, we'd like rain. When it's raining, we're fed up with rain.

It's called being Gaulois. It's the reason why no invader will ever stay - we'll drive them nuts because we drive ourselves nuts already. Vive la France !

Oh please

I have no need for a sequel, nor does anyone else.

If there's somethin' stored in a secure enclave, who ya gonna call? Membuster!

"the attacker needs to install a custom-printed circuit board"

I stopped reading there.

Physical access and all that. Nothing to lose sleep over.

VCs find exciting new way to blow $1m: Wire it directly to hackers after getting spoofed

Well, someone has learned an important lesson

Never settle on only using email when dealing with money. Get a phone number, arrange a meeting, and get the financial details there, face to face.

It's the only way to be sure.

Asteroid Bennu is flinging particles of dust and rock from its surface – and scientists can't work out why

It's going to be interesting reading about how they solve this mystery

Space is decidedly awesome. Last year that rubber ducky-shaped asteroid we put a lander on actually demonstrated landslides, now we have an asteroid that ejects solid matter without a volcano.

Explaining that is going to take some serious genius. I can't wait for the result.

BOFH: I'd like introduce you to a groovy little web log I call 'That's Boss'

Ooohhh ! We're back to sneakily dreadful.

First, this one is dead on as far as Twitter is concerned. I completely agree with its position.

Second, although nobody got rolled up in carpet, there's potential for a lot of mayhem in a follow-up piece, and I'm looking forward to that.

If you want an example of how user concerns do not drive software development, check out this Google-backed API

"We received very positive [..] feedback from partners"

And who are those partners exactly ? Users ? I don't think so.

Google's partners are companies that advertise. If they are happy about this, then I'm not.

Whoooooa, this node is on fire! Forget Ceph, try the forgotten OpenStack storage release 'Crispy'

Just out of curiosity

Could someone explain to me how is it that the motherboard was fried and the box was hot enough to cook a meal, yet the hard disks had survived ?

How is that possible ?

In a touching tribute to its $800m-ish antitrust fine, Qualcomm tears wraps off Snapdragon 865 chip for 5G phones

"It's very easy to share and collaborate with the cloud"

Yes, I'm sure the NSA and hackers all over the world are in total agreement with that statement.

You are out of you mind if you honestly think that I am going to trust my entire desktop and all my data to someone else's computer, to be accessed under someone else's whim. I have a PC, a Personal computer, and I intend it to stay that way.

Re: Cheers

Interesting post with a lot of interesting information.

Thank you for that.

Since the FCC won't act, Congress finally moves on robocalls by passing half-decent TRACED Act

Re: Robocalls cost cell phone companies money

I think the issue is about land lines, not cell phones.

Sorry, but where in his track record do you have any instance of him doing anything else than delaying the application of the law when said application would diminish telco revenue ?

Former Oracle product manager says he was forced out for refusing to deceive customers. Now he's suing the biz

Re: deliver something that is feature complete on day 1

As much as I complain, like everyone else, about Microsoft products, I disagree with that sentence. Most software companies actually have product when they declare that they are selling it. Sure, said product will have patches and upgrades, but there is something working.

Oracle is apparently guilty of selling a non-existent product to customers, and tasking this guy to keep said customers patient while it was being developed. That is not at all the same thing.

In any case, it would seem that Oracle should partner up with Escobar Inc. They are obviously made to match.

Escobar Fold 1 snort all it's cracked up to be: Readers finger similarity to slated Chinese mobe

Escobar Inc

I am comforted in my opinion that anything related to this company is to be avoided at all costs. It is astounding that such a family of criminals can openly deal on the international market without any backlash.

Escobar can keep its trash, I'm not going to help them launder a single cent of ill-gotten gains.

AT&T subscribers back in court to crack open telco giant's $60m FTC settlement over limited 'unlimited data' plans

I'm sure he'll get around to that next year.

Take Sajid Javid's comments on IR35 UK contractor rules with a bucket of salt, warns tax guru

"Now, we are calling on all parties to [..] halt the 2020 roll-out"

Seems a bit late, given that companies are already getting rid of their contractors.

You guys made a pigs breakfast of it all and somebody's going to have pick up the pieces. As usual, it's the peons that will suffer.

Lazarus group goes back to the Apple orchard with new macOS trojan

What is the point ?

The article does not mention that the malware sample was found on VirusTotal. That means that somebody has scanned it, which has to mean that those Norks leaked it out.

However, the article states that the control server is not handing out the payload, which prevents the malware from doing anything at this point in time.

So that begs the question : has this malware actually been installed and then the Norks shut down the service because they were only interested in one target ? Or are they still in the ramping up stage and want everything to be perfect for when they do unleash the malware ?

Which still does not explain the sample on VirusTotal.

We know this sounds weird but in future we could ask fiber optic cables: Did the earth move for you... literally?

So they can detect a disturbance in laser intensity

But can they detect where the disturbance is, meaning how far down the cable ?

To me, this reads like a boolean result : the laser signal is disturbed, or it isn't. There is not enough description in the article to tell me whether the boffins knew where those 6000 perturbations were. On the other hand, they knew they had 6000 perturbations, so they must have some way of counting.

I'd like to know.

Just in case you were expecting 10Gbps, Wi-Fi 6 hits 700Mbps in real-world download tests

Well if you're streaming up to 700Mbps then surely browsing can't be all that bad, and I don't see any impact on gaming. These days you're connected to server, so in effect it's just like streaming.

We're not trying to be rude here but... there's an ice giant stripping down, emitting gas as it orbits a hot white dwarf

Unless we've found a way to fold space or something by then. If so, we'll be watching the fireworks from a space station in the asteroid belt, or we'll have migrated to another system and left a giant camera in orbit around Jupiter to stream the live feed on the GalNet.

Amazon drops battery-powered Echo speaker so you can play Despacito on the go

"10 hours of continuous music playback, or 11 hours on standby"

So, playing the music is just a bit more taxing than just listening to everything and sending that to the mothership, I see.