Posts by Pascal Monett

Penny smart and dollar stupid: IT jobs slashed in US, UK, Europe to cut costs – just when we need staff the most

Re: It's not all bad.

Well that wasn't clear in your original post. Obviously, she's better off at home in those conditions.

Re: IT is like HR (should be Personnel though) in some respects

HR is very different from IT. HR always has the budget it needs because HR is who the CEO calls when it is time to fire IT people.

Re: It's not all bad.

I'm guessing the secretary would disagree with your point of view.

Re: tldr

At this point in time, most stores that I can still go to have put up a sign stating that they simply don't take cash any more. How can anyone be "stockpiling" cash ?

CEO of AI surveillance upstart Banjo walks the plank after white supremacist past sinks contracts

Well, objectively speaking, I think this whole issue was inevitable.

Come on, if you had such a past, would you lay it on the table in front of the press as soon as you got nominated CEO ? In our unforgiving societal climate ? I don't think so.

Whether he is or not a better person now, he did the only thing he could ; try to keep it hidden as long as possible, because the issue was a foregone conclusion if it became known, as it now has.

If he had been in charge of practically any other type of company, he might have succeeded in keeping his past hidden long enough to demonstrate that he had indeed become a "good person" by managing the company well and making good deals. Unfortunately for him, he was CEO of a company doing facial recognition and security surveillance, and these days, such companies come under special attention, as well they should.

So basically he was doomed.

I am willing to believe that he became a better person. You cannot get rid of hate if you cannot forgive those that try to evolve. I hope that his career will survive this debacle somehow.

I'm sorry, are you saying that there is no bias in AI ?

Because, given the number of high-profile people that are talking about biases in AI, I think you would be wrong.

Papa don't breach: Contracts, personal info on Madonna, Lady Gaga, Elton John, others swiped in celeb law firm 'hack'

Well, with the upcoming lawsuit that is undoubtedly on the way, I'm sure something is going to rub off on this bunch.

India releases data-use protocols for its contact-tracing app... after five weeks and 100 million downloads

"may be" uploaded on to an NIC server

It will be, rest assured of that. They're getting PII and location data, there's no way they won't hoover that up and try to monetize it later in some way or another.

You don't need location data to know if people have been in contact. It doesn't matter where they were, the app is indicating contact and that is what you're supposed to be looking for.

NHS contact-tracing app is best in the world, says VMware CEO... whose company helped build it

Re: couldn't we have had one global app

Of course not. Each country has its own trough and its own snouts that want a piece of the app pie.

So we're all going to replicate each other's efforts and we'll end up with apps that are incompatible between them.

What a great world, eh ?

Fancy some post-weekend reading? How's this for a potboiler: The source code for UK, Australia's coronavirus contact-tracing apps

Re: I see more talking about apps than tests

In the political sphere, perhaps, but in the medical sphere, all the doctors want tests. And they're all saying that contact tracing is a requirement, but it needs to be followed up with tests. And they say that the only way we'll deal properly with this pandemic is by testing.

They have their mouths full of the word, in every way they can say it. For some reason though, the politicians are not hearing the message very well. Well, not many of them. Some countries got their shit together quite quickly, and they're on top of the problem. It's just Europe and the USA who are not putting their money where they should. One group because God knows why, and the USA because their government is a pile of shit right now.

Microsoft fingers foreign object in fracture furore, serves up fresh dollop of Duo, and another Windows 10 'Meh' Update

"sell the product back to him"

Sorry bud, but you visibly don't know who you sold your product to. You sold out to Microsoft. You sold out to the one company that has a public record of shutting down its acquisitions.

They're not going to give it back.

Users of Will.i.am's Wink IoT hub ask 'Where is the love?' as they're asked to pay for a new subscription service

"$£&* move from Will.i.am"

Well, you have to admit that, in the first place, you trusted some idiot who calls himself "Will.i.am".

Mama mia! Nintendo in need of a plumber after leak sprays N64, GameCube, Wii code

"clean-up from the infection would be as high as $70m"

Gosh, if only they had accepted that $130K quote to educate their employees on security and not clicking on anything that was a .pdf.exe

IBM to GTS staff: Not volunteering to leave with a redundo cheque? We'll give you a helping hand

Less and less, but I'm still making a living out of it.

It is unclear why something designed to pump fuel into a car needs an ad-spewing computer strapped to it, but here we are

Of course. Alcohol is for the driver, as everyone knows . . .

You're forgetting the boss's nephew.

One malicious MMS is all it takes to pwn a Samsung smartphone: Bug squashed amid Android patch batch

Re: if I did get one I would probably just delete it sight-unseen

I think you missed the part where it says "no user interaction is required".

You don't need to open it for it to wreak havoc on your phone, it just needs to get to it. That's a bit of a problem. And that was an understatement.

Re: What are the chances

Your universe appears to be nice and comfy.

Apple owes us big time for bungled display-killing cable design in MacBook Pro kit, lawsuit claims

I'm sorry, you're expecting to have something that can actually be repaired ?

This is the 3rd millennium. We don't repair any more, we replace. Then we complain about abusing Gaia's resources. Get with the program.

Not loud enough, I think.

Bored at home? Cisco has just the thing: A shed-load of security fixes to install, from a Kerberos bypass to crashes

It's okay though

Let's not forget that only Huawei has shoddy programming practices.

That's what the experts say.

If it feels like the software world is held together by string and a prayer, we don't blame you: Facebook SDK snafu breaks top iOS apps

Uncalled for ? Really ?

With the amount of people who just include a library on GitHub and never worry about what it actually does until said library falls over, it's not really uncalled for.

Personally, where I to include someone else's library, I would import it into my code stack, review the code to ensure that it does what it says on the tin and nothing else, and - after testing the thing to hell and beyond - include it in my production code stack.

Of course, it is then up to me to set a watch over that library to check when it is updated and what the update is, but that's my problem.

The rub is, developers hate problems, so they just link to library and let history run its course.

It's not because, in this particular case, developers had no way to avoid the issue that the argument does not stand.

If you miss the happier times of the 2000s, just look up today's SCADA gear which still has Stuxnet-style holes

So, basically, authentication is useless ?

How can you possibly design a program to accept commands if the user is not authenticated first ?

I just cannot fathom how it is possible for a developer to not design the code to stay in the authentication ring until that is validated. You can't program defensively against everything, but you sure as hell can refuse any input before validating a user's right to send commands.

Behold: The ghastly, preening, lesser-spotted Incredible Bullsh*tting Customer

I had a similar issue in one of my consulting gigs. I had created the application that the user had specced, and testing had gone swimmingly until one day the user called and complained that his notifications in said application were not going out to the right people.

I checked the code and the logs, and could find nothing wrong. I racked my brain trying to find out what the issue could actually be. After two days of searching, I finally hit upon an idea : he was using a local group that was named the same as the group defined on the server.

Not bothering with asking him the question because I was sure he'd deny any fault on his part, I simply changed the log to record the actual names of the people that were supposed to be notified. Sure enough, the next time he called to complain that it was _still_ not sending to the proper people, I checked the log and compared it to the server group : not equal.

I printed out the log and went to his desk and confronted him with the proof.

Never heard of him again.

Re: I quit left shortly thereafter

Whether you quit left or right, I'm sure it was the best professional decision you've ever made.

What do you call megabucks Microsoft? No really, it's not a joke. El Reg needs you

I'll drink to that.

I think Borkzilla is actually extremely appropriate.

Samsung to launch debit card and financial-health-as-a-service service

"Google is rumored to be working on a debit card of its own"

Of course it is. Another source of ad information - and this time, it's financial !

Every little bit counts - and Google never counts anything under a billion.

Go on, hit Reply All. We dare you. We double dare you. Because Office 365 will defeat your server-slamming ways

One company I worked at found a different solution

They removed the Reply All button from the ribbon. As it was an admin profile thingy, people couldn't put it back.

I think that's a great solution. There's not very many cases where absolutely everyone needs to know that you prefer pizza.

FYI: Your browser can pick up ultrasonic signals you can't hear, and that sounds like a privacy nightmare to some

Re: Surely one answer would be...

Maybe, maybe not.

But I have one sure-fire solution : mute the speakers.

At home, of course, my speakers can be active, especially now that I have somewhat more time for YouTube. But I use uBlock Origin with NoScript on Firefox, so I don't see ads, therefor they cannot spout any ultrasonic anything.

With my laptop, I also use the same browsing configuration but, on top of that, I have my speakers muted. Good luck spouting any noise whatsoever.

So, whether or not an app is listening, I am the deep sea nuclear submarine that passes unnoticed.

As coronavirus catches tech CEOs with their pants down, IBM's Ginni Rometty warns of IT's new role post-pandemic

IT departments perhaps not modern enough

To be "modern", they need budget. It's hard to get budget when you're considered nothing more than a cost center.

So who is to blame ?

Right.

HCL finishes its year with 15 percent growth, 100 million minutes-a-month Teams usage

"CEO C Vijayakumar said he thinks the company can navigate the current economic turbulence"

Well he's not going to say that they're going to go bankrupt, now is he ?

That was a useless sentence.

Non-human Microsoft Office users get their own special licences

“Office applications have not been specifically designed for unattended usage at scale”

Wrong. They have not been designed for any usage at scale.

Australian contact-tracing app sent no data to contact-tracers for at least ten days after hurried launch

Officials need to re-read the Cloud Act.

Basically put, nobody's data is safe from US scrutiny if it is stored on a server that is controlled by a company that has a presence in the USA. And no judge is going to go against that.

Excerpt from the article :

"First, the Act amended U.S. law to authorize U.S. law enforcement to unilaterally demand access to data stored outside the U.S."

It's a demand, not a request.

Quick Q: Er, why is the Moon emitting carbon? And does this mean it wasn't formed from Theia hitting Earth?

Yeah, mainly all the craters that pockmark its surface.

Forever mothballed: In memoriam Apple Butterfly Keyboard (2015-2020)

So, basically, you're defending a keyboard that you don't use.

Never underestimate the negative power of frustration. When you're forced to work with tools that have been specifically designed to keep you from working, you're life quickly becomes far from incredible.

'A' is for ad money oddly gone missing: Probe finds middlemen siphon off half of online advertising spend

"the online ad industry urgently needs to work together"

No they don't. They can continue ripping each other off as long as they like.

Besides, all it takes is an honest intermediary to do the job right, and the whole thing will crumble.

The problem is, they're all thieves. They can choke on their fees.

Senior MP tells UK Defence Committee on 5G security: Russia could become China's cyber-attack dog

Agreed. Putin is subservient to no one. Does this Elwood remember that Russia and China have been on the brink of open warfare several times in the past ? They re both itching for a fight.

So Huawei has rather shoddy coding practices. You're telling me that Cisco doesn't ? I seem to remember a rather embarrassing goof not so long ago, one that actually forced Cisco to offer a free replacement.

No, this is just another excuse for laying it on Huawei. They have no proof of anything, but since they're "experts", they can spout their bile without needing proof.

MongoDB and Rockset link arms to figure out SQL-to-NoSQL application integration

"Rockset replicates MongoDB data and builds an external index"

So you're doing a Join in memory and writing it down in an "external index".

You're still doing a Join.

Tom Cruise to increase in stature thanks to ISS jaunt? Now that's a mission impossible

Well that'll be a first in the film industry

Tom Cruise in Space. Actors : 1. Film crew : 5. Makeup : 1. Catering : 2. Budget : $1.2 billion.

Special effects : none. Explosions : none. Car chases : 0. Tom Cruise running time : 0 minutes.

Film gross : $250 million. Oops.

Now we know what the P really stands for in PwC: X-rated ads plastered over derelict corner of accountants' website

Right, so basically PwC created a sub-domain, decided not to keep it alive, and someone else took control. That's not hacking in any way, shape or form.

Eclipse boss claims Visual Studio Code is an open-source poseur – though he would say that, wouldn't he?

Eclipse

I have a personal bone to pick with that pile of crap. Ever since IBM shoved Notes into Eclipse on R7, the Notes developer client has gained an unstability that it never had before. You do your normal programming of agents or script libraries, you check the results in views and such, and all of a sudden, you're not getting the result you know you should get.

Well, after a while and a lot of experience, you understand that your Notes environment has gone to the dogs, with one or more processes than you are actually using. I don't know what Eclipse does, but it fails to remain in the processes that should normally be running and creates new ones without asking your opinion, thus you're doing something in a process that no longer has anything to do with the one you were coding in.

It's fucked up, and the only solution is to use the Task Manager to kill all Notes processes and get a clean situation - until it fucks itself up again, that is.

I hate Eclipse.

It has been 20 years since cybercrims woke up to social engineering with an intriguing little email titled 'ILOVEYOU'

Of course not. It was a Microsoft move.

We beg, implore and beseech thee. Stop reusing the same damn password everywhere

Re: I reuse the same password on loads of sites

I will admit that I have a throwaway password for sites that I do not consider important, yet still ask me for a login, or sites that I have no intention to return to after the reason for which I went there in the first place.

But for anything important, I have a system that gives me at least 13 characters, and I have a database to store them in along with the URL that is concerned.

UK finds itself almost alone with centralized virus contact-tracing app that probably won't work well, asks for your location, may be illegal

Re: your location is known static constant in this, you're at home

Well yes, unless you work in the food industry, in the transport industry, in the medical field, in a gas station, or in any other "essential" business.

So there's a few people who are _not_ at home.

You said everything we need to know

"She was also fighting for her quango"

That's a wrap, we're done with that shit.

Congratulations, Kieren

Once again, an outstanding piece of journalism which sets the record straight.

Well done.

Proof-of-concept open-source app can cut'n'paste from reality straight into Photoshop using a neural network

Re: OK, I'll bite.

Well, the article does state that "Support for other imaging editing programs in the works, wee're told".

How long that will take, if it ever happens, is anyone's guess.

Contact-tracing is basically CRM so we think we've got it sorted, says Salesforce

Salesforce should sign up to the Google-Apple API

We're in the midst of the greatest disruption to our lives that has ever happened outside of a World War (which most of us have never known), most of us are consigned to our houses with little opportunity to get out, and Salesforce is looking to sell us something that we're going to be getting for free to help us emerge from our hobbit holes.

Two of the greatest money hoarders have teamed up to make this happen for free, and Salesforce wants to sell us something that is supposed to do the same thing.

I guess that's marketing for you.

Hyperconverged darling Nutanix to furlough at least a quarter of its staff – 1,465 – for two weeks this year

"investors gave its share price a walloping"

Seems like now is the time to buy, then. There will be a life after the pandemic, and Nutanix should still be around, so get 'em while they're at a lowered price thanks to investor shortsightedness.