Posts by Pascal Monett

So how do the coronavirus smartphone tracking apps actually work and should you download one to help?

Re: a bit late in my book

Isn't it a shame that infected people don't have a sign on their foreheads ?

How exactly do you expect to have a before-the-fact warning if we don't have a tool that can trace infected people and warn those who have been in contact to get tested ?

When we all have and use this app, people will be able to have a reasonable assumption that the people they deal with are not infected. And when something shows up, the people who were in contact get tested and that clears who's infected and who's not. The rest of us go on with our lives.

This is not a game. There is no API we can call on to alert people to our infection status beforehand.

Astroboffins suspect twin-star smash may be the culprit for most biggest and brightest supernova yet spotted

Galaxys further than the eye can see

The blast appeared out of nowhere, and when the light faded, lo! there was a galaxy.

It is mind-blowing to realize that we haven't yet catalogued all the galaxies in our visible Universe. It is even more mind-blowing to realize that, with the Deep Field experiment, there is probably no point in our sky that doesn't have a galaxy somewhere in the distance.

An entire galaxy. With tens, if not hundreds of millions of stars. That's one hell of a baryonic mass.

And with all that, supernovae happen multiple times per day.

Whether you believe in God or not, you have to agree that this Universe is one hell* of a creation.

* - meant in a positive light, of course

Google extends e-commerce platform to help people in India find nearby food during lockdown

Three weeks already

Last night our President Macron told us that the lockdown in France (and, by extension, I suppose all of Europe, but he didn't specify that) was extended until May 11th. He said that there will be testing of all people presenting symptoms, so not the same approach as Taiwan, who was exemplary on that matter.

Taiwan may turn traffic advice app into massive tracking system

Isn't Taiwan done with the bug ?

I thought Taiwan had the situation under control. It might not be the ideal time to have crowds again, but given the stellar example that Taiwan has set in testing for and giving proper care to infected individuals, I'm supposing they don't have much to fear now.

And they'll have to start living normally again some day. We're not going to become shut-ins just for the sake of it.

Linux kernel technical advisory board asks if any maintainers need coronavirus relief

"even more rubbery than it is naturally"

Sounds like something that should be included in spare tire kits for adventurers.

BepiColombo probe swings by Earth on way to Mercury – the Solar System's must-visit coronavirus-free resort

It is incredible

To think that, in today's world of instant gratification and utter dearth of patience, there are still people that can work on a project for more than a decade to get it off the ground (literally in this case), and plan to wait over half a decade before getting results.

We need more people like that.

This machine-learning upstart trained software to snare online drug dealers. Now it's going after fake coronavirus test equipment peddlers

I like sledghammers

Simply make it illegal to sell something as a cure if there is no evidence that it will cure the intended disease.

Do not just take down false adverts, go after the advertiser and slam them in jail for endangering lives. And when the inevitable "but it won't hurt anyone !" argument rolls around, add fraud and deception to the list of charges.

No, I don't like half-measures. How did you guess ?

Guess what's heading to trial? IBM and its tactic of yoinking promised commissions after sales reps seal the deal

And it will be able to continue stiffing its salespeople that are not under contract, but are definitely under contract to respect California law.

Frankly, this is one case where, if I were judge, I would forbid a settlement. It it is a contract une law, then its terms are binding. That should be the goal of the judge, and allowing a company to settle just keeps those waters muddied.

That is not acceptable.

Doom Eternal: Reboot sequel is cluttered but we're only here for the rippin' and the tearin'

Sorry, not interested

It looks positively gorgeous, not going to say the contrary, but if I have to study a shooter in order to use all its functionalities, that is no longer a game for me.

Diablo III is my limit, where options are concerned. I know my favs and why I want them, and that's how I play.

This game sounds like a lot of trial and error and frustration before being able to breeze through the levels. With Wolfenstein it was press mouse button, shoot baddies. I like that.

This game sounds like it was made for all the FPS hardcore aficionados who have been playing nothing but for the past two decades and need something more to chew on.

So I'll leave this one to all the Master Sergeants out there.

RAND report finds that, like fusion power and Half Life 3, quantum computing is still 15 years away

"Note that the US government is still running COBOL"

And that matters how, exactly ?

Banks are still running COBOL, but the Internet gets nowhere near the mainframes that run it.

If cracking passwords is going to take thousands of qbits, I predict that we'll have working fusion reactors before we have quantum computers.

Because having the qbits is not enough, you still have to program the damn things. And programming for a quantum computer seems like a dark art.

OK brainiacs, we've got an IT cold case for you: Fatal disk errors on an Amiga 4000 with 600MB external SCSI unless the clock app is... just so

I'm far from an expert, but I declare this unsolvable

No possibility to replicate the issue, an incomprehensible link between a clock application and disk access, completely obsolete hardware that can hardly be found any more, it would take a genius - or a time traveler - to unravel this mystery.

Ransomware scumbags leak Boeing, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX documents after contractor refuses to pay

Re: It needs to hurt if you use a movie-prop instead of a reinforced wall

If you're the one choosing that, then yes, but the problem is that you're counting on somebody who told you the wall was solid concrete, when actually it was just thin plaster.

This is the state of computing today : Microsoft denies all responsibility if something goes wrong, anti-virus vendors do the same, everyone is functioning under "best effort" rules, and along the line, someone forgot the concrete.

Not to mention that it is not specified how the miscreants managed to get into position to encrypt the files. A click on a wrong link is not too far-fetched.

The real problem is that a defense contractor did not have sufficient intrusion detection. I'm guessing they had backups, but that won't keep the scum from publishing.

Security is hard, that's for sure.

French monopoly watchdog orders Google to talk payment terms with French publishers

The consequences are simple

Oppose Google and your traffic goes down. Then Google can pretend to be the nice guy by reinstating its scraping of your site when you come crawling back on your knees to beg it.

Regulation is indeed the only way to manage this, because Google will not self-regulate in someone else's favor. No monopoly would, and it wouldn't be in the best interests of the shareholders.

Signal sends smoke, er, signal: If Congress cripples anonymous speech with EARN IT Act, we'll shut US ops

"a political body that devotes a lot of attention to national security"

No, it does not devote a lot of attention to national security, it devotes a lot of attention to the excuses that allow it to pretend that national security is its focus.

In reality, it just wants the means to spy on everyone without bothering with the Constitution of its own country.

Because that is so much easier than paying attention when the CIA warns them that Al Qaeda terrorists are getting flying lessons on US soil.

French pensioner ejected from fighter jet after accidentally grabbing bang seat* handle

Yeah, sure. You try remembering all those details when you're subject to an inverse Immelman you didn't ask for for the first time in your life.

There's obviously a lot of information that wasn't communicated. How to properly dress up for the flight, alerting the crew and pilot that it was a newb they were taking charge of, crew not checking for proper attire and not getting him strapped in right, pilot not checking that everyone else's check resulted in a situation where the flight could take place.

And now we learn that the doctor had specifically forbidden negative Gs.

That's one hell of a string of failures, and L'Armée de l'Air can thank its lucky stars that they didn't lose a plane in this fiasco, not to mention have anyone killed.

If I were the commanding general in charge, I swear that there would be a few demotions in order.

Cloudflare dumps Google's reCAPTCHA, moves to hCaptcha as free ride ends (and something about privacy)

Wait a minute

"it plans to begin charging for reCAPTCHA, a service it has previously offered for free because the answers people provide improve its services and machine learning systems"

So, Google is making people pay for a free service that improves its own learning systems ? You're already getting a benefit, so now you want money too ?

God it must be great to be at the top.

Oh, and for the bot herders : send their complaints (and IP addresses) to the FBI. I'm sure the feds would love to have a chat and listen to their woes.

Europe calls for single app to track coronavirus. Meanwhile America pretends it isn’t trying to build one at all

So, Musk bought a thousand ventilators

One would think that a billionaire would pay a bit of attention to what he's putting his money in, so that his PR coup could actually be useful.

I suspect that he just phoned his PR team and said "get some ventilators to New York, stat !" and they bumbled through Amazon and thought they were doing a good job.

Well, sorry guys, you didn't. Not only did you not help in a time of crisis, but everyone will remember that you couldn't be arsed to check exactly what equipment was necessary before throwing a few thousand bucks out the window.

As for Thiel, I can't help but wonder : did he keep his plane crew isolated with him, or did he send them back to fare for themselves ?

I suspect the latter.

Upstart Americans brandish alligators at the almighty Reg Standards Soviet

Well, one thing's for sure

If I see someone walking an alligator, I'm going to keep way more than one alligator's distance between me and the both of them !

Coat because I'm getting the hell out of there.

Stop us if you've heard this before: Boeing's working on 737 Max software fixes for autopilot, stabilization bugs

The 737 Max is a brilliant demonstration

of why the FAA should never, ever allow a new model to be certified without taking it through the complete process.

I don't care if it's just the paint job that changed ; it's different, it needs to be recertified.

Now that the proper certification process is being followed, new issues are being found that Boeing can no longer sweep under the rug. The issues must be fixed, and Boeing cannot do otherwise because the plane will not fly if it doesn't. And as long as it doesn't fly, Airbus is sweeping the market.

You feel that, Boeing ? That's your balls in a vise. And the vise is closing. And it's all your fault.

Well, yours and the FAA's as well, but the FAA won't be taken to court, now will it ?

It can't

Financially speaking, it has no choice. The Max must fly again.

If Boeing actually does declare a loss, then the market is wide open Airbus until Boeing can create a new plane. The aviation market is cutthroat and long-term. The Max has already seriously damaged Beoing's perspectives for future market wins, if Boeing scraps it it will take decades before it can hope to regain its current market share.

Share which was already being eaten up by Airbus.

Boeing really doesn't have a choice.

Not that I'm shedding a tear for them. The shameful self-certification Boeing glided itself through cost hundreds of people their lives. Boeing deserves to pay for that for a long time.

Twitter takes away twits' ability to limit ad data sharing – after telling investors its own privacy settings hurt revenue

Just use Brave

No adverts on Brave. Add NoScript to it and you're golden.

China's biggest e-learning company admits deliberately getting its sums wrong when counting sales

Inflating profits

Seems like a national pastime over there. I would like to understand why, though. If you trumpet the fact that you made more than you actually did, wouldn't that attract the attention of fiscal services ? Everybody likes bragging rights, of course, but that kind of brag can get you a fiscal investigation, and nobody likes that.

In any case, one benefit of the Internet is that it subjects companies to the will of The People (TM) better than laws. Companies caught doing something illegal now immediately pledge to mend their ways and find themselves under fire on social platforms. It's just a little bit, but it does push companies to the right side of the line.

COVID-19 is pretty nasty but maybe this is taking social distancing too far? Universe may not be expanding equally in all directions

Re: Lets play 'suppose'

It's the Universe that is getting bigger, not the particles.

If everything including matter was getting bigger, then we wouldn't be able to notice.

Watch out, everyone, here come the Coronavirus Cops, enjoying their little slice of power way too much

So the UK is now operating like the Stasi

Inform on your neighbor. How quaint. And people are ready to accept that rather than ID cards.

In a way, people are informants. If somebody is being robbed in the street, an onlooker can perfectly well whip out the phone and record it for YouTube call the police. That is perfectly acceptable.

But encouraging citizens to rat on their neighbors for taking a walk ? Why not for jaywalking while they're at it ?

I just hope that the plods will be awash with reports on how horrid those drapes are, and on how the flowers need tending.

Australian state adds AI number plate readers to GPS tracking of corona-quarantine busters

Isn't it funny ?

Isn't it curious how, when dictators-in-power decide to add more surveillance to their arsenal, funds are found without any problem ? Money is never an issue when it comes to buying new toys to spy on people.

Now they're adding plate number readers. Which will obviously stay in place after the pandemic is declared over because, well, it has been paid for so, might as well use it now. I wonder what new Stasi approach they're going to find with that.

Low-orbit internet banking fraud claim alleged to be a load of space junk

"made a false statement in an interview with NASA-OIG"

Contrary to Trump, this one will pay for that with her career.

Apple creates face shield for health workers, resists the temptation to call it the 'iMask'

"should not be used in surgery"

I think surgeons are intelligent enough to not need such a warning.

There is a limit to what you need to include in your no-liability clauses, Apple.

Samsung's Q1 forecast defies coronavirus downward trends but it's unlikely to continue

"Bullard said Sunday he did not believe the U.S. economy or jobs market was in 'free fall' "

Don't you just love it when an important official talks about his personal beliefs as if they were fact ?

On April 1st, the USA had 163,199 declared cases of COVID-19, and was accruing them at a rhythm of 22,559 per day. Six days later, there are 307,318 total cases, and 33,510 more per day.

The US economy may not be in free fall today, but your words are going to come back to haunt you sooner rather than later.

Please, just stop downloading apps from unofficial stores: Android users hit with 'unkillable malware'

Credit where credit is due

They may be scum, but you have to give them credit for knowing exactly how to completely pwn the phone system internals.

That is an amount of analysis and reverse engineering that is impressive.

So, congratulations. Now where's that noose ?

Security-focused microkernel goes in for some seL4-care, becomes a foundation to keep that ecosystem growing

"developers and other stakeholders"

Beware the "other stakeholders". There's a good chance that at least one of them has the NSA's interests in mind, and that of the community.

Not saying that that is necessarily the case, but it is something to be on the lookout for.

And you can replace NSA with the political entity of your choice, of course.

Revenues up, taxes down: Google UK reports its slice of the Chocolate Factory pie

Re: why the fuck should the big boys have free reign

Because they're the big boys. They talk to your House of Lords. They discreetly pay for golfing trips and whatnot. They put money in the right hands, and influence the laws in their favor.

In the UK, it is likely done with polite dinners and quiet chats in the club house. In the US it is brazenly done under the guise of "lobbying".

The result is the same. And, if you had a few dozen billion lying around, you wouldn't fail to partake in that merry-go-round either. After all, all the other billionaires are doing it, so if you don't, you lose out.

And nobody likes a loser.

Want to stay under the radar for a decade or more? This Chinese hacking crew did it... by aiming for Linux servers

So, one Linux myth bites the dust

Not the one where Linux didn't have any viruses. That myth has sunk a while ago already. But the myth that Linux, being a niche product, did not attract hacker attention.

With hindsight, that myth couldn't hold water as soon as half of the Internet started running on Linux. Linux on the desktop is still a pipe dream, but Linux in the server rooms is very real, and I'll wager there are more Linux server than there are Windows servers at this point in time.

And those hackers were attracted to the servers, and their sweet, sweet data.

I'm sure that admins that are on the ball already have proper firewalls and anti-virus tools in place, plus maybe monitoring and intrusion detection for the best of them, Linux or no. For the rest of you, this is your wake-up call. Linux _is_ vulnerable.

So patch and fortify your defenses.

Capita inks deal with NHS to 'bring back staff': Workers get an hour of training to recruit and vet retired doctors, nurses

"Obviously, it is crucial this process does not delay their return,"

It is mostly obvious that this is less a screening process than a tick-the-box process.

Sorry, but if you're implementing a screening process, then it means that some of the entrants won't make the cut. If you're not willing to delay anything, then you're not controlling anything either, you're just going through the motions to ensure that the public sees that you are Doing Something (TM).

If at first you don't succeed, fly, fly again: Boeing to repeat CST-100 test, Russia preps another ISS taxi

"Hats off to Boeing for recommending a repeat of their Orbital Flight Test"

Um, in a word : no. Boeing should not get accolades for simply trying to do a second time around what they should have done the first time around.

Cost-cutting, absence of testing, and general not-giving-a-shit made their first test flight an utter failure. In an environment where the slightest mistake can mean death and loss of billions in equipment (try replacing the ISS), you do not get applause for starting to pay attention.

Real-time tragedy: Dumb deletion leaves librarian red-faced and fails to nix teenage kicks on the school network

Damn formatting. If you make your browser window smaller, you'll see it properly.

Yes, that was the trick, but it was not just a space, it was ASCII 240 if I'm not mistaken, which is actually a transparent block.

That much more devilish, don't you think ?

Our IT professor had us stumped for a long time

At my first uni our PCs were still on DOS - this was way back in the late eighties. I think it was DOS 4.0, in any case it was a version where you could put the disk prompt in color and many other things.

The first time I got my hands on those PCs I obviously wanted to have a look around the C: disk, but I got an error each time I tried to cd to a directory. It took me ages to finally grep that, with the prompt embellishments, our professor had managed to rename "C:\" to " C:\".

Simple, yet devilishly effective.

Of course, when he had noticed that I had discovered the ruse, he gave me his trademark stern look and made me promise not to tell anyone - promise which I honored scrupulously.

Ethernet standards group leaves its name in the dust as it details new 800Gbps spec

Re: Multiplexing?

While I agree that telcos use multiplexing, I disagree with the simple application of that solution to improve throughput.

When the GB standard reached my motherboard NIC, I didn't need to change my Ethernet cable. The same wires work on 100Mbps just as well as on 1Gbps networks.

Fiber optics can have a signal multiplexed to multiply the bandwidth available, but it's still happening in the same glass tube.

So I think that the consortium is working on specs for signals that will allow for 800Gbps in the same wire (probably fiber). Those wires will then be multiplexed to provide for Tbps-capable boxes where you plug in 16 wires or something and boom, you have the enough bandwidth to stream all of the porn at the same time.

Because that's the endgame, right ? Right, I've got my coat.

Atlassian issues advice on how to keep your IT service desk secure... after hundreds of portals found facing the internet amid virus lockdown

Rather inevitable wasn't it ?

We've been hearing for years now how Azure/AWS buckets are not properly secured by devs everywhere, what makes you think that this rush of making everything compatible for remote working was going to go any better ?

I am willing to bet that, had we had months to prepare, there would still be some who couldn't be arsed to do things properly. We didn't have months. We barely had a few days. Sure, I could throw the book at the admins who were not capable of properly configuring their service desk (especially easy from the comfort of my home office chair), but I won't forget that the service desk was but one of the hundred thousand things they had to take care of in record time.

Security is not easy in the best of times. These are just about the polar opposite of the best of times.

Google tests hiding Chrome extension icons by default, developers definitely not amused by the change

Once again, the question is choice

Why is it UI tinkerers think that they have the ultimate wisdom and impose their worldview on their users ?

Put it in the settings and make it a choice the user can decide to implement. Why is it so God-damned hard for you people to understand that ?

You think you've got a nifty, useful idea ? Start by making an add-on, see how many users download it and base your actions on the result.

But, above all, STOP FUCKING WITH MY HABITS.

Infosys, Accenture take leadership positions at India’s tech lobby NASSCOM... as on-premises call centers wither

DigiLocker, it uses 256-bit SSL encryption

Well, what do you think of that, Boris ? You gonna go tell India that they should backdoor that sucker ?

Time to brush up on current affairs. Because we're predicting Li-ion batt lifetimes using impedance and AI

Sounds nice

Call me when you sell it in a handheld format, where I put the battery I want to test in, press a button and get a cycle number on a LED screen.

And, obviously, it has to be able to test all three common battery formats (AAs and AAAs especially).

NASA reveals the new wavy Martian wheels it thinks can crush the red planet

You all made very good points. Thank you for bringing them to my attention.

I doubt that there are many tire manufacturers that make tires for surfaces other than roads. There may be some models that are special for all-terrain models, but all tires made on Earth have one thing in common : an atmosphere around them.

Rubber tires in space would be a catastrophe. I saw a documentary on the lunar landing, where it was explained that the tires for the lunar rover were, in fact, a wire mesh that behaved basically like a normal tire.

I wonder why they didn't use that concept ? It's not like NASA didn't know about it, so what reason did they have to reinvent another wheel type ?

'Anything' related to remote working is a winner for Euro disties, but classic enterprise hardware? That's another story

"shortages in areas such as notebooks will start to feel this pressure"

I don't think it matters all that much. It's funny how nobody is talking about the consequences of notebooks "flying out the doors", namely the fact that, when the confinement is lifted, workers will be going back to their cubicles, hand in their laptops and get back to regular work. All those laptops that have flown out will still be out there, companies are not going to throw them away. They'll keep them as replacements.

Which means that the laptop market is going to tank, and soon. If everyone who needs one has one, then no one will be needing one, so sales are likely going to pancake.

That's what I'm guessing anyway.

Kaspersky cleans up poisoned watering hole, Google presses pause on cookie crackdown

Automobile makers : here's a free tip

Make your entertainment bus separate from your CAN bus before somebody gets killed due to a hack and you have a ginormous lawsuit and an impossible recall on your hands.

It'll cost you less in money, PR and image costs, I promise.

Washington state governor green-lights facial-recog law championed by... guess who: Yep, hometown hero Microsoft

"the first [..] new law devoted exclusively to putting guardrails in place"

Um, sorry, but banning its usage is also putting guardrails in place.

Very effective ones, at that.

We're number two! Microsoft's Edge browser slips past Firefox in latest set of NetMarketShare figures

Re: Am I a bad person

If you are then you're far from alone.

Pan-European group plans cross-border contact-tracing app – and promises GDPR compliance

"the app detects other devices with AarogyaSetu installed"

Only if BlueTooth is enabled, I'll wager.

I only enable BlueTooth when I'm in my car to get hands-free communications, so it won't work. And if you think I'm going to enable BlueTooth just because I'm leaving my house, think again.

I've been quarantined for three weeks already, this is going to be my 4th. I don't have the bug, and I'm not meeting anyone so I still don't have the bug.

I don't need the app and I won't install it.

British Airways and Marriott UK data protection fines deferred again as coronavirus shutdown hits business

"The ICO's legal budget [..] is a relatively paltry £2m"

We've already discussed that point. Let the ICO retain 10% of the fines it collects until it has a war chest of around 100 million.

That will ensure it has the teeth needed to impose the fines.