* Posts by Pascal Monett

18239 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Apr 2007

Several months after the fact, CafePress finally acknowledges huge data theft to its customers

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Flame

"Dear Valued Customer"

Not valued enough, however, to bother encrypting your passwords, or implementing network traffic awareness tools, or just locking down our fucking database in the first place.

But you are valued, until you give us your money, that is.

Microsoft: Dynamics 365 to hook up online, physical retail... 'cos we love tracking so much we want it offline too

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"alert staff of long queues at checkouts"

Because without a cloudy server, there is no way some mere human could possibly be charged of supervising the floor and noticing such problems. Funny that, when I got to a supermarket and arrive at checkout with long queues and half the checkout lanes closed down, pretty soon somebody shows up to open a lane. I'm pretty sure that they don't have no Microsoft Cloud Supervisor available.

I wonder how supermarket chains have managed for the past century.

Devonitely not great: Torbay and South Devon NHS declares 'major IT incident'

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Flame

What ?

"There is £6bn backlog of repairs across the NHS & the underinvestment in physical & IT infrastructure has led to repeated safety failures & delays"

A £6bn lack of funding is not a mistake. This is not somebody who forgot to sign an expense. This is willful negligence and someone should pay.

More likely an entire committee. The last five years of top-level decision-makers are all collectively responsible for this complete and utter failure of management.

If you have enough of this type of gut microbe, you can get drunk for free after eating carbs

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Reverse it and get rich!

There's a simple solution : when you start feeling tipsy, stop drinking booze. Drink water and eat something filling, then wait an hour or two. After that, maybe you can have another glass.

It's ace that UK.gov 'in 2030 will be joined up, trusted and responsive' – but what about now?

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Coat

Re: Let's be clear...

Oh, cut them some slack. They're not going to be slurping people's personal data for political reasons, they'll be slurping it for marketing reasons.

But they'll be slurping it.

Pizza prankster's prisoner plea plot perturbs police, Norks invading and Uber woes

Pascal Monett Silver badge

I think Twitter is doing not too bad a job. If you compare it to FaceBook, Twitter is a paragon of virtue.

I won't ever use it and I think most of its users are nincompoops, but those who manage Twitter I have to grudgingly admit some respect for.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Please explain

Please explain why a voting machine needs an overblown behemoth like Windows to run ?

Apart from the fact that the developers (and their managers especially) don't know anything else, of course.

Calling all the Visual Basic snitches: Keep quiet about it and so will he...

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Probably were, and they had the official version. The reality of IT is that any rule is only a generality, a guideline, rather than hard fact. That is because it is IT's job to make sure everyone else can work, and nobody is interested in hearing IT say that they can't because rules.

When a manager wants something, he doesn't care about the rules, he just wants the result. So IT bends the rules because, in the end, it's always IT's fault when something doesn't work.

Class-action lawsuit claims DXC 'selectively timed' job cuts to inflate short-term profit target

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"The allegations in this suit have no merit"

Um, sorry but the decline in share price is a fact, and that decline is clearly due to publication of news that the shareholders did not like.

I don't like Wall Street, but one clear benefit is the ability to counter run-of-the-mill PR bullshit with cold, hard numbers.

Emergency button saves gamers from sudden death... of starvation

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Coat

"pissing into the empties in situ to avoid leaving their chairs for toilet breaks"

Well that's me never participating in one of those things, then. Congratulations, you have just completely grossed me out.

Those furious gun-toting Aussies were just a glitch. Let's try US drone deliveries, says Wing

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: the stock would have to be held locally

I totally agree. Amazon is surviving because is has vast central storage with high turnover. Turn that into many local storage points where 70% of the stock is just going to sit there and you are bleeding money.

I can't see that this will work either on the drone side, or on the storage side.

Bulgarian phishing gang member who lived with his parents jailed for part in £40m fraud ring

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Re: crime doesn't pay

Well it did for those who got their mitts on the rest of the £40 million.

It's like pyramid schemes ; when you're at the top, it's great. It's the peons at the bottom that are doing all the work and making none of the money. He was one the peons.

My Little Bromium: HP Inc inks security deal to slurp micro-VM slinger

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Trollface

"a family health matter"

Yup : the ship is sinking and he doesn't want to drown with it. That's a health matter all right.

Hey, NPM. How do you like your Bogensberger? He's, well, done: CEO Bryan ejects from biz

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Coat

"to pursue new opportunities"

So he's going to go fuck up some other company then ?

We sense a great disturbance in the Salesforce: File-slinging feature breaks down for more than 12 hours

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Not to bash Salesforce, but

I have to wonder how many file issues there were when everyone had their server locally on the network.

Cloud is just someone else's server, and that also means subject to someone else's problems.

I can't help but think that this cloud mania is going to die down and recenter itself on things that people really need Cloud for : sharing data (securely, I hope) between distant locations.

Using Cloud when everyone works in the same building every day is just asinine, you win nothing and you set yourself up for this kind of problem.

Disgraced ex-Kaspersky guy made me do it, says bloke in Russian court on hacking charges

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Facepalm

"passing details of an FSB [..] investigation to the US FBI"

What ? That's not in the right direction ! No wonder things went wrong.

Normally, information goes from the President of the United Shaesh to Putin and the FSB, not the other way around.

The '$4.4m a year' bug: Chipotle online orders swallowed by JavaScript credit-card form blunder

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Re: How many people use the exact same faulty auto-fill software as this guy?

Why ? What version did you install ?

Since you're so much smarter than the rest of us, please point us to where we can download a proper autofill patch.

You better get a wiggle on then: BT said to be mulling switching off UK's copper internets by 2027

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: How many connections is that?

Indeed, but they're not starting now. They're not even talking about starting. They're talking about planning and the need to finish before 2028.

Lots of talk about planning, fair competition, lots of heads nodding in agreement, and lots of knives being sharpened behind backs.

And if the government plans this like they planned Brexit, it won't be done this century.

Uni sysadmins, don't relax. Cybercrooks are still after your crown jewels, warns NCSC

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Threats have always been escalating

When the Internet started, the biggest threat was spam mail.

Then the Internet got the ability to manage transactions, so getting user credentials became important.

Now, state-level confidential information is stored on cloud servers or otherwise internet-accessible data repositories, so well-funded actors are looking for ways to infiltrate and monetize that information.

The more complexity we add to our Internet experience, the more attractive that will become to well-heeled blackhats.

You know SAP's doing a great job when a third of German users say they 'have no confidence in it'

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"The survey showed that 70 per cent of customers [..] are satisfied"

And you're happy with that ?

Real companies strive for 100% customer satisfaction.

What SAP really is is an excuse to give work to hundreds of consultants, placing them for years in companies to suck the teat as long as possible without actually delivering on the marketing promises.

SAP lives on the fallacy of throwing good money after bad. Once you've spent tens of millions to get something working, you'll agree to spend a million more per year to ensure some sort of performance.

Congratulations! You finally have the 10Mbps you're legally entitled to. Too bad that's obsolete

Pascal Monett Silver badge

That hasn't always been the case, and it only happened after a lot of conflict and maybe even bloodshed, but the EU laid down the law on that point and thank God for that.

In any case, I cannot forget Les Guignols and our national PPDA in one episode where he proudly announced : " France-Telecom has lowered prices to over 120 countries - too bad France is not included".

Pure. Comedy. Gold.

Backup biz Acronis ascends to unicorndom after $147m splurge led by Goldman Sachs

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"Acronis has headquarters in Singapore and Switzerland"

I'm sorry, headquarters is not actually plural. You can't have two, or more, headquarters.

You have one headquarters, and one or more delegated station(s) that handle specific zones, but there can be only one Big Boss, and He is at Headquarters.

Analytics exec nicked as Ecuador tries to rush through privacy laws after massive data leak

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Re: You have to ask why??

Is that really any different from the NSA consultant working with a cracked version of Office and transporting countless secret documents on the same computer ? That idiot couldn't even be arsed to pay for Office, no wonder he got pwned. Yes, Office is not cheap, but if you're your own business, it's tax deductible.

If you want security and professionalism, you have to be ready to pay for it. A proper, professional server structure costs money, so stop taking the cheapest offers you find.

You get what you pay for.

Stallman's final interview as FSF president: Last week we quizzed him over Microsoft visit. Now he quits top roles amid rape remarks outcry

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Holy cow, that was an eye-opener. I was absolutely not aware that Stallman was such an asshole.

Google age discrimination case: Supervisor called me 'grandpa', engineer claims

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"Mendez boasted of his criminal connections"

And he's still working there ?

This whole thing sounds like a personal issue between Mendez and Broome. Mendez obviously had it out for Broome and wanted to take him down.

As a manager, Mendez is not fit for purpose and should be fired. Either an employee is performant or he is to be trained, humiliation is not part of managerial functions.

World's oldest human was a 122-year-old French smoker after all

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: Conspiracy theories is a national sport in Russia

Because it's not a national sport in America ?

There is nothing in your post that hasn't been presented by American conspiracists. Please clarify.

Just as Ecuador thought it had seen the back of leaks, over 20m citizen records are exposed

Pascal Monett Silver badge
WTF?

"leaked from an unsecured database in Miami, Florida"

What the fuck was a server in Florida doing with personal details about Ecuadorian nationals ?

Two years ago, 123-Reg and NamesCo decided to register millions of .uk domains for customers without asking them. They just got the renewal reminders...

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: I'd just have transferred the domains

To who ? Do you have a dozen available providers for .co.uk domain names ?

I'm all for wishful thinking, but it still has to be realistic.

Fitbit fitness fans furious following flummoxing flawed firmware float, fleeting feedback, failed fixes

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Facepalm

"a full factory reset of their Fitbit device and re-installation of the app"

My God, it seems that Fitbit owners are learning the hard way that you never auto-update your software until you've read about if it works or not for the rest of the population.

Microsoft has educated us about that for decades now, you'd think the lesson would have been understood by now.

The results are in… and California’s GDPR-ish digital privacy law has survived onslaught by Google and friends

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Re: admit defeat?

Absolutely right. Big Tech has the money and the dedication. Like the rising sea, they will hammer the legislative bodies anywhere and anyhow they can until they win.

Until corporations are deprived of the right to lobby, the fight will go on.

Wake me up before you Gogo ... so I can jump out: Kenyan MP takes on aeroplane flatulence

Pascal Monett Silver badge

I must have been lucky

During the course of my existence, I have crossed the Atlantic a mere twenty times, and you can add a number of Europe-to-Africa and intra-Europe flights to that number.

I have never been subject to such a situation. As far as I'm concerned, everyone farts on a flight, and the air system takes care of it.

Maybe I've just been lucky.

700km on a single charge: Mercedes says it's in it for the long run

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"a driver could project the arrows and so on in front of the car"

Just what we need, encumbering the roads with projected images. What could possibly go wrong ?

What's wrong with heads-up display ? Why do we have to absolutely bother everyone around with our little problems ?

I blame Twitter.

Now that's what we're Tolkien about: You need one storage system to rule them all and in the darkness bind them

Pascal Monett Silver badge

A single version of the truth

As usual, the hypothetical idea has good ground but, in a world where encryption attacks are run-of-the-mill, companies that are big enough to have big storage and backup solutions are also going to be targets for data encryption.

So a single version of truth means a single target to encrypt to cripple the company and potentially extort millions.

How does this pie-in-the-sky thinking cope with that threat ?

Time for another cuppa then? Tea-drinkers have better brains, say boffins with even better brains

Pascal Monett Silver badge
Coat

Re: a cup of tea fixes anything

I dispute that. I'm pretty sure that a cup of tea doesn't hold a candle to a shot of whiskey as far as "fixing" goes.

Magnetic cockroaches, dirty money, wombat poo and posties' balls: It's the Ig Nobels 2019

Pascal Monett Silver badge

10 trillion (Zimbabwean) dollars

Um, guys, if you have a trillion dollar note I think it is high time you review your life choices and, more importantly, re-evaluate your currency.

OK, peons, we'll obey the law and let you talk about politics and pay packets, says Google

Pascal Monett Silver badge

For the Neanderthals, probably.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Fascinating

I find it incredible that, in this day and age, there are still Neanderthals walking about, treating women like objects.

Hey, I will readily admit that I like seeing a nice ass walk by, but when I'm talking with a woman I am first and foremost talking to a person, with a brain, and most of them use it quite well.

That is what I keep in mind, even when that brain is under a set of absolutely beautiful eyes and lips that smile a very charming smile. I will nonetheless keep my wits about me and treat her with the same respect I give all my conversation partners. I find that business relationships are a lot easier like that.

Wall Street analyst slashes HP Inc's share rating amid mounting worries over printer supplies declines

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: 7. People got fed up of inkjet printers

Indeed. I got so fed up I splurged for a laser printer. It's a Samsung. I've had it now for about six times as long as any inkjet I've ever had. Toner is so much more practical, and no company has even tried to DRM it.

On the other hand, color laser is not yet in my budget.

Captain's coffee calamity causes transatlantic flight diversion

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Thumb Up

"Fuel had to be jettisoned"

Great. So, for one cup of coffee not placed in its proper cupholder (for some asinine excuse), a control panel or two will have to be replaced, electrical components will have to be replaced, and tens of thousands of dollars in fuel have been wasted.

That is a shoe-in for the Most Expensive Coffee Ever award.

£1bn UK justice system digitisation scheme in massive delay shocker

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"We will continue [..] working closely with our stakeholders to improve and ensure reform."

Um, somehow that does not incite me to think that the program is going to complete any faster.

Looks like the snouts are firmly in the trough again.

Hold up, ace. Before you strap into Firefox's latest Test Pilot, ask yourself...

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Although I generally agree with your post, one thing caught my eye :

"[Mozilla] will not sell, license, sublicense, or grant any rights to your [data]... without Mozilla's explicit written permission"

They're not saying they won't sell my data without my written permission, they're saying they won't sell my data without their written permission.

That may be a misinterpretation on my part, but that's how I read it.

Are you who you say you are, sir? You are? That's all fine then

Pascal Monett Silver badge

A funny thing happened to me in July

I live in a rural town and had just gotten my FTTH connection for a month when the local farmer managed to knock it down - but without breaking it.

So my connection was fine, but the line was all over the road. Obviously, I phoned Orange Support - and, after getting through the inevitable anger-inducing first few questions, I managed to indicate that I was calling for a technical problem.The robot cheerfully announced it was going to launch a test of my connection, and of course, a few minutes later, announced that all was well, thank you for calling.

Um, I thought while staring at my phone that was broadcasting the end call beep, no, all is NOT well. MY LINE IS ON THE GROUND !

So, I went to the website, and got to the Support page. There is no chat link for a helldesk drone until you jump through ten hoops, turn around three times and clap your hands saying "there's no place like Orange". Kidding, even that doesn't work. I spent over 45 minutes on that support section and all I could do was test my connection - which, of course, was fine.

After bouncing off the walls for a total of about 90 minutes, I resigned myself to phoning the support line again. To my eternal surprise, instead of going through all the motions for nothing again, this time the robot remarked that I had already called, was it the same problem, I'll direct you to a technician. YES ! Oh heavenly bliss ! Finally, a human being !

I finally got to tell the story, and, after repeating myself twice (apparently it is hard to understand that the line is down but the connection works - must've been a city boy), he finally acknowledged the issue and typed some stuff into the computer. He told me I would be contacted shortly to get an intervention date.

A month later, I called again because nobody had called me. Yes, that is 31 days later, I had to call again. Knowing the procedure this time, I did the two calls and got a technician. I asked what was going on. He had no clue. I had to explain myself all over again. Twice. Again. Cue the typing on the keyboard, and the we'll call you soon. I asked yeah, but how soon ? Because last time you didn't call. I cannot do more, sir. I have escalated the issue. Yeah right. Well I'll see.

Next week came along, nothing. The week after that, nothing. It was now 45 days since my fiber was lying on the ground. I was about to call back when the inevitable finally happened : some car went by and ripped the fiber line from the lamppost. Now my connection was well and truly down all the way.

So I set up my mobe with its 4G sharing connection, fired up my laptop and went to the website, where I had it diagnose a connection problem. The next day, I got a call from a technician asking when he could come by and check it out. He dropped by, checked the situation, and we agreed to an intervention the following week. That happened as programmed and I am now reconnected and fully functional.

Moral of the story ? Orange doesn't give a damn about your line until it's broken, whether or not you talk to a human being.

From pen-test to penitentiary: Infosec duo cuffed after physically breaking into courthouse during IT security assessment

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: hire a more reputable firm

Agreed. I cannot fathom how supposed professional pen testers failed to be explicit about what their action included.

As usual, lack of communication creates a misunderstanding which transforms into full-blown disagreement.

One would think that experienced pen testers would have already encountered this kind of situation and amended their proposal procedures accordingly. Am I supposed to understand that these guys have never, ever had a customer argue about what was authorized in the test protocol ?

Besides, I would think it is good marketing and a show of professionalism to list to the customer all the things the test will include. On top of that, had they done that they could shove the contract in the court's face and say : hey, you signed on this.

Astroboffins baffled as black hole at center of Milky Way suddenly a lot hungrier than before

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"hungrier than it's ever been"

Look, I appreciate the imagery as much as any other guy, but a black hole is no less or more hungry than its gravitational attraction. When something stumbles close enough, it is not because the black hole reached out in any special way, it's just gravity doing its thing.

I'm not sure that describing black holes as monstrous space trolls is good for the public perception of the phenomenon.

On the other hand, it does make for a more entertaining read.

Watchdog: Hush-hush UK.gov blew £97m on Brexit wonks from six of the usual suspects

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Thumb Down

You're at 10K/day and you're posting on El Reg ?

Pull the other one.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Re: It is a zero-sum game

Not for the guy getting the money. And those who short intend to get the money.

Pascal Monett Silver badge

Agreed

The "movers" and "shakers" are there to offer their great insights and then clear the area well before the grunts come in to try and apply the nebulous bullshit to the actual world.

That way it is clear that, if the project does not succeed, it is purely because the grunts were incapable of sufficient insight to make things happen. It is in no case because the project was defined by hot air and horse dung.

Brit MPs: Our policies are crap and the political process is in tatters, but it's Twitter's fault, OK?

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"it has worsened the public's attitude towards them"

Well duh, now when they spout nonsense it's caught and exposed to millions on the Web - they can't faff about and try to make it look like they didn't say it.

They're going to actually have to learn to <gasp> think about what they say.

DNA-in-space archive could spark 'Upload Me to the Moon' croon boom soon

Pascal Monett Silver badge

"If radiation breaks up some of them"

Um, with the amount of radiation hitting the Moon's surface full blast, I'm pretty sure that, in a million years, the radiation will have broken up all of them.

Eco-activists arrested by Brit cops after threatening to close Heathrow with drones

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Thumb Up

"they were prepared to go to jail to carry out the action"

Mission accomplished !

Unfortunately, not all of them will be able to qualify for a Darwin Award. What a shame.