Posts by Pascal Monett

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

IBM dragged down by DOGE contract cancellation roulette

"thousands of US jobs have been cut"

And how many jobs have been created in India ?

I think there should be a law whereby, if a multinational corporation cuts jobs anywhere, it does not have the right to create jobs elsewhere before a given amount of months.

If you're firing people, you don't need to hire.

India’s services giants brace for impact as US tariffs bite their customers

"get the certainties of the tariff situation"

There is only one certainty : Trump will change his mind every week, if not every day.

Good luck planning around that.

Europe hits Meta, Apple with €700M in fines for flouting DMA

"could inflame tensions"

Trump will inflame tensions whenever he feels like it, even if he doesn't have a good reason. He'll make one up.

Hell, a bad burrito could inflame tensions between Trump and Mexico, so . . .

India gets Google to unbundle Android and the Play Store on Smart TVs

Great news

Can they take a look at Samsung now ?

Elon Musk makes another cut – to his time at DOGE

"now that the major work of establishing the [DOGE] is done"

As usual, his attention span being that of a goldfish, actually having to do actual "work" (for a given value of work) and somewhat justifying it is an exhausting exercise.

Best get back to the arena where once a year he can promise whatever bullshit for next year and have investors gobble it up.

Trump blinks: 'Substantially' lower China tariffs promised

Re: Blinks

That would imply some measure of consistency.

Trump doesn't know the meaning of the word.

He probably can't even spell it.

Fog ransomware channels Musk with demands for work recaps or a trillion bucks

Re: 130 Days time limit

Since when has Trump ever respected any rule he couldn't bend in his favor ?

How to stay on Windows 10 instead of installing Linux

"using modified Windows builds may breach Microsoft's terms of service"

As far as I'm concerned, refusing to maintain Windows 1 0 is already a breach of the terms of service, so . . .

It takes one click to join Uber One, but quitting might need 32 actions

Why 48 hours ?

"Uber “never processes cancellations concluded via the in-app cancellation flow in the final 48-hour window.” "

Hey Uber, why make your life difficult ? Just say that you never process cancellations in the final 12-month window and boom ! an extra year of extortion that is "perfectly justified".

You have computers, don't you ? They can process a cancellation in milliseconds.

Bunch of lying thieves is what you are.

And why should that be a problem ?

Let them die, they deserve it.

Developer scored huge own goal by deleting almost every football fan in Europe

Ah, production databases

In the Notes environment, I have long since learned that if there is a change to be made, make a non-replica copy of it on the server, restrict ACL access to only you, the server and the person authorizing the change, then fiddle to your heart's content until you're happy with the result.

Then you can ask the requester to review the change and, if approved, move it to the production db.

If there's a problem after that, you can point to the email saying the change was approved.

Of course, that only works on databases that are not hundreds of GBs in size.

Cursor AI's own support bot hallucinated its usage policy

I say this is a good thing

Let customers understand that AI is shit.

Once enough people have understood that it is not reliable, they'll be clamoring for proper people at the front line again and AI will be confined to tings it can properly deal with, like detecting unusual variability in start brightness or, eventually, detecting early signs of cancer in patient's radioographies (which, contrary to chatbots, are always confirmed by an actual doctor).

Microsoft Copilot shows up even when it's not wanted

"Copilot enabled itself within various VS Code workspaces on its own"

So, Redmond, taking a page from Zuckerberg's FaceBook, are we ?

Dems fret over DOGE feeding sensitive data into random AI

Re: America isn't a democracy any more

To think that Eisenhower gave Americans a warning about how Democracy was already being subverted.

I think that everyone should view that speech and compare with the actions of Trump's government and the current behavior of all those ass-licking Republicans who endorse every decision of Trump and his government however stupid it may be.

CVE fallout: The splintering of the standard vulnerability tracking system has begun

"a global lack of trust in the US government"

Yup.

Another part of that endless "winning" from the orange baboon. He should be happy. He wanted a wall around the USA and he's going to get one : a wall of indifference.

Krebs throws himself on the grenade, resigns from SentinelOne after Trump revokes clearances

Re: Be consistent in your lying :)

Consistency is the last thing in Trump and his government. Unless you count consistently going after anyone who disagrees with him.

As for logic, let's not even go there . . .

White House confirms 245% tariff on some Chinese imports not a typo

Re: I wonder which country Pascal is in

I live in France.

Never had a problem accessing YouTube videos.

However, I had to abandon my subscription to Nebula because half of the videos that I was referred ti by YouTube channels I watch were simply not available to me.

What can you expect ?

I'm not even going to expand on how having a criminal as a President is a bad thing, just think about the fact that Trump still thinks that TIVO is still a thing.

I'm guessing he thinks that streaming is either a euphemism for diarrhea, or a very kinky thing he should ask Stormy Daniels about.

In any case, I think this is one of the best summaries of the situation you can expect to find (well, not on Fox & Friends, obviously).

Need a Linux admin? Ask a hair stylist to introduce you to a worried mother

If you screw up, say so and say how

I've always found that when you do screw up (and it will happen), immediately reporting the problem and telling what you did wrong does two things :

1) the customer knows that you're being honest

2) the customer likely knows how to fix the issue quickly, or at least the steps to fix the issue even if they take time

You might get a chewing out, but you deserve that anyway.

However, trying to pretend you don't know what happened is the worst thing you can do because the customer likely has somebody that will find out exactly what happened and, at that point, you'll be thrown out and your reputation will be much worse off.

Europe's cloud customers eyeing exit from US hyperscalers

"I think this is a realistic fear nowadays"

It's about bloody time.

I have never understood this precipitation to store confidential company data on someone else's server. Once upon a time, even the contact list of a marketing jocky was considered top secret. Now, just slap the term "cloud" in the conversation and suddenly everybody is willing to give up the company jewels to someone they don't know, on servers they have no idea who manages them, because of a contract specifying some artificial performance parameters (eh, Microsoft, with your Office 365 that has never held up to its name ?).

Okay, if they start using European cloud providers, from my point of view the madness hasn't exactly stopped, but at least their data will no longer be at the mercy of a US National Security letter (remember that thing ?).

Signalgate chats vanish from CIA chief phone

"CIA Director"

It's the CIA.

I'm terribly sorry, but between the historically proven interference of the CIA in other country's elections and the upcoming revelations of how the CIA is responsible for JFK's assination (which is the one thing I am willing to give credit to the orange baboon for, since he's the one who finally published the files the world has beeen waiting for for decades), I couldn't care less how the actual CIA director is going to handle the situation.

Somebody needs to hang for all the evil the CIA has done (well, there's certainly more than one).

Tesla fudged odometer to screw me out of warranty, Model Y owner claims

[somebody] bought a used 2020 Model Y Tesla

That was his first mistake.

Whistleblower describes DOGE IT dept rampage at America's labor watchdog

"in contravention of standard operating procedures"

Trump's administration has no idea what standard operating procedures are, nor why they are important.

The orange baboon only knows what wall it wants to throw its shit at.

Free Blue Screens of Death for Windows 11 24H2 users

"it clearly has its hands full"

It's had its hands full since Vista.

And it hasn't been able to add hands.

It's never too late to learn how to deal with a proper OS.

Microsoft: Why not let our Copilot fly your computer?

"This will spare employees from having to click buttons and fill forms themselves"

Yes, because Borkzilla knows so much better how to deal with individual companies interior knowledge base.

Such a shame that it can't deal with its own monstrosity of an OS.

Microsoft admits it's not you, Classic Outlook can be a real CPU, power hog sometimes

Re: "Does Redmond have it in it to intentionally hobble an older product"...

Agreed. I have no doubt about it because Borkzilla does not care about providing companies with a stable environment. It just cares about finding reasons to disrupt everything and get everyone in to a subscription system.

Which is how we ended up with Windows 11, when the previous version had been announced as "the last Windows ever" and there is nothing in 11 that cannot be updated in 1 0. And don't get me started on the artificial hardware requirements . . .

Bottom line is : Redmond doesn't give a damn about providing you a stable service. It only wants your monthly money and will give you the bare minimum to ensure that you stay there.

Which it can do because, for historical reasons, management is addicted to its Powerpoint charts and pretty Excel graphics instead of wanting a backend computing environment that actually provides 5 nines in service.

20 years on, DART still a masterclass in how not to rendezvous in orbit

Re: Gemini in 1965?

Yes, it is.

The article clearly states that the Russians solved it years ago.

Initially, when I began reading this article, I was confused. I was thinking that I was reading about a failed attempt this year, or maybe in 2024.

It took me a while to realize that I was reading about an "incident" that happened 20 years ago and the lessons had indeed been learned.

So, good to know, but this is more of an historical artifact than actual news.

Old Fortinet flaws under attack with new method its patch didn't prevent

"an unidentified threat actor created a symlink that linked users to the root filesystem"

Okay, one question : how was the "threat actor" capable of creating a symlink without having access to the system in the first place ?

Even if he sent it via mail, said symlnk would only work for the user having recieved the mail, no ?

Tech tariff turmoil continues as Trump admin exempts some electronics, then promises to bring taxes back

"The Trump administration’s strategy"

There is no strategy when you change your mind from one day to the next following how the wind blows.

That is how Trump has always managed things : loudly claiming success, then blaming others and weaseling out of the way when the house comes falling down.

It's just that now, it's the White House, and the US economy, that is going to fall down.

And with three and a half more years of this bullshit, it's practically guaranteed that the US economy is not going to stop it's slide down the shithole that the orange buffoon is gleefully digging.

The Reg translates the letter in which Oracle kinda-sorta tells customers it was pwned

"Oracle completely destroyed their reputation this time"

Because there was something left to destroy ?

That's news . . .

Wyden blocks Trump's CISA boss nominee, blames cyber agency for 'actively hiding info' about telecom insecurity

So there is some measure of hope

It would appear that the orange baboon cannot do everything he wants the flourish of a sharpie after all.

It just takes a senator with an actual pair of cojones to put some measure of order back into the madness.

Trump kills clearances for infosec's SentinelOne, ex-CISA boss Chris Krebs

How pathetic can you get ?

The person elected to the presidency of the most powerful country in the world is spending his time in personal vengeance against people who said things he doesn't like - especially when they're true.

What a tiny little dick he must have.

Did someone say AI agents, Google asks, bursting in

"They are doubling down on investments"

It's not because you're throwing twice the money at a non-solution that it will suddenly become useful.

Fear of tariffs made the PC market great again in Q1 as vendors emptied factories to dodge price future hikes

"pass higher costs onto consumers"

Good luck with that.

Consumers are going to look at the cost and think "hey, my laptop doesn't work that bad after all".

Microsoft lists seven habits of highly effective Windows 11 users

So, the argument is that Win 1 0 support is ending, right ?

Well, with Redmond's stupid decision to limit Windows 11 to the latest hardware, I'm guessing Windows 1 0 (previously known as The Last Windows) will be sticking around longer than XP.

Borkzilla.

How demented do you have to be to torpedo your own "next" version ?

I've said it before : there is nothing in windows 11 that couldn't be just updated in 1 0, and there is certainly nothing that justifies replacing hardware. In the 90s, I was replacing my motherboard, CPU and graphics card every year, because it was worth it.

In 2015 I upgraded my home PC to an Intel Core-i7 6700.

I kept that computer config until 2021, when I decided to finally upgrade for Core i9-10980XE.

If I count correctly, that's 6 years with the same config. And I'm a gamer. I need the best FPS I can get.

For most people, I'm betting that their PC/laptop that they bought ten years ago is still just fine for Youtube and reading their email. Maybe writing a letter or two per year.

Borkzilla : your days of forcing upgrades are over.

Deal with it.

No joke: Microsoft foolishly published inaccurate price list on April 1st

"It’s the New Commerce Experience"

aka this is how we're going to fuck you, and you are going to have to like it.

Dev loudly complained about older colleague, who retired not long after

"Why had it taken management so long"

Because management is busy with important stuff, like meetings and Powerpoint presentations and discussing goals and directions.

The mundane, boring things like actual work are not their area of expertise.

Mozilla takes pity on Firefox extension developers

It's not an easy job

In this day and age, if you allow anyone to make code to add to your product, you are unfortunately guaranteed to have a proportion of people who are going to submit code for their own selfish, nefarious purposes.

It may be a bit too much to ask for, but might it be possible to review submitted code before making the extension available ?

Meta debuts its first 'mixture of experts' models from the Llama 4 herd

Ah, progress by numbers

We used to have the FLOPS argument about CPUs, then we had the pixels argument about graphics cards, now we're having the trillion parameters argument about LLMs.

So, when will we finally reach the singularity ? A hundred trillion ? A billion trillion ?

What'll it be ?