Posts by Pascal Monett

No backdoors needed: Apple ditched plans to fully encrypt iCloud backups after heavy pressure from FBI – claim

"concern that punters would [..] lock themselves out of their backups"

Now that is a valid concern, as well as an acceptable reason to not implement total encryption. The Helldesk is hard enough as it is, and the idiots who lock themselves out of their pics would likely be the first to blame Apple for it.

That said, it's obvious that authorities are back to the "think of the children" angle. They must have a rotating wheel with Terrorist, Pedophile, Mass Murderer and Evil Thug, and at the beginning of the month they spin it to know what angle to use on the public. This month we've been getting Pedophile, last month was, I think, Terrorist.

Anything to keep them awash in private data without a warrant.

Let’s check in on the .org sale fiasco: Senators say No, internet grandees say Yes – and ICANN pretends there's absolutely nothing to see here

There is one important difference : sports organizations, including the Olympics, are private affairs, they do not have a Government mandate.

If sports is corrupt, well, it's their business.

The corruption at ICANN is everyone's business.

ICANN's commitment

"would violate ICANN's commitment to ‘preserve and enhance ... the operational stability, reliability, security ... and openness of the DNS and the Internet"

If that is the case, then what is the penalty ?

Let's be clear : ICANN is a rogue organization now. It does what it wants to best serve its own interests, and its charter is pretty much a charred lump of ashes in the furnace. If there is not a clear and imminent danger facing its Board and directors, nothing is going to change.

It just blows my mind that an organization chartered by the Government to do a specific thing in a specific way can just completely ignore its duties and do whatever it wants without the police marching in to round up those responsible, throw them in jail for treason and have the Government set up new management.

Why is that not happening ? WHY ?

Ubisoft sues handful of gamers for DDoSing Rainbow Six: Siege

"the number of attacks has dropped by 93 per cent"

Well that certainly is a successful lawsuit.

I personally don't care for Ubisoft games in general, but you have to be a special kind of loser to want to actively hurt the play experience of people you don't know and will never meet. These four don't care about that, they're in it for the money, which is just evil. I hope they go down for the count.

LastPass stores passwords so securely, not even its users can access them

Why is it so hard to learn ?

What is it with people who just have to have their life online without backup ? Nothing against password managers, but for Pete's sake don't you have a local backup ?

I coded my own password manager. I have it where I need it, and I have a backup at home where it is easy to get to. Of course, I'm not using three different platforms to access the Internet, so managing the password database is much easier for me, but still : I have a backup.

Back it up, people. It will save your bacon one day.

Intel server chip shortages continue to bite: HPE warns of Xeon processor supply drought for the whole of 2020

"AMD's share price is at a record high, and has more than doubled in a year"

Go AMD !

For sure, Intel is handing AMD the market now. Intel doesn't want to lose the big four, but it is certainly not gaining traction elsewhere. AMD is perfectly poised to scoop up a larger share of the market and I can only hope that it reaps all the rewards that it can.

That said, this scuffle is in the server market. Consumer-oriented chips are just as available as before, right ? Intel doesn't just make Xeons, there's the entire iX family (i3, i5, i7 and i9). Those aren't being hit by any major restriction, right ?

Intel will keep making money hand over fist, and AMD will have a bit more room to grow. That's good news everywhere.

The delights of on-site working – sun, sea and... WordPad wrangling?

How did that work ?

He edited a DLL with Wordpad and didn't transform the thing into a meaningless string of text ? It was Wordpad, not a hex editor. That shouldn't be possible.

Image-rec startup for cops, Feds can probably identify you from 3 billion pics it's scraped from Facebook, YouTube etc

Re: Legality

Clearview is quite incorrect indeed. There's this thing called decency, where it is not because you can do something that you should consider yourself justified in doing it.

You can follow someone in the street. If you do that for too long though, that person is going to get cross at you. Arguing that you have the right to be in the street does not change the fact that you do not follow people. Here, it is the same thing. You can look at a picture. That does not give you the right to copy the picture and monetize it.

Unfortunately, the law is not going to react on this point.

To catch a thief, go to Google with a geofence warrant – and it will give you all the details

Wait a minute

What do we have here ?

A police inquiry that makes an official request for information to an organization that keeps GPS information far longer than any company should need to. The inquiry is legit, restricted to specific, determined area and backed by a judge. This is justice in motion and I have no problem with that.

If there is any issue, it is in the fact that fucking Google has the means to become an auxiliary of justice. Who gave Google the authority to store GPS data on its customers ? Who delegated to Google the means of recording the life of Joe Public ? How is it that we continue to accept that a commercial, for-profit company has the right to record and store more data about our lives than the government ?

One day there should be a reckoning about that, if we are to hope to preserve the privacy of our lives.

'Friendly' hackers are seemingly fixing the Citrix server hole – and leaving a nasty present behind

How does that work ?

" In effect, the hackers exploit the flaw to get access to the server, kill any existing malware, set up their own backdoor, then block off the vulnerable code from future exploit attempts by mitigation."

So basically these hackers can do a better job than AV vendors ? They're in the wrong business. They should create and sell an AV suite (they could call it HackerGuard). They'd make millions and it would all be legitimate.

You're not Boeing to believe this: Yet another show-stopping software bug found in ill-fated 737 Max airplanes

By God that's a good article

"They always understood that they were an engineering-driven company, not a financially driven company . If they’re no longer honoring that as their central mission, then over time they’ll just become another company."

Yep, well that train has now arrived at the station.

Triple processing

That was thrown out the window when the beancounters persuaded the Board that using only two processing units would save 33% on costs. They mentioned that it would be just as accurate and reliable.

The Board, obviously, only saw how much money they could augment themselves by, so it was approved because there are no lowly engineers on the Board to state the problems with that approach.

Except that, now that the entire world doesn't want anything to do with the 737 MAX (and the FAA is not going to let them self-certify any more), all of a sudden they have to listen to actual engineers because that plane has to fly, or else Boeing is ruined.

EU declares it'll Make USB-C Great Again™. You hear that, Apple?

Looks like it is time to link to this again.

Autonomous Logistics Information System gets shoved off the F-35 gravy train in favour of ODIN

"replaced by ODIN [..] by 2022"

Or 2025, because special circumstances, then 2026 because oops, we forgot something, then 2027 because gosh darn it, there are unforeseen problems.

And all the while, millions are being spent and bonuses are fat at the top.

Google Cloud rolls out of bed, slips on suit, draws up premium support, vows to take it SLO to lure enterprises

Re: Catch up

Well yes, but they also have the money to do so.

Copy-left behind: Permissive MIT, Apache open-source licenses on the up as developers snub GNU's GPL

Just one question

"we have witnessed several companies in the past 18 months making license changes to block the cloud providers from continuing this trend"

And how exactly is that going to do anything to block Azure or AWS from taking any open-source code, fiddling with it until it does what they want, and stashing the result where nobody can see it ?

It's not like those several companies are going to be granted investigative powers and check what state that now-proprietary code is in.

Nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide, muaha... Boffins build laser-eyed intelligent cam that sorta sees around corners

"the researchers believe their technique is promising"

Of course they do, they need the funding. I, however, am very doubtful that this can, one day, be used to help self-driving cars navigate the crowded streets of New York. I doubt very much that their laser will even be able to hit the wall and, if it does, it certainly won't be able to reflect anything back to the vehicle's detectors.

Besides, given that you have to get the angle just right, I don't see this working at all outside laboratory conditions.

For this tech to actually work, statistical analysis machines need to progress and miniaturize to the point where each vehicle has its own. I don't see that happening any time soon.

The $4.3bn trial of the century is over! Now we wait for judgment

Of course they'll have grounds for an appeal : they'll have lost money !

Azure consultant's Google image search results hotlinking sueball booted off the pitch by High Court

"replace the hotlinked image with something unsavoury"

It didn't need to be unsavory, but in those barely-less-civilized days, it sure seemed more fun.

I wonder if it still happens ?

Spanking the pirates of corporate security? Try a Plimsoll

I second that. Great article and, for once, an actual solution that can actually be used with minimal disruption.

Way to go !

The dream of a single European patent may die next month – and everyone is in denial about it

10 minutes is enough for spelling errors, and obvious mistakes. Anything else and you have, as you have used, the additional comment.

There is no way to change that without endangering the coherency of the entire forum thread.

We all need to think twice and proofread before submitting, myself included.

Google reveals new schedule for 'phasing out support for Chrome Apps across all operating systems'

So, Google is pulling a Microsoft ?

Putting in place a form of technology, then pulling the rug out from under everyone who put effort into it a few scant years later.

The only difference is that it's Google, perpetually in beta. Microsoft does that with products that are supposed to be long-term, drumming up support via expensive marketing and endless hype, right up to the day it decides that nah, it's done with this crap and moving on. Just the same, tens of thousands of enthusiasts of that tech are left bereft, drifting in the Sea Of Abandoned Ideas.

Kinda makes you think about sticking to things that last longer than a CEO's attention span, doesn't it ?

Microsoft's on Edge and you could be, too: Chromium-based browser exits beta – with teething problems

"Basic, Balanced, and Strict"

They forgot Nuclear, the option that not only doesn't accept trackers but also nukes the site the tracker comes from.

If they implement that, I will switch to Edge in a heartbeat.

China tells America, with a straight face, it will absolutely crack down on hacking and copyright, tech blueprint theft

Disney must be all excited right now

It is probably already hiring an entire new law department to stomp all over the Middle Kingdom. I wonder how China will handle copyright claims (if it will) ? I mean, how long is copyright in China ? If it's e.g. five years, then they could logically oppose any legal action concerning something made 20 years ago and nobody could do anything about it, while validly claiming to respect copyright.

Did you feel that ? I think Mickey Mouse just fainted.

Top Euro court advised: Cops, spies yelling 'national security' isn’t enough to force ISPs to hand over massive piles of people's private data

"the ECJ has made clear that national security concerns do not override citizens’ data privacy"

It seems that there is a digital divide looming in our near future. There will be one bastion of freedom and privacy, the EU, and there will be the rest of the world living in totalitarian surveillance states "for your protection, citizen".

I'm glad I live in France. And I'm glad there still are people in this world who retain their sense of duty when they attain important positions.

No, Pai, I'm not talking about you.

The mysterious giant blobs of gas around our galaxy's black hole are actually massive merger stars being shredded

Cosmic billiard balls

And the pocket never gives anything back. As soon as we invent folding space or whatever method by which we can get to another star in hours instead of millennia, I will gladly help fund a probe to send over there and stream whatever is happening back.

Because I don't think putting a Fhloston Paradise-style luxury starship there would be a good thing. The radiation environment over there is probably horrendous.

One company on the planet, US-based Afilias, meets the criteria to run Colombia's trendy .co registry – and the DNS world fears a stitch-up

Re: American law severely punishes companies, and executives, caught on bribing abroad

Not any more, it doesn't. American law says one thing, Trump and his goons do whatever they want and high-level execs escape scot-free.

And, given who Trump pushed into the Supreme Court, soon American law will be re-written to basically state that anything a multi-billion company does is legal by definition. That is what Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, HP and the rest of them are pushing for.

Ex-Autonomy CFO Sushovan Hussain's part in the accounting badness was 'wildly overblown'

What was that ?

Hussain's part in "inventing" misleading accounting strategies is said to be both entirely legitimate and "wildly over blown."

I'm sorry, first you're saying that Hussain was entirely justified, then you say that his involvement was "wildly overblown" ? What's the point ? If his shenanigans were legitimate then you don't need to minimize them.

Either you say he was right, or you say he didn't do much. Mixing both sends a very negative image of you just trying to cover something up.

Boeing aircraft sales slump to historic lows after 737 Max annus horribilis

That is a penalty I could live with without any problem.

"This is what happens when you scrimp on software dev, testing and docs"

Damn right. 890+ orders down to less than 60. Hey, beancounters, whaddya think of that ? Did you succeed in diminishing costs enough ?

Hey, board members ! Happy about pushing your engineers to cut corners ? Pleased that you have worked in the best interests of your shareholders ?

I am pleased as punch with this result. Orders down by a whopping 94%. Now if that doesn't provide an incentive to do things right, I don't know what will.

If there is any professionalism left, the entire board will be sacked and an actual engineer put back in control.

Here's hoping.

Totally Subcontracted Business: TSB to outsource entire IT estate to IBM for a cool $1bn after 2019 meltdown

Splendidly well done, IBM !

Swoop in to save the day, and carry off a billion-dollar contract. Who can complain about that ? Not TSB, who is obviously incapable of managing its business any more, so is showering Big Blue with moolah so it can continue fleecing its customers. Not the IBM salespeople, who can rightly revel in the insane bonuses this contract will bring them. And not the board at IBM, who can finally count on a nice chunk of revenue for a change.

No, I think the only ones who could complain are the customers, who witnessed hundreds of millions pissed away in the Mother Of All Botched Upgrades, and are now witnessing a cool billion being skimmed of their money's interest.

Ah, what sacrifices they endure to continue having access to their money . . .

AppSheet. Gesundheit! Oh, we see – it's Google pulling no-code development into a cloudy embrace

"The idea of no-code and low-code [..] is that business users can . ."

. . recreate the mess that was Excel spreadsheets and Access databases spread hither and skilter without any oversight, control or knowledge, thus continuing the entrenchment of companies in the ignorance of the tools and data they are using, meaning no backups and no proper DR scenario in case of trouble.

For God's sake, Google, is there anyone there who understands the value of keeping control over what tools are being used in a company ? Do YOU allow your employees their own databases and code without any oversight whatsoever ? Somehow, I doubt that. So why impose it on the rest of us ?

Oh, silly me, divide and conquer, of course. Carry on.

Problems at Oracle's DynDNS: Domain registration customers transferred at short notice, nameserver records changed

Verify by email - but MX records modified

Dear Lord that is sooo smart. That just has to be the result of middle management meetings pontificating about what to do without having a clue about what the consequences were.

Somewhere, there is an engineer smirking in his beard, thinking "I told them that wouldn't work, but did they listen ? No. Well they're going to get an earful now".

Squirrel away a little IT budget for likely Brexit uncertainty, CIOs warned

"poison for slow, traditional businesses"

What slow businesses are left (okay, IBM excepted) ? Is he talking about Fortune 500 behemoths ? They're all Agile (TM) now, aren't they ?

Because I don't think that your local garage manager can do much planning where Brexit is concerned. Either his suppliers will continue to supply him, or he'll have to find new ones.

NASA is Boeing to get to the bottom of that Starliner snafu... plus SpaceX preps to blow up a Falcon 9

"Boeing is going to need NASA's nod"

What ? You mean, Boeing can't self-certify this time ?

What a bummer.

Go on, eat your fibre, new build contractors. It's free! OpenReach lowers limit for free FTTP connections

Wow, what a pain

I went to the Openreach homepage to try and check out what kinds of FTTP were on offer. I was expecting something like with Orange (France), where they practically throw the information at you. All I got was a load of marketing across the face and, eventually, a request for a post code.

I tried finding the postcode of Devon, mentioned in the article, but I don't think I got anything useful because I never got beyond that request page.

So I Googled to try and find the types of contracts and their prices, and man, was that a painful experience. It is unbelievable for me that it took so long to finally get this data.

Second surprise : the prices. A year-on-year 1Gbps contract is almost twice what I pay. If, however, you sign up for the 3-year stretch, then you're getting around my price. Obviously, Openreach is pushing people to long contracts, which is understandable.

Third surprise : Openreach is only giving you Internet access. There does not appear to be a phone/Internet/TV bundle going on. So not only is Openreach more expensive unless you sign on for the duration, but you're also getting much less than I am.Oh well, at least it appears that you're getting a better deal than the Yanks.

BTW, does Openreach also limit their "unlimited" contracts ? Because I actually didn't find any mention of unlimited anywhere. That would really be the kicker.

US hands UK 'dossier' on Huawei: Really! Still using their kit? That's just... one... step... beyond

Indeed

Oh, and US officials are not at "unease", they are frothing-at-the-mouth, raving lunatics about Huawei.

But I think they do have a bit of credibility left : about the same as raving conspiracy theorists.

Whirlybird-driving infosec boss fined after ranty Blackpool Airport air traffic control antics

So you're a "wealthy businessman", are you ?

Well in a helicopter you're just a pilot. Plus you're not even a billionaire, so there. In your offices you're used to being the Top Man, we understand, but at the airport you're just a number.

Buy the airport and come back to us then, dickwad. If you have to cite the operating costs of your vehicle as a reason to treat you special, then you don't deserve the vehicle in the first place.

Do you ever hear Ferrari owners complain about maintenance costs ?

Small timer.

Guilty as charged: Apple confesses some Smart Battery Cases are having 'issues', offers replacements

Okay, I get that Apple doesn't like 3rd-party batteries

Now tell me why I should care since Apple can't be arsed to make proper batteries for its own kit ?

MI5 gros fromage: Nah, US won't go Huawei from dear old Blighty over 5G, no matter what we do

"to desperately brief against Huawei getting the green light"

They wouldn't need to be desperate if they had anything approaching actual truth.

Sod that argument already.

Microsoft wields ML to catch child predators, city drops 7-year facial-recognition experiment after no arrests...

"Cinelytic’s software will help predict a particular film’s profits"

Please, please, somebody tweak that so we don't get yet another sequel to a prequel of a sequel of a film that was actually passable, some time last millennium.

Y2K quick-fix crick? 1920s come roaring back after mystery blip at UK's vehicle licensing agency

Go ahead and get the 1% to Planet B. I'll sit back and LMAO thinking about all those high-flyers who suddenly have to clean up their shit by themselves, just like the rest of us.

DVLA's simple solution

Just modify printer output to start the year with "20" and append the last two digits. That'll buy you 80 years to go and actually do the job right.

Who am I kidding ? They'll just modify my fix to use "21". Job done.

UK data watchdog kicks £280m British Airways and Marriott GDPR fines into legal long grass

Objectively you're right, of course, there's no denying that. All enforcement organizations end up abusing their powers in some way and must be reigned in.

Unfortunately, there is also no denying that if the ICO is watering down its approach simply because the companies that it has in its sights have a bigger legal budget to play with, then 380k people are at risk of having been abused without recourse, and that is not fair either.

Why is it that we can't have an adaptive approach ? Give the ICO a percentage on its fines to enable it to enact justice, and take said bonus away when it is no longer necessary.

National Lottery Sentry MBA hacker given nine months in jail after swiping just £5

So this guy gets 9 months and a criminal record . .

. . while the guy who threatened thousands of people gets . . a slap on the wrist ?

Where's the justice in that system ?

What was Boeing through their heads? Emails show staff wouldn't put their families on a 737 Max over safety fears

"the FAA remains focused on [..] returning the Boeing 737 MAX to passenger service"

I'm not sure that that is a good idea. It seems that there are more issues than the MCAS problem. It seems that the plane should be retired and a new one made from scratch, properly this time.

Of course, that is one thing that will never happen. Boeing and the FAA prefer to put band-aids over a shoddy model because the billions put into the design would otherwise be a write-off.

Since I've heard that there are airlines that will "rename" the 737 MAX in order to hide the true nature of the flying coffin people will be in, I have no choice now but to decide that I am boycotting Boeing until they put out a new model that is safe from the paper to the plane.

Alphabet's 'love rat' legal chief David Drummond ejects after 18 years at web goliath, no golden parachute attached

"it's the right time for him to leave the company"

Yup, now that people know just how much of an asshole he can be, he obviously needs to find new victimspastures.

Hundreds of millions of Broadcom-based cable modems at risk of remote hijacking, eggheads fear

"but could for example, also be done through ads on a trusted website"

Sorry, even if I trust a website, I am trusting no ads.

I run NoScript and UBlock Origin, and I'm not about to change my mind.

There's a cling-on off the starboard bow... Small moon spotted orbiting asteroid NASA's Lucy will visit in 2027

We have seen so little of our Universe

Every time we have sent out a camera to snap pics of anything in our Solar System, we have always been surprised. Every. Single. Time.

I'm betting that Eurybates and its moon are going to reveal things nobody is expecting, and I can't wait to find out what it will be.

Love T-shirts, but can't be bothered to wash them? We've seen just the thing!

If it's once a week, rest assured you need it.