Posts by Pascal Monett

Security gone in 600 seconds: Make-me-admin hole found in Lenovo Windows laptop crapware. Delete it now

Re: Why aren't there a gazillion class actions being filed every day over this crapshoot?

Because the lawyers are the only ones who benefit ?

Pokemon Go becomes Pokemon No as games biz Niantic agrees to curb trespassing addicts

Re: not a lot of time to do digging

That is not an excuse. If there is not enough time to check, then that point should not be authorized to show up, period.

Next, you start Google Earth in the morning and use it to check the coordinates coming in. That should take about five seconds.

Oh, the data coming in does not mention GPS coordinates ? Your fault for sucking at defining locations.

No new point should go active before being checked. End of.

Oracle OKs Oracle investors to sue Oracle: Put NetSuite suit before a judge – board panel

Wait a minute

How is it that the Board of a company gets to decide if a class-action lawsuit against itself should proceed ?

Isn't that something for a judge to decide ?

Or has the justice system in the USA just got fed up and handed itself over to corporations because they finally decided that that is how it works anyway ?

Google bans politics, aka embarrassing stuff that gets leaked, from internal message boards

They may own the equipment and make the rules, but apparently everyone has missed one little detail : the law says that no employer can order employees to refrain from discussing any specific subject at all.

On top of that, Google has so many fingers in so many pies that just about anything is work-related.

Including discussions about censorship.

Leaked EU doc plots €100bn fund to protect European firms against international tech giants

Re: What makes the EU think they can do better than the VCs?

That's not the point. What we have here is a new trough for the snouts of those in the know.

And, as for creating yet another multinational behemoth intent on harvesting all my details to make money on ads, I'm not sure it is an advantage to have a European one.

I'm already saturated with ads, don't need yet another source.

Don't trust Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency, boffins warn: Zuck & Co know that hash is king

Not a bot. I just live in France - so maybe I get a time zone advantage on the rest of you.

Plus, I'm working part-time at the moment.

"could lead to biased decision-making"

Oh don't worry, it's FaceBook. Biased decision-making is their specialty.

I didn't need to read this to know that I do not want anything to do with Libra, but this is a nice confirmation of my own bias.

US regulators push back against White House plan to police social media censorship

Funny that, when I look at his pictures intelligence is not something I see there.

Re: nothing [..] can eclipse the constitution

Except for taking power, putting in place your croonies who do as you say and block any attempt to set things straight, and then surfing on Congress' inability to impeach you.

Apart from that, yeah, nothing.

Got a burning desire for a Hololens 2.0? Microsoft insists its math coprocessor won't be too hot for headgear

"125Mbit of SRAM"

Well one thing is sure, that thing is not running Windows in any way, shape or form.

I'm guessing some variety of Linux, it's the only thing that could work in such a space. Anyone know more ? I've tried finding out, but I didn't get anything other than gushing articles about how good it is, and lighter it is (by a few grams), and how it connects to Azure all by itself.

Oh yeah, that last bit - makes it off my buyers list.

The story so far: How's that Autonomy High Court battle with HPE looking at half-time?

Re: millions of HPE's money will have been squandered

It's okay, they've already squandered billions. A few millions more is not a financial problem.

Besides, it's HP(E). They're used to squandering money.

As browser rivals block third-party tracking, Google pitches 'Privacy Sandbox' peace plan

"privacy is paramount to us"

Oh yes, it definitely is. You want to know everything about our privacy in order to monetize it, we know.

And that's why we have NoScript and uBlock Origin.

You don't like that ? Well it's your fault in the first place.

Steam cleaned of zero-day security holes after Valve turned off by bug bounty snub outrage

"there was an exchange that resulted in him being banned"

Well it's simple then : publish the content of the exchange and show everyone what happened. Because there's a good chance that somebody started to be insulting and the other someone didn't appreciate and shot back. So publishing the exchange will settle the matter.

Then Twitter can get outraged again and we'll know if we need to bang on Valve to reverse the decision or not.

But of course, that won't happen, because it would be a breach of confidentiality or something. Too bad.

Re: Disgusting

again !

My god, it's full of tsars: A gun-toting Russian humanoid robot is on its way to the International Space Station

"the bot will be carrying out menial tasks"

Yes, like inserting malware into the guidance system, sabotaging experiments, covering the solar panels with a special fluid that gradually turns opaque in the sunlight . . . you know, menial tasks.

On a side note, anybody wonder why absolutely nothing was said about this launch before it was successful ? Nobody was talking about this a week before launch, and it would have been a great attention-grabber, don't you think ?

Maybe the Soviet Union still lies in the shadows, ensuring that only good news gets out. It the rocket had failed, we might never have heard about this.

I couldn't possibly tell you the computer's ID over the phone, I've been on A Course™

Re: He should be proud that of that guy

Obviously the training should have forced a bit on the notion of difference between internal and external calls. Everybody knows the Helpdesk, if your scammer is calling from there, all is already lost.

Overstock dot-gone: Surplus biz CEO now surplus to requirements, ejects after Russian spy fling, deep state rant

"our keiretsu of blockchain firms"

Hm hmm. Yeees, of coourse. Nurse ? Bring me 50mg of benzohydrophenylatrium, stat ! We just might be able to bring his conscience back to within the borders of the solar system.

Maybe.

End of an era for ULA as the last Delta IV Medium rocket leaves launch pad

Yeah, sure

The USA is of course going to spring billions to help create a replica of something it already has simply because the UK was stupid enough to leave a political entity that was creating it and now the UK wants its own.

I don't think that's going to happen, guys. You wanted out, you've got out.

Of everything.

Gartner awakens from trance, tells huddled villagers: 5G revenue will almost double to $4.2bn next year!

"Gartner has performed its ritual reading of market omens"

I think Gartner needs to change sacrificial animal. Maybe switch from chicken to duck ?

TalkTalk's voice-over is writing speeds that its text can't match: Ad pulled from broadcast

"We immediately took action to correct it once we became aware" . .

. . that someone had noticed our intentional falsehood and reported it.

There, FTFY.

Devs invited to bake 'Run on Google Cloud' button into git repos... By Google, of course

"easy deployment of containers to a managed service"

Yay, an even more efficient method to post private identifying data on a unsecure, internet-accessible server.

Just what the world needs nowadays.

Shhh! Microsoft, Intel, Google and more sign up to the Confidential Computing Consortium

Well one thing is for sure

Like it or not, Microsoft practically has to be part of such an initiative - if only to ensure that it doesn't go off again on its own and creates a conflicting standard.

Which it still could anyway, to be sure. And will, if it doesn't like how things will go.

Buying a Chromebook? Don't forget to check that best-before date

That's Chromebook right out of my buying list then

It is not acceptable to me that a supplier artificially limits updating hardware to less than the hardware's expected lifespan.

If I call a plumber for a kitchen sink, he won't tell me that he can't do anything about it because the sink is more than 6 years old. Only in IT do you have companies arbitrarily decide to stop supporting something they sold. And here, it's even worse, because the expiry date is not tied to the sell date.

That is disgusting.

Here's a top tip: Don't trust the new person – block web domains less than a month old. They are bound to be dodgy

I have a setting in my brain that makes it easy : don't click on dodgy links.

I never click on a bit.ly link or any other shortened link. I distrust those by default. I always check where the link goes and if it doesn't go to somewhere logical or reasonable, I don't click.

Of course, all that means that I'm not part of those people who just blindly click, then belatedly wonder how their computer got hacked.

Eighty-year-old US 'web scam man' on the run after pocketing $250,000 in Dem 'donations'

The people who donated might see a problem

Microsoft: Reckon our code is crap? Prove it and $30k could be yours

"Yo browser sucks, Micro$oft" is unlikely to go down well

Yeah, but still, Yo browser sucks, Micro$oft.

Sorry script kiddies, hacktivism isn't cool anymore: No one cares about stuff that's easy-peasy to defend against

Hacktivism ? Didn't that become obsolete ?

Once upon a time the Internet was a paltry hundred million web sites. Deface one and it would be noticed. Today the Internet is billions of websites, the most consulted being the ones who are the hardest to hack, and if you hack a less-consulted one it will hardly be worthy a mention on Twitter.

Criminals, on the other hand, are making hay out of infiltrating and encrypting company data for ransom, and they're doing it by the bucketload apparently, because they have incentive to be better. Beats hacktivists by a country mile apparently.

Moore's Law isn't dead, chip boffin declares – we need it to keep chugging along for the sake of AI

Hey, I will welcome our 32GB SRAM CPU overlords as soon as they deign to show up.

Latest sneak peek at PowerShell 7 ups the telemetry but... hey... is that an off switch?

What the hell is the use of that ?

What is the point of getting a log on people's use of a given command ? If you're going to log command usage, why limit logging to a subset ?

I can't even begin to fathom the reasons for Microsoft's telemetry. It is useless to prevent botched patches, so what is MS doing with it ?

Brits are sitting on a time bomb of 40m old electronic devices that ought to be recycled

Don't be so picky. Just take dollars, like everybody else.

At least you can easily change the battery with an Android

Welcome to Hollywood, Claranet-style: You've (not) got mail, or hosted sites for that matter

"Apologies for any disruption"

Is it me, or is there an epidemic among hosting companies these last few days ?

It can't be a coincidence, now can it ? If the Flying Spaghetti Monster trying to drum up some attention ?

My MacBook Woe: I got up close and personal with city's snatch'n'dash crooks (aka some bastard stole my laptop)

Indeed

I wouldn't have chosen better myself. The bastard that pulled that heist must have been present and waiting for an opportunity. He saw it, and took it without hesitation.

The fact that nobody moved to stop a thief is a sad indication of the morals of our society today. That only one guy stood up after and offered help is good on him, but it would have been better if someone had tripped the thief.

Then again, with someone so obviously determined, it might have gotten ugly. Better off the police deal with that bastard.

Don't panic! Don't panic! UK IT job ads plummet as Brexit uncertainty grabs UK tech sector by the short and curlies

The search for good news is getting desperate

So job offers in IT are weakest ever but fear not, IT will grow by 4% in the next five years.

Yeah, maybe, we'll see, but it's hard to believe since Brexit has put a damper on everything and the outlook is neither certain nor looking good.

There may be good times ahead, but they don't seem to be coming any time soon.

Squabbles over NASA's lunar lander, Astrobotics takes a punt on ULA and India arrives at the Moon

BRUTUS

A rather unfortunate moniker. I seem to remember that the last person who counted on him didn't end so well.

iFrame clickjacking countermeasures appear in Chrome source code. And it only took *checks calendar* three years

Just don't allow ads to use JavaScript

Every single problem is linked to JavaScript. Okay, in-domain JS is pretty much inevitable these days, but simply don't accept running JS from another domain and the problem should stop there.

Of course, Google is not interested in locking that down because of the number of sites that use its code, so it'll never happen from there.

Thank God for NoScript. Again.

Trump blinks again in trade war bluff-fest with China: Huawei gets another 90-day stay of US import execution

And you have Fox News to get back to.

If you don't like The Reg, you don't have to come back again and again.

Bunch of US states said to be preparing fresh antitrust investigation into Google 'n' pals

Making things more complicated

Um, we're talking about billion-dollar behemoths that don't pay taxes.

Make their lives difficult, they'll just have to hire more lawyers.

It's not like they don't have the means to do so.

Generous Google gives Chrome users Inbox Zero: Sign-in outage boots own browser out of webmail, services

Re: dumbing down error messages

Well that is kind of inevitable, isn't it ? Given the level of understanding of 99% of users, they'd be complaining that the error was incomprehensible.

Something went wrong is something they can understand.

That said, adding another line saying "Error #0068410B" wouldn't kill the devs either, and then we'd have something to Google and evaluate our situation better.

Behold, the quantum lawsuit in which both sides claim victory: Rimini St fails to bag $30m refund from Oracle

"Oracle lost 23 of 24 claims"

I'm glad you're happy about your success, but from where I sit, you've lost $90 million, you're banned from doing what you did and you're not getting any money back.

In short, you're lucky Oracle did lose those 23 claims, because if it hadn't, you'd be buried by now.

The Pwn Star State: Nearly two dozen Texas towns targeted by tiresome ransomware

So that's how they do it

"In almost every ransomware attack we've looked at, the company was been compromised six to nine months before the attack was launched," he said, noting that allows the attacker to conduct reconnaissance.

When I read that line about how attackers start by deleting accessible backups I wondered how they could get to them. If, however, you infiltrate an organization and lay low for months while gathering data on the network, then you have all the time you need to discover network storage and passwords to access it.

Given that cities are not known for having bank-level network protection, I'm guessing that once in, there won't be much of a warning to IT admins that an enemy process is worming through their systems.

Breaker, breaker. Apple's iOS 12.4 update breaks jailbreak break, un-breaks the break. 10-4

So, unc0ver is open-source ?

Interesting. So Apple should be all over that code to see what it's using and patch the holes. Apparently, Apple does not do that.

Now the question is : why on God's green Earth did Apple unfix a fix and re-allow jailbreaking ?

Another question : how long before a patch is published that re-applies the fix, thus locking the phone down again ?

Because Apple is aware of this, and they had the fix, so I really don't see that it is interesting to go and use the unfix to jailbreak the phone since it's likely going to be locked down again at the next patch release.

Lenovo ThinkPad X390: A trusty workhorse that means business but it's not without a few flaws

17.6 hours

Oh, I'm sure you can get that - if you throttle the CPU to 20% of its capacity and turn the screen brightness down to minimum, set the disk to sleep after one minute of inactivity and the screen to go blank likewise.

In other words, you'll get 17.6 hours of use if you make the i7 function like an anemic i3. Yay.

I'd like to see battery life expressed in real-life, pedal-to-the-metal situations. If you're a programmer, you're going to be taxing those 16GB of RAM and probably the disk as well. I want to know how long I will be able to work, not just look at a dimmed screen.

But that'll never happen. Nobody will like to publish those numbers, they're too weak.

Subcontractor's track record under spotlight as London Mayoral e-counting costs spiral

"whether electronic counting is in fact the right approach"

Simple answer : it is not.

Use paper. That won't cost you £9M this time, and it won't cost you more next time. Better functionality ? It counted the votes last time, didn't it ? So what better functionality is worth double the price ? Is it more secure ? Somehow I doubt that that is what they have improved.

I want the code to be public and open, so that we can get eyeballs on it and ensure that it does what it says on the tin in the proper way. Until that happens, I won't trust it and neither should anyone else.

It will never be safe to turn off your computer: Prankster harnesses the power of Windows 95 to torment fellow students

BOFH potential for sure

Personally I am content that he does not get to exercise that particular potential in a major IT outfit of any capacity.

I hate it when people think that they have the right to go and wreak havoc on someone else's computer and find that funny.

Overstock's share price has plummeted. Is it Trump's trade war? Bad results? Nope, its CEO has gone bonkers...

That is not an example to follow

Astroboffins have spied the largest star that has gone supernova and it's breaking all the rules

Why the hell bring the Maori into this ?

And, if you're going to show off your scientific credentials, you need to put a link to what you've published, otherwise it's not credible.

Anyone can say they've published in Nature.

Fancy a career exposing cloud data leaks? Great news, companies are still largely clueless

"protocols that were superseded more than a decade ago"

Um, just a thought : how come those protocols are available on The Cloud (TM) at all ?

Or did they create The Cloud (TM) by including every protocol that has been created in the past twenty-five years, regardless of whether or not it was secure ?

UK.gov opens £250k competition to tackle first-world problem of crap conference Wi-Fi

"help Britain attract more international business events"

Yeah, Brexit is going to make it so much easier to capture all those European company conferences, isn't it ?

And the Japanese, Chinese, Indians and South Americans are just clamoring for the privilege of spending a day in a plane to get to the UK to chatter and feast on stale fish.

Another success story in the making.

And you thought the cops were bad... Civil rights group warns of facial recog 'epidemic' across UK private sites

"There is a dark irony that this authoritarian surveillance tool is rarely seen outside of China"

Um, from what I've read, the UK is just as surveillance-camera bent as China, if not more so.

So the dark irony is that there still are people in the UK who consider that China is worse then them as far as camera surveillance is considered.