Posts by Pascal Monett

Brit banks must disclose outages via API, decrees finance watchdog

Yes, RBS aka Royal Bank of Scotland, aka Bank of Scotland. Nothing to "correct" here.

We've Amber heard a NASty rumour: Marvell man touts private cloud box

This two-drive home NAS costs $500+ ?

For that price you can get a 4-bay Synology DS418 and have money left over to buy a 2TB HDD. Of course, you'll need to buy three other HDDs of the same size to really get it to work.

And you can make it work in RAID 5, not just RAID 1.

Being able to contact it by phone is not an argument for me.

Alibaba and Elastic slingshot searchable, analyticky cloud ... outside China

Trump is always pretending.

Visual Studio gains some go-faster stripes for Android emulation

They don't need to add telemetry to VS, you're using Windows. It's already there.

If you drop a tablet in a forest of smartphones, will anyone hear it fall?

Re: That's not news

No, but it is still information.

Not information I care about, but still, it is information.

You: 'Alexa, open Cortana.' Alexa: 'Who?'

"different people"

The phrase was meant to mean exactly that : you don't go to your car mechanic for financial advice, and you sure as heck do not go to your finance guy to service your car.

So you need different people to service cars or offer financial advice.

The sentence is right.

And you are damn right not to want any of those "digital assistant" infestations in your environment.

Drama as boffins claim to reach the Holy Grail of superconductivity

As usual, incredible claims come from far away

When I read that room-temperature superconducting material had been discovered in an Indian university, I immediately thought of all the great cloning claims that came out of China and finally proven bunk.

And there weren't wierd emails or wrong graphics to go after in those cases.

So I'm fully expecting the University of Bangalore to be covered in the shame of fostering a sham.

But, if the maillion-to-one chance actually happens, I will be overjoyed at their success.

This is not a Hollywood film, though. Not even a Bollywood one. So I won't hold my breath.

Oh, and "A pair of physicists" ? And just what is the publishing history of these two guys ? How many years have they been working in field already ? Right, one may or not have just graduated, the other is not even a teacher, just an associate. I don't see the Nobel prize in physics being awarded to Bangalore Uni just yet.

Making money mining Coinhive? Yeah, you and nine other people

"We thus present a new technique based on WebAssembly fingerprinting to identify miners..."

I have a different technique : NoScript.

Works every time.

Kids are more likely than adults to submit to peer pressure from robots

RTM is well on its way, but not here yet

Alexa, Cortana, Siri, all these "robots" are infesting our homes, that is true. I doubt there will be much peer pressure from them anytime soon, though, especially since, in my experience, people who gush over these gadgets are the ones who have just got one. After a few weeks, the novelty has worn off and most of them just shut them down or unplug them.

And actual, humanoid-ish robots shuffling around the house are still a twinkle in some researcher's eye.

I don't think we need to worry about robots raising our children wrong yet. Not until they can cook, do the dishes and clean the house. You add a nanny program to that and then yes, we might be in trouble.

But the Jetsons was a kid's cartoon, not a documentary. No need to worry for a while yet.

Former NSA top hacker names the filthy four of nation-state hacking

Re: I wouldn't make that assumption if I were you

The US of A has a 20-year lead on spying on foreign comms. Read up on Echelon, I'm betting you'll be assuming like the rest of us.

"he wasn't going to go into detail about that"

He doesn't need to ; we all assume that the US is #1 when it comes to nation-state hacking.

U-S-A ! U-S-A !

Prank 'Give me a raise!' email nearly lands sysadmin with dismissal

Quite an understandable mistake - except for the CEO

I get the mindset of the moment, but if you're testing something, common sense says to keep the CEO's email the hell out of it.

Now boffins are teaching AI to dial up chemo doses for brain cancer

I am wary of this development

I will always be grateful for advances in medical science, and any and every cure for anything, but I do not agree with the prospect of having my cancer diagnosis made by a computer, if and when I am concerned by that.

You can wax lyrical all you want about how a Statistical Analysis Machine (or SAM) can be efficient at diagnosing cancer and specifying treatment, I want a human doctor's professional opinion first. Eventually, the doctor can consult the SAM's opinion, if only to ensure that both are in agreement. I would accept that because the SAM might differ in opinion, and I would expect the doctor to check why and if it is relevant to my case.

But to have some pimply-faced intern show me a printout and say "here's your diagnostic" ? No thank you.

The off-brand 'military-grade' x86 processors, in the library, with the root-granting 'backdoor'

Re: it definitely shouldn't be there if it isn't there for any sensible reason

But it is there for a sensible reason. It is "intended for testing, debugging, and special applications", special applications meaning TLA access, obviously.

Clap, damn you, clap! Samsung's Bixby 2.0 AI reveal is met with apathy

@ matjaggard

So you think anyone that hates smartphones has to be an old doddard ?

My retirement is still 13 years away. I have no grandchildren yet, and my entire family calls on me whenever they have a computer issue because I've been an IT professional for the past 30 years.

I know feature phones exist (for Philippe and td97402), but when you are a consultant, they are not enough, unfortunately. So I have to have a damn smartphone, and I hate that.

But I'm glad I gave you an opportunity to spew your contempt for old people. Feeling better ?

I already hate smartphones, this Bixby isn't going to make it better

I long for the day where I can ditch the nuisance that is a smartphone and go back to a simple feature phone.

Having a phone that will actively be able to nag not only on screen but also in my ear is absolutely not what I'm interested in. Keep your nannying away from me, I'm man enough to assume my mistakes.

UK taxman told: IR35 still isn't working in the public sector, and you want to take it private?

"IPSE’s response [..] was clear: don’t do it, and definitely don’t do it any time soon.”

So it will be done before the end of the year, because no government official anywhere can understand the word "no" if he's not the one saying it.

America's top maker of cop body cameras says facial-recog AI isn't safe

Re: Is anyone seriously trying to claim otherwise?

Well you've got the guy responsible for security at the Tokyo Olympics who really doesn't seem to have gotten that memo.

Well, the UK government does have a long history of continuing to throw money into failed IT projects, so it's just government as usual.

Space, the final Trump-tier: America to beam up $8bn for Space Force

It's not that it must be bad, it's just that, in the vast majority of cases, it objectively is.

Re: I am not sure I like the idea of the US military with powered exoskeletons!

They're already working on that, so prepare to be dismayed.

Meanwhile, Defense contractors have broke out the champaign at the thought of all the new barrels they will be putting their snouts into.

Can we have Pile Of Gold icon ?

Say what you will about self-driving cars – the security is looking 'OK'

@tiggity

People with physical disabilities already have problem coping with normal cars. There are models that can be modified specially for them, but a wheelchair-bound person will never drive a Ferrari.

When autonomous cars have the self-driving and security parts down pat, it will be time to worry about models that can be adapted for the disabled.

Need a facial recognition auto-doxxx tool? Social Mapper has you covered

And the best of it is that all the data is beamed back to SpiderLabs, for algorythm improvement, of course, so anything you do search for will be added to their database which will be worth millions in a short time.

Great for them !

Julia 0.7 arrives but let's call it 1.0: Data science code language hits milestone on birthday

Still,

It's nice to know that there is still an area where raw, knee-jerk hatred can still express itself with impunity.

The indices start at 1 ? BURN THAT SHIT DOWN AND NUKE IT FROM SPACE ! AAAAARRRGGGHHH !

Personally, I prefer indices starting at 0, because habit, but I am not about to trash a language simply because of indices. Especially if I have an option to change that.

Now, meaningful whitespace, on the other hand . . .

Encryption doesn't stop him or her or you... from working out what Thing 1 is up to

There's a war brewing

The war is on between those who want their privacy respected and those who don't realize (or care) about the issue.

IoT sits squarely on the side of Don't Care.

So, if you care, don't use IoT.

Researcher found Homebrew GitHub token hidden in plain sight

"If I can gain access to commit in 30 minutes, what could a nation state with dedicated resources achieve against a team of 17 volunteers?" Holmes asked."

They could use you for training the newbies in their dedicated resource group.

BTW, the NSA is mildly miffed that you spotted the issue.

Top Euro court: No, you can't steal images from other websites (too bad a school had to be sued to confirm this little fact)

Re: if the kid would have even been allowed to enter into the license agreement

It is not the kid that needed to enter into a license agreement, but the school.

It is blindingly obvious that an underage child would have no idea he was even supposed to ask. The school teacher, on the other hand, should have known better.

And allegating that, because an image was available under license on one site means no new license was needed ? What brain-dead thinking is that ? Of course that argument got thrown out, even a child can understand that it's not because his buddy has something that he can have it too.

It is indeed necessary to reeducate people about public use of copyrighted images. It's a problem we have today because before widely available internet and social media, it was not easy to reuse images. You'd be printing them in books, and your editor would bring your attention to the fact that you needed permission to reprint someone else's work.

Nowadays you just right-click and save anything you like, and posting an image is as easy at it can be. And that is how it should be - for posting your own images. But you ask permission for posting someone else's images.

IPv6: It's only NAT-ural that network nerds are dragging their feet...

"the world is clinging stubbornly to IPv4"

If it works, don't fix it. There may well be no new IPv4 addresses, but as I've said before, those we have still work. And NAT is a nifty feature and not only for businesses.

"as IPv6 takes hold more websites and online services will begin to only be available via IPv6"

On God's Green Earth, why ? Is there a sudden drop in IQ where IPv6 is concerned ? Have the academics forgotten that businesses exist to make money, not to ensure IPv6 adoption ?

When a business feels it is pressured enough to have an IPv6 website, that business will ensure that it can still get money from the IPv4 holdouts.

The day a business will no longer have an IPv4 website is the day funding for IPv4 will become economically unfeasible. That has nothing to do with the day an IPv6 website is accessible.

Rights groups challenge UK cops over refusal to hand over info on IMSI catchers

Re: They already have legal intercept

Yes they do, with a warrant, and I highly doubt anyone is up in arms about that.

It's the notion of intercept, scanning and surveillance without a warrant that people do not like.

UK govt's top tech heavyweight Maxwell quits for Amazon job

"questions about how closely the rules [..] for senior civil servants have been followed"

I'm quite sure Sir Humphry would state that the rules have been followed to the letter, there is absolutely no cause for concern and everything is under complete control.

And if you asked him where the proof of the respect of those rules is, Sir Humphry would respond with complete sincerity that those are things that he does not have the authority to divulge.

Then he would sip his tea impeccably.

Facial recognition tech to be used on Olympians and staff at Tokyo 2020

So it's 99.7% accurate now

We'll see just how accurate it really is when the Olympics are in full swing.

My guess is that that accuracy rating is going to go down a notch or two, or maybe more.

And if we hear about facial recognition being abandoned . . although that obviously won't happen. If there is any real problem they'll just trot out more security people and pretent that the system is working fine, it's just for protection purposes.

Oracle's JEDI mine trick: IT giant sticks a bomb under Pentagon's $10bn single-vendor cloud plan

"at a time when cloud technology is changing at an unprecedented pace"

Um, Larry, you say yourself that the cloud is "nascent" technology, so how can there be precedent ?

The Cloud (TM) is brand-spanking new. Everything about the cloud is unprecedented.

Way to pad your line count, Larry.

Facebook insists it has 'no plans' to exploit your personal banking info for ads – just as we have 'no plans' to trust it

Re: Nope

Somehow I imagine that you're not going to need to tell Facebook the name of your bank. Apparently there are banks that link their website to Facebook for themselves you.

So if you have that bank, and a Facebook account, it would seem likely that Facebook already knows about it.

Funnily enough, no, infosec bods aren't mad keen on W. Virginia's vote-by-phone-app plan

There is so much to be wary of here . . .

"Voatz also disputed claims its systems are vulnerable and untested"

But of course it would say that. I reckon we'll be reading about just how secure it is shortly after the upcoming election.

"Before going into the pilot, Voatz submitted the smartphone voting app to an independent security firm for review"

Oh really ? Which one ? And what was the verdict ? It's all very nice to hear these things, but if the company was available at [e-mail], then excuse me if I'd prefer a more reliable name.

"Voatz is not particularly open about how its system works under the hood"

A time-tested hallmark of quality in this domain, to be sure.

Security by obscurity, again. That works IRL, but not where computing is concerned. The only people who believe otherwise are the ones not competent enough to understand the true situation. Not telling people how your system works just means you're a hack who can't do things properly and you don't want people to know how shoddy your system really is.

A truly secure voting process is like encryption : you can know everything about how it works without having any means to subvert the system other than brute force - which is very time-consuming for little reward.

And blockchain ? Really ? With all the stuff I've already outlined it seems we have a Security Bingo winner. This will only end in tears.

Hey, you know what a popular medical record system doesn't need? 23 security vulnerabilities

Re: Fractal of fail

Yeah but, that's what the CEO's nephew learned in high school. He had to have something to do during the summer . . .

Western Digital develops a new soft spot for the hyper-converged world – a software spot, that is

There's a nice picture on this professional site that looks similar to the one in the article.

You've heard of Michael 'Air' Jordan – well, get ready for 'AI-R' Jordan

Oh great

Now we're going to need a frakking supercomputer to play the next version of Crysis . . .

Microsoft's Azure Kubernetes Service mucked my cluster!

"the customer’s workloads had been overscheduled"

And how exactly is that possible if the interface does not allow for it ?

Shouldn't there be a warning, a popup with a message, and a limitation of the scheduling abilities ?

Because if Microsoft's team can determine in post that that was the problem, then it's not the customer's fault. You open a platform to anyone and anyone will come in, I'd have thought that Microsoft would know this by now. So the onus is on Microsoft to ensure that Joe Anybody cannot put himself in a bad situation in the first place.

And having helpdesk people blaming the client to his face is never a good point, even if it is true.

Top tip? Sprinkle bugs into your code to throw off robo-vuln scanners

They just forgot to turn it off.

Bank on it: It's either legal to port-scan someone without consent or it's not, fumes researcher

Re: Who is scanning?

From what I see, most malware is drive-by download these days, and not at all the same as a hacker connecting to your PC directly.

So I guess you have no problem with the legality of that either ?

Re: "the scanning is done with Javascript running locally"

And NoScript to the rescue, again. Ain't nobody port-scanning my computer without my consent !

The age of hard drives is over as Samsung cranks out consumer QLC SSDs

You lucky guy ! My first was a 20MB MFM drive. I thought I'd never be able to fill it !

How wrong I was.

Internet overseer ICANN loses a THIRD time in Whois GDPR legal war

"raising questions over its competence" ?

Um, I think the time for questions on that matter is over.

ICANN is incompetent. Period.

Battle lines drawn over US mass surveillance as senators probe NSA's bonfire of phone records

What is the mandate here ?

If you are given authority to demand answers from a government agency without any means of coercition, it would seem that not answering your demands has become standard operating procedure.

If the investigative commission had any teeth, or balls as the case may be, then the response to such appalling lack of response should be :

"Fine, your continuous refusal to answer my questions is your prerogative, apparently. But I must say that, if you cannot convince me before <date> that American citizens are not being unlawfully spied upon, then I will conclude they are and that your Agency is in violation of the Consitution and I will have you all rounded up and put in prison. Your move."

Denial of denial-of-service served: There was NO DDoS on FCC net neutrality comments

I'm sure the NSA will shortly be sending a few nice people from the FBI to explain it to you.

Sur-Pies! Google shocks world with sudden Android 9 Pixel push

Re: Compelling, isn't it?

And with all the predicting, monitoring, fetching ads data, I wonder if that battery prioritization isn't going to be heavily in favour of the app that does all that "management".

In any case, I don't see battery life improving with this pie.

'Can you just pop in to the office and hit the power button?' 'Not really... the G8 is on'

A web power switch ?

I had no idea they made such things. I'm going to have to remember that for eventual future problems.

Thanks for the tip.

Porn parking, livid lockers and botched blenders: The nightmare IoT world come true

@Ben Tasker

Normally I don't much appreciate people using El Reg to promote their own web site material, but in this case I must say thank you for that. I have saved it for local reference and I will be using it as grounds for my own deep-seated mistrust in IoT.

Get drinking! Abstinence just as bad for you as getting bladdered

That's what I love about El Reg

There's regularly some bit of good news why I can have that glass :)

That is, until the day the science of our bodies has advanced to the point we actually know what we're talking about. Then the news will be final.

But until then, bottoms up !