Posts by Pascal Monett

US bitcoin bomb threat ransom scam looks like a hoax say FBI, cops

Indeed, because mass-emailing bomb threats ? Easy.

Mass-producing actual bombs when you're nothing but a lowlife ? Um, nope. Not gonna happen.

I think that, as far as the FBI is concerned, if you're making bomb threats, you're a terrorist.

BTW, what kind of fucking idiot thinks that mass-mailing bomb threats is going to fly under the radar of the law ? If you've encrypted some poor sap's data and demand money, I don't think the Feds are going to get involved and the cops are submerged in more important stuff, so you're safe.

But bomb threats ? Country-wide ? Unless you're in some other country (no idea which, komrad), you're going to learn what life is looking over your shoulder all the time.

Sidecar drags itself out the grave, sues Uber for putting it there

I have no trouble believing that those scum at Uber would sacrifice newborns to increase their market share.

I hope Sidecar gets its day in court, wins the case and guts Uber for tens of millions of dollars.

Razer offers freebies to gamers who descend into its coin mine

What is Razer thinking ?

They target the performance market, ie gamers who are willing to put top dollar to get good equipment (okay, if they choose Razer they may be making a slight mistake somewhere along the line, but that is the reasoning).

So please tell me how someone wanting performant hardware is going to accept crippling his FPS to mine stupidcoin ?

There's a leap of logic there that seems impossible to me. Like selling a Ferrari fitted with a tow hitch. Because sure, the guy is going to use his Ferrari to tow a caravan. Right.

So you want to archive our enterprise data? Well, let's see where you fall on Gartner's magic square...

No, but the NSA can.

A Christmas classic: Cloudera founder asks staff to stay another day

Re: take the job

Absolutely. There is no doubt that the merger will see those same employees punted out without so much as a "thank you for your efforts".

If you are in the situation of having someone asking you to come to them, knowing that in a few months at best you'll be out of a job, why wait ?

Corporate gratitude does not exist. Management wants them to stay so that management can get their bonuses and not have too much hassle. Once the merger is done, then management will throw those precious employees to the wolves without a second thought.

So no hesitation. Jump that sinking ship.

If most punters are unlikely to pay more for 5G, why all the rush?

Well, if they can secure it, then it's okay, I guess

I'm certainly not going to be gunning for a 5G phone anytime soon. But if it is faster and more secure, people will certainly find a use for it.

Some day.

Windows 10 can carry on slurping even when you're sure you yelled STOP!

The real question is . . .

Why has none of this telemetry helped to ensure that Update 1809 wasn't a complete fiasco ?

When NASA has telemetry, it's to find out what went wrong and find a solution to it.

Since Windows telemetry was worth fuck all for that, what do they actually use it for ?

Taylor's gonna spy, spy, spy, spy, spy... fans can't shake cam off, shake cam off

So let me see if I get this straight

Some private company decides they have the right to use state-level tech under the excuse that a fucking pop star might be confronted with a stalker ?

What are bodyguards for ?

This is gross misconduct at the very least. In a country that calls itself a democracy no less.

Oxford startup magics up metamaterials for next-gen charging

Great news, then

We're going to get mass wireless charging by next year, instead of getting any of those recharge-in-a-minute carbon nanotube batteries we've been promised for a decade.

Figures that we'd get a more wasteful way of recharging before getting a better way of storing energy.

Yes, wireless charging is an insane proposal in a world that is already choking on carbon emissions from coal plants.

Check it out here.

Phew, galactic accident helps boffins explain dark matter riddle

Misleading title

I opened this article thinking that scientists had finally explained dark matter.

Not at all, they just found an old galaxy with present-day amounts of the stuff.

All well and good, and now it must be asked what measurement error made us misinterpret the data on all the other old galaxies, but this does nothing to explain dark matter.

DXC Technology turns to BT Security to nab its infosec bossman

DXC is leaking like a sieve

There appears to be a big problem with the merger as all HPE employees that aren't being fired are looking to leave.

Poor people should get slower internet speeds, American ISPs tell FCC

I think it is time now

To take all these ISP CEOs and Pai, line them up behind the chemical shed and have them shot.

How much blatant disregard can you take before you snap ?

Equifax how-it-was-mega-hacked damning dossier lands, in all of its infuriating glory

"Such a breach was entirely preventable"

So, tell me that Richard Smith is going to be dragged before the judge and sentenced for gross negligence and endangering the private data of almost 150 million people ?

Oh, of course not. He drove the system into overdrive, but retired when the shit hit the fan, so instead of going to jail, he's getting millions of dollars.

Ah, isn't capitalism wonderful ?

Oracle takes its gripes about Pentagon's JEDI contract to federal court

"Oracle has claimed [..] that this approach would lock the government into legacy tech""

Legacy tech ?

On the Cloud (TM) ? That has existed for less than a decade ?

Come on, Larry, you know you're pushing it.

They say software will eat the world. Here are some software bugs that took a stab at it

That's news

"human factors including finance, deadlines, mis-management, skills shortages, and the challenge of dealing with legacy code and systems"

In other words, the problem with software quality is less the actual ability of the coder and more the inability of management.

Who knew ?

Salesforce has named a chief ethics officer and yes, the job description is appropriately woolly

So Salesforce is making itself look good

A bit of glitter for the season, it fits.

The lady has a PhD, and has already held CxO positions, so there's not much to complain about yet. The real question in my mind is : is this ethical thing just lipstick or is Salesforce actually committing to something and, if yes, what ?

It's not like Salesforce allows customer details to be displayed publicly, so what is the direction that this thing is supposed to take ?

I mean, Salesforce is in relation with Uber, so what is Mrs Goldman going to do about that ?

This ain't over, Viasat snarls as tribunal rules in satellite rival's favour

"The high load scenario was expressed as 50 per cent of passengers"

50% ?

Have they seen people with mobile phones who don't care about talking to people around them ?

I wonder what they consider an ultra-high load . . .

Did you know that iOS ad clicks cost more than Android? These scammers did

"it can restart itself after three minutes"

How on God's green Earth can one justify that kind of functionality ? What deranged monkey with a keyboard decided that a closed app can be revived without user consent ?

If I shut a program down on my PC via Task Manager, that thing stays dead or else there is a malware infection and that PC is getting wiped and reloaded from backup.

What an effin' crazy frakkin' world we live in.

I hate smartphones.

Doom: The FPS that wowed players, gummed up servers, and enraged admins

Dear God

Because Doom wasn't brutal enough ?

Hey ! That mod seems interesting . . .

College PRIMOS prankster wreaks havoc with sysadmin manuals

Agreed.

However, it must be said that, to discover that you can accidentally fill up the server's hard disk with folders in no time flat is excusable - to go around purposefully disconnecting users without warning "just to see if it works" is a mindset I do not approve of.

US Homeland Security installs AI cameras at the White House, Google tries to make translation less sexist

Facial Recognition

If ever this test period comes out negative, it will be a serious blow to the people who swear it works.

If it comes out positive, it will be the true start of Big Brother and you can expect it to infect every portion of your life in rapid succession.

In either case, I will be watching for the follow-up.

'Say hello to my little vacuum cleaner!' US drug squad puts spycams in cleaner's kit

Re: The War on Drugs

Given that the CIA is known to have dabbled in the drug trade in order to fund its black projects, the war on drugs was doomed from the start.

Given that the US had already failed a war on alcohol, you'd think that they'd have got the message, but no.

So, looking forward to a war on porn ? I'm sure it won't be long.

In case you're not already sick of Spectre... Boffins demo Speculator tool for sniffing out data-leaking CPU holes

Re: Refund

I'm quite happy with my i7 6700, I do not want to return it.

I surf the web with NoScript and UBlock Origin, and I only go to places I know are reliable, so all this hullahoo leaves me stone cold.

In a few years, I'll probably have to change my equipment. By that time, whatever Spectre issues still exist will be corrected in silicon and I'll still get the performance I need.

You're legit and you know you are... Thanks to chanting racist footie fans, linking to dodgy stuff isn't necessarily illegal (well, in Europe)

Re: The US has a lot of overly authoritarian tendencies, but limiting speech is [..] not one of them

Don't worry, Trump is not out of office yet. It can still happen.

Get real! Microsoft CTO of AI quits Redmond for real estate biz

Kind of sheds a light on his true nature, eh ? He was so good at convincing people about the AI nobody has yet, he finally got his dream job : conning idiots out of mountains of cash to ensure tidy profits.

Amazon robot fingered for bear spray leak that hospitalised 24 staffers

But of course it is.

Just like customer data security is the banks' top priority - after they've been hacked, that is.

Incoming! Microsoft unleashes more fixes for Windows 10 October 2018 Update

Re: Maybe its time for Microsofties to study programming?

There might also be another thing at work : all the old timers that made Office and Windows the two breadwinners for Microsoft have now left. Their knowledge, the care they took to not disrupt the user experience too much, and the rules they had set down to keep things smooth went with them.

Now Microsoft probably has scores of youngsters who are certainly very Agile, but not Thorough, and the result is Microsoft is starting to get a shade of a bad reputation.

Don't worry, Microsoft will be sure to cook up some brand new issues just for you.

It's the wobbly Microsoft service sweepstake! If you have 'Teams', you've won a lifetime Slack sub

We know how that works

"Slack continues to enjoy a greater share of the market in spite of the gang at Redmond flinging out a free edition of their platform to get users on board"

Of course Microsoft is doing that. It's Market Capture 1-0-1 : hook the greatest number possible on the free version, then transition them to the paying version.

Or kill it and propose a new product that does the same thing, but you have to buy it.

Oz opposition folds, agrees to give Australians coal in their stockings this Christmas

Yeah, but that is not the same. The police are in your face, demanding your passwords. They've already decided to spoil your day and you know it.

That is not the same as listening in on your conversations via backdooring the encryption. You won't know about that until they come and arrest you, if it ever comes to that.

And so it starts

I was wondering which English-speaking country would be the first to exact this mind-bending stupidity. With the repeated, heavy hinting from the FBI and UK government, I was expecting the UK to be first to bat, but no, it's Australia.

I'm guessing that now the UK and USA and going to observe what happens to see if it's worth following in these steps.

In any case, the ball is now clearly rolling in the sense of forcing programmers via threat of jail to cripple their encryption. You can't do it ? Jail.

They think that is going to reverse the laws of Mathematics in their favor. The only thing they're actually going to get is a lot of companies putting "This application cannot be used in (list of stupid countries)" and washing their hands of the problem.

BT pension scheme will stay on RPI interest rates for now

Re: Reflections on my pension

"what we were promised: the reward for lower pay was a good pension"

And now BT is trying to screw you over on that promise. That is a clear indication of how long-term promises need to be backed by an actual, legal and binding contract that clearly states what is supposed to happen.

BT can try pulling this scheme off (although it is being thwarted, thankfully) because individuals have no piece of paper with BTs obligations on it - they just have a recorded history of being on a given pension fund for a given amount of time. That offers them no control and no recourse.

If the legal beagles weren't doing their job, BT would be screwing many people over and some manager would be getting a fat bonus.

Consumer group attempts to lob Safari workaround sueball at Google... again

You never do absolutely have to use FaceBook, so you never use it.

Simples.

He's not cracked RSA-1024 encryption, he's a very naughty Belarusian ransomware middleman

Wait a minute, if he's clearly indicating that he is willing to deal with the scum on the victim's behalf, he should be in the clear from the point of view of the law. He's offering his services, he's not imposing them, and he's honest about what he will be doing.

If you accept that, the law has no to say against it.

Re: I do not see why this service would be considered "unethical"

This scum is surfing on the efforts of other scum and lying about what he does.

That right there means unethical to me.

COPPA load of that AOL! $5m fine for targeting kids with ads

No, no, no

You cannot "remain committed" if you weren't committed before, and you weren't because you have been caught not respecting children's privacy !

Can we please have another fine for blatantly insulting people's intelligence ?

Intel eggheads put bits in a spin to try to revive Moore's law

Okay, we're going to be using spin now - then what ?

Is this the end of miniaturization ?

It seems this tech straight out of science-fiction is edging towards reality, and I applaud that is it can be made to work. I fear that Moore's Law will effectively reach its EOL date at that point.

I'm sure we'll be improving hardware organization for decades to come, but once you're down to electron spin, I doubt that you go any further.

Tesla autopilot saves driver after he fell asleep at wheel on the freeway

Re: Self-driving cars don't need to be perfect to be deployed

Yes, they do.

I accept that a human driver is imperfect because I don't have the choice.

I do not accept that a software-driven car can make any mistakes. Every instance of doubt should immediately result in either a slowing down or an emergency stop of the automated vehicle to ensure life preservation. Resuming trajectory to happen only when all sensors give the all-clear. If that is impossible, request of a traffic drone to check and authorize continued movement, or call in a support team - or the police if necessary - to resolve the situation.

Being in a car is not a God-given right. It is a privilege that stops when human life is endangered. A human can disregard this, and end up in jail with one or more deaths on his conscience for the rest of his life.

There is exactly zero reason to give that privilege to a computer.

Customers baffled as Citrix forces password changes for document-slinging Sharefile outfit

Re: sim swapping is incredibly easy to do

Not knowing what this was about, I did some quick research.

What I found is that, yes, this is a thing and yes, it can be real headache.

However, there are a few prerequisites :

1) sim-swapping targets "profitable victims", which means said victims have been identified among the many - not so obvious

2) "Laying the groundwork for a SIM swap scheme involves collecting as much information about the victim as possible. - sounds like work, even if clueless people also have money

3) living in a country where phone providers activate new sims via phone call

And that is the crux. If you live in a country where the phone provider will not do any such thing over the phone, and instead send the legitimate owner a new sim via mail to the legitimate address, then this whole scheme is dead before it started.

Re: Communication would have been nice

They did, except that they were dumb enough to post notice during the week-end.

They should have posted the notice Monday morning, then waited until Thursday to implement.

Instead, they thought people were really intent on following their services during the week-end. That's what you get when you take FaceBook as an actual news platform, and confuse your number of followers with your number of friends.

Not in their interest, is it ?

FYI: NASA has sent a snatch-and-grab spacecraft to an asteroid to seize some rock and send it back to Earth

Re: If you want to "control" that, you'll have to arrange to kill lots of people.

Not necessarily.

As sales slide, virtual reality fans look to a bright, untethered future

Get with the times, now it's all about 4K.

I'm thinking that'll be about just as successful.

Re: To get something convincingly detailed and smooth takes a fair bit of poke

Exactly that.

I've seen renders of VR games - heck, you can see scores of screens on Steam. If you think you're going to be playing Call Of Duty with all the details on a VR headset, you're dreaming. None of those games have anywhere near the level of detail of last year's triple A games.

You might get to play The Sims - that's about the best level of detail you can get.

And VR porn ? Please. I'm pretty sure that that slab of pink is not going to make me believe it's a woman.

Yet another mega-leak: 100 million Quora accounts compromised by system invaders

Re: A silverish lining

Yes, you're right on all counts.

Unfortunately, we also see that those damn icons (Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn et al) are not only a tool being used to track us, but also a tool for miscreants that can use such links to reverse-engineer your accounts when breaching a seemingly unrelated one.

This whole rigmarole is getting too complicated. Maybe if we slap a dash of "AI" it'd help ? Nah.

Shall we have AI judging UK court cases? Top beak ponders the future

Great ideas there, really.

Let's fully automate administrative and apparently trivial tasks with the magic of our "AI".

That'll give us more time to take to the streets and complain about how machines are taking over our jobs.

You think you're hot bit: Seagate tests 16TB HAMR disk drive

Meanwhile, 8TB is still above €250

Ouch.

I'd really like to put one on my Xmas list, but at that price it's not going to happen.

So bring on the HAMRs and MAMRs, so that the PMRs will drop in price until I can get 4 drives at 8TB size for my NAS.

US Department of Defense to sling an estimated $3.17bn at Microsoft resellers

"this agreement will not obligate funds at the time of award"

Well that would be a bit brain-dead on the part of the DOD. Obviously the funds will be paid out in return for actual acquisitions, otherwise there is a very large window for error, honest or no.

Still, some champagne will obviously be opened in the marketing departments of the six companies, because hey, that counts for this year's bonus !