Posts by Pascal Monett

What's big, blue, and hands out pink slips? IBM on Thursday: Word spreads of job cuts

"trying to get money out of its dying businesses and into emerging areas"

Wait, IBM has emerging areas ?

Someone slipped a vuln into crypto-wallets via an NPM package. Then someone else siphoned off $13m in coins to protect it from thieves

Just goes to show

You do not have production servers depend on unknown code.

Known code is code you have evaluated, reviewed and tested, and should be stored on a server you control.

When you are notified of an update, you evaluate the necessity of the update, review the new code if the update is necessary for you, and apply it to your test server only if you do intend to use it. There, you test it thoroughly and validate its merging with production code on servers you control.

This form of attack only works because everyone is abandoning their duty of care and just blindly trusting dozens of people they don't know to do things right. That's like hiring a cleaning lady and getting ten people shuffling around your house, doing things that are not necessarily related to cleaning. You'd have to be mad to accept that, but when it's code, you just can't be bothered (I know, might not have the time either - doesn't mean it's a good situation).

It's official! The Register is fake news… according to .uk overlord Nominet. Just a few problems with that claim, though

Re: Insider Trading

You can find that situation every day in the business world. As soon as you have a marketing guy overhearing a conversation at lunch or dinner and thinking of a way to benefit from it, there you go.

If that were illegal, there would be no business.

Besides, insider trading exclusively concerns the buying or selling of shares before some important news which will make the share price change in an important way. So it's only a Stock Market thing.

That was not the troll icon. This is the troll icon.

That icon indicates that he posted anonymously, or from a mobile phone.

Or both.

That one's easy : the members of the Board are also members of the public, therefor it is for the public benefit.

Re: "Fake news"?

Well, coming from a fake non-profit, what do you expect ?

Judge slaps down Meg Whitman for accusing Autonomy boss of being a 'fraudster who committed fraud'

Well yeah, but you have to admit that, if you can't make up your mind, you can hardly run a business.

Euro data centre club throws itself to the li-ions – to the delight of battery vendor members

"sacrifice a part of their battery capacity to support the power grid, and get paid"

I suppose it's another brilliant MBA scheme. I'd love to see the discussion on that.

"Hey, we have all this power doing nothing, we could monetize it by supporting the power grid."

"Great idea, what happens if the grid goes down though ?"

"That virtually never happens, the grid has its own securities."

"Then why did we buy all those batteries in the first place ?"

From my point of view, those batteries are not just sitting there, they are poised to be available if the power grid goes down for any reason. That is their only job.

To give them another job is to ignore why they are in place and, in doing so, diminish their ability to respond to their primary duty.

But hey, I don't get a bonus either way, so have fun.

Russia signs Huawei deal as Chinese premier decries 'protectionism', 'unilateral approaches'

"get clarity [..] on the supposed intelligence risks of Huawei"

Good luck with that. For me and, I'm sure, a lot of other people, the situation is very clear : Trump wants to dominate China in every way he can, whatever the cost.

That Bloomberg went and destroyed its reputation to give Trump an excuse is shameful, but it has never been about National Security, that we all know because the allegations have never been proven. it would have been easy to post a picture of modified boards, but no, nothing has ever come to light. No picture, no expert testimony, no corroboration from international bodies, nothing. A big, fat nothing.

And that nothing proves that the "intelligence risks" of Huawei equipment are just about the same as the risks with Cisco equipment, so basically choose your poison and pray. The NSA will get access if it wants it anyway.

Barbie Girl was wrong? Life is plastic, it's not fantastic: We each ingest '121,000 pieces' of microplastics a year

I have a question

I get that microplastics are in the air - I just need to take a look at the sire of the road to know why. I get microplastics in seafood, that's also obvious. In fact, I'm comfortable with just about everything cited, except one : alcohol. How do microplastics get in there ?

I may be mistaken, but as far as I can see making alcohol involves metal (or wooden) vats, glass bottles and copper tubing. There is no plastic in any of that, so where does the microplastics in alcohol come from ?

Worried ransomware will screw your network? You could consider swallowing your pride, opening your wallet

"If you can't back up the data that is operationally important . . "

Then you are incompetent. Either as an IT manager, or as a board member.

I cannot imagine any situation where business-critical data cannot be backed up. There are mirror servers, one-way synchronization, hell, I can't even begin to think of all the ways data can be put somewhere to be stored on tape or disk arrays.

I am sure of one thing : a proper IT administrator will have a backup of business-critical data, and know how to restore it. The only real issue is ensuring that the backup is not infected.

Did they ? So they now have a solid backup procedure in place, reliable and tested ?

Just asking.

Mad King Leo pulled the wool over HP shareholders' eyes, ex-CEO Whitman tells court

I have to say

Although I do not like anything HP since last millennium and, as CEO Whitman is partly responsible for that, I have to admit that she does appear to keep her cool and stay in control in a courtroom.It may be that she's already had quite enough boardroom struggles to not get fazed by a court lawyer.

In any case, as a person, points to her.

It's that time again: Android kicks off June's patch parade with fixes for five hijack holes

Great news

Now, how about we get a timetable on when our provider will be arsed to give us that update ?

Because Google improving its mobile OS means jack shit to the majority of us who depend on our mobile operator to pull its finger out and do its job.

Man, my retirement seems a long way off.

'Happy to throw Leo under the bus', Meg Whitman told HP after Autonomy buyout

So what ?

"Your comment," said Miles to Whitman, "was 'happy to throw Leo under the bus in a tit-for-tat'."

Am I to understand that, since Whitman said something not very nice, Lynch is supposed to go free ? I cannot get how a court case cannot stay centered on facts relevant to the case, the case being Lynch falsifying Autonomy's figures.

That Whitman would be happy to throw Apotheker under a bus is perfectly normal. She shouldn't apologize about that, it is a normal human reaction.

And quite understandable as well. I'm not part of the board and I would happily throw that guy under a bus.

UK's internet registry prepares a £100m windfall for its board members – and everyone else will pay for it

"avoid gaming of the system"

To me, it seems that the entire system was specifically created to be gamed - but only by those in charge.

Isn't it time that Nominet's status as a non-profit be put into question ? If you have a non-profit that hires an acquisition officer, then I think that non-profit has too much money for its own good.

Labs are for nerds, it's simply Kaspersky now – just hold still while we cyber-immunise you

"geometric and mathematically exact letter forms"

The stupidities they can spout in order to make us think that their ten-minute brainstorming actually produced something meaningful.

Mathematically exact ? Really ? What maths did you use to get that conclusion ?

The only thing I see is a name entirely in lower case written with letters that aren't finished. Not impressed.

Controversial American bigwig in London... no, not Trump: HPE ex-CEO Meg Whitman to give Autonomy trial evidence

"[..] without these hardware sales, Autonomy would have been worth a lot less [..]"

Um, given an $8.8 billion writedown, I would think that that is pretty much official already.

This is where we are going to be witness to the ugly side of upper management - the way they really are when not parading for PR or trying to impress.

Don't forget to bring the popcorn, but you might want to take an umbrella as well so as to avoid most of the stuff that will undoubtedly be flying in all directions.

Supra smart TVs aren't so super smart: Hole lets hackers go all Max Headroom on e-tellies

That will not be a problem

I have a Philips WatchLine with Pixel Plus. To this day people who see the image on that screen still marvel at how good it looks. Yes, it is a beast that needs two grown men to move it, but I don't care as it doesn't move. It is getting old, though, and I am starting to think about looking around to see what my options are.

Cloud will not be one of them, and I am dead set on keeping "smart" out of my house as well. A TV is a dumb screen, anything with intelligence should be what is sending it the image to show. The only thing that irks me is the fact that all TVs with the best screens also drag in that effing "smart" stuff.

I guess I'll just have to make do with a truly dumb terminal screen, and forego all the bells and whistles.

Strewth: Hackers slurp 19 years of Oz student data in uni's second breach within a year

"we undertook a range of upgrades to our systems to better protect our data"

Yeah, but that didn't actually work now did it ?

I don't know what it is you upgraded, and to what you upgraded to, but it seems to me that a redesign of your network is in order.

Like, putting a firewall between your network and all that juicy data you are hoarding for no good reason. Maybe add a proxy server and another firewall behind that, to ensure that only the proper computers - which have no Internet access - can access that data.

One more thing : maybe a decade after someone has left your University, you could consider not having that data accessible via the network ? In other words, archive it ?

Sex and drugs and auto-tune: What motivates a millennial perp?

Reality.

Well there might be a bright side

If indeed the future is filled with wankers, then that means less 1st-worlders using much too many resources and polluting the world.

It also means that I look forward to seeing how that works when I'm 80 and so full of arthritis I can hardly move. Unless I'm still spry and agile, in which case it's the nurse who's going to wish I was full of arthritis.

Let's pity the nurse and hope I'll be full of arthritis.

DigitalOcean drowned my startup! 'We lost everything, our servers, and one year of database backups' says biz boss

"We now have to explain to our clients, Fortune 500 companies why we can’t restore their account."

No, what you have to explain is how is it that you have Fortune 500 clients and yet you have no copy of your data in another place than your hosting service.

I would hope that this will be a lesson to not put all your eggs in the same basket, always have a backup plan, etc, but I'm guessing that you'll stay just as stupid and leave your entire company in the hands of people you don't know until everything crashes on you a second time.

Then you'll be whinging that life is unfair. It will still be, ultimately, your fault.

You go that way, we'll go Huawei: China Computer Federation kicks back at IEEE in tit-for-tat spat

Re: Yay more standards

Nah. What is more likely is that the USA is going to be replaced by another entity, say, the EU, who will guarantee academic freedom and foster intellectual endeavors.

As the US is stripping itself of all credibility in more and more domains, it will be shunned and ignored until nothing of importance happens behind its borders walls any more except school shootings.

When all international standards are managed in a proper international environment, the world will be a better place.

And at that point, if the USA doesn't want to comply with international standards, it can go twiddle its inbred sister in the trailer.

Gaze in awe at the first ever movie of a solar eclipse from recording long thought lost forever

You jaded, man.

Re: "At that time the Germans were involved in building a railroad from Turkey to Baghdad [..]"

Ah yes, of course, looking for the Holy Grail.

I remember that documentary.

What's a billion dollars between friends? Uber tosses match on mound of cash in first results since going public

So, double the losses of last year ?

Well that's starting on a good foot. Ain't it a bummer to not be able to comb over those pesky financial details and just bang on about how you're spending money you don't have on acquiring things in other countries ?

You're in the army stock market now, you're Wall Street's bitch. If you're not sweating yet, you will be.

You will be.

Planes, fails and automobiles: Overseas callout saved by gentle thrust of server CD tray

Hmm. A man of experience, I see.

Indeed, such impunity demonstrates a shameful lack of professionalism from the security team. You should have been set upon by dogs and a fully-armored SWAT team for having had the gumption to dig and bury things around such a National Security thing as an airport.

<sigh> What is the world coming to ?

Re: This too was in the middle of nowhere in North Wales

I thought North Wales was the definition of nowhere.

Well that's hardly a surprise. If you can't take rounded scissors you certainly can't take a hunk of metal good enough to cave in a skull with.

Kenshi: Sandblasted sword-punk D&D where the dungeon master wants everyone dead

Welcome to the new column

I applaud and appreciate this new adventure on El Reg. Don't forget to bite, though.

I found your take on Kenshi interesting, and it sparked my interest. I went and checked my Steam account and found that I had classed it under Ignored at the time. Reading the game's summary in Steam, I see why : I'm already playing 7 Days to Die and nothing in the game's description told me that it was that much different from what I'm doing already.

But now I look at the game in a new light and I'm wondering. The fact that the game is not an MMO (you could have specified that, but it's okay) is a big plus in my book - I am sick of sharing my game time with griefers and other nuisances. I will pay more attention to this title now.

We ain't afraid of no 'ghost user': Infosec world tells GCHQ to GTFO over privacy-busting proposals

Jake, you forgot to check your sarcasm meter.

I disagree on one point : any acceptable solution must include a warrant approved by a judge whose decision will be recorded and subject to FOI requests.

It is useless to try and limit the amount of interceptions allowed - how can you ensure they will respect that ? They're already respecting nothing. Put a judge in charge and jail him if he gets too cosy with the spooks. With a public record of intercept warrants, we regain some control of the situation.

As far as manipulating the masses is concerned, I think they already have that part down pat. The people who control the media know exactly what to say and what not to say and when to maximize the effect.

That is why, whenever something really important happens that they have to talk about but would prefer avoiding, you get some really important sports event to talk about endlessly.

That is why they spouted sooo much nonsense about WMDs months before invading Iraq.

It's an endless game of manipulation, and the Internet is the only true counter-balance that we have. Which is ironic when you see just how much the Internet is used to manipulate as well.

In other words : we're fucked any way we turn.

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Cambridge Analytica had a hand in deciding Brexit.

Yes. The proper authorities.

Some food administration has absolutely nothing to do with anti-terrorism.

In the living room, can Google Home hear you SCREAM? Well, that's what you'll need to do

Re: One wonders why such devices have become an accepted norm

I blame Hollywood, who has for the past decades made it look easy in every sci-fi flick they have made. From the impossible gestures in Minority Report to the abusively simple way voice commands are given in practically any film that uses them (thinking of the original Blade Runner right now - great scene, but still technically wrong), people have latched on to the idea that not using a keyboard/mouse interface is a good idea.

Well, we'll see how that pans out in the long run, but you'll take my mouse out of my cold, dead hands before I give it up.

Yeah. Use your remote and quit your whinging. You've already got a useless toy, on top of that it's not working any more. Learn your lesson and buy a radio.

A proper radio tuned to BBC Radio 4 would work a lot better, you never have to yell at it, and you can turn it on and off with a button. Oh, and it will never change functionality behind your back.

But why use something simple when you can go cutting-edge and make your life even madder than it already is ?

Infosec bloke claims: Pornhub owner shafted me after I exposed gaping holes in its cartoon smut platform

Agreed, but still : the checkout till does not mean you disrobe and get rogered in front of strangers and cameras.

You may be getting rogered, but it's not physical.

And I can smile and be polite and least try and take the edge off of her plight.

Finally, come on. You know that, when sex is involved, everything is different.

Re: Who watches cartoon porn anyway?

Not that I will proclaim being a fan, but I do believe that cartoon porn has one obvious advantage : no real women are abused to make it.

I've heard that there are pornstars that actually like their jobs. That's fine, to be sure, and better them than someone who hates herself for doing it, but my problem is that I have no clear indication of which ones hate themselves and which ones don't.

Sure, some of them smile more convincingly, but so does Melania.

IEEE tells contributors with links to Chinese corp: Don't let the door hit you on Huawei out

@ martinusher

"Another thing that Trump and his entourage doesn't get is that in the US the government has to obey the law, it is not the law"

I am absolutely thrilled to learn that. Now could you please explain why the law doesn't seem to be lifting the slightest little finger to bitch slap the orange monkey and force him to learn that ?

Because, up to now, it would seem that the waste of air that is occupying the Oval Office is the law, since the law is not slapping every one of his unlawful acts down. Some of them, when a judge can be bothered, but not all of them.

Re: In which country are you going to form your organization

A country whose local laws make lawyers of a multinational corporation smile.

Know the enemy and know yourself: Walmart's new chief techie spent 15 years in the Amazon

Fret not. Walmart is bringing in the heavy guns - this Kumar is solid gold (from a golden parachute point of view). He obviously has the high-level view that Fortune 100 CEOs adore so much.

Which obviously means that he has never been a boots-on-the-ground, hands-in-the-mud grunt, oh no, my dear chap. What we have here is the golden-braided horse captain coming in adorned with the glory of many previous campaigns who will, by his mere presence, solve all the issues.

At least, that's what he'll put on his CV when he leaves Walmart for some other high-profile, highly-paid situation. I'm sure he's also 100% buzzword-compliant.

It's the curious case of the vanishing iPhone sales as Huawei grabs second place off Apple in smartmobe stakes

What ?

"Google has said it will comply with the order by pulling access to Play Store and other services from future Huawei mobile hardware"

Um, aren't you forgetting something ? Like, the fact that it may be Huawei hardware, but the people who bought it are not necessarily in China, or even Chinese for that matter ?

Somehow I feel a lawsuit coming up for Google, based on the fact that US citizens had and have, right up to that August deadline, every right to buy Huawei, and Google has no right to refuse service to US citizens, if I am not mistaken, and I'm pretty sure that Google is going to catch some major flak if it tries that outside of the US.

I'm sure it's all nice and fuzzy to have a whipping boy, but you can't extend that whip to everyone who happens to be in the same room.

If servers go down but no one hears them, did they really fail? Think about it over lunch

Re: you can set your own locale regardless of the software language

Yeah, about that : I used to set my location to France, and keep the US English language for the interface, because I prefer doing my computing in the language it was invented in.

The interesting side-effect of that is that all browsers today pay attention to my location and don't give a fig about my language choice : in other words when I go to IBM, Amazon or even on Google, and search for something - the results I get are in French, and that pisses me off.

Um, guys, my language is English. Get with the program.

Never let something so flimsy as a locked door to the computer room stand in the way of an auditor on the warpath

Yeah, but you weren't wearing hoodies now were you ?

Re: whether if they'd had their sidearms they could have shot the lock off instead

That has been Mythbusted. Shooting a lock actually strengthens it because you are adding lead impediment to its proper functioning.

A rocket launcher, on the other hand . . .

Microsoft? Oh it's just another partnership, insists GitHub CEO

"We treat Microsoft as a partnership"

And that will last right up to the second Microsoft decides to not tolerate that any more.

You have been bought. Microsoft owns you now. Do not make the mistake of believing that you are in control.

A decade ago, there was a bank director in Luxembourg that treated the majority shareholder like any other partner. Curiously, that person is no longer the director of that bank. Gee, I wonder why ?