Posts by Pascal Monett

Technical foul: Amazon suffers data snafu days before Black Friday, emails world+dog

This is an interesting development

rcxb and Miss_X2m1 have brought my attention to the fact that I too have been receiving so-called notifications apparently from Amazon of things waiting for me at my post office, with a helpful link to some page that is neither a Post Office site nor Amazon.

Of course, not being part of the numpties that click on links from unknown entities, I just controlled that the link was suspicious and trashed the mail forthwith.

Now, though, I have to wonder : is this part of the consequences of the breach-that-was-not-a-hack ? I live in France, so if it is, the problem is much larger than just the UK (since Miss_X2m1 is USA-based).

@ Fred West

Instead of complaining endlessly how this site is crap, why don't you just leave and go to a site you like ?

Net neutrality is heading to the courts (again): So will the current rules stand or be overturned (again)?

Don't you just love

how the Free Market is working out so well ?

Oracle sued by app sales rep: I made tens of millions for Larry, then fired for being neither young nor male – claim

The numbers don't matter. What is significant is that she was the top performer.

And, as far as loose change is concerned, without people like her Oracle will soon be desperately looking for such loose change just to stay out of the red.

The bare facts of the matter

She was the best-performing salesperson and she's the one they sacked.

That in itself demonstrates how wrong Oracle manglement is about handling situations correctly.

I just don't get it. If I had a problem with sales, I'd be asking the best performers to coach the other guys, not antagonizing them. That's probably why I am not head of a multi-billion dollar company : I'm not enough of an asshole.

Thanksgiving brings together Apple's Siri and Google Assistant

Nothing to do with the internet, it's on mobile phones.

I do not need to wade through Siri/Alexa/Google shit to get to the internet on my computer. As for my phone, it's a model that does not support any of that shit either, so I'm good.

That said, there is a definite tendency for multi-billion dollar companies to act as if the internet existed only to support their marketing whims, I do agree.

Facebook to appeal against ICO fine – says it's a matter of principle not to pay 18 mins' profit

"it's a matter of principle"

It clearly is. So, since it's not about the money, just acknowledge that you fucked up and you should give a peace offering as an excuse.

Microsoft: You looking at me funny? Oh, you just want to sign in

@ Roopee

Apparently, someone finds your lack of faith disturbing.

Personally, I'd also like an answer to that question, because a PIN can beaten from you, and your fingers aren't all that solidly attached when a bolt cutter is lying around, or even just a cleaver.

Big data at sea: How the Royal Navy charts the world's oceans

Re: Not being a noisy neighbour

They're talking about whales, in my opinion.

So, before firing up the sonar, they listen to ensure that there aren't any in the area. If no whalesong is detected, then they blast away.

Talk about a cache flow problem: This JavaScript can snoop on other browser tabs to work out what you're visiting

I'm supposing that those of us who do run NoScript will be trusting domains that do not serve as hosts for malicious domains.

"it is possible for malicious JavaScript in one web browser tab to spy on other open tabs"

Not with NoScript it isn't.

New era for Japan, familiar problems: Microsoft withdraws crash-tastic patches

Looks like MS cannot actually patch its own code properly any more

If any other vendor in history demonstrated such incompetence in coding, they would file for Chapter 11 in less than two years.

MS, coasting on a literal mountain of cash, just keeps fucking up and cannot fix things any more.

I wonder how much worse the situation will get, because let's face it, nobody's going to switch to Linux because of this.

Capita, Serco, Sopra Steria to write cheat-sheets for UK.gov in case they collapse

Keep an eye on what's going on?

And then have to take responsibility when it goes pear-shaped ?

Are you out of your mind ? How could they get their OBE with that kind of blight on their record ?

@ Adam Foxton

Absolutely agree. This situation has been enabled by the total lack of oversight from government management. In any proper company, whether you outsource or not, you have a list of your sytems, who has access to them and IT must have a list of all servers and the admin credentials to them.

Not having that list is just complete and utter incompetence.

Joe Public wants NHS to spend its cash on cancer, mental health, not digital services

We polled the public and the result was not what we wanted

So here's our interpretation that turns it around and allows us to carry on as planned with a clear conscience. Ah, life is good when you're at the top !

LastPass? More like lost pass. Or where the fsck has it gone pass. Five-hour outage drives netizens bonkers

Sure, but typing 374852zeilrunhsLOEHFD?OEHIDMZ323894 from memory is a bit troublesome, not to mention that there are websites who do not allow more than 12 chars for a password.

Use Sync

Your files are encrypted with Sync, and only you have the key. If you really have to store your keepass file on cloud, I think it would be better if you used an encrypted platform.

What the #!/%* is that rogue Raspberry Pi doing plugged into my company's server room, sysadmin despairs

Re: have you thought how that might affect agile*¹ development teams?

Uh, they won't be able to fuck up so quickly anymore ?

I.T. illiterate management who seems to be responsible for the whole mess anyway. OK, it's just a school, but still.

Infosec's Thanksgiving turkey triumvirate: Tesla, Tumblr, Trump (as in Ivanka)... and tons more

Slow decline ?

Bitcoin went from $20k to $5k in less than a year and you call that a slow decline ?

In any other industry it would warrant the moniker "free-fall". Sheesh.

"images that are detected never reach the platform"

And what happens to those who post those images ? Doesn't Twitter have a duty to report that to the FBI, so that Agent Smith can go and have a nice little chat with the bottom-scum pond-dweller who thought it was a good idea ?

Bah, kids these days. They never know how to finish a job.

"made other changes to adjust privileges accordingly following a full audit"

Um, maybe you guys should have studied the specifications better before implementing such a shitty idea ? Since when do you give access-level granting abilities to people who are not at least moderator ?

Try as I may, I cannot remember a single forum I have ever visited where anyone but the forum owner could grant access to anyone. They might have tried looking into that before deciding that anyone could change anyone's access.

That is the most brain-dead decision I have ever read about in managing access to something.

Did you hear? There's a critical security hole that lets web pages hijack computers. Of course it's Adobe Flash's fault

Um, sorry, but there is no mistake that the Flash team thought of and avoided. They made all the mistakes.

Can you trust an AI data trust not to slurp your data?

So they've already redefined the notion of AI

And now they're redefining the notion of ethics.

Well, here's the thing : the public at large doesn't care about how the word AI is bandied about, it makes no difference to them. That public will, however, care about how their personal data is (ab)used, especially when those who know are educating the rest about the risks.

Not to mention the banking sector which has done a fine job in 2018 to educate its customers on the risks of surrendering too much data to people who are not worthy of having it.

Privacy is theft ? That's where they want us to go ? Well then call me Lupin. Arsène Lupin.

Windows 10 goes into the Light and Cortana MIA as Microsoft buys chatbot bods XOXCO

So, buying bots are we ?

Yeah, why not ? Perfect time for shopping.

After all, it's not like there are any major problems, right ? Nothing on the priority list, eh ? Like, I dunno, maybe making your fucking products work ?

Just an idea . . .

Using a free VPN? Why not skip the middleman and just send your data to President Xi?

I use TunnelBear

Easy to use, free for low usage levels (like mine), and it has published a security audit from an independant company.

It's good enough for me.

Microsoft confirms: We fixed Azure by turning it off and on again. PS: Office 362 is still borked

Re: Please remind me ...

It's called progress. Now an outage can inconvenience millions of users at a time across entire continents, instead of just the users of a single company.

I propose that El Reg officially names Office 3xx for the number of days it can still remain online. So, on January 1st, it is Office 365. If it falls over for a day somewhere during February, it becomes Office 364.

Feel free to dole out decimals for hour outages, but where it falls over doesn't matter (ie if it is only the European users that cannot access, it still counts in the global number).

Behold, the world's most popular programming language – and it is...wait, er, YAML?!?

It's popular in the sense that Datree.io talks about it a lot and now they've found a way to get talked about as well.

A ridiculous way, but hey, there's no such thing as bad publicity, right ?

Washington Post offers invalid cookie consent under EU rules – ICO

Legislation always has a point - for those who are subject to it.

Before the Internet, this kind of thing would not happen but now, legislation stops at the borders while access is world-wide.

So you need to have agreements with the countries so that they implement something similar to your legislation - except it's another country, so it's their decision.

That is what is making the current situation very complicated and frustrating. It remains to be seen how long this will remain acceptable to the public before a global push to stop tracking starts up.

I'm guessing I won't see it in my lifetime.

A little phishing knowledge may be a dangerous thing

Don't click the link !

If you click the link, you are at risk of being hacked because you have no idea what server you're being directed to or what code the miscreants have prepared for your visit.

If you click the link, you've failed to protect yourself and others on your network.

If you just open the mail, you should be good if your client does not auto-execute code willy-nilly (meaning if you use Outlook you're likely screwed), but if you go and click the link, your machine is good for a reinstall.

@ deadlockvictim

I completely agree with you. I do not use a common email client, so I sometimes do open scam mails to see what new scheme they're trying to pull. But follow a link ? Not on your life. My important sites are bookmarked, thank you, I don't need your stinkin' links.

SMS 2FA database leak drama, MageCart mishaps, Black Friday badware, and more

What a load of bull

"And predicting a world class chess player’s next move definitely is at least as difficult as predicting a cybercriminal’s next move"

Even if you consider the world's most awesome chess player, he still only has an 8 x 8 board and 16 pieces, most of which only have one kind of movement.

Equating that with predicting what a cybercriminal might think of, when Windows 1 0 can't even get its own patches right, is just bullshit of the most blatant level.

Predicting what a cybercriminal might do can only happen if you know all the stuff he might try. And given that the blackhats are continually educating multi-billion dollar companies on what their vulnerabilities are, your predictions are about as useful as yesterday's horoscope.

Pick three people you think will replace Google Cloud CEO Greene, then forget them – because it's Thomas Kurian

Who said she considers it to be work ?

She apparently decided to do what she wants, which is exactly what you do when money is not a problem.

Holy moley! The amp, kelvin and kilogram will never be the same again

So we've gone from six to five

We have set aside 6 imperfect measurement units and now rely on 5 very expensive locations for a perfectly precise result.

We may have gained in precision, but we've lost in numbers. I don't know how expensive one of those balances are, but I'm pretty sure we're not going to be building a whole lot more in any case. What else can a Kibble balance be good for ?

Where to implant my employee microchip? I have the ideal location

Re: Oh dear. WAKE UP PEOPLE.

Wow. You'd almost think that chipping employees has become mainstream overnight.

You need to calm down, your blood pressure is going to kill you before you reach 40.

Re: Chips are so 20th century

We have facial recognition ? That is 100% reliable ? I think not. They are endlessly trying to make it work in airports, but we're not there yet.

Eye evaluation ? Do you work in a Level 4 bio lab ? Has anyone ever seen those outside of Hollywood films ? In theory they're great. In practice, they're nowhere.

Multiple other biometric mechanisms ? Really ? Which ones are actually used in your fictional universe ?

Please do realize that you are taking your documentation from the Science-Fiction section of the library.

Microsoft menaced with GDPR mega-fines in Europe for 'large scale and covert' gathering of people's info via Office

Re: "get a CEO's head on a pike"

I like the way you think.

5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1... Runty-birds are go: 12,000+ internet-beaming mini-satellites OK'd by USA

Oh come on

I found that that movie was a gripping tale, relentlessly holding my attention from start to (not really feasible) end.

As far as demonstrating the threat of debris, it was a resounding success.

As far as demonstrating the reality of getting from the ISS to whatever that other place was, yeah, that was pure Hollywood drivel.

But the debris storm ? Perfectly realistic.

Re: And how many of those 500,000 objects [..] already de-orbited unobserved due to drag

Um, they're observing them.

So : ZERO.

Your mistrust of the US government, I applaud. Do not extend it to the scientists. They don't give a fuck about what drivel comes out of the White House, and I'm willing to bet that there's only a infinitesimal fraction (that's the scientific way of saying NOBODY) who would jeopardize their credibility to toe the Orange Carrot's line.

The men and women who are tracking these orbital threats have the safety of the ISS astronauts as first and only priority. All other priorities are rescinded. They will not sell their souls for White House-imposed views.

Up to three million kids' GPS watches can be tracked by parents... and any miscreant: Flaws spill pick-and-choose catalog for perverts

What the hell ?

Why on God's green Earth do you need ANY detail about the person wearing the tracker ?

The only thing you need is the ID of the device. The people who bought the device are the only ones who need to know who is wearing it.

If the kid gets lost, they can give the ID of the device to the cops. There is ZERO need to have ANY personal details associated with the device.

Please excuse the caps but my GOD that is making me angry.

Facebook's CEO on his latest almighty Zuck-up: OK, we did try to smear critics, but I was too out-of-the-loop to know

Re: If they can't fix it they should be shut down

Well, yes, and no.

Let me be clear : I hate FaceBook.

That said, I do remember UseNet as a rather motely collection of trolls. Slashdot is still online and oh my God is it full of shit. It is nothing new, it's in human nature.

So, objectively speaking, The Zuck is (yech) right. This is not a problem that has an easy solution. Certainly not a technical one.

The only proper solution is constant vigilance. That costs money and requires long-term focus. If The Zuck is honestly committed to this long-term effort, then I don't think we can ask for more.

I'm still waiting to see that commitment have any effect.

Won't be holding my breath.

Trump in Spaaaaaaace: Washington DC battles over who gets to decide the rules of trillion-dollar new industry

"America would again put a man on the moon. And [..] on Mars too."

And build the wall. And secure space. And grab all the pussies.

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

Reality is grand when you are the one defining it. For the rest of us, it's called being delusional.

Nvidia just can't grab a break. Revenues up, profit nearly doubles... and stock down 20%

Well one must admit that, these days, the trend is : it's not.

If at first or second you don't succeed, you may be Microsoft: Hold off installing re-released Windows Oct Update

For all the good it does them . . .

In any case, I'm glad Microsoft is doing its level best to promote the use of Linux.

You really couldn't find a better advocate.

John McAfee is 'liable' for 2012 death of Belize neighbour, rules court

"The eccentric millionaire"

Translation : the rich fucking loon.

This is no longer 18th century England, Macafee isn't a Lord and his "exploits" are common knowledge.

Let's not sugarcoat things, shall we ?

Google: Our DeepMind health slurp is completely kosher

"nothing will change without our consent"

So says the new babe on the market.

When you're working with Google, one thing is certain : you're not the one altering the deal.

Where's the Vader icon when you need one ?

Sorry, Mr Zuckerberg isn't in London that day. Or that one. Nope. I'd give up if I were you

The committee [..] will not let the matter rest

Wow, them's fightin' words. The Zuck must be tremblin' in his boots.

Guys, how much are you worth already ? Put together ? Right.

And what can you do against him, exactly ? Right.

Let me spell it out for you : until you make refusing or evading an international committee "invitation" illegal and place it under the purview of an international warrant, he's got zero incentive to waste his time with you.

Re: Glad I'm not him

So is he !