Posts by Pascal Monett

Twitter reckons Trump's Nork-baiting tweet was 'newsworthy'

Yup. The US has a goldfish for President. Let no one say that they don't innovate.

UK third worst in Europe for fibre-to-the-premises – report

@Ledswinger

This article is not a forum post made by a clueless Netizen, it is written by a professional and posted in a professional business online publication.

Therefor, as per Internet Protocol since the dawn of professional publication arose, you source your articles with links so as to provide fact-checking to your readers.

As such, I maintain that it is a shame that this was overlooked here, especially since it is not the usual practice in these hallowed pages. Oh well, mistakes can be made.

You didn't miss it

It's just not there.

Such a shame.

Baidu puts open source deep learning into smartphones

"MDL can recognise a smartphone in less than half a second"

Well that there is a performance, especially when you remember that there have been experts paid $80,000 that couldn't tell between an Android and an iPhone !

Seriously though, I'm no more comfortable having Baidu hoard all my data than Google. I don't the like the idea of any government listening in to my life, not China any more than the NSA.

Boffins take biometric logins to heart, literally: Cardiac radar IDs users to unlock their PCs

"If [..] a different person standing in front of the computer screen, the PC will not operate."

Careful there. In professional or even private environments, someone coming over to see what's on your screen for whatever reason is very common. If the scanner can't cope with two hearts in the same vicinity, things will get ugly quickly. Not to mention that sometimes the helpdesk guy just has to sit in the chair and do stuff. I hope the scanner will be up to that as well.

And if it can, then the burglar doesn't care about the scanner - he can just tie the victim up, drag him to the PC and then do whatever he wants.

This tech may be fine to control access to physical areas, but I'm not convinced PC access is the right area to apply it.

CBS's Showtime caught mining crypto-coins in viewers' web browsers

Don't worry, download.com still does. And it is still in business.

Thank God for NoScript.

Web devs griping about iPhone X notch: You're rendering it wrong

"there's nothing wrong with Apple introducing new technology"

Of course not. There's already two different names for the same CSS functionality. What could possibly go wrong ?

Docs ran a simulation of what would happen if really nasty malware hit a city's hospitals. RIP :(

The lessons will be costly in money and lives

I can understand that medical equipment was not created with security in mind. Who in their right mind would want to hack a pacemaker ?

The problem is that there are many people who are not in their right mind, for whatever reason. So now we're going to have to add security to our medical environment and we're going to have to do it right, because when you're having a heart attack the last thing you want is the doctor having mistyped his password wrong for the third time and locking his account.

Sensitive client emails, usernames, passwords exposed in Deloitte hack

Yeah, "deeply committed"

Not deeply enough to put the money where their mouth is, though.

Actual security is a nuisance, and it is expensive. Humans don't like nuisances, beancounters don't like expensive. Ergo, security is an uphill battle. Both ways.

Sigfox doesn't do IP and is therefore secure, says UK IoT network operator

"Sigfox's proprietary protocol"

Cue the argument of "security through obscurity" . . .

That said, it seems to me that SigFox's security is mainly based on firewalls and VPNs. It's all very nice to say that you don't use IP, if you use VPNs, you're still riding the same bus for part of the trip.

There are two things in this article that bug me. One is this invitation to hackers on the subject of IoT (lack of) security. Asking for trouble, in my opinion. The other, more serious, is what is going to be the impact of this so-called non-IP proprietary protocol on the regular IP traffic that is happening alongside ? Is there going to be interference, or worse, outright clashing ? I hope that these things have been considered with great attention.

And if they have, then the argument about not using IP is even weaker.

On the other hand, anything that improves IoT security is welcome in my book : it'll shave off that many more botnets that trouble the world.

Doesn't mean I'll buy any of that shite though.

Aw, not you too, Verizon: US telco joins list of leaky AWS S3 buckets

This is exactly why I don't like the Cloud

An engineer had made a storage space and put confidential data in it without bothering to secure the vault. Was it company-mandated ? Apparently not.

It is simply beyond me that anyone can consider storing data that is considered critical (like the client list, invoicing history, etc) or confidential (access passwords of any kind) on a server that you do not control.

That is obviously not an issue to many people though, including people who 1) should know better and 2) have the required technical level to do things right, yet visibly still don't.

And it's going to get worse before it gets better.

IT plonker stuffed 'destructive' logic bomb into US Army servers in contract revenge attack

48 years old

Stupid enough to plant malware, and abysmally stupid enough to have it trigger mere days after the handover.

With that level of intellectual performance, I think that it's a good thing the Army changed provider.

Sysadmin tells user CSI-style password guessing never w– wait WTF?! It's 'PASSWORD1'!

"They looked for the password on the CD . . ."

Dear God. Look, I understand that it was a Friday evening but come on, if you send a password-protected file and the password in the same package, it really totally defeats the purpose of the password.

The last time I had to send protected data I arranged with the recipient to send said data via email, and the password via SMS. Might not be a perfect solution, but it fits the purpose. I'm sure most people would do the same.

Of course, the password I chose was a tad more complex - which means that, had the data been sent by me, this story would have ended quite differently.

First big Privacy Shield review has ended – and yep, it's great! Just don't ask about mass spying

Everything is going fine

They will continue to publish reports saying so for a few years, then they will reference those same reports to say that all is well and always has been.

And that is how you write History.

Equifax fooled again! Blundering credit biz directs hack attack victims to parody site

From where I sit, it looks like a full-scale investigation is exactly what is needed.

Quebec takes mature approach to 'grilled cheese' ban

Looks like it's party time !

Rarely has articles been subject to much punning. I almost felt swamped before getting to the end. The surprise was great in any case.

Well done !

Bill Gates says he'd do CTRL-ALT-DEL with one key if given the chance to go back through time

Brilliant idea

Oh yeah. Windows' stability until 7 was flaky at the best of times. Single-key rebooting would have made the experience that much more miserable due to user error.

There is history enough around the disposition of existing keys and why they were changed to explain that a 3-key combo requiring both hands was actually a good idea because you really can't do that by accident.

This comment from Gates simply demonstrates that it is high time people stop asking him questions about the PC era of his life.

Chap tames Slack by piping it into Emacs

Well, points for making it work I guess

Kudos to the guy for making the tool work as he wishes. Must have required quite a bit of persistence, not to mention time tinkering and thinking of how to go about shutting up a program specifically made to blabber continuously.

Oracle promises SLAs that halve Amazon's cloud costs

"the 30 minutes a year the database won't work will be planned downtime"

So there is to be no unplanned downtime, in other words, he is promising perfection.

This is IT, we all know that there will be glitches and unplanned downtime, if only because of some fat-fingered bungling at a critical point.

But of course, he's just the marketing mouthpiece. Marketing has never been there to be realistic.

Congress battles Silicon Valley over upcoming US sex trafficking law

Re: "Two wrongs don't make a right."

Agreed. But spouting clichés does not improve things either.

So, what's your solution to keep young women from being bought, abused and murdered ?

Got a better idea ?

Black screen of death after Win10 update? Microsoft blames HP

Re: "It's a Btrieve based database with resilience features"

From the Wiki page :

"Btrieve is not a relational database management system (RDBMS). Early descriptions of Btrieve referred to it as a record manager"

You are obviously a Microsoft patsy. The Registry has resilience ? In what universe ? One wrong change and you can reinstall the whole thing. It's "well designed" ?!? It's a fucking text file ! Oh, right, you must live in Colorado. I hear they've got good stuff to smoke over there. Seeing such arguments, that has to be true.

The Registry is an abomination, a blight on security and stability and that must be the reason why Microsoft is the only OS maker on the planet that uses it.

But you go on and roll yourself another one. I'm sure you're really happy with it, but try not to kid yourself : the Registry is there for DRM purposes and to ensure that your computer is in Microsoft's control.

Uber Cali goes ballistic, calls online ads bogus: These million-dollar banners are something quite atrocious

Scum got had by scum

Well sometimes the world turns in the right way after all.

Google, Bing, Yahoo! data hoarding is like homeopathy. It doesn't work – new study claims

Re: It works

If you really believe in homeopathy, then all you need to do when you feel ill is take some drops of seawater.

The sea has dissolved everything, ergo it has all the cures.

If you don't do that, then you don't believe and have no right to go pontificate on homeopathy.

Veritas considers 'restructuring' another two offices, with 350+ pink slips possible

"reducing support, in the name of a better-looking balance sheet"

In a perfect world, customers should then reduce their custom in the name of finding better support elsewhere.

Of course, this is an imperfect world and switching supplier is not always that easy, so it looks like wait times are going to get longer.

DXC Technologies mails another corp message (gulp)

“It’s good internal PR for not a lot of money"

Well if it's that cheap, make it a raise then. Might be even more "good internal PR".

WordPress has adverse reaction to Facebook's React.js licence

Good decision

I applaud two things here : first, that a provider doesn't just blindly bend over without caring when a change in terms happens and second, that someone actually puts in the work when conditions are deemed unsatisfactory instead of just shrugging and listening to the beancounters.

That said, I have no idea what the consequences can actually bem but given that we're talking about Facebook, my gut reaction would be to not trust them. Then again, I wouldn't have used React in the first place.

Senators call for '9/11-style' commission on computer voting security

"They have shown an eagerness to meddle in elections"

This article clearly demonstrates that the US is no stranger to meddling in other people's elections. It is actually an impressively comprehensive rundown of election meddling, and the US figures prominently in the list.

Kettle, pot, you know the rest.

Signs of ground ice found on ancient protoplanet asteroid Vesta

Re: Water from comets or asteroids?

If I'm not mistaken, most comets and asteroids are just the cooled-down clumps of residue from the original disc from which our Solar System sprang into being, not the result of planets crashing into each other.

The inner asteroid belt between Venus and Jupiter could have been a planet, but the material could not coalesce properly because of the gravitational influence between Jupiter and the inner planets.

As for the material in the Oort Cloud, there may be a planet lurking out there, but most of the material is likely just small clumps that never made planet-size either.

Uber loses bid to avoid trial in Waymo case

Yes !

Anything that nails Uber executives to the wall is a good thing in my book.

I hope they are made to squirm in court like the scum they are.

Homeland Security drops the hammer on Kaspersky Lab with preemptive ban

"60 days to develop a plan to get rid of it"

Here's a hint : Windows key + E, click Computer, click Uninstall and select Kaspersky.

Then install the NSA-approved software of your choice.

If I'm not mistaken, China is already using it's own version of Linux.

Given the current push on security, global knowledge of NSA activity and Microsoft's dismal handling of Windows 1 0 updates, I'm guessing that, in the next twenty years, there will be more country-based versions of Linux. Okay, scratch that, I'm hoping there will be.

One thing is for sure though, there will be a lot more encryption going around, and there's nothing any so-called democratic government can do about that because businesses (aka the real money men) need that to inspire confidence in the sheeple.

Apple's 'shoddy' Beats headphones get slammed in lawsuit

"a design defect that causes the battery life to diminish"

Um, not defending Apple by any stretch, but I do believe that battery life tends to diminish with or without design defects.

As such, pretending there is a design defect is going to be an uphill battle.

But hey, I wish them all the luck. It's about time Apple's lies got caught.

Weird white dwarf pulsar baffles boffins as its pulsating pattern changes over decades

Learn something every day

I knew white dwarfs, today I've learned about red dwarfs. They can last trillions of years because they are convective, meaning they don't build up helium in the core.

Science. You can read about for thirty years but there's always something to surprise you.

Get out your specs: Java EE's headed to the Eclipse Foundation

Nespresso

would be mine

Giant frikkin' British laser turret to start zapping stuff next year

Re: Next step :

The knowledge you seek is here.

This article has been deleted

Yes, let us salute these courageous officers who put their very lives on the line for months in order to quash this grievous menace to the continuation of our civilization itself. They bravely put aside terrorist investigations, white-collar crime costing billions and street thugs maiming and killing indiscriminately in order to ensure that puritanism lives on. Well done !

It's September 2017, and .NET lets PDFs hijack your Windows PC

Re: "I am totally invisible on line"

Glad you're so sure of that.

By the way, have you made any purchases online lately ? Because if you have, you're less invisible than you think.

Do you use a Javascript blocker ? Because if you don't, you're totally not invisible, even if you do use a VPN.

Slack re-invents the extranet and shared Notes databases with cross-company teams

“channel members from both sides can … upload files”

Sounds more like a primitive DropBox to me.

Use Sync instead - it's encrypted and Sync.com doesn't have the key so the NSA and pals can go screw themselves.

Oracle to shutter most Euro hardware support teams

Re: institutional and cultural ‘memory'

Uhhh, what is "institutional and cultural memory" ? We don't need that crap, we have procedures.

Your boss asks you to run the 'cloud project': Ever-changing wish lists, packs of 'ideas'... and 1 deadline

"you need a good project manager"

Also one that has the clout and the balls to say NO and stick to his guns.

I've said it before in these very forums, the best project I have ever worked on was one where the PM would send the meeting agenda beforehand, with the points that were to be discussed. Every time, the approved specifications for the project were included.

At the meetings, anything that was outside the scope of the meeting was pushed to the end of the discussion. Any change request concerning functionality that was not in the specs was penciled in for V1.1 - aka A Later Date. Anything else was seriously questioned before being included and the specs updated.

The fact that said PM was also head of IT made saying NO a lot easier.

The project was delivered on scope, on budget and on time.

Best project of my life.

Bosch wants crowdsourced data for future connected cars

Because you really think teacher's don't notice ?

I've given hundreds of trainings to groups of anywhere between two to twenty people. I can vouch for the fact that, when you're standing and speaking before a group of people, trying to make eye contact with all of them in turn, it is blatantly obvious when a person's eyes are unfocused and/or fluttering in the clouds of near-sleep.

Personally, I'm more bothered by the fact that they're missing out on a given point than by the fact that they're sleeping during my presentation, but I only give trainings to professionals so I'm not authorized to go around pounding on desks to wake people up.

What teachers see is one less troublesome teen to manage, I'd wager. Then they'll add another exercise in the homework list if they want to give the kid a chance to catch up.

Boffins fear we might be running out of ideas

Re: "They're all people who, in past times, would have been doing something more useful."

I basically agree with what you say, but for two things.

First, I'm not sure that the people who arrange studies to get a specific result are actually scientists. There may be some gravitating around the group, but those doing the "work" are likely just busybodies.

Second, in past times, Thomas Edison is known for having electrocuted elephants in an effort to discredit Tesla and alternative current. I don't see that as being very productive either. Personal rivalries have likely done more to prevent science from advancing than probably all other reasons combined.

Achievement unlocked: Tesla boosts batteries for Irma refugees

"what you're signing up for is a service relationship"

And I do not like service relationships in a product that is legally MINE.

Update my car when I bring it to the garage for its yearly check-up: The rest of the time, keep your grubby digital mitts out of my private life.

Hi Amazon, Google, Apple we might tax you on revenue rather than profit – love, Europe

Re: "My business has 2 revenue streams"

Your business is not supposed to be affected by this change. The change is being envisioned to ensure that large multinational corporations pay their dues.

Unless, of course, your company has a level of activity that is comparable to that of Google, Apple or Microsoft, in which case you are right to be concerned.

Another reason to hate Excel: its Macros can help pivot attacks

"assuming a machine in the group is already pwned"

So the walls are already breached. This is just one possible bit of mayhem that will follow.

Well, if the walls are breached and a machine is pwned, I think there are much more serious threats to worry about. But hey, good on Microsoft for finding yet another way to be a nuisance.

Shocking: Former Amazon analyst fed frat brother insider info

"little more than a kid"

Um, he was of voting age, legal drinking age and marrying age in every state of the Union. He also has the right to drive a two-ton mass of metal and plastic on public roads. He has had all those rights for a few years now, so cut the kid crap. He's an adult. He made a stupid decision, and I'm glad that he owned up to it and I wish him the best for his future, but please don't try the mewling maudlin kiddie angle.

His biggest mistake was taking on Wall Street without realizing that only professional crooks have the right to have fun there.

Red panic: Best Buy yanks Kaspersky antivirus from shelves

Re: Strange article

You need to update your irony detector.

Let me spell it out for you : The USA, a country that spies on the entire world and can force any company on US soil to hand over any data wherever in the world it was recorded, is complaining that, gasp!, Russia is doing the same thing and has a product that is sold on US soil ! Run to the hills ! Make sure only AMERICAN products can spy on you !

Are things a bit clearer now ?

F-35 firmware patches to be rolled out 'like iPhone updates'

"download: yes or no’?"

Not over the Internet, no. No way. Not in a million years.

I do hope this download functionality means from a secure site to a local, secure server, then control and validation of the package and then distribution to the planes via sneakernet.

The last thing you want for multi-million dollar jets is to let them open to man-in-the-middle attacks and all the other joys of Internet insecurity. The only way to be sure that these very expensive tools are not vulnerable is to not have them link up.

Period.

How alien civilizations deal with climate is a measure of how smart they are. Just sayin'...

Re: "if the planet is not under any known threat"

There is always at least one known threat : planet-killer asteroids from the Oort cloud.

I'm guessing that practically all stars have an Oort cloud. Astronomy is in the process of finding out that apparently most stars have planets. It would be very surprising if those planets did not have asteroid strikes every know and then.

Our specific situation is that Jupiter is shielding us, but that doesn't keep asteroids from slipping past it and being a menace. One day, one of them will not miss us. We need to have a self-sustaining colony somewhere if the human race is to endure.

The aliens, wherever they are, are most likely under the exact same menace. The only problem with this menace is that, as long as you don't have proof that an asteroid is on its way now, you don't have any real sense of urgency to get colonizing.

The problem, of course, is that if you dawdle until the asteroid shows up, it's too late to start a colony and your race is screwed.

Scottish pensioners rage at Virgin cabinet blocking their view

Procedures are everything

""In the case of the cabinets in Lowndes Court, the council was notified prior to Virgin Media installing the cabinets and the correct procedures were followed.""

And now all we have to do is wait a bit and the problem will go away by itself . . .