Posts by Pascal Monett

Boffin botheration as IET lifts axe on 20-year-old email alias service

Another "use someone else's server" service bites the dust

Yep, the gentlemen's agreement of "we give you a prestigious email address for nothing and forward anything that comes in to whatever you want" is now coming to an end.

Just like the good old days of nobles riding into the Church on their horses is long gone.

Sorry guys, you had it good for a such a long time that you thought the rules were set in stone, but the truth is you used someone else's service, based your life around it and now that service is being yanked.

Great idea too, creating your website logins on a forwarded email. Like the website cared what your email was in the first place.

Despite all the IoT bullshit about managing your house from your phone (using someone else's server), the future looks squarely set to "you manage your own shit and if not, you takes your chances".

In this case, the chips are now down and the house is closing shop. I think the global message is clear : don't trust someone else's server.

Malware-slinging scum copied D-Link's code-signing certificates to dress up PC nasties

"copies of code-signing certificates"

I wonder how that could happen. I'm thinking insiders got them out and sold them off in each case. Or maybe a targeted phishing expedition got lucky.

In either case, big fail on certificate security on the part of the companies involved. Given we don't hear of this too often, I guess once in a while is somewhat unavoidable.

Nissan 'fesses up to fudging emissions data

Nah, Renault hardly knows how to make cars, let alone measure things properly, so cheating ? Totally incapable of that because not competent enough.

Absolutely... fabless: Marvell swallows a large dose of Cavium

It's called the free market. You can't shout its virtues from the rooftops when they are in your favor only to complain and grumble when they are not.

That said, I'm all for competition but, realistically, given the sheer amount of money involved in that industry, you seriously cannot expect a large number of players to survive for very long.

We're not talking pizza parlors here.

Cops suspect Detroit fuel station was hacked before 10 drivers made off with 2.3k 'free' litres

Maybe it was a busy day and it took him nine cars to notice ?

Okay, I'm going out on a limb, I know, but if it's rush hour and there's not a colleague to count on, it's conceivable.

And if the miscreants wanted to maximize the haul, they'd obviously hit when activity is high.

Re: jerry cans

If those specific ten cars all showed up one after the other at the same pump with a half dozen jerry cans - they're gonna have to have some seriously l33t 'splaining skillz to convince the plods that it was all sheer coincidence.

Re: I'm predicting they all know the station attendant in some capacity

You mean like, they've already been to that station a few times ?

Re: the entire country East of the Rockies unlivable to humans

I lived for four years in Boulder, Colorado for four years and they were the best four years of my childhood.

Right at the feet of the Rockies, you took the car and twenty minutes later you lost in the wilderness.

Gorgeous.

To this day, 40 years later I still love mountains.

And we didn't have no roaches.

Microsoft might not support Windows XP any more, but GandCrab v4.1 ransomware does

I think it's less a case of "when ya gonna learn" and more a case of "when are your managers going to allocate the funds to get you out of that hellhole" - and the answer to some cases is replacing a MRI machine that cost millions with another one that costs millions.

I've got a hunch those bastards that made the nasty are going to make WannaCry look like a walk in the park.

Basho investor to pay up $20m in damages for campaign that put biz on 'greased slide to failure'

Chester Davenport

To think that he is apparently a Distinguished Service Scroll Winner and got honors at a law school.

Looks like he was just pond scum looking to gain shark status.

Failure across the board, I say.

Slow-mo Tintri train-crash continues: Firm shuts up shop across Europe

"A recorded message stated Tintri was undergoing structural changes"

Well yeah, getting buried is indeed a "structural change".

Once again pie-in-the-sky manglement ruins a good idea and skips the ship before getting wet, letting all the deck hands drown without even throwing them a lifeline.

I hope the CxOs will find themselves at the short end of a heavy, court-imposed fine to get those ex-employees their due.

Snooping passwords from literally hot keys, China's AK-47 laser, malware, and more

"we should consider dumping passwords altogether for a better system"

I'm glad the boffins have made that bold announcement.

I am eagerly waiting for the next paragraph in which they describe said "better system".

I won't be holding my breath.

Sorry, Mark 85, but you are wrong - although not entirely. As you can see here, the US has signed all four protocols, but only ratified two, the first and the last.

I don't exactly know what impact that has, but it must be significant.

As for China, it has signed and ratified the first three protocols, but not the last.

Spidey sense is literally tingling! Arachnids detect Earth's electric field, use it to fly away

You should try Zero Punctuation - it'll blow your socks off.

We might not have a SyFy movie yet, but we have a SciShow clip where Hank explains how it works.

Given the similarities in the information from the clip and this article, seems to me that they likely were based on the same reference material. I don't know who's at El Reg's Science Desk, but that is a job well done.

AI bots suck at marking written essays, not too shabby at old Atari games, and more...

To hell in a handbasket and so on and so forth . . .

Science! Luminescent nanocrystals could lead to multi-PB optical discs

Re: I doubt writeable DVDs are stable

Well, my first CD burned in 1992 is still perfectly readable - although the programs I stored on it at the time are now completely useless.

Decision time for AI: Sometimes accuracy is not your friend

This article is full of statistical analysis, but it is not about AI

This article is proof that what is currently called AI is nothing but statistics applied to vast amounts of data.

Yes, I am positively convinced that data mining can and does bring surprising insights into what the data contains.

Nontheless, we're not asking a server "Find me the fraudulent claims". We are fine-tuning a statistical analysis tool to get the result.

A far cry from AI.

Banks told: Look, your systems WILL fail. What is your backup plan?

That is not what should be regulated

I do not see that it should be a regulatory issue that banks have proper procedures and backups in place. If they don't, they pay the costs and if they pay too much, they end up dying.

Sure, there will be a bit of a mess, but in the worst case customers will take their government-guaranteed money elsewhere and that will be that. To Big To Fail is overrated.

What I would like to see is subprimes completely forbidden and no way to recreate them. What I would like to see is a bank that manages my money honestly and doesn't try every single dirty trick to make more money at all costs.

But hey, I'd also like to win the lottery. I know where my chances are better.

Like an everflowing stream: New tech promises remote S3 nearline disk performance

"they appear to have come up with [..] a faster way of streaming files "

They're fiddling the books, storing stuff locally and playing with metadata workarounds.

There's only one true way to stream faster : use a bigger pipe (and make sure the backend can use that increase in bandwidth properly).

At last – a use for AI! Predicting an England World Cup victory

"the predicting goat"

Just one question : the people who feed and take care of this Zabiyaka, I take it they worship Zeus ?

Because any other situation, including being atheists, make them blasphemers to their own convictions.

IBM Cloud’s elasticity stretches and stretches (Big Blue's credibility?)

So IBM is having trouble getting its cloud running properly ?

Maybe it should have not laid off so many people who actually did the work, all in the name of profits.

ICANN't get no respect: Europe throws Whois privacy plan in the trash

Re: Good for regulators

Indeed, it is quite satisfying to see the pricks at ICANN taken down a notch or three.

I just hope the slapping will continue.

US Declaration of Independence labeled hate speech by Facebook bots

Re: Organized religion is the root of all evil

I beg to differ. But I as cannot possibly say it better than Patton Oswalt, I will refer you to his take on Sky Cake.

IBM wins five-year whole-of-government deal with Australia

Quantum ?

So IBM has taken q-bit processors out of the lab and learned how to program them to file and store citizen census data ?

Somehow that smacks of bullshit to me.

Re: “significant savings"

Exactly.

There will be gnashing of teeth before this is over.

Security guard cost bank millions by hitting emergency Off button

Re: most emergency buttons provide [..] no information on what, exactly, they are supposed to stop

Well, the prevailing tradition is that they stop everything in a room by cutting off all electricity that goes in (except for the lights).

Now, if you've found big red buttons marked STOP next to the door of a server room that didn't stop everything but the lights, then indeed you've found some sneaky ones.

As to "very few have been pushed", well <grin>, we've got loads of stories here that prove you wrong ):-D.

Things that make you go hmmm: Do crypto key servers violate GDPR?

Storm in a teacup

So my email user name is associated to my public key. Well my real name is associated to my phone number and that's not something that is going to change, right ?

Let's not get distracted here. There's enough to do to secure our private lives already without going off on wild goose chases like this.

India tells WhatsApp to add filters, ASAP

I seriously disagree with you

Education is indeed the answer and I do not view that education is relative.

Education is teaching a person that things need to be viewed with a critical mind, that people are not to be feared simply because they do not have the same color or culture that you are used to, that diversity is the richness of the human race and that stupidity and greed have no color.

Education is the incessant treadmill of treacle-like progress toward that goal, with all the insufficient budgets and systemic failures due to political cowardice and expedience. Aside from the fact that we know very well how to teach people to read and write, but we still haven't a procedure to teach people how to think independantly - mainly because every government prefers blind obedience.

A fine vintage: Wine has run Microsoft Solitaire on Linux for 25 years

Re: "We live in a *nix world now"

Well, as long as you do your work on a phone or tablet, I guess you're right.

But as far as working on company applications are concerned, we're still squarely a Windows PC world. I've been consulting for companies for a quarter of a century and I have never seen a Linux workstation anywhere. I have spotted a few Linux servers, here and there, but zero workstations. I have also seen a few Apple PCs, mainly in web development.

But the bulk of them are Windows PCs.

And that will stay that way until the *Nix generation becomes Head of IT and/or CEO. Only then will we see the possibility of a switch, because these guys and gals will look at licensing fees for Windows and Office, the backlog of Helpdesk issues and the nightmare of legacy crap still being dragged along and they will choke on their coffee before chucking the whole mess out.

But before that ? Not a chance.

Uh-oh. Boffins say most Android apps can slurp your screen – and you wouldn't even know it

"the permission model is flawed"

Wow, what a cliffhanger. I don't think I've ever heard that before.

</sarcasm>

What a pity that even a group of boffins in real lab coats with an actual study of it will probably not generate a change of the matter.

Bill Clinton's cyber-attack novel: The airport haxploit-blockbuster you knew it would be

"making his way out of the White House through a secret tunnel"

Right, because there is a tunnel in the White House that the Secret Service doesn't know about/hasn't bugged and rigged full of detectors nor have a pair of Marines posted at either end.

I'm all for suspension of belief, but it has to be at least plausible. Give me a traffic jam and a sudden, inspired escape, and I'll go along because, even if dubious, it just might happen.

But a secret tunnel, unknown to an organisation who has been in charge of the White House for almost as long as there have been Presidents ? And this one new guy who has only been there for, at best, three to seven years, knows about it ?

Well that just about sums it up : I'll keep on reading Tom Clancy novels. When he pulls a Deus Ex Machina out of thin air, he's good enough to at least dress it up properly.

Hands up if you didn't lose data in the Typeform breach

"the council will consider ending its relationship"

You'd better not just consider it !

I hope that there will be a massive move against this, to send a strong sign that we the public no longer tolerate this kind of gratuitious data-hoovering, but I doubt it. Tomorrow will likely be business as usual, right Talk Talk ?

Google Chrome update to label HTTP-only sites insecure within WEEKS

Re: "Large company intranets may use those address ranges for all their devices."

And Google is the authority to decide to flag those large company intranets as insecure.

Sure.

'Coding' cockup blamed for NHS cough-up of confidential info against patients' wishes

"unreserved apologies"

How about "immediate resignation" ?

A £1.3m prize for a plunging share price at BT? Not so fast...

Re: If you mean cunts then type cunts

Asolutely. Enough with the self-censorship. If you want to use cusswords, use them. Don't pretend to care about the children, there aren't any here.

The strange tale of an energy biz that suddenly became a blockchain upstart – and $1.4m now forfeited in sold shares

"an unnamed Hong Kong resident"

Now that there is something that intrigues me. Especially the part where this mystery guy not only buys nearly all the shares, but then somehow is able to move the company to another part of the US. Just how did he know to put the company there and for what purpose ?

Where there communications between the pair and that guy to set all this up in the first place ? Because if not, I can't imagine some random guy in Hong Kong buying up a company in the US would care about moving it to some other place he almost certainly doesn't know either.

There's something fishy there.

Feds charge Man after FCC boss Ajit Pai's kids get death threat over net neutrality axe vote

Re: Not sure why Pai wouldn't press charges...

He got a mail threatening his children. With their school location.

Sorry, but if I got a mail like that I would have law enforcement pursue to the end of the Earth. The fact that it is an asshole who got the mail is irrelevant to me. Nobody touches the children.

The real irony is that if the guy had just threatened Pai, he'd likely have all the support of the Twittersphere and social media. But he did the unforgivable and now he's going to pay. Talk like a thug, walk (to prison) like a thug.

Smash-hit game Fortnite is dangerous... for cheaters: Tools found laced with malware

Parents of today's 14 year-olds will remember their own childhood as well, because malware coming with cheats is as old as gaming forums.

That said, please excuse if I couldn't care less that cheaters are getting themselves infected with malware. Serves them right.

Budget hotel chain, UK political party, Monzo Bank, Patreon caught in Typeform database hack

Patreon ?

So that's SciShow users that are impacted also, as well as PBS Eons.

Congratulations on undermining confidence in some of the rare YouTube channels that educate people about science.

DXC execs to investors: It's say-on-pay time. Give us a bump, would you?

Cloud is changing the market landscape

What I gather from this article is that massive service providers (aka consulting companies) are being subject to a sea change in their very livelyhood. Big customers are less inclined to sign big contracts, and smaller customers are going to the fluffy failures of The Cloud.

This can only be temporary, though. The Cloud is far from perfect in itself, and people are starting to wake up (albeit slowly) to the fact that their data is no safer there and they need measures in place when the fluff grows a hole and their data disappears.

It will certainly take a long time before people (and companies) learn how to manage their cloud data properly, but until they do, there is room for consultants and service providers to help them get there.

It's just that the service providers need to adapt to that landscape as well.

Apparently, that adaptation is going to be painful.

When Google's robots give your business the death sentence – who you gonna call?

Personally, I find it difficult to believe that it is a good idea to put company data in a beta product, and Google is always in beta.

I subscribe to the people who think that company data needs to be placed in the control of the company, not on someone else's server.

Flipping 'ell, Dell! IT giant preps to go public again, files its homework

It does seem that Mr Dell is going to have to eat some crow.

I guess that, when you're the head of a multinational, sometimes it pays to shut up.

Sysadmin shut down server, it went ‘Clunk!’ but the app kept running

Apparently, there is at least me.

I crashed a server once, at client site

I was working on client site about 15 years ago, one of a multinational's many branches. I had access to the server room, although I didn't really need it because I'm a developer, not a sysadmin. When the summer was hot, I did sneak in from time to time, to cool off, but I digress.

I knew the product I worked with didn't much like having the client opened locally on the server. I knew it. One day, for some reason I can't even recall, my workstation was doing something time-consuming and I was in a hurry to get another thing done. Those among you with experience will recognize right there a recipe for disaster.

I decided that it was a small thing and I could do it quickly on the server. I knew where it was, so I badged myself into the server room, walked over to the dedicated Solaris server I needed and double-clicked the icon for the client. The client's loader flashed a screen, and the server went down then and there. I was left to facepalm myself while watching nervously the server come back online.

Of course, when a production server goes down in a site that employs over a thousand people, there will be people to notice. I could only go to the head of IT and report my actions. As penance, I asked my access to the server room to be revoked, which the IT manager graciously accepted.

I never did try that again, anywhere.

Surveys-as-a-service outfit Typeform spilled a backup from May

t.co ?

Could companies please refrain from using URL shorteners ? It keeps people from checking that the URL should indeed go to where it is supposed to given the supposed source.

It's hard enough to ensure that spam and malware are avoided, but if you go and obfuscate the URL well that's the end of it. I never click on those things, whenever I see one my paranoia flares up something fierce.

And that's now all three LTE protocol layers with annoying security flaws

"an agent needs to set up a malicious cell tower to tamper with transmissions"

No problem there, apparently those things are being set up all the time in Washington DC and they're only noticed when they've been taken down.

CIMON says: Say hello to your new AI pal-bot, space station 'nauts

"contribute to spacemen's well being and group morale"

I'm thinking that, after a vigorous session with a blunt object, group morale will be much higher.

CIMON will be forever silent though.

Re: Well if...

From what I've heard, it would likely be very frustrating because, apparently, there are no boners in space.

And if you're alone, they wouldn't be much use anyway.

Google weeps as its home state of California passes its own GDPR

Re: Legitimate business interests

Completely agree. I nearly jumped out of my chair when I read that phrase, and I had to force myself to finish reading the entire article (a very interesting read, BTW) before coming here to say the same thing, but in slightly more profane terms.

In any case, it is refreshing to see that, for once, political machinations can be used for good. Hats off to the people who got this law pushed through.