Posts by Pascal Monett

Good eye, Hubble! Space 'scope spots furthest-ever object

Scientists are used to not being able to service equipment. Hubble was an exception in that regard.

Because they are used to not being able to service their tools, they design resilience into said tools. That's why the Mars Rovers have been functioning so long beyond their programmed end-of-service date.

That's also why their tools cost billions to put into service. It is not money down the drain.

Now stop confusing NASA contractors with the military/industrial conglomerates. They're really not cut from the same cloth.

Third of US banks OK with passwords even social networks reject

"why do social networking platforms [..] adopt much stricter password policies?"

Simple.

You have insurance for your money.

There is no insurance for your reputation.

People will not care so much for the safety of their bank account since they can have a discussion with their banker face-to-face, prove their ownership and innocence, and get things set straight.

Try doing that with a Facebook representative when your account has been hijacked (don't know if that has ever happened).

Hardcoded god-mode code found in RSA 2016 badge-scanning app

the security gaffe is "par for the course" in app development

Well that's reassuring.

NOT.

Don't expect AI to save our security skins, warns RSA boss

Be respectful, but carry a heavy cluebat.

Microsoft gets into the advanced intrusion sniffer game – but only for Windows 10

"no technical reason why the software couldn't run on Windows 7 or 8.1"

No surprise there. The limitation is for marketing reasons, not technical ones.

We all know that.

But, but . . . this is the Internet. It's the only place geeks can whine.

We're doing SETI the wrong and long way around, say boffins

Maybe we could combine ?

First off, I'm sure Science is the same for potential Aliens than it is for us, but who's to say that the Aliens do not have other means of detection ? They could have decided to create a vast observation net with buoys every two light-years, and search that way. Or they could literally be sending probes to every system and take a local gander.

So sure, put a priority on those planets that exist in the narrow band where Earth transits, but I fail to see why that should mean we should abandon the rest.

Windows 10 claimed another point of desktop share in February

Windows 7 is most-used OS then

Windows 1 0 is slowly taking from 7, but Vista and XP are neck-to-neck at the bottom of the race. 8 is all coked up in disappointment and going nowhere fast.

If that continues, then 1 0 might actually overtake 7 by the time it is EOL'd. That would be fun to watch.

We survived a five-hour butt-numbing Congress hearing on FBI-Apple ... so you don't have to

There is only one political party, carefully orchestrated to make people believe they have a choice.

In truth, everything is arranged beforehand by committee, deals are sealed in advance, and the "election" is just a reality show.

McDonald's Sweden adds fries to VR

Pizza Hut cartons

Having scarfed more than my fair share of those cholesterol-packed grease pies, I doubt very much that they can prove useful in any role other than serving as container for all the used napkins on their journey to the circular filing cabinet.

In any case, I would certainly think twice before sticking my valuable projection unit in such a stained enclosure.

NASA funds new supersonic airliner research

Supersonic flight

I'm interested that this QueSST initiative has begun, but I can't help but wonder if this is going to be any more economically feasible than the Concord was.

Going faster requires more energy, there is no way to avoid that. I'd be quite happy to have a Paris/New York flight in under three hours, but I'm not convinced the bird will be any more a money-maker than its illustrious predecessor.

Then again, whatever it looks like, I'll be happy for a chance to board it, and thrilled at being told that I've finally reached Mach speed. I'm sure I'm not alone in that, so I guess there's a serious shot for a sustained commercial existence.

Not to mention that getting to Sidney or Hong Kong in less than 2 days would finally be feasible.

Great news! Only 707,509,815 records breached in 2015

2 million records a day

So that means we should expect a total loss of 120 million records today.

With only 1 million almost accounted for already, we're due a major announcement any time soon.

Google Project Zero reverse-engineers Windows path hacks for better security

: in a path name ?

Really guys ? How drunk were you when you included that in the kernel ?

And it still needs to be allowed today ? In the name of all that is holy, WHY ?

The sooner Windows is consigned to the dustbin of History, the better off we'll all be.

Obama administration softens stance on Wassenaar

Not at all, my good sir. Software makes at best a few billion here and there. Gun exports are in the tens of billions yearly, and the market is always booming.

ICO fined cold-call firm £350k – so directors put it into liquidation

"lay down a marker"

A much more efficient marker would be a gravestone, that of the CEO who piloted this scam operation.

I think that would send a very different "signal" to other companies, one that they would heed with great attention.

Tor takes aim against malicious nodes on the network

All you need to confuse advertisers is Firefox with NoScript and an ad blocker. TOR is not indispensable for that.

SCO vs. IBM looks like it's over for good

I'll drink to that

But somebody put a watch on the grave.

If anything moves, nuke it.

Wikimedia’s executive director quits after less than 2 years in post

Because prisoners are obviously the people whose knowledge will most benefit Humanity.

Yup, sounds good. No need for all those boring PhDs and other assorted scientific experts. Nope. What we need is Weedkipedia.

On second thought . . .

90% of SSL VPNs are ‘hopelessly insecure’, say researchers

Well, yes

If you consider that they just forgot to prefix that sentence with In theory,

Orange is good to go on VoLTE, Wi-Fi calling in Europe

"dropped call figures [..] were similar to what the operator gets on 2G or 3G"

I'm pretty sure that his definition of a dropped call is not mine.

As far as I'm concerned, if I get a call and cannot hear the caller, I drop the call and wait for the caller to call back. Most often, I can hear the caller next time. If I call and my respondent cannot hear me, I drop the call and start over. Again, the second time I can generally be heard and hear and the call proceeds normally.

In both cases, I consider that it is a dropped call, because the call did not complete satisfactorily. This is undoubtedly a situation that operators do not consider a dropped call, but it is a situation in which the call is not complete because one person cannot hear the other.

Congratulations to 3rd millennium tech for having brought top-of-the-line technology that is less reliable than the POTS we had in that boring old 2nd millennium.

Oh, and just recently my sister called from her mobile to our landline. The echo was deafening, we could hear everything we said to her come back to us. It was so bad, she hung up and called back a quarter hour later when the train had arrived.

I do not recall a thing like that ever happening before Y2K. So kudos for having invented issues we never saw before.

Google wants new class of taller 'cloud disk' with more platters and I/O

Wishing wells are nice things

Google would like the butter, the money for the butter and the fridge thrown in for free.

I am not a hard disk expert, far from, but from where I sit I don't think that what Google wants can be done. From a logical point of view, what Google wants is contradictory. Higher disks with multiple platter sizes, multiple RW heads and multiple I/O ports. That means more complexity, which means a shorter life span - if it can work in the first place.

I think the solution is simple : multiple slim disks in RAID configuration. That way you have a maximum amount of RW heads per I/O port. Oh wait, that's the present situation. Oops.

But I'm not knocking Google engineers - these guys are not idiots. Which means I wonder why they ask for these things. There's something more to this.

Tor users are actively discriminated against by website operators

There are obviously some Tor champions out there who consider that 99% of Tor users are perfectly legit and restricting Tor IPs is a direct attack on Freedom and thus to be downvoted without fail and stomped on with great virtue.

Yes, Tor is used to protect anonymity. Yes, there are perfectly innocent people who use it legitimately. They are apparently 10% of Tor traffic. Those are not the people website owners are trying to protect themselves from.

If I can pin 90% of malicious traffic to one IP, I'm sorry but I'm blocking that IP.

Indeed. If you come in on the same bus as the hooligans, you can't play surprise at being looked at with suspicion from the store owners.

European Patent Office heads rapidly toward full meltdown

Re: "businesses are considered legal entities with rights supposedly comparable to humans"

In the US, not Europe.

Yet.

Oh TechNation. Britain's got tech talent. Just not like this

"the average digital salary"

My Diablo III witch doctor just made 45 million gold this week thanks to a treasure goblin portal. I'm not sure what the conversion rate to pounds is, but I'm pretty sure that counts as a digital salary.

I made considerably less last month, as usual, but I'm pretty sure I do not earn a "digital" salary. I earn real money that pays the bills, even if I know that it is stored digitally.

Any report that makes such fanciful and sweeping vocabulary changes on a whim is not one I would trust to begin with since it has obviously been written by a bunch of tweens fresh out of high school with the impression that their blathering is professional and has world-impacting importance.

Hint : it doesn't. Get back to work and do things properly next time.

Ker-ching! IBM paid 10 times Cleversafe’s funding for the startup

Silly money

Dropping a billion dollars for something not worth one-tenth the list price, wow, there's some right fine financial management right there. I can see now why I am not management material. I'm sure that, if someone gave me a billion to splurge, I could do a lot better.

There's something to say about having too much money. Oh well, at least it'll be reinjected into the economy (via massive parties and large bowls of white powder that are totally legit, officer, promise).

Bleeping Computer sued by Enigma Software over moderator's forum post

Of course they had "no intent", a bully doesn't want everyone and the news to know he's bullying, that would paint him in a bad light.

ESG just wanted to do some good ol' back alley intimidation and skim a lil' profit from it.

It's just business, right ?

This program can detect if you're bored – which is going to make annoying ads, articles so much more annoying

I'm sure they're trying something in Gitmo right now.

No, it means that your boss will soon install software that checks how engaged you are with your work software and, when an insufficient level has been detected, will send a mail to HR, activate the electrical plate at your seat and blare out "GET BACK TO WORK !" through the loudspeakers.

Who hit you, HP Inc? 'Windows 10! It's all Windows 10's fault'

"we have not yet seen the anticipated Win10 stimulation of demand"

Um, anticipated by whom, exactly ?

Oh, right, by those who looked at every previous Windows version sales impact and blindly took the same numbers, forgetting all the while that :

1) Windows 1 0 is the first Microsoft OS to be offered as a free download (for the moment, at least)

2) The OEM image for new PCs was months late, due to MS faffing about with the code right up to the last minute

3) PC hardware no longer has anywhere near the jumps in year-on-year performance that we enjoyed pre-Y2K, meaning that a 3-year-old PC could still conceivably be used to run the new OS without much trouble

In other words, the only people "anticipating" a surge in PC sales were those who had their blinkers on and took PC sales and new Windows version as an article of faith.

The rest of the world checked GWX and either tested their PC or threw the whole damn thing out with the bathwater. No new PC involved.

Once again, a major organization demonstrates just how unconnected it is with the Real World.

Data centre inventory tools have come around again? Yup, they have

I'm guessing statistics are in its favour as well.

Because one thing is sure: Humanity has a hell of a time learning from its mistakes, or from the past in general.

Linux lads lambast sorry state of Skype service

Re: It just makes us think you might drop our Linux support on Azure when it suits you

Microsoft cannot drop Linux support on Azure because without Linux Azure is dead in its tracks.

Linux is what Microsoft uses for its networking - packet switching and stuff if I'm not mistaken - because only Linux has the grunt and reliability that such an activity requires.

Presumably, Microsoft first tried with Win2K servers and the whole thing never took off.

Not to mention the irony of someone dissing Facebook while being signed up to the most privacy-invading company of the Internet which has its scripts all over the Web and follows you everywhere you go, tracking you all the time and correlating everything.

You say you're an Ansible expert, wise guy? Come and prove it

Isn't DevOps just posting code updates until something works ?

Because everyone is already certified, in that case.

Child tracker outfit uKnowKids admits breach, kicks off row with security researcher

Re: Maybe a little vigilantism is actually required

Maybe, but in that it would be preferable that the vigilant be a responsible adult, not a vindictive little brat.

Android users installed 2 BILLION data-stealing, backdooring apps

@goldcd

Oh, okay, thanks for the heads-up. I thought the phone had to be rooted.

So it's more like taking a taxi to the worst part of the city, having the taxi driver say "you sure ?", confirming and then complaining about getting mugged.

How reassuring.

Hang on

"users who download apps from rogue marketplaces - and bypass multiple security warnings in the process "

So, you have to go to a rogue marketplace, meaning you have to root your phone because otherwise you can't download from there, then you have to decide to ignore all the security warnings (pretty much a given at that point, I guess), and then you're surprised you got pwned ?

That's like deliberately walking at night in the shadiest part of the city and being all surprised when you get mugged.

Sheesh, I'm starting to think that mobile phones lower your IQ by a fair number of points.

Hijack wireless mice, keyboards, with $15 of kit and 15 lines of code

Only tested 17 models - fair point, I missed that.

In any case, when not at my desk, my PC stays locked, so there's that.

Only 15 models ?

And my Logitech mouse & keyboard is not in the list, as far as I can see.

Given the variety of mice available on the market, I see this as a rather good thing for security.

In any case, I highly doubt that mousejacking will allow the installation of software. If I leave my work computer, I lock the screen. At that point, no installation procedure can take place. If I'm in front of my screen and the mouse starts doing weird things, I now know I should unplug the mouse dongle.

In any case, thanks for the heads-up.

Spotify hits the G-Spot, leaps into Google's cloud

What about redundancy and DR ?

I would have thought that such an organization would want to ensure 100% uptime whatever happened. Putting everything into one basket, even a basket internally redundant and failovered and whatnot such as Google (or AWS for that matter), is still only one basket.

Cloud has demonstrated that there is no vendor that can boast 100% uptime over time. Okay, some are worse than others (eh, Microsoft?), but cloud is not easy and no one is safe from unscheduled downtime.

So, is this a demonstration that one cannot easily switch from one cloud vendor to another, or is it just ignorance of proper DR protocol ?

Hackers use Microsoft security tool to pwn Microsoft security tool

Used to be their/they're, now it's affect/effect

I understand the confusion from commentards, not from writers, and especially not from writers with editors supposed to check them.

Please do not encourage the confused ones in their confusion.

Reminder: How to get a grip on your files, data that Windows 10 phones home to Microsoft

"gaming achievements"

Yup, I understand perfectly that such information must be immediately sent to Redmond to improve Windows 1 0 stability and functionality. NOT.

My solution is to not install Windows 1 0.

Browser made by China's top search engine leaks almost everything

Not really surprising

A Chinese company, based in China, is pre-empting government requirements. And we all know that the Chinese government cares not one whit about individual privacy, just like the US government but with less hypocrisy.

The real question is : will anyone outside of China use this browser ? Will the Chinese use this browser ? There are many alternatives, after all, but will a smidgen of nationalism get them to prefer a home-grown one ? Wouldn't be surprising.

FBI v Apple spat latest: Bill Gates is really upset that you all thought he was on the Feds' side

Well that's the end of that, then

I was willing to take the FBI's request at face value, but this means that the lying scumbag knew very well what he was asking.

Good on Apple's lawyers to have shed light on these shenanigans.

Bad on the government to have once again demonstrated that we simply cannot trust them.

How the country is going to solve the trust issue is beyond me, but a solution will have to be found. The country cannot continue like this and expect democracy to work.

Go hyperconverged. Or cloud. Or whatever. You won't save on hardware

So you don't save money

I think we all knew that, but it's nice to have an official confirmation. Someone needs to kick this info upstairs, because there's a lot of upper management types who are going to be quite disappointed for their bonuses.

Bill Gates denies iPhone crack demand would set precedent

Indeed, and they also want the disabling to limited to that phone, they don't want the code, and they agree to Apple being in control of the whole operation.

Really, it seems to me that the FBI is being extremely reasonable in their demands, compared to what they could have asked for.

Of course, we have to agree that, if Apple can create the limitation-erasing product for one phone, Apple can generalize the code. That is most likely the bugbear that everyone is harping on right now. And, given the NSA's attitude of "what we're doing is legal", it is not surprising that people are looking at their copy of the Constitution and seeing a whole portion of the text being erased and that is not making them feel better.

So, all in all, the FBI's request may be eminently reasonable, but it comes after a literal goatse from the government over individual liberties, so I guess the backlash is deserved on top of being understandable.

Re: keylogger

Well, PCWorld says it does, and WinBeta says it doesn't. Geek says yeah, but.

How much you trust any of them is up to you to determine.

Hackers aren't so interested in your credit card data these days. That's bad news

Re: "Pod People"

As far as hackers are concerned, I'm pretty sure they already consider most of us to be beneath even Pod people. For them we are just numbers on a screen, numbers they can take and use as they please.

The odds of catching them are vanishingly small, their odds of profit are vastly superior to robbing a bank or attacking an armoured transport, and, if caught, the sentences they face are laughably short.

The only good news I take away is that, after a long period of suffering, we might end up with better international cooperation to take down the scum that steal identities, better protections in place to prevent ID theft in the first place, and a global economy that is more stable and robust thanks to global encryption.

Sorry, NSA & Co., but your worldview is going to be proven wrong by the very tool you abuse for your surveillance abilities. That little irony is the only solace we can get at the moment.

Add 'Bimodal IT' to your buzzword bingo card: Faster... more stable... faster. But stable

"it is possible to collapse different infrastructure stacks onto a single larger infrastructure capable of serving all physical, virtual and cloud concurrently"

Is it just me, or has anyone else's bullshit bingo starting ringing ?

I might be totally wrong, and I acknowledge that network storage and workload virtualization have been making strides of late, but the only collapse of infrastructure I know of involves fire trucks, ambulances and many, many wounded after an earthquake.

Somehow I doubt that switching between Amazon and Azure is going to be a question of flipping a switch, even in this rosy picture.

Wi-Fi operators must notify device users of potential data processing

Re: "The first question you should ask ..."

Should be more along the line of "So, who is paying for it and why ?".

We all know that there is no such thing as a free lunch. If someone is buying for you, they most likely expect something in return (not talking about friends here). Knowing who is offering can most often enlighten as to what the expectations are.