Posts by Pascal Monett

Child abuse, drug sales, terrorism fears: Why cops halted a library's Tor relay ... for a month

Democracy, yes, undoubtedly.

Politicians ? Less so. Much less.

These US Presidential contestants can't even secure their websites – what hope for America?

No, you're supposed to believe that you're electing them.

If the guy you think you elected actually gets the job, you have nothing to do with it.

Only paying for Microsoft software that you use? It's coming

This transitional period is fascinating

Microsoft is desperately trying to extract itself from the desktop like a mammoth in a tar pit tries to reach solid ground.

The PC sales plummeting means that MS is suffering revenue drop in what used to keep it rolling in cash, and the Internet is already chock full of powerful contenders with tools available that can very well keep MS under the 50% of the market rate.

MS risks losing its monopoly and become just another cloud purveyor, something which will almost certainly happen anyway as soon as the upcoming Android-using generation reaches office desks and finds that (by then) there is nothing MS products do that Google Docs cannot.

Watching MS's frantic struggle is somewhat cathartic, as well as enlightening. I don't think MS can avoid the lessening of its status, but whatever happens will probably become an exercise for future CEO studies.

Things you should know about the hard work of home working

I believe I see your point now, but I still disagree.

I know a number of self-employed people in various service industries (plumbing, decoration and such). They never say they're working at home. They do mention that their office is at home, but they say that they work on site.

People who work AT home are most likely people who do work for customers on the Internet, or who can be contacted via the Internet. Translators and such, I would venture. Those people don't work on site, I would think, or rarely. Maybe also people who build or recover furniture. They will leave home to look for new acquisitions, or to bring their wares to various selling points. They won't likely do work on site either.

Re: Terminology

Sorry, but I see no confusion. A tech going from customer site to customer site is working on site, not from home.

Working from home is, I believe, generally understood as working from one's own home.

I like working from home

I have always enjoyed working from home. In my line of expertise, there often isn't anyone to ask any questions to, so even in the office I'm mostly on my own. To me, that means that the time I waste to get to and back from the office would be better spent working in my home office when I can.

Of course, I can't often enough, because as a consultant, you can't go and tell your customers that it would be nice if they could let you work from home. Plus I always need to talk to people to know what data structures to use or what data format I will be receiving.

But, in between contracts, a day or two working from home is always welcome.

LinkedIn infosec bod proffers DIY Ubiquiti fix for automation zero day

Ubiquiti

Apparently, the company publishes rubbish insufficiently tested code, then not only ignores bug submissions but actively attempts to suppress them without offering any response to anyone.

I can accept errors in code, I make enough of my own. I have trouble accepting a company that ignores dangerous bug submissions. I cannot accept a company that attempts to suppress bug reports.

Ubiquiti is now a name that I will avoid in future.

Indianapolis man paints his ball every day – for FORTY YEARS

Well, a hobby is a hobby

Let's see.

1) Paint baseball every day for fourty years

2) Get universally known as the wierdo with a painting fetish

3) Start charging for humongous ball of paint viewing

4) Profit !

Orange juices internet of things

Smart Cities

That, right there, is The Beginning Of The End.

Mark my words.

Adobe patches Flash dirty dozen, ignores 155 in Shockwave shocker

the latest update introduces shiny features...

No ! No, no and NO !

You don't go putting in NEW features when the EXISTING features are a complete security mess.

Every time I hear of a Flash update it's always "correcting" dozens of security issues.

Finish the bloody job first, you morons, then TRY to add new features without inventing 400 squillion new security issues.

Michigan sues HP after 'botched' $49m upgrade leaves US state in 1960s mainframe hell

HP said in a statement that it "looks forward to a favorable resolution in court."

Sure.

And I look foreward to winning the lottery.

I might actually have a better chance.

Our cookies save you from TERRORISTS, Facebook thunders to Belgian judge

"Lefebvre told the court the company [..] is actually an info-sec measure"

So now it's official : Facebook is the public face of the NSA and the two work hand-in-hand (or should I say, server-in-server ?).

Thank you for that information, Mr. Lefebvre. I will be repeating it.

AVG to flog your web browsing, search history from mid-October

I recommend Windows Defender, Microsoft Security Essentials and Firefox with NoScript and AdBlocker.

Firefox is an oldie, no need to explain here, but since Win7 I have to admit having found no reason to use anything else but MS products for PC defense. I have repeatedly had friends' and acquaintances hardware in my hands with AV products from all over the map to scrub. Every time I removed the installed AV product, installed MSE and lo and behold, it found malware that the others had blissfully ignored.

I'm not saying MSE is perfect, it is a Microsoft product after all, but as far as AV/anti-malware goes, it does a good job.

And it's free.

An will likely never get any popups for a pay version, or for ads.

Re: How much are they gathering which isn't already collected by Google?

The fact that one sleazeball has his hand in your pockets doesn't mean that it's open season on your personal belongings for all the others.

Megaupload extradition: Rotund web baron Kim Dotcom appears in court

Re: Huh, whaa?

Indeed. I gather, then, that the entire population of France is apparently guilty of illegal gas pumping and should be shipped to Oregon and New Jersey for trial.

There is no chance that such an argument could impress any judge with half a brain. Just using that argument should be grounds for throwing the case out and being subject to a contempt of court case.

Parrish has vanished: NetApp chief marketeer leaves the parish

"Kurian wants to put his stamp on NetApp's marketing"

Psychopath on a roll, then.

Mutual my ass. She was told to get the hell out of Dodge, or else.

OFFICIAL: Facebook growth BIGGER THAN ... JESUS, the INTERNET!

"growth in internet users is below 10 per cent for the fourth year in a row"

What ?

So who's no longer creating profiles for their little doggies/skunks/lizards ?

Eight things people forget when buying infrastructure

Interesting article

Very interesting comment section.

A number of dyed-in-the-wool network admins lurking about, I'd wager.

Good show, chaps ! I certainly learned something here.

DRIVERLESS cars: Apple ups the ante with meeting in California

Come now, you know that'll happen anyway.

Ouch! Microsoft sues recycling firm over 70K stolen Office licenses

EULA : Exercising Unique Lawyer Arguments to shirk any and every responsibility and/or liability

But you still have to pay to get shafted.

Police Scotland fingered for breaching RIPA code 'multiple' times

Of course not. Judge Dredd IS the code.

Microsoft starts to fix Start Menu in new Windows 10 preview

Re: Those seeking to find fault will always find one

Especially when Microsoft is becoming specialized in flinging faults at your face that can't really avoid noticing.

Hello? HELLO? Major Skype outage hits folk WORLDWIDE

Repeat after me

The Cloud is magical. The Cloud solves all your problems. The Cloud is always with you. The Cloud is always reliable.

At least that's the drivel Cloud apologists wish us to believe.

But they never have to contend with reality.

Pentagon on manual mission to build nation-wide security database

"almost every major US weapons system contained vulnerabilities"

Almost ?

So there's one that doesn't contain vulnerabilities ?

That's a win, then !

Which one is it ? Oh, it's the coffee planner. Oh well.

Astro-boffins plan 3D plot of the universe

Baryon Acoustic Oscillations

Why, upon reading that, did I immediately envision a goggle-bearing, leather cape-wearing minion with a 3/17 occipital left-leaning wrench in hand, trying to find the Acoustic Oscillator in a storehouse full of big complexe machenes ?

AWS outage knocks Amazon, Netflix, Tinder and IMDb in MEGA data collapse

The main, vast difference between the Cloud falling over and the server room of an individual company is the fact that the company's servers falling over only impacts that company and its clients.

When the Cloud falls down, it takes ALL ITS CUSTOMERS with it, and all of THEIR customers are impacted. That is exponentially different.

And I thought that IT was all about removing Single Point of Failure faults, silly me.

US govt: Why we're OK with letting control of the internet slip into ICANN's hands

So the Internet we know is doomed

The despicable manglement of ICANN is going get its grubby mitts on even more power when it cannot begin to be honest and transparent over what power it already has, great idea. I wonder if somebody isn't planning a career change to become an ICANN board member.

Oh well, seems that the future of the Internet will be regionalized, with countries managing their own Internet locally and plenty of issues with global communications. Then again, most people just want the thing to work, Big Money will want it to work, and the Cat Video cabal will positively shred all the drapes until it works, so maybe ICANN is not all that important anyways and we will still have access to our porn, uh, I mean news sites in this new Internet future.

RFID wants to TRACK my TODGER, so I am going to CUT it OFF

Yes, it's all fun and games until the anti-terrorist brigade bursts through the doors shouting at you and pointing their bloody big guns every which way and you get cuffed and rushed off to a dark cell where a blinding light is shown in your face and you have to answer all manner of crazy questions for 48 hours before they are satisfied that you a) did not actually have a bomb, b) do not have a copy of the Terrorist handbook or How To Make A Bomb In Your Basement and c) don't have an actual beard, it's just stubble from 48 hours of not having shaved.

Then, with luck, they let you out with a stern warning and directions for the nearest hospital to treat the bullet you took through the foot when they manhandled you.

If you're not lucky, you get one last bullet and the newspapers get to headline the death of an ISIS terrorist at the hands of swift, citizenry-protecting police forces.

Ad-blocking super-weapon axed by maker for being TOO effective

You're 2 days late on that.

Should've read the comments before posting. The first 5 posts already laid that theory out.

American Airlines: TITSUP computers ground US flights

Maybe they bought a bit too much into the "disruptive technology" marketspeak ?

Or they tried the Cloud ?

Schneider patches yet ANOTHER dumb vuln

Okay, so it's a stupid mistake

But it's an industrial thingy. Who says the threat was real ? If companies set up the production network physically airgapped from the Internet, then what's the problem ?

Oh, of course, silly me. Expecting production lines to be separate from beancounter PCs who obviously have to access Facebook as well when they're not providing colored charts to Upper Manglement detailing the day's production down to the minute.

Ok, I'm off.

Banks team to paint shared target on Target

Yes, it's the gift that never stops giving.

Bigger – and better? How your IT infrastructure budget will change

Ah, the magical Cloud

What I get from this article is that companies will be happy paying 3 times the amount they do now because Cloud.

Cloud is magical. Cloud is always there. Cloud is reliable. Cloud is always with you.

Repeat while banging your head against the wall until you believe it.

Because obviously backhoes are now extinct and land lines never go down. Because cloud providers never fold in 48h any more (that is sooo last century - oh wait, actually no, it's still this century). And because, with the Cloud, users will never, ever lose their spreadsheet or email any more.

Not to mention, of course, that the Cloud protects your data from anyone who is not supposed to have access to it (anyone besides the 60,000 employees of NSA, and the 6,000 or so of the GCHQ, plus however many of your own government, of course).

My, my, the bubble is really growing. It'll make a big pop before it's all done.

Human Rights Watch demands to know who's been snooping on it

The Big Brother Awards

They must be working overtime these days . . .

DMCA takedown bots must respect 'fair use' of copyright – US appeals court

music companies should not be allowed to "rely solely on a computer algorithm."

Finally, after a decade of passing through the system, a drop of common sense is filtered through the labyrinth of the legal system.

And then we learn that it changes nothing.

Hopefully, in future, this case will become a landmark decision and reversing DCMA takedown notices will be easier.

Ashley Madison lawsuit drops GoDaddy and Amazon as defendants

Re: What's the appropriate life sentence for going onto a morally shady website?

People are starting to realize that there is only one time zone on the Internet : Now. Everything you do, everywhere you go, everything you post is something that can be recorded and, once recorded, will never disappear.

As such, when acting on the Internet, you have to keep in mind that you might need to defend your acts at some point in the future, and you cannot count on anyone to keep whatever shady stuff secret. Some do, but it's a bad idea to count on it.

It is a harsh lesson, and some will pay more dearly to learn it than others, but this AM business will at least serve as an additional warning to people : your data is not secret on the Web.

Yeah, well when you're too stupid to put the money in properly securing your data, it seems to be a reflex to put it down in trying to plug leaks. It's useless, obviously, but hey, if they were intelligent they would've done a better job of the security in the first place, so . . .

Of course, this remark has nothing to do with the 17 other defendants who do not appear to be AM manglement. Maybe they don't know that there is no way to put the cat back in the bag on the Internet. Maybe they've never heard of the Streisand effect. Maybe they do know and still have a good reason to go through with this useless action. I do wonder why they're putting themselves in the same basket as those who are responsible for their problems in the first place, though.

But I find it hilarious that AM management is now claiming "irreparable damages". All those emails joking about security improvements must be haunting their nights now. And that's a good thing.

ESA tries UPLOADING PATCH to Philae lander to fix radios

Well

That puts things in perspective compared to trying to find out why some driver can't talk to some piece of equipment anymore.

And I have the luxury of turning it off and on again.

Reviewed: Shadowrun: Hong Kong, Until Dawn, Hearthstone expansion and more

For Shadowrun Hong Kong, Steam says the following :

OS: Windows XP SP3/Vista/Windows 7 & 8

Processor: x86-compatible 1.8GHz or faster processor

Memory: 2 GB RAM

Graphics: DirectX compatible 3D graphics card with at least 256MB of addressable memory

DirectX: Version 9.0

Hard Drive: 10 GB available space

Don't know if you have to multiply everything by, 2, 4 or 10 to be sure, but I'm pretty certain that a 256MB graphics card is going to severely disappoint you.

Disney's light-bulb moment: build TCP into LEDs for IoT comms

Re: do I have to leave the lights on all the time?

Of course not, you'll have an app on your mobile to dim them to almost-darkness, while the TCP-IP stack retains power for transmitting.

All you need to do is install the app, agree to it siphoning your GPS, storage and camera data and log on automatically to Facebook and Twitter, and you're all set to live in the golden age of damn, where's my phone so I can shut off the damn light ? My 2,438 friends need to know I shut my light off.

DARPA adds 'sense of touch' to robot hand

Re: How long until a company patents the 5 senses?

With the USPTO ?

Yesterday.

Look! Up in the sky! It's letters on a plane read with a 250MP camera

Re: Atacama dessert

Does that have chocolate in it ?

Cause if it does, I'm all for it.

USA, China find common cyber-enemy within

One commonly accepted law is 9 grams of lead and the invoice of the funeral costs to the family.

Vanished global warming may not return – UK Met Office

Article based on report from a government agency

Is this going to prevent Lewis Page bashers from indulging in their favorite activity ?

Don't think so.

How did jihadists hack into top UK ministerial emails if no security breach took place?

Didn't have to break into him, they just waved a chocolate bar.

'I promise you I will win', says completely sane presidential candidate John McAfee

"requiring users to actively install unsupported 3rd-party software into Messenger"

Oh, right. Obviously, that has never happened before.

Pro tip: Servers belong in dry server rooms, not wet cloakrooms

Backup

How is it possible to not know that there is only one backup tape, and not be aware of what that means ?

Not knowing IT is not an excuse here, you don't need to be a mechanic to know that your car needs refueling. People know tapes, we've had VCR technology for more than a decade (okay, that was a decade ago now, but still). So people should know that a backup is done on a tape, then you put in another tape. It's not rocket science.

This is a clear case of "It's all magic and I don't understand anything anyways, so nothing can go wrong". Well that only works as long as you're lucky, and these idiots were extremely lucky.

Japan 'charges MtGox baron Mark Karpeles with BTC embezzlement'

So, 3 countries, 3 court cases

This guy is apparently a real bastard. When you've got a police file in 3 different countries (not counting speeding tickets, obviously), you shouldn't be allowed to be responsible for anything more than your car, to say nothing of a company.

Hollywood takes a beating in Oscar cybersquatting battle

Millions in damages, eh ?

This case is a brilliant landmark in how much MPAA/RIAA etc are pushing the envelope to claim horrifying damages due to piracy, whereas the real figures have nothing to do with their hysterical claims.

Good on GoDaddy to have had the balls not to bend over and settle. That is the kind of behavior which encourages those bastards to go ahead with the hype. Now we finally have a proper case where the claims have been laid bare and found lacking. This will hopefully throw some water on the whole process, and it is not a bad thing either to demonstrate that just because you're Hollywood doesn't mean that you can parade around the courts and pocket millions by extorting your victims out of the judge's view.

Excellus healthcare hack puts 10m Americans at risk of identity theft

2015 is bumper crop for personal details market

I wonder how soon we'll have investment portfolios in it ?