Posts by Pascal Monett

Jaron Lanier: Big Tech is worse than Big Oil

I agree with your points about Disney and prison, absolutely. However, the solution to that is not Google, it is voting copyright length back to where it is supposed to be. That is a problem for Parliament or Congress, not Google either.

As for Google, let's not keep wool over our own eyes. Google is a private corporation, and has pushed the law as fast as hard as it could from the beginning. Disney has nothing over Google, but who is keeping Google in check ? Nobody.

Yes, copyright laws need to be reviewed and length of copyright needs to pegged at life of author, max (and no, corporations are not authors). Personally, I think 25 years is long enough.

But what are we going to do about Google's hold on personal information that is OUR property ?

NASA saves Kepler space 'scope by turning it off and on again

Good suggestion, Lieutenant, but that is not possible without inverting the polarity, and the satellite wasn't responding to commands, so that option was off.

Carry on !

Is Microsoft's Office dev platform ready to go mainstream?

"programmatically edit Excel documents in OneDrive"

Hear that faint sound of heavy breathing ? That's all the malware scum hyperventilating at the thought of all they will be able to accomplish once they hijack an entry point into there.

Ah, Microsoft. In just two weeks you unveil OS-level QR codes and now an API for One Drive code execution. Really guys, you need to slow down. The blackhats don't have enough time to keep up with you there. Do you intend to drown them in vulns ?

Irish researchers sweep smartphones clear of super bugs

Um, you normally wash up before dinner.

If you have to wash up after, it's an entirely different set of issues.

'Impossible' EmDrive flying saucer thruster may herald new theory of inertia

Yeah, right. If we were supposed to fly, God would have given us wings.

Technology quiz reveals that nobody including quiz drafters knows anything about IT

Not a contradiction. No mention was made of people under 50, only people over 50.

Whitehall waste: Cash splashed on consultants and temps up 90% in half decade

"access to these skills in-house"

But doing that requires increasing the headcount - supposing that salaries are attractive enough to get qualified people there in the first place (I have doubts on that).

Then departments get criticized for being staff-heavy, so they lay staff off.

Then departments get criticized because they are slow and inefficient, so they hire temps while "a more permanent solution is found".

Now we criticize them for having all those temps. Return to step one and start over again.

There is no way that circle will ever be broken.

We need a merry-go-round icon.

Indian Capital Delhi bans Uber's surge pricing

"if it can't charge surge pricing, it will have fewer cars available"

I'm sorry, I thought Uber was just an intermediary and that Uber drivers were not its employees.

If that is the case, then what does surge pricing ability have to do with Uber driver availability ? Am I supposed to think that Uber drivers in India are going to decide not to offer their services because of that ?

Or is it more like Uber is dictating everything and treating drivers like employees on hand, while using wool-over-eyes techniques to avoid supporting the costs of its actions on the other ?

FBI boss: We paid at least $1.2m to crack the San Bernardino iPhone

The guy is dead. Whatever he did and whoever he contacted are known elements. What he said to those contacts is probably known as well. Given the care he demonstrated in disposing of his private equipment, it was a million-to-one that he'd be stupid enough to leave anything on the work phone - and now we know he wasn't.

If it had cost $10,000, then fine, I would agree and say go ahead, crack it. If the guy was alive, definitely crack it whatever the cost. But over a million bucks down the drain to crack a dead guy's phone that is virtually guaranteed to not have any info ? That is waste, pure and simple.

Carders cash out hundreds of millions before USA adopts EMV

The USA has a long history of not implementing anything that comes from Europe.

They laughed for ages at Europe's "monopoly money", ridiculing the colors and everything else. Now, of course, they have grudgingly followed suit because money is everything after all.

Chip & Pin is the same thing. I went on holiday in the US in 2014. When I first tried to pay gas with my card I found that, although the pump would accept my European Visa, it had maxxed the PIN length at five digits. Most people I know only use 4, but I use 6 digits. Without any way to enter the 6th digit, I couldn't use my card. I have no idea if 4-digit PIN cards work either - does it force 5 ? Whose bright idea was it to put artificial limits on PIN length ?

In any case, just like Microsoft's IE, the US has its own implementation of Chip&Pin.

Then, of course, the eternal subject of going metric. I doubt that will ever happen - the US is much to used to imposing standards on everyone else and currently has the tendency of snubbing anything that comes from Europe. Like the Bill of Rights.

Bypass the Windows AppLocker bouncer with a tweet-size command

Impressive

This hack is the result of an impressive amount of knowledge of how the inner blocks of Windows fit together, wrapped up in that moment of genius of "hey, what if I tried this ?" and bingo! a new hack is born.

It doesn't feel all that important - until some scum finds a way to use it to download some OS-hijacking malware. The real question is : how on Earth did including the means to parse a URL be considered a good idea when making the functionality list of regsvr32 ?

A part from the obvious "it's Microsoft".

Blighty ranks 38th in World Press Freedom Index

"the police have since 1984 been able to . . ."

If that was in a work of fiction, critics and public alike would pan it for lazy writing.

But it's just reality.

FBI's Tor pedo torpedoes torpedoed by United States judge

So, is there anyone to apply this reasoning to the NSA ?

"Since warrantless searches are presumptively unreasonable, and the good-faith exception is inapplicable, the evidence must be excluded."

Can someone make that stick to the current NSA hoovering of everything in order to have a warrant signed afterwards ?

Because in my view, what the NSA is doing is not very different.

Embattled 123-reg flings six months' free hosting at angry customers

"this is something we take extremely seriously"

Yeah, NOW you do.

But you didn't take it seriously enough BEFORE the brown stuff got widely dispersed, did you ?

And the irony of it all. 67 out of 115000 servers. A 0.0006% mishap that is positively trashing their reputation. I think other hosting services would do well to sit up and take notice. Operating at minimum financial cost is something that can cause great financial cost down the line.

How innocent people 'of no security interest' are mere keystrokes away in UK's spy databases

You can go collect your Good Citizen medal. And when you are shot because some spook thought that your habit of smoking on the balcony every evening at 7:45 sharp was the sign that you are in communication with terrorists, you can be consoled by the notion that you tacitly agreed to all this.

Go in peace, citizen: Big Brother is proud to have assimilated you.

Utah declares 'war on smut'

Re: Do these people never get laid?

All the time. They just don't want anyone else to. It's called puritanism - be pure because I tell you to, but don't check on me when I'm alone.

It's a case of "if at first you don't succeed . . . "

Except here they're trying to move a mountain - with a toothpick.

Saw-inspired horror slowly deletes your PC's files as you scramble to pay the ransom

Simply because he's that good.

Clucking hell! Farcical free-range egg standard pecked apart by app

I approved of that the first time I heard him say it - and I still approve of it.

And that is something that could actually be made legal. Any donation of above a certain amount and on goes a sticker with the name of the donor (or the org, whichever is paying).

I think that should be mandatory in any country that boasts of being democratic.

Four bugs bait hooks in Asian phishing trip

Re: What CRETIN allowed it?

What a question. The vulns are for Microsoft Rich Text Format. They made VBA, ActiveX and Outlook, you didn't really think they'd stop there, did you ?

All-Python malware nasty bites Windows victims in Poland

Seriousness of the threat

This is what it can do :

PWOLauncher : Download/execute file, or execute local file

PWOHTTPD : Spawn a HTTP server on the victim machine

PWOKeyLogger : Log keystrokes on the victim machine

PWOMiner : Mine bitcoins using the victim CPU/GPU

PWOPyExec : Execute Python code

PWOQuery : Query remote URL and return results

This list basically means that are in remote control of infected PCs. They can detect passwords, launch whatever they want and generally benefit from all the resources of the machine.

I rank that as rather serious. I certainly hope it can be detected and blocked by my current AV solution, although I must admit that I tend to not download its targeted carriers (Quick PDF to Word, XoristDecryptor, Easy Barcode Creator, Kingston Format Utility and the others are really not in my interest zone).

So you’d sod off to China to escape the EU, Google? Really?

Go to China - go ahead

And move there personally as well, please.

See how well you do when your HQ is cut off from the rest of the world because the Chairman didn't like a remark you made on Twitter. See how easy it will be to get things running again when you cannot contact any government employee because as soon as you say your name they hang up on you. Try to get a meeting with a high-ranking official and see how it is to be told that he is busy and cannot see you before the end of next month.

You're used to calling the shots around here. I'm pretty sure the first thing Beijing will do is put you back in your place and hard. You'll be begging them to let you run your business again, and they'll keep the leash tight once you've gotten the message.

No, you won't go to China. You're much more comfortable calling senators on a whim.

What's wrong with the Daily Mail Group buying Yahoo?

What's wrong with the Daily Mail buying Yahoo?

Nothing.

Yahoo! doesn't need anyone's help to get worse, so being bought by the Daily Mail might actually make it better.

5G is looming, but network innovations are needed far more urgently

6000 simultaneous wifi connections at 12MBps

Sounds great. Any word on security ? Is a single malware going to be able to take over 6000 handsets at that speed ?

No mistake, we are going to need to improve bandwidth, if only because of all the stupid doodads IoT is trying to make us wear (before we grow bored of them). Still, I'd like a modicum of attention paid to keeping things all nice and secure.

UK authorities probe 'drone hitting plane at Heathrow'

Kudos to the idiot responsible

Keep this kind of thing up and, sooner or later, a plane will go down in flames. I hope the Police will find him and the judge will make an example of him. This kind of stupidity must stop.

In related matters, it's curious how a journalist coming back from talking with Snowden was detained (however long) under terrorist laws, but in this case nobody is even mentioning the term when lives were clearly at risk.

UK web host 123-Reg goes TITSUP, customer servers evaporate

"expresses sympathy for anybody without a proper backup"

Well that sounds very professional. We screwed up and we're very sorry that you don't have a backup.

That's not even a Cloud issue, it's a hosting one, but here we go again with the consequences of trusting your data to someone else's infrastructure. Somebody goofed, which happens, and websites were deleted. Okay, human error, statistically unavoidable, but compounded by a total lack of data backup - leaving customers up the creek to provide their own paddle.

Well it's a choice and it was probably in the T&Cs, but I'll wager there are a bunch of websiteless companies that are, at this point, seriously re-examining their level of acceptable hosting costs and guarantees while looking over other hosting companies' offerings.

I know I would be.

Woz says wearables – even Apple Watch – aren't 'compelling'

I really appreciated that Wozniak clearly stated that requiring a network connection makes things less useful.

At this point in time we are apparently trying to tie ourselves to the Internet for everything we do, and that means that anytime the Internet is not available, we cannot do anything.

In the future, at some point, I am convinced that the Internet will be available everywhere and all the time, with ample bandwidth for all, but right now that is simply not the case. So, while it may be nice when it works, you still need a backup plan for when it doesn't.

I prefer to skip the hassle and go straight to what works all the time, every time.

Chilling evidence emerges of Kilocat weapon

Brilliant investigative journalism at its Friday finest

A hearty congratulations, El Reg, for a very in-depth article on yet more DARPA shenanigans. I do hope that, when the cat is finally let out of the bag, people will remember that it was revealed here first.

Well done. Very well done.

P.S. need a cat icon - or maybe a kilocat one.

Web backup biz Monster Cloud monstered after monster price hike

Re: This is quite missleading

"costs of running our services have risen"

Risen is, in this case, a mild euphemism. Tell you what, what would you say if your landlord switched your lease from £200 a month to £180 daily ? Because that is just about what you did.

I do believe you'd tell him to get stuffed and go straight to the beak.

If your costs well and truly have been multiplied by a factor of 10 or more, it only demonstrates very poor planning on your part. Telecoms companies invest billions and raise cents. You may have invested millions, but you are raising fistfuls.

Still, points for wading in and trying to explain without coming off as totally patronizing. I'll check you guys out in a year or so - maybe you'll have learned a few lessons that make you a worthwhile partner by then. For now, I'll pass.

Another dot com manager is going to bite the bullet

You have to be a dot com idiot to go tout unlimited anything for a fixed, yearly price and expect to generate profit.

This is a company that clearly abused its customers to get the ball rolling and is now turning the screws to Frighteningly Tight in one go to get profits flowing. From 50 a year to 30 a month ? If that is not called skyrocketing I don't know what is.

Except that this is the Internet; they are not the sole provider of their type of service and they are not an incumbent behemoth that customers cannot avoid using.

I hope that karma is going to burn this company as badly as it deserves to be.

BOFH: If you liked it then you should've put the internet in it

Re: the messy end

You need to be more specific. I've seen quite a few messy ends in the pub and they were nowhere near a belt buckle.

Well, not initially, that is.

Music's value gap? Follow the money trail back to Google

"the record company would eat the losses if the album stiffed"

That would have been nice, but history shows that the record company would bill everything to the musicians anyway thanks to contractual clauses concerning advances. I urge you to take a look at the linked article, specifically the paragraph concerning said advances.

Then remember one thing : the majors are not in it for the music, they're in it for the money. Anything they can do to avoid paying, they will.

Admin fishes dirty office chat from mistyped-email bin and then ...?

False moral issue, and bad functionality setup

Correcting recipient addresses does in no way imply that you can read the contents.

What he should have done is set up an application that only shows the recipient list and hides the content. Anyone asking could therefor be shown the application and rest easy that their smutty secrets remain hidden. And he could have lived his life blissfully unaware of the rampant beast lurking below.

Cinema boss gives up making kids turn off phones: 'That's not how they live their life'

Until they start working, that is, and the heavy cluebat of reality hits them in face with rent, taxes and debt. That's when they start down the path of understanding that nothing is actually free in this life and all work deserves remuneration.

Not to mention the fun it will be with all those Siri/Cortana-enabled phones waking up at various times because some sound in the film triggered a response.

Because obviously nobody is going to think to put them on mute any better than they do today.

I used to be a cinema-goer. I had a subscription at my local multiplex, and wife and I would go almost every week. Before the mobile phone swamped the world, when the film started you could expect the most excited blabbermouths to calm down and actually watch the film after a few minutes. Nowadays ? Hopeless.

So I've abandoned going to the cinema. I prefer waiting for the DVD, even if it means I'm four months behind. Don't care about that - that is how much I hate the "cinema experience" today. This move has zero impact on that decision.

FOUR Avatar sequels

"so you go to the multiplex"

I don't do that anymore. I can't stand the obnoxiousness, the talking, the phoning, the munching and all the other stuff "moviegoers" are doing instead of actually watching the bloody film they complain about paying the price for.

So I let other people do that, I listen to their comments about it then I buy the DVD when it comes out if I'm really interested. I don't mind the waiting time, I prefer to watch a film in the peace of my own home with a drink in hand. And I can have popcorn if I want as well.

Microsoft explains which cloud security problems are your problem

Not bad, but something is still missing

I see no explanation concerning security against NSA snooping and National Security Letters for non-US companies.

So, Microsoft, care to clarify on that point ?

US anti-encryption law is so 'braindead' it will outlaw file compression

Re: Technocrat vs Bureaucrat

To summarize then :

Impossible for a bureaucrat simply means the opposition has better funding.

Impossible for a technocrat means Science needs better funding.

ExoMars works! 2 Mbit/s link established and camera snapping

Astounding !

A 2MBPS connection in space between planets ? While it is hundreds of thousands of kilometres away ?

Great news for Science.

But, pray tell, if the black blotchy bits are stars, then the white blotchy bit is . . . a black hole ?

Nah, just kidding. But it had to be said.

You won't believe this, but… nothing useful found on Farook iPhone

Re: "A square cm of platter would still contain huge chunks of data"

I'd really be interested in knowing how one would arrange reading just one square centimetre of a broken HDD platter when all you have is that piece of it.

Electron microscope, maybe ?

Um, you might want to turn your TV back on. Apparently many US politicians are still screaming for encryption to be broken - and most of them are the candidates.

Flying Spaghetti Monster is not God, rules mortal judge

@Symon

I said that satire is a modern affliction. I did not say that it didn't exist before 1950.

I am well aware of satire used as social commentary in ancient Greece, although I do thank you for providing that link, and I've learned something about the scribes of Ancient Egypt.

However, your comment basically does not contradict my intent, which is to say that it is only today that everything is satire and that religions in those days hardly knew the meaning of the word.

Not to mention the dangers of being a Court Jester.

Re: Apologies in advance to all Christians......

The book never made the claim to December. I think the word didn't even exist when the book was written.

It is the Roman Catholic Church which took to parasiting local customs to replace them with Vatican-approved versions that made that decision. So the RCC was the first organization to uphold the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish method that another modern company made so prevalent.

As for Adam & Eve, you're the one inferring that they found wives outside. The Bible never says that, so it infers implicitly to huge amounts of incest. And, if Mitochondrial Eve is anything to go by, well, there just may be a grain of truth to it.

I think the origin of Christianity is rather well-known

The big difference with today is that today we have the Internet and 99% of the population knows how to read. That is rather the reverse of those times where the Internet was the passing minstrel and less than 1% of the population knew how to read.

Jesus was a Jewish Arab. He did not call himself Christian, obviously. Christianity was brought about in the following 300+ years after his death. I think that, for a movement that started so long ago, it's history is pretty well documented - mainly the fact the early Christians were basically considered a splinter sect from the Jews.

If we keep our Internet intact, I think that, 2,000 years from know we'll still be able to look up Scientology and Christianity and anyone with a brain will see that there is a very, very big difference between the two.

In any case, satire is a modern affliction. No religious movement of the time was started for the sake of satire, I'm pretty sure of that.

Hey, Atlantis Computing. What the heck is this in your EULA?

Isn't that basically already banned ?

I thought that abusive contractual clauses were always struck down by a judge.

That clause is clearly abusive and in contradiction with Free Speech (enjoy it while you still have it), so I doubt very much that Atlantis Computing would have a snowball's proverbial to win such a case.

And there is precedent on this kind of manoeuver, those wacky voting machine nutcases at Diebold were shot down for exactly that, if I'm not mistaken.

Of course, it does mean going to trial, which companies have a general tendency to not like (except Microsoft), unless the judge throws the case out altogether before accepting the case. I think they can do that, can they ?

Google broke its own cloud AGAIN, with TWO software bugs

You get genuine resilience if you can manage the nightmare of getting two different Cloud providers to handle the same data without bungling things.

Apparently, Cloud is hard enough as it is with ONE provider. Put another one the mix and you just might become the poster child for a How Not To Do Cloud article.

But yeah, in theory redundancy is based on two of a thing.

Apparently there are at least 5 DevOps Managers that disagree with you.

I bless the reins down on .africa ... Dot-word injunction hits ICANN

What is that going to change ?

ICANN is specialized in pretending that nothing anyone else decides concerns it, has relevance, is pertinent or conforms to its internal decisions.

Any external attempt to influence it has forever been met with "Nope, not required" or "Well, we'll give it a thought", whilst ICANN continues on its merry way to do whatever it wants.

I seriously see no hope for change until the entire Board is thrown directly into the slammer and a new one brought in that is determined to set things right.

Line by line, how the US anti-encryption bill will kill our privacy, security

Heretic !

How dare you bring reality to the debate ! You informed anarchist, you !

This is not about particular occurences, this is about furthering the domination of Government over The People by using handwaving, strawman arguments and religiously chanting the magic password (ie terrism).

You're ruining everything they're fighting for !

Name me a US-based cloud service that the US government cannot access "at will".

Just one.

Those National Security letters don't take all that long to print, you know.