Posts by Pascal Monett

Yahoo! kills! search! APIs!, games! and! Astrology! site!

Well they didn't say a billion unique visitors a day.

Feds tell court: Apple 'deliberately raised technological barriers' to thwart iPhone warrant

@Charles 9

"how do you arrest someone who's protected by sovereignty?"

Thank you for revealing that you work for the NSA.

Because only the NSA thinks about arresting people in other countries.

The rest of the world writes an extradition request - because the "suspect" is PROTECTED BY SOVEREIGNTY. Way to demonstrate that you forgot to engage your brain when posting. Which explains how you could think of having his phone when he's in another country.

You must live in Colorado. Go on smoking, it's apparently good stuff.

It does seem rather obvious that, had it been Mexicans (or any other non-white group), it most likely wouldn't have stayed in the news so long.

On the other hand, the Masters must keep the plebs scared, so that's a reason to keep it on the air.

Re: Single case Today --- ?? tomorrow...

Absolutely. And saying things like "the order does not compel it to unlock other iPhones" as if it is a valid point for Apple to comply is just insulting our intelligence.

I find it hilarious that the FBI is accusing Apple of "raising barriers deliberately" to "thwart the law".

It's called progress, you asshole. And it's the law that will have to adapt, because encryption ain't going away any more.

Maybe if you hadn't been so greedy about data collection, maybe if you'd thought about it a bit and only took what you could use, maybe then this world would still be surfing in blissful ignorance.

But you didn't do that. You acted like a hog at a buffet and now you're pissed that there's a guard at the door that won't let you in any more.

Well tough if up, Suit Man. Go back to tailing actual suspects, like you're supposed to. Maybe some criminals will escape you, for a while, but there will be a lot less innocents that will be harassed, and that is a Good Thing (tm).

Obama puts down his encrypted phone long enough to tell us: Knock it off with the encryption

And to think that this is the guy who got a Nobel Peace Prize simply for being elected.

He has finally shown what he actually is : a puppet in the hands of the true power in America - the men who have the money.

Those men are white, old and paranoid. They are the 1%ers who need to keep the money flowing (towards them), and the only way they to do that is to keep people scared and under control.

Breaking encryption is not going to help against terrorists. The CIA knew all about the men who committed the atrocities of 9/11 and they did nothing to stop it. Had they had access to encrypted data, nothing would have changed.

No, breaking encryption is just another feather in the cap of the fascists who are now running this once great country. One more means of tapping into the lives of people in order to break the ones who risk being a nuisance - the people who want to stand up for their rights.

But that is the one great thing that America still is - a country that can. I'm hoping that, when it comes to doing, the solution will not be too bloody.

I beg you, please don't back up that secret directory full of photos!

I have to say I'm a bit frustrated here

All those years of IT support for mates and some acquaintances and I have never, ever found anything even remotely racy on any of them.

And I know none of them have ever had anything as technical as an external disk.

I must have very boring friends.

Microsoft adds 'non-security updates' to security patches

Re: Reverse class action lawsuit

Sorry ?

You mean for Microsoft to sue all its customers ?

Nope, I'm not really with you on that one.

I think the real point is that, with Vista and 8, Microsoft learned the hard way that users who have the choice risk exercising that choice. And that risk cost Microsoft money.

Knowing that Microsoft, despite all its money, still doesn't actually own the government, and knowing that goon squads are generally frowned on, Microsoft could not actually, physically force everyone to go to Windows 1 0. So how could Microsoft eliminate the risk ?

It's like micropayments in the pseudo "free"-to-play games. When everything is based on micropayments, you end up paying. Well Microsoft took that idea and turned it into micro-updates. Every little update is now an opportunity to shovel another way of getting the user to install Windows 1 0. And with the price point at $0, most users should logically make the jump. Except they're not, not in massive numbers anyway.

What really surprises me is that Microsoft is still so candid about it in its KB articles. I suppose that, at one point, there will be a security patch where Microsoft just says "Fuck it, Windows 1 0 is the security patch".

I'm already watching this from the side lines. Windows Update is disabled on my machine, so I can learn about the surprises like this beforehand instead of blindly walking into it and having to clean up after the fact.

How a Brexit could stop UK biz and Europe swapping personal data

But that is the beauty of the wording

"Sir, an ISIS faction is planning an attack on us !"

"Oh yeah ? Are you sure ?"

"Yes sir, we have intercepts that Youssouf Benterrorist is in contact with several other elements for an upcoming action:"

"And are you sure it is him that is implicated ?"

"Well, the intercepts . ."

"But are you sure of the validity of the intercepts ?"

"Ah, I see. No sir, not 100%"

"Good man. Go for global collection, then."

"Right away, sir."

Web servers should give browsers a leg-up, say MIT boffins

"Those dependencies are why pages load so slow"

Those dependencies are why I use NoScript and UBlock Origin.

I rarely have page loading issues.

Behold, Microsoft SQL Server on Linux – and a firm screw-you to Oracle

Re: "No one does demos on anything that isn’t ironclad,"

If there is anything that History has taught us techies, it is that no demo is ironclad.

I'm fairly sure that every single person posting in Reg forums has been in the situation where they wanted to show a perfectly functional product, but something went wrong and the product chose that exact time to bug.

I know it has happened to me.

But hey, another sweeping declaration from a Gartner guy. That's what they specialize in after all.

Microsoft's Technet article on telemetry

Microsoft has a rather complete article on Windows 1 0 telemetry here.

In the second paragraph, it is stated that "You can configure telemetry at the lowest level for your edition of Windows" - note "lowest level" and not "off".

It does say in the following paragraphs that you can turn off the services that do the phoning home, but that deprives you of the services instead of just stopping the telemetry, so I'd say that saying you can't turn off all telemetry is rather true.

Heartless hackers break into Florida cancer clinic network – 2.2 million records exposed

Well would you look at that

Seems our daily quota has been reached for the day.

Time for a cold one, then.

Ad-slinger Opera adds ad-blocking tech to its browser

History shows that young, sleek and efficient add-ons are never chosen for deals with any platform.

It's always the bloated, way-past-their-prime, drowning-in-useless-gimmicks add-ons that are preferred.

With the added advantage of having sold out to Google, APB was a shoe-in for the contract. Nothing else had a chance.

Data protection: Don't be an emotional knee jerk. When it comes to the law, RTFM

The NSA knows all about your safe list.

And it is barely amused.

Cisco says CLI becoming interface of last resort

I doubt the CLI will ever disappear

The CLI is indispensable as a surgical tool to quickly and efficiently cut through the layers of GUI obfuscation and deal with the issue at hand.

But I do think that all the virtualization and hypervisor-level management means that it is likely to be less used in the future.

"Interface of last resort" is a perfectly apt name. Sometimes the CLI is the last line of defence.

Airbus' Mars plane precursor survives pressure test

Re: How do you deploy them at Mars?

On Mars, you'll apparently be expecting two pilots to do the job. That is feasible.

The biggest question for the moment is indeed how to get the plane to Mars. 1800 pounds of mass is within the limits of what a rocket can lift into orbit, but the bigger issue is the wingspan. 84 feet translates to around 25 meters, half of that is thus around 12 meters (taking the width of the fuselage into account). I don't have any figures on the length of the fuselage, but the available drawings seem to indicate that one wing is longer than the fuselage itself, so I'm taking wing length as principal constraint.

I don't think a rocket can house a 12-meter structure at its top safely. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think it would be better to have that plane as blueprints for the trip, and have it built locally with on-site materials.

Which, obviously, requires that the materials be available on Mars, which is probably not going to happen anytime this century, but hey, next century's colony will have a plane.

That's still cool.

UK Ministry of Justice secure email system browns out

Indeed, one wonders how the system is monitored. Is the admin just getting to his desk in the morning and waiting for calls to tell him there's a problem ?

Or is it more like the admin has been screaming for additional capacity for the past year, and now that the whole things is falling under its own weight, somebody is grudgingly accepting to sign the check ?

Because replacing the whole system sounds like they seriously underestimated the workload initially and, now that they have the usage figures, they realize that the existing infrastructure was hopelessly lacking in scaling ability, thus the wholesale replacement.

Whatever the reason, this is just another example of non-existent foresight and total lack of planning.

Approved: Master plan to end US gov control of internet's highest level

The Internet is made to route around blockage

If ICANN becomes a blocking point, I am certain the Internet WILL find a way around it.

That is why I find all this posturing totally ridiculous. ICANN does not own the Internet, nor does it have the power to impose anything on people that do not work for it and do not need it to attain their goals. The only reason ICANN still has any sort of position in the matter is imply due to the professionalism of all the rest of the Internet which, for some reason that is beyond me, accept this farce of an organisation as the lesser of two evils (the other being what, I wonder ?).

I can perfectly envisage the day that DNS operators will simply get together and say "okay, enough is enough - from now on WE decide what we're doing and we're setting up an independent committee to handle that".

And there is eff all ICANN, or anybody else for that matter, will be able to do about it.

Don't fear PC-pocalypse, Chromebooks, two-in-ones 'will save us'

"Industry experts greatly exaggerated the death of the PC,"

But of course, the PC is going to live on forever. Except it will no longer be a heavy tower requiring a desk to make use of it, it will be a sleek, inch-thick screen you can hold on your lap wherever you are. In the future it might be an ocular implant, with the CPU being powered by oxygen in your blood. Still a PC though.

So we are all still driving horse carriages then, except that there are no more actual horses and the carriage has a top and a steering wheel and, instead of smelling of horse dung, it smells of gas.

But still totally a horse carriage.

Microsoft has crafted a switch OS on Debian Linux. Repeat, a switch OS on Debian Linux

WinPhone 10 will miss the public.

By at least a farthing.

Beware the E E E effect

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

It is the Microsoft Way.

Granted, extinguishing Open Source is pretty much out of the picture, but Microsoft will stop at nothing to pervert what it touches.

So let's accept, but verify, ok ?

Go No! Google cyber-brain bests top-ranked human in ancient game

Congratulations to the team of DeepMind

I am thrilled that a machine was able to outwit the best human player in one of the hardest games with predetermined rules. It is truly an achievement in data analysis.

Now I'd like to see that same machine, without any modifications whatsoever, play a game of whist. Or poker. Or try shooting a 9mm at a firing range. Then take it fishing and see how many it can catch in an hour. Then ask it if it can remember one of the coders that left ten years ago and recognize his face in less than a second. From a photo it had never seen before. Taken in questionable lighting.

Without any additions to its code.

If it can learn to do all these things with what it already knows, then we might actually be progressing towards AI.

If not, it is just a great achievement in specialized data analysis.

Knackered Euro server turns Panasonic smart TVs into dumb TVs

TVs are supposed to be dumb

I am thrilled to see this complete failure of an inane system. There should be no such thing as a "smart" TV.

A TV is a portal, nothing more. What is on its screen, however, can very well be controlled by an external item connected to it. Thus, instead of trying to put all the hardware into the TV set, which carries risk of increased obsolescence and uncorrectable bugs, keep the TV the dumb screen it's supposed to be, and put the "smart" into the peripherals where they can be maintained, replaced or junked as need be, and will not impact the function of other peripherals if that one doesn't work.

But of course, doing so means the risk of losing valuable marketing data to people who want the screen and not the phoning home, so it looks like we'll all just have to wait for the vendors to lose money on this shite technology before realizing that nobody wants it implemented like that.

Home Ebola testing with a Tricorder? There's an app for that

This might prove scientifically valuable

Massive data points concerning an entire aspect of our biology that we have next to no knowledge of. I think this is guaranteed to bring some insights into how our individual biome is changed by outside factors, and at what point that change becomes dangerous for us.

For science, this can only be a good thing. If the information is handled responsibly, of course.

And that's the major stumbling block.

What are you doing to spot a breach?

Re:phishers are now sending pixel-perfect copy of legitimate emails and faking senders

That they are, but they are still including links to URLs that have nothing to do with the purported origin of the mail.

If I get a mail posing as being from my bank, asking me to click a link to validate something or another, and said link goes to http:\\mybank.com.cn, well sorry, but that is a spoof. When somebody sends me an attachment and the return address domain does not correspond to the domain it should come from, I know it's a scam. And they may be making pixel-perfect images of legitimate mails, but they're still mangling the language.

Of course, one has to pay attention to those things.

Don't snoop on staff via wearables, says Dutch privacy agency

100 is generous

I deal with a number of small companies of less than 10 people and I can assure you that some sort of ID is used in every case to identify who wrote what and when.

Besides, you are already stamped, indexed, filed and numbered since you were born, and moreso when you get paid a salary. Do you think your local Tax Office is using your picture to know who you are ?

Boffins bust biometrics with inkjet printer

Of course there is an urgent need to secure things properly

The need would have been less urgent if the whole thing had been properly researched beforehand, instead of being rushed through with marketing people having more say than the engineers.

If the research had been correctly conducted, it would have concluded that using fingerprints was not a 100% secure solution, and the whole thing would never have made it to the market.

Instead, we got teams who had to rush to put the thing on the market because nobody stopped to think if it actually answered the issue properly, so now somebody has to find a way to make a 3-legged horse gallop.

The whole things is just a waste of time and resources, but hey, terrism.

Is there anything left to ask Bill Gates? (Other than gissus a million?)

I cannot agree with this

"Eventually the software will understand what you should pay attention to by knowing the context and learning about your preferences."

It is wrong to expect software to "learn our preferences" in order to manage our lives. Doing so means expecting human intelligence to abandon the concept of oversight, responsibility and planning, and just handing the decision-making to somebody's code.

Instead, humans should learn to manage their stuff properly, to not frantically dive for the phone when they are already in face-to-face conversation with another human, and to LEAVE THE BLOODY THING ALONE when driving. That last point will, of course, be solved by self-driving cars - which means self-driving cars will become a reality given the massive amount of morons that simply cannot let go of their sexting tool.

Strike! European Patent Office staff vote in their thousands for walkout

Wrong man for a hard job

Getting any group of people used to progress by seniority to accept that now they'll have to accept to have their progress impeded by actual performance is not an easy task. It requires patience, diplomacy, tact, strength but not bull-headedness, and a whole lot of scheming plus the ability to compromise.

Apparently, Battistelli has none of those qualities. He went with the bulldozer, and now everything is a shambles.

Somebody will have to get the message across, though.

Microsoft has made SQL Server for Linux. Repeat, Microsoft has made SQL Server 2016 for Linux

The arrival ?

For a new spec only announced in 2015 and the spec only published last month ?

Call me when it has arrived, we'll talk about then.

MS's exposure to the Internet is driving Windows into the shadows

The requirements of Internet-based services for millions of concurrent users have taught MS that Windows is not up to the task.

The current market drive is all speed ahead toward the Cloud. Once there, the OS on the client side is irrelevant. All the *aaS stuff is essentially handled by Linux servers in the back end (basically nobody, not even Microsoft, runs a data center on Windows), and the youth of today is more exposed to non-Windows platforms than ever before.

Now MS is porting major parts of its portfolio to the platform. Seems to me that MS is gearing up for the day when Windows will finally become a footnote in the computing industry. There is only one important roadblock in the way before that happens : DirectX needs porting to Linux as well.

The day that happens, Windows will definitively be on the way out.

Final Euro Parliament vote on passenger name records delayed

But of course

"PNR data collected may only be processed for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorist offences and serious crime"

This statement is perfectly valid and acceptable. The only issue is : what is the definition of "terrorist offences and serious crime" ?

What happens when disagreeing with government policy on any matter becomes a serious crime ?

IBM staffer at risk of redundo? Capita will wipe away your tears

So, IBM is firing people, HP is firing people, and Capita, who handles the firing for IBM, is firing people.

Is this the result of a New Years resolution ? One wonders.

Software dev 101: 'The best time to understand how your system works is when it is dying'

"Failuretect" then ?

NatWest tightens online banking security after hacks' 'hack' exposé

So giving them your phone number makes you less secure ?

Brilliant. They introduce the phone as a 2FA security measure, then they proceed to hand over your entire bank account to any moderately enterprising criminal.

Or should I say business partner ?

Bill Clinton killed off internet taxes, says Australian politician

It will happen, eventually

Objectively, no government has ever wasted a tax opportunity, and I'm guessing governments all over the world are watching the billions being made in Internet transactions and are pinching themselves in frustration.

This guy may be an excellent example of a dimwit, but I'm convinced that online retailers will, one day, have to contend with local taxes everywhere they sell.

Steam already handles European tax on game sales, so it's not like it can't be done. What will have to happen (off the top of my head) is something like an API made available from a government site, where the vendor can query the API for the local tax to apply and integrate it into the sales process.

It's just a question of time.

Flying blind: F-35's radar software fails in the air

"can't check engine and airframe maintenance data from government networks"

Well, given the sorry security state of government networks, I'd take that as a plus for cybersecurity.

It's probably the only one, and they want to fix that.

Dead Steve Jobs is still a crook – and Apple must cough up $450m for over-pricing ebooks

"We know we did nothing wrong"

Stellar example of not acknowledging any fault. Brilliant management stay-the-course dedication. Admirable start of judicial decision whitewashing in Apple history books. Reality Distortion Field functioning at 110%, Sir.

Outside of that field's influence, it's just a bunch of twats who have learned nothing and will obviously do it again first chance.

I'd say it's time to bring back public whippings.

Eight in ten IBM Global Tech Services roles will be offshore by 2017

"it is hard to be agile when most of the coders are based in another time zone"

I vote that for the Best Statement of the Week Award !

Oracle support sackings and 'consolidation' almost complete

“consolidation” of support resources [..] Oracle has no comment to make

Funny that. There is not one example of support outsourcing that has brought actual, tangible benefits to customers.

I would have thought that the industry, as a whole, has gone through the call center outsourcing fad and seen the light. Several large companies have declared recreating support centers in-country in the past 18 months. I took that as a sign that this was the end of the fad and things would be set straight again.

I was obviously wrong.

Alice, Bob and Verity, too. Yeah, everybody's got a story, pal

I think the proof reader is still locked in the basement. Whether or not he is still hungover is irrelevant since it is quite obvious everyone else is.

And now I'm in a hurry to get there as well.

UK.gov will scrutinise all its Atos contracts following IT cock-up

What exactly makes you think that the investigations are meant to ensure IT failures cannot happen again ?

If I remember the lessons of Sir Humphry Appleby, those investigations will most likely be made to ensure that the people responsible will be whitewashed, while the culprits will be designated as "market forces" and other assorted "outside influences" over which nobody has any control and no one could have forecast.

So nobody's actually at fault, bonuses all around and, as we can see, new contracts awarded in a jiffy.

Me, cynical ? Whatever makes you think that ?

Aye, AI: Cambridge's Dr Sean Holden talks to El Reg about our robot overlords

"the only rule is that you can't tell a new player what the rules are"

But, supposedly, you do tell them when they've done something they can't. Sounds suspiciously like Calvinball to me.

Can't fault an AI for not understanding that. I'd have trouble myself.

Flash is too fat. A glut of supply means growth is slower and slower

Flash is the future - in a way

My personal use of Flash is two 180GB SSDs - one with the OS, one with the swap file and those few programs I use that really need the speed (for me anyway).

For all the rest, I have a few TB drives that have ample space and are good enough for what I want. Having a TB SSD is a nice-to-have at this point, one I am not about to spend any sizeable chunk of my monthly salary on.

Business-wise, I could use a TB SSD in my laptop, but I can't honestly justify the price for the convenience it would bring, which I can live without right now.

Flash simply needs to reach spinning rust prices per GB before I will switch in any meaningful way.

And if I were running Linux (which I am studying), it would be even less important.

Apple: FBI request threatens kids, electricity grid, liberty

@LDS

Um, legislation is not going to magically create a backdoor into a proper, mathematically-proven encryption scheme.

That is the entire issue that tech companies are rightfully defending.

Either you have a sound encryption scheme and people and companies will benefit and thrive, or you don't and it is only the scum that benefit.

As for TLAs they don't actually benefit. They just have a lot of activity for very little return, and everyone else's lives are raped in the process.

"it be used only on government or Apple premises"

For now.

How long will it take for the FBI to request a special room at FBI HQ with permanent presence of the cracking software and Apple people to ensure National Surveillance Security ?

How long after that will the FBI dispense with the Apple people and replicate that room to every FBI building in every state ?

It's National Security, people. You know it has to be done.

Microsoft: Ditch your phone biz and do crazy hardware experiments

"looks for ways of getting people to write Universal apps"

Here's a tip : get rid of the 30% fee on revenue.

Here's another tip : make the bloody Store properly searchable. You know, that Search functionality you've consistently screwed up for the past 30 years ? Look it up in the dictionary. It's time to get it right.

High time.

India challenges US visa price hike at World Trade Organisation

Re: I thought that the USA was highly in favour of Free Trade in every form?

Of course it is highly in favour of Free Trade in every form - that benefits the USA, that is.

Hacker 'Guccifer' extradited to US

Dubya paints ?

He should have stuck with that.