Posts by Pascal Monett

Huawei's latest smartphone features mostly made-in-China components

"it's unclear whether its efforts will pay off"

They will.

One thing China has going for it is that, when they've set themselves a goal, they aim to reach it. Time is not as important to them as it is to us.

So I'm sure their efforts will bring fruit. Of course, by then we will have improved engraving methods that are even more advanced, which China will dutifully set itself to replicate (or steal, if the opportunity arises).

But let's be clear : China has set its course on gaining technical independance. It will get there.

FCC slams banhammer on 5G fast lanes with final net neutrality text

Great job, FCC

Really, I sincerely applaud your efforts.

A shame that the OHSG stands to get back in the Oval Office and slam all your work back into the dustbin.

Because he will, his buddies want that.

And it begins. OpenAI mulls NSFW AI model output

Re: There is a theory, lighthearted...

Well it's not just a theory. If you can purchase anything on the Internet these days, it's because porn sites made a tremendous effort to get banks to take credit cards.

And now, pseudo-AI is submitting to Rule 34.

It was inevitable.

Flexing financial muscles, Arm aims to elbow into Windows PC market

I dunno.

I have a colleague with an Apple laptop based on Arm. He has no trouble running Diablo IV at full resolution (not sure, but at least 4K HD). And there is no fan noise to trouble your ears.

I think that is pretty impressive, so much that I am looking forward to Windows on Arm. I wouldn't mind looking into that as an upgrade in the next few years (aka when I retire).

Investment analyst accuses Palantir of AI washing

Re: Whazzat, again?

Agreed. So, Palantir has created a new buzzword thingamajig that it claims gives it the edge in AI.

Obviously, AI is the ideal domain to create yet more bullshit buzzwords because that's what the market is thriving on.

It's still bullshit, though.

Baidu's PR head has a PR problem after workaholic social media posts

"unsatisfied employees should simply resign"

But of course. It's easy to say that when you're on the top, especially in a country that has a bounty of people looking for a job.

Employees in Europe are already considered akin to dead weight (but they have to drag their filthy carcasses to the office, right ?), so it mut be worse in a country that one billion captive citizens.

It is good to see that the younger generation is starting to push that away. 996 means you have no social or family life, you live for work. 996 also means that nobody needs to worry about you, you're here to work, so take this pile on top of the one you already have and don't forget : if you're not happy, you can resign. We'll find another drone in short order.

Work is important, but it is not something to live for, nor is anything to become a slave to. It is acceptable to also wish for a good family life, and that means having time at home, every day (with exceptions, of course, but those should be minimal).

Undersea cables must have high-priority protection before they become top targets

Re: To replace even a fraction of the capacity in undersea cables

You're thinking Starlink. Think telecomms satellites and you don't need thousands per day.

A proper communication satellite can handle quite a lot and, with the newer ones, more and more bandwidth. Now I'm not saying that they can handle the same amount as an undersea cable, but I'm sure we wouldn't need thousands of them.

Amazon and Epson accuse a bunch of traders of selling knockoff print ink

So, Epson joins HP in the golden ink deal

I am so happy that I have a laser printer.

All these shenanigans go right under the bridge . . .

Tesla devotee tests Cybertruck safety with his own finger – and fails

"It appears this faith is sorely misplaced"

The usual result for faith in anything Musk.

UK opens investigation of MoD payroll contractor after confirming attack

"nothing but a fabricated and malicious slander"

That coming from a country that has been repeatedly fingered for stealing industrial secrets and has an army of hackers willing and able to attack just about anything they turn their attention to.

Yeah but look at how much money their buddies make in the process !

Ten years since the first corp ransomware, Mikko Hyppönen sees no end in sight

Agreed. As a consultant, I have worked for the past two decades in various environments. Many times, especially in the banking industry, I have been given workstations with which I had no access to either USB ports or network shares. I only had the access I strictly needed to do my job.

I'm thinking that there should be a default security package by now, which locks down Windows to only use whatever IT has installed, only access whatever network is made available, and shuts down those damn USB ports.

That shouldn't be so hard, now should it ?

Dell to color-code staff based on how hybrid they really are in RTO push

"regular onsite presence"

Hey, if I'm on site one day a week every week, I call that regular.

And great show for the expense of having programmers code and set up this color wheel thingy based on badging. That is not something you would get out of an Excel spreadsheet, so there are a few people who have been tasked with making this possible.

I hope they also made sure that their badging was blue every day, whether they were there or not . . .

UnitedHealth's 'egregious negligence' led to Change Healthcare ransomware infection

This may have hurt dearly

But in the long run, the miscreants have now proven that paying the ransom is a very bad idea.

We are finally poised to progress beyond well-intentioned admonishments that no one listens to. You get hacked ? Swallow the pill, correct the situation and put what money you have to ensuring that it won't happen again.

Don't waste your money on paying the assholes who got in.

They're assholes. They will gouge you for everything they can, and you'll still be fucked.

Uni staff fall back on Excel to work around mis-coded transactions in Oracle system

"continue to exercise appropriate oversight of this"

Oh, you mean the appropriate lack of oversight that got them into this situation in the first place ?

That is so reassuring.

Cops finally unmask 'LockBit kingpin' after two-month tease

That sounds like wishful thinking.

Palantir's CEO calls 'woke' a 'central risk to Palantir, America and the world'

"a 'central risk to Palantir, America and the world' "

Woah there, boy.

A central risk to Palantir ? You can die, nobody will regret you.

A central risk to America ? You mean the USA. The USA has a lot more risk than woke, it has Trump and the Republican religion. You can take a hike.

A central risk to the world ? Now you're dreaming. And overselling yourself.

Spanish startups say 'no más' to Microsoft cloud dominance

How cute

"anticompetitive behavior that the organization alleges it has detected in recent years

You haven't been looking for very long . . .

Council claims database pain forced it to drop apostrophes from street names

"these characters have specific meanings in computer systems"

What is it with computer programs that can't figure out that they're working with data, not with code ?

I've known the Bobby Tables joke for ages now and I still can't understand how that happens. If I type DROP TABLE USERLIST here, El Reg is not suddenly going to find that table gone. This is data, not code.

Has Windows 11 really lost marketshare to Windows 10?

"what happens next?"

What happens next is textbook, up to a point. Borkzilla finds that its weight in the market is once again thwarted by the fact that hardware that is five years years old still does the job fine, thank you very much.

Redmond has still not understood that the days where everyone happily upgraded every year, or 18 months, are over. You can try to cram a new OS version (that is only new via the number scheme and silly GUI changes), we know that our hardware is fine and will be for the next ten years.

So Redmond desperately tries to convince everyone, via Windows Update blockages and dire messages on the IntarWebs, that the new version is absolutely indispensable, and Intel concurs (duh). Meanwhile, users still find that their Windows last-version-that-was-ever-supposed-to-be works fine, Windows Update blockages be damned.

The only thing Borkzilla is going to gain here is that, at one point, users are going to knock on the door at Redmond HQ and bring out the pitchforks and torches and say "Stop fucking around with out work tool. Just support it and make it secure".

At least I hope that will happen.

Ten years ago Microsoft bought Nokia's phone unit – then killed it as a tax write-off

Re: the same is true with modern smartphones

You have got to be kidding me.

I put my Galaxy S22 in airplane mode before going to bed at night. If it is at 100% battery before going to sleep, when I wake up the next day, it's at 90%.

That's 10% lost doing fuck all for eight hours. On that rythm, the battery will die in two and a half days.

A week my ass.

Techie's enthusiasm for decluttering fails to spark joy

Now that's what I call saved by the very last inch

Or kilobyte, in this case.

Had the sim failed just seconds sooner, he would have been a goner come Monday. Had this happened the week before, he would have been a goner come Monday. Had his superior left ten minutes before, he would have been a goner on Monday.

Sure, he might have made a wrong decision, but he got just incredibly lucky after that.

Good for him.

AI Catholic 'priest' defrocked after recommending Gatorade baptism

Re: hellish simulation

Hell is paved with good intentions.

Windows users left to fend for themselves after BitLocker patch bungle

Re: This is where managed vendors come in ...

First rule of software vendors : it's not their problem.

Second rule of software vendors : if they do actually do something, you should be eternally grateful and kiss their feet whilst performing whatever acrobatics they deemed necessary to prevent them from too much work.

Third rule of software vendors : do as little as possible once everything is 80% working because, anything after that and they might be liable whereas, if you're happy with 80%, well everything's peachy, right ?

Some scientists can't stop using AI to write research papers

Re: Lazy fuckers

Welcome to the Future.

Europol op shutters 12 scam call centers and cuffs 21 suspected fraudsters

"plus cash and other assets totaling €1 million"

So, the rest of the money is where ?

In the pockets of the big boys who never get caught.

Good on shutting down those call centers, but Big Boss will just have more set up.

You need to cut the head off if you want the body to die.

Apple sales slip, but investors offered bite of $110B stock buyback

Never mind legal, how is it that investors are enthusiastic about it ?

"working towards finding an optimal capital structure"

AKA : they don't know yet.

Isn't business speak wonderful ? You can avoid saying anything of substance and still look important.

Chinese government website security is often worryingly bad, say Chinese researchers

In other news

Five Chinese researchers were arrested yesterday for anti-Communist activities.

No word has been given on the date of the trial.

Starlink geofence appears to have some gaping holes

Another headache in the making

Geofencing via satellite, now there's a technical challenge. I would have thought that the only way to prevent users in a given country (aka Russia) from accessing the service would be to refuse connection to the identified MAC addresses of the equipment in question, which, of course, adds the issue of spoofing MAC addresses.

Maybe the better option would be remotely bricking the hardware. In that case, you'd better be sure of your target, because collateral damage will be a ginormous hot potato.

In any case, given Musk's pro-Putin stance, I'm guessing this issue will drag on for as long as Musk can avoid doing anything about it.

Microsoft, Google do a victory lap around passkeys

Because dongles cannot be monetized, whereas your biometrics can be compiled, collated and statistified, which allows for monetization.

Never mind that, if there is a cock-up (there will be), your biometrics will end up in a hackers' database and sold on the dark web. This is the Future, dictated by those who have the money.

And we all know the Golden Rule : those who have the money make the rules.

Federal frenzy to patch gaping GitLab account takeover hole

You're absolutely right, except you're wrong because today, developers have the habit ingrained in their skulls that production servers should download code from 3rd-party servers.

It's in the bloodstream now, there's nothing anyone can do about it - except the miscreants.

If they create enough mayhem, bloodshed and tears to make all CTOs and CIOs scream for keeping production server code under control, then we might get back to those hallowed times when an admin actually knew what was running on the server he was responsible for.

But, these days, the mantra is "move fast and break things" and, boy, how we are setting ourselves up to be broken . . .

Vivaldi composes Split View sonata for browser on iPadOS

Can't have your cake and eat it

"They both run the same iOS operating system, even if Apple claims that iOS and iPadOS are different; they are fundamentally the same."

Well, Apple, it's your fault for making one OS run on both platforms. You cannot tout your excellence in design and then pretend that that is not how things work.

Think tank: China's tech giants refine and define Beijing's propaganda push

"bureaucracy and inefficiencies have frustrated attempts to control public opinion"

Let's not forget corruption.

Heaps and heaps of corruption.

I honestly don't think there is a country in the world that can actually shape everyone's thoughts via governmental diktat.

It's just too much hassle and requires too much supervision. The Internet may let you think you have everyone under surveillance, but conversations outside the Internet escape you.

You cannot control everything.

Not a Genius move: Resurrecting war hero Alan Turing as your 'chief AI officer'

Don't worry, they're looking . . .

REvil ransomware scum sentenced to almost 14 years inside, ordered to pay $16 million

Why did he go to Poland ?

Was he not aware that Poland is a NATO nation ? Apparently he did not grok that showing up there would place him squarely in the sights of US law enforcement and my, do they enforce.

Well, I'm sure he'll be able to find himself a cushy job when he gets out of jail in five years for good conduct. Or he'll move to Moscow and start his operations again with Putin's blessing.

A million Australian pubgoers wake up to find personal info listed on leak site

"The kiosk can capture facial biometrics and match it to a database"

So, one step further down the road to biometrics being used for the most mundane things.

Why does a club require you to give up your face to some datacenter that gives no guarantee that it knows how to manage that data securely and is not under legal obligation to do so ?

The sooner we treat biometrics with the same level of care and security that we treat financial data, the better.

Banks are under serious obligations to have the right to handle our money. Firms using biometrics should be as well, because I can't change my face if you foul up.

Japan will use AI to find out what bears do in the woods

"On the bright side, labor costs incurred by the park were reduced by 20 percent"

Oh great. So now, firing people is a bright side.

Let's get AI CEOs please, and see just how they find a bright side to getting fired.

Dropbox dropped the ball on security, haemorrhaging customer and third-party info

"no evidence that the attacker accessed the contents of users' accounts"

Well, if the attackers got hold of the OAuth tokens and MFA passwords, how would you know ?

Block accused of mass compliance failures that saw digi-dollars reach terrorists

So, an ex-Twitter CEO

Hmm. Looks like just being a CEO is not enough to guarantee that you can do that job anywhere.

And, just out of curiosity, does a CEO of a financial institution have to follow the training and certify that he is aware of anti-fraud techniques like every other peon ?

Because it doesn't look like he is.

GPU cloud upstart CoreWeave gets $1.1B injection as AI hype train chugs on

So, Cloud AI has no idea what a recession is ?

When this AI nonsense starts crashing, it's going to hit the ground really hard.

Infosec biz boss accused of BS'ing the world about his career, anti-crime product, customers

He was just following Trump's lead

Not surprising that this character lied his way through, he was following the ex-President's brilliant example.

And as long as the OHSG is not cut down to size and put in an orange jumpsuit, characters like this one will continue to pop up and wreak havoc everywhere.

Google Search results polluted by buggy AI-written code frustrate coders

Well there goes the neighborhood

we regularly hear 'Even if imperfect, we prefer to have something 80 percent correct, [rather] than nothing at all'."

Great. Looks like Borkzilla has always been ahead of the curve after all.

So, this is the future of programming. This explains Crapita, Fujitsu et al. to a tee.

I am not reassured.

Musk axes two more senior Tesla leaders, guts public policy team – report

Re: Strategy has worked so well at Xitter

Yup. Looks like Musk is starting to apply his "success" at Xitter to Tesla.

So, another bonfire has started. I'll get the popcorn . . .

Apple's 'incredibly private' Safari is not so private in Europe

Ah Apple

Between jailbreaking and locked ecosystem and now this, the iNazi has amply demonstrated its thirst for control of everything.

And, as usual, when you're addicted, you don't think straight. Apple is addicted to control, and it has now undermined the security and privacy of its users.

Congratulations for giving me yet another reason to never buy your products.

France willing to buy key Atos assets to keep them French

Re: Consanguinity

Of course not. It's the fact that they practically all went to the same preschool that is the determining factor.

Allegedly.

OpenAI slapped with GDPR complaint: How do you correct your work?

"The technology has to follow the legal requirements, not the other way around."

Amen to that.

Python, Flutter teams latest on the Google chopping block

It's incredible

It is incredible how Google continues, year after year, to axe useful projects while making more and more billions, and yet cost-cutting is the name of the game.

And everyone who used the products that are being disemboweled somehow still haven't got the message : Google is not there to make your life better, it is there to make PROFITS.

Stop using its products. Stop validating this behavior by looking at the next new tool and saying "oh, I could use that !".

Just stay away from Google code. Google needs to be taught a lesson : when you're making all the money, you can afford to let projects continue.

Either that, or be true to yourself, Google, and replace the Board every two years. Via shotgun.

The chip that changed my world – and yours

Re: there should always be a need for simple chips that do simple things

I totally agree. Nobody is going to put a Core3 Intel CPU in a "smart" doorbell. So there has to be a simple chip in today's tech that could do a job that does not require umpteen billion transistors if you know how to program it.

What might that spiritual successor be ? What chip is being used in all those damned IoT thingys that are being sold by the thousands every day (for the greatest joy of malware hackers everywhere) ?

NASA's Psyche hits 25 Mbps from 140 million miles away – enough for Ultra HD Netflix

Weather conditions are for Earth

This tech is going to be invaluable for the future of communication in space. Sending cat videos from the comms satellite orbiting Mars to the comms satellite orbiting Ganymede will be a cinch if this can be worked out. It'll just take time, as the authors of The Expanse demonstrated brilliantly.