Posts by Pascal Monett

Here's how TalkTalk ducked and dived over THAT gigantic hack

So the Board is happy with how the situation has been handled

Well, we'll see if the board is still happy after the customers leave in droves.

If customers are unhappy enough - and have an alternative available - to do so.

If that is not possible, there just might be enough people to mount a class-action lawsuit - although I don't know the status of that kind of legal action in the UK. If it is possible though, then it will hurt the board directly.

But reality commands that this is just a minor issue that will be forgotten after XMas holidays. I doubt very much that any number of people will be leaving because of this.

Windows 10 is an antique (and you might be too) says Google man

Re: Windows 10 has been designed 'together' with the user

Windows 10 has been designed 'together' with the user fanbois. MS clearly listened and learned from what decided that the user wants the same interface on his phone, tablet and PC and ignored anything that went contrary to that idea. Has implemented borked and rearranged features not based on their cool factor, but on their usability confusion factor.

FTFY

Star Trek to go boldly back onto telly, then beam down in streams

"while exploring the dramatic contemporary themes"

Will that include not being able to access FederationBook ?

Sorry, but if the defining characteristic of "not a reboot" is "fits in the same universe" then a reboot would have to be different characters in a different universe living a different storyline.

I would call that a different story entirely, not a reboot.

Now VW air-pollution cheatware 'found in Audis and Porsches'

And so the stain spreads

First it was only the small 4-cylinder engine, now bigger 6-cylinder engines are also concerned.

What's to bet that virtually all constructors are doing something like this ? Come on, am I really supposed to believe that VW is the only group that had something to improve their test results ? Especially since we now know that the engine software has to know it's being tested, since the test involves one set of wheels not rolling when power is applied, and that, in normal function, that would apparently be a cutoff situation.

I expect more constructors and engines to be drawn into this issue.

And you bring this to our attention because ?

Re: "VW needs a Snowden"

Not really, since VW is under investigation. Whatever is going on will be found, described, ascertained and thoroughly evaluated. Then there will be measures taken. Whether or not they will be useful is another matter.

Snowden was necessary because the NSA was never going to go under any spotlight whatsoever. Even now that we know, the NSA is carefully hiding its activities behind the iron curtain of "national security" and everything it does has been and will be repeatedly described as legal.

Lessig quits presidential race to spend more time with his idiotic ideas

"the political establishment is not keen on promoting people determined to undermine it"

That, very much. Going into politics is like entering a monastery : you're going to spend all your time with the same people. If you are completely against everything they do, you are by definition uniting them against you. And they have more experience than you. So your failure is a foregone conclusion.

The only way to change the system is create an overwhelming public movement against it that the monks can simply no longer ignore. Takes time, dedication, mountains of effort and probably not a small amount of cash. The only alternative is to wait for people to wake up, but, save for a miracle, you'll be dead before that happens.

Ninefold gives up race against richer rivals

So, forecast validated then ?

In a Hollywood film, there would be a rallying effort to save the underdog, and by some miracle it would end well.

In real life, however, money is an absolute and an attitude is not enough to get around it, nor does it suffice to encourage someone to invest against the likes of Amazon.

A bleak end to a nice story. Hopefully the employees and management of Ninefold will have gained valuable experience and will be able to market it successfully.

In-a-spin Home Sec: 'We won't be rifling through people's web history'

Re: It's trivial to set up your own VPN

And if you don't have a server in another country ?

'T-shaped' developers are the new normal

@ Mark Honman

Sorry sir, but you are using common sense, and that cannot be billed at a pleasingly high level.

Plus, you are putting in doubt the true abilities of consultants in expensive suits.

The Management Sensitivity Training team has been dispatched, please comply willingly.

Re: the deafening roar of the buzzwords

Right you are. I think my Bullshit Bingo was full halfway through.

This article is written by the kind of guy who does brilliant presentations, charges a hefty fee, then leaves us poor "old school" plebs to clean up after he's gone and nothing works.

Windows 10 growth stalls during October

Re: any statistic is usually worthless/meaningless

When your stats are based on millions of unique connections, although they may not be perfect, there still can be meaning inferred from them.

In this case, we can argue about exactly how much the slowing is, but apparently, that there is a slowing is not in doubt.

Next year's Windows 10 auto-upgrade is MSFT's worst idea since Vista

Starting my own inspection tour soon

Win 1 0 has been the proverbial twig on the camel's back for me.

I am almost done getting the unused tower filled with the necessary components - all I need is a SATA DVD reader - and I will be set to install Mint and find out if I can get it working for me.

I've told everyone who asks me for PC help to stay away from Win 1 0 and that I am trialling Linux for the future. They are aware that I will not be supporting Win 1 0 and why.

When I am confident that I understand how it works and can get it set up to get stuff done easily, then I will be going around demonstrating it to said people.

What must happen will happen, but I'm certain of one thing : Win 7 is the last Microsoft OS I will ever use at home.

Cassini probe teases with intimate Enceladus snaps

Hang on there

How did we go from a big white ball to a close-up of Frodo's path into Mordor ?

Shouldn't a close-up of a white ball be full of white as well ?

Boffins solve bacon crisis with newly-patented plant

What a convenient coincidence

Astounding that somebody just happened to fry seaweed and declare that it tastes like bacon. I'm sure that, with a bit of artificial flavoring, it just might.

I'm also pretty sure that it will never be as crunchy out of the pan. But hey, after months and months in space, it'll probably do.

US Military enlists radio hams to simulate fight with THE SUN

So, what should be done ?

If there is a big CME alert, what should we do to protect our equipment ?

Are we going to get to a stage where we need to physically disconnect our computers from the wall, electrical socket and network cable ? Can it get that bad ?

Or is it only a problem for telephone lines ? Somehow I doubt that. If long, copper wires are what is affected, then network cables are in for the ride as well.

Rosetta probe delivers jaw-to-the-floor find: Molecular oxygen

"usually turns up bound to other atoms and molecules (or with itself"

The kinky little bastard.

Right, stop pushing, I'm going !

Burned: British Gas customer info hits Pastebiin

We need to have a running total

We need a website that responsibly discloses these incidents in detail, showing the current total and the history of how we got there.

Then we can arrange betting pools on who will be next, how many will be impacted, what the total will be at the end of a given period, etc...

Because anything goes these days, right ?

Northrop wins $55bn contract for next-gen bomber – as America says bye-bye to B-52

More pork for the taking

$55 billion ? $80 billion ?

Why stop at 80 ? Make it an even 150 by the time all is said and one.

This is typically the kind of project where things can really get out of hand, and nobody is really able to stop it.

I look forward to seeing the reports on this project's progress. The Northrop Grumman board is probably looking forward to renewing their fleet of personal Learjets (at that level, a Mercedes is pocket change).

Re: some asshole in Iraq

Obviously, were he an American tapping into Russian drones, he'd be a hero instead.

It's official: Tor's .onion domains must be kept off the public internet

Yes, but the NSA needs to watch everything you do to ensure that your privacy is safeguarded !

Otherwise the terrorists will win !

We're getting kick-ass at seeing through walls using just Wi-Fi – MIT

Yeah, but that only told you if someone was there or not.

This will allow you to determine exactly where to release the knockout gas so you can plunder with impunity.

Get James Bond in here: 13 million account passwords plundered from 000webhost

Ah, PR disaster handling

Cyprus-headquartered 000webhost admitted: "A hacker used an exploit in old PHP version to upload some files, gaining access to our systems. Although the whole database has been compromised, we are mostly concerned about the leaked client information.

"We removed all illegally uploaded pages as soon as we became aware of the breach. Next, we changed all the passwords and increased their encryption to avoid such mishaps in the future. A thorough investigation to make sure the breach does not exist anymore is in progress."

What they actually said is that they made their website ages ago and never updated it, so they were thoroughly pwned. Now, they are pretending to do something to cover the issue.

The investigation is simple : an old PHP exploit should not be allowed to exist on an ISP's website. An ISP should be well aware of best practices and apply them rigorously.

Safe Harbor 2.0: Judges to keep NSA spying in check – EU justice boss

Judicial oversight. But of course.

I'm quite sure judges will be able to totally control everything the NSA . . lets them know they're doing.

Voice, data, help desk: Meet the Syrian refugees' IT infrastructure chief

The ETC

Demonstrating the better part of humanity, apparently.

Good on them.

WD stirs green and blue into pot, comes out with Blue HDDs

SSDs don't win anything

When they fail, they actually fail harder then HDDs because recovery is exponentially more difficult, and you have even less warning.

For the moment, I have two SSDs on my desktop that are doing their job properly, so no complaints. But a colleague of mine had an SSD in his laptop that he was very happy about until the day it stopped working. He lost nothing of significance because backups, but the disk basically bricked itself and getting a replacement shipped in cost him two days.

He has stopped ribbing me for preferring my slower, 500GB HDD in my laptop.

Online daters swindled out of £33m last year – police

That's because that dating thing you're using is a game made in Japan, not a dating site.

'Govt will not pass laws to ban encryption' – Baroness Shields

Very happy to see all those Thomas Jefferson quotes and I feel that they should be repeated often.

I also think that, were he to be alive today, he would be actively preparing the next revolution.

Chinese popped-box VPN crims screamed hacker booty in cleartext

Agreed

Then you have this gem :

Most of the 1500-odd nodes are in China, with about 600 in the US

So, is it 1500 nodes in total, with 600 in the US (meaning 900 in China), or is it 1500 in China and 600 others in the US ?

Finally, with W10, Microsoft’s device strategy makes sense

"110 million people using Windows 10 right now"

If that is true, it still is not the success Microsoft was expecting. Apparently, the Windows share of the market is sliding, and has been for 5 quarters in a row now.

What I would like to know is how many of those installs were pushed to people who didn't actually want them, and got reverted to some prior version of Windows. We know 1 0 is being very aggressively pushed out, the question is : how long does it stay when in place ?

ICO 'making enquiries' into bizarre shopper data spill at M&S

Really ?

So "old location bar URL history" is enough to access other people's details on a banking site ?!?

Chalk up another one for the inevitable robot revolt. A purge is starting to seem necessary.

New DMCA rules mean you can fiddle with your tablets, routers, cars (as if you weren't anyway)

Or, more likely, a new Mercedes in his driveway.

Oracle Java 'no longer the greatest risk' to US Windows PC users

Windows requires rebooting when updating Windows components.

I've had Microsoft Security Essentials, Firefox, Windows Defender, Notepad++ and a host of other programs update themselves and the worst that happens is that the program restarts.

Dad who shot 'snooping vid drone' out of the sky is cleared of charges

David Boggs - A name that will live in infamy.

To think that this guy was hovering his drone over two little girls and has the guts to go public about it.

In the US, of all places.

How is it his name hasn't already been put on the paedo register ?

@Robert Helpmann??

Sorry Robert, but you cannot deny that the USA is the only country in the world where so many people die from gunshot wounds every year. And that in a country that is not even at war.

The simple fact is that having less guns lying around would certainly solve the issue. Another simple fact is that that is never going to happen.

Ransomware victims: Just pay up, grin, and bear it – says the FBI

@1980s_coder

Yes but that is exactly the problem : many computer users are new to the environment and have barely enough knowledge of IT to do their work correctly, let alone prepare and execute contingency plans for things they have never even heard of.

Computers are a great tool, but they are also a world of risk that few users are even aware of. People who just work with them don't even know what they risk until it happens - and most of them don't even bother with the backups people who do know keep telling them about.

I think most people view computers like their car : bring it to the garage when it breaks. Only then do they learn that, unlike a car, repairing can well mean losing everything they stored in it.

By 2019, vendors will have sucked out your ID along with your cash 5 billion times

Biometric payment systems, pah !

My fingerprints are like my privacy : I have nothing to hide and it's nobody's business but mine.

My biometrics on a smartphone ? Those things are already a prime target for malware and now you want to add more interest to the things ?

No thanks, I'll stick to VISA and cash. Pin and chip is way better than fingerprints : if your card is compromised, just ask for another one.

Deutsche Bank's creaking IT systems nervously eyeing bins

"The shift to cloud services is happening now"

This from a bank official ? A German bank official ?

So banks are now putting data in The Cloud.

Ok, it's official : this is the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it.

Work from home when the next big Windows 10 installation arrives

"it should be a completely sucessful and flawless update"

Yup, just like SatNad told us that Windows 10 was a successful launch.

Personally, I think it's going to be an enormous cock-up. Hundreds of thousands of XBones all downloading and installing and updating at more or less the same time, what could possibly go wrong ?

Hint : ask any company how a major launch went on Day 1. There are more examples than I care to list.

Or a deadbox.

Toss of the coin these days.

Microsoft's Big Data-driven improvement efforts flounder

Nothing really surprising in those results

Trust of the data requires knowledge of how it is gathered and filtered.

Understanding the data requires knowing what it represents.

You cannot have meaningful data and put it into a form anybody can understand. The "consumers" of the data need to know the significance of what they are looking at.

The only thing this research tells us is that Microsoft is having the same trouble managing data than everyone else does. There is no magic wand to solve data management issues. It requires expertise, knowledge and, most often, experience. No program can replace that.

Malware menaces Merkel's minion, says Spiegel

20,000 systems from Merkel's computer ?

It will be interesting to see the fallout on that.

On the one hand, goverment wants to be able to check what we are doing with ease (our current situation).

On the other hand, government wants its IT, based on the same tech as ours, to be secure even from state-funded actors.

That is one heck of a clash of interest.

Preparing for IoT? Ask some old questions and plenty of new ones

As far as I'm concerned I don't need to read a book to know that IoT is basically handing over my house to the nearest miscreant.

Not gonna happen.

Feds in America very excited about new global privacy alert system

"Today, data is increasingly crossing borders"

Indeed, and that is a situation that we are trying to reverse.

Nothing to get excited about.

Oracle's Hurd mentality: We (and one other) will own all of cloud by 2025

"If the US government came calling [..] he would refuse to hand it over without a court order"

Are we supposed to be impressed ? That's a bit like a driver promising to never drive on the sidewalk.

Of course you wait for a court order, that is the normal thing to do. But if the US Gov has reason to knock on his door, it will be with a court order - or even an NSA security letter. And then you comply, citizen.

What would be impressive is if Hurd promised that regional data centers outside of the US would never hand over data to the US Government even with a court order.

Then I would take my hat off to him. As it stands ? He's just promising to do what he should be doing anyway. My hat stays on.

QLogic looks like it's running on empty

"QLogic is ready for a merger or an acquisition"

That must be true, because it certainly isn't ready to continue working the market.

If I were a customer at this point, I would freeze all spending with QLogic and wouldn't be planning anything new with it until the management situation is resolved - one way or another.

Without a CEO there is no telling what the future of a company is. There is no sense in giving money to such a company when there is no guarantee that they will be around to support the sales in six month's time.

Further confusion at TalkTalk claims it was hit by 'sequential attack'

Impossible. Had that been the case, said PR spiels would be delightfully incomprehensible and wonderfully wrong, and we would be spending hours outlining the ways that they made no sense or contradicted themselves.

Instead, we just got rubbish.

US Army bug hunters in 'state of fear' that sees flaws go unreported

Disclosure could lead to revocation of access ?

Wow, talk about shooting the messenger. No wonder the military network is in such a sorry state. If nobody can raise the issue, it obviously won't ever get fixed.

But having one's career negatively impacted for doing one's job ? That things got to that point is simply incredible. I wonder how the second invasion of Iraq would have gone in the media if the locals had been able to override the tanks' network and stopped them all in their tracks. In front of the media. That would have been one hell of a show.

Bacon can kill: Official

Re: why not actually say 365 days in a year

Because there are days I eat beef ? Or chicken, or duck, or maybe even fish ?