Posts by Pascal Monett

Giant sea scorpion which prowled ancient oceans revealed

Re: we take your privacy seriously

Oh but they do - they are seriously interested in your privacy.

They're just not interested in protecting it.

Europe yawns at EU robo-commish Ansip's digital plans

Just one thing

Could we just get rid of region locking ?

I know all about unlocking the player, but I really shouldn't have to since I bought the bloody DVD/BluRay in the first place. The box says that I have the license to view the material, it doesn't say that the license is restricted to the country where I bought it and it doesn't have the right to say that.

Keep the regional code as an informational notion, but cut it out with locking the players to one region.

Ashley Madison: ‘Our site is full of women, and members are growing’

Liars anyway

They lied about removing people's details, they're lying now to save whatever's left from sinking.

The only time I will believe them is when they say "We're shutting down" and file for Chapter 11.

NCA targeted by Lizard Squad in apparent DDoS revenge attack

Re. such a measured and informed way

It might have something to do with the fact that the NCA has seen and regularly sees worse than that (in real life, I mean), coupled with the fact that the NCA is not political or politicised, so nobody there has anything to gain by going nuts over a simple and unavoidable DDoS.

But it's still nice to see, indeed.

Mac malware has a neat trick to install itself on OS X fans' machines

There's just one thing

Cars cannot be reconfigured after purchase. Software can.

It's like all the rage around the TIFKAM thing. Wouldn't have happened if Microsoft had just made an option out of it.

Curiously, it is very rare that software makers bolt on entire new functionality and include a checkbox to enable/disable it. Maybe it has to do with being to lazy, but I think it has more to do with avoiding the angst of dealing with masses of stupid customers not able to read instructions and wailing about how something ain't available when the checkbox is unchecked.

Microsoft backports data slurp to Windows 7 and 8 via patches

So, settings-win.data.microsoft.com is hard-coded, eh ?

Sounds like DDOS time !

Effing bastards. From now on, I am nuking anything with "telemetry" in its description.

Now, more than ever, it is a good idea NOT to auto-install WU patches and wait for feedback before choosing anything.

Really Nadella, if you want us on the warpath, keep it up.

The Honor's a defo gamechanger, but good luck buying one

Well, price is a rather important axis for a bloody large amount of people.

Google bods reform DEMOCRACY in coconut or vitamin water quandry

"Liquid democracy systems tend to be meritocracies"

Citation please ?

I do agree that this affirmation appears to be, at first glance, a reasonable one, but is it actually true ?

The wikipedia article makes no mention of meritocratic influence on this Liquid Democracy thing.

All pixels go: World's biggest sky-gazing camera gets final sign-off

3.2 gigapixel camera

That's going to put the smackdown on smug cameraphone types for a few years . . .

Human sacrifice. Android Wear syncing with iPhones. Cats and dogs living together. Mass hysteria!

If the protocol is open and publicly documented, I don't see how Google can be sued for using it.

If it is not, then Google has to have made a deal to use it, otherwise it would indeed be legal suicide.

Google's Chrome to gag noisy tabs until you click on them

Don't see that Mozilla needs to steal anything. Using NoScript and AdBlock, nothing moves on my Firefox until I click on it.

Now India probes Google, threatens $1bn fine over 'biased' search

Re: and probably fewer complaints about their current data collection activities

They're already not getting enough complaints about the data-hoovering, so fewer complaints is not a good option for us.

Boffins laugh at Play Store bonehead security with instant app checker

If being right stopped lawsuits there would be no patent trolls.

Re: Why don't they ever name the top 'selling' dodgy applications ?

Because they publish in Lawsuit Country ?

Friday beers scam up 240 percent, inflicts $1.2 billion in damages

Good on the CFO, but that seems to indicate that the scammer got some insider info, or he wouldn't have been able to spoof the CEO's email. Must have been some social engineering involved.

Jailbreaking pirates popped in world's largest iCloud raid – 225,000 accounts hit

Your point of view as a developer is valid and I totally support being paid for one's work.

The point of jailbreaking is not, however, just cheating on app payments. It can also very much be getting rid of preinstalled crap that your operator foists on you without asking for your opinion on the matter.

I do not jailbreak my phone as a matter of principle. I do get pissed off every time I see yet another update for Google Play or whatever other piece of crap thing they want to update, instead of letting me use my bandwidth as I see fit.

Of course, I am rather laughing at the moment because, after almost 3 years of use, the available space for downloads is now insufficient for the crap updates to load. The only problem is that I can't get the other updates I need either.

So it's a clusterfuck, basically, and it demonstrates that nobody in that food chain has given a moment of thought to the problem because everyone expects consumers to change their phone as soon as the new shiny comes out.

If I jailbreak my phone, then I can get rid of all the crapware I don't want and keep my phone storage space for the stuff I actually need.

But I still won't do that, because the risk of exposure to malware by simply being jailbroken is too great.

Seems I'm gonna have to give thought to replacing that phone after all.

Boffins unveil open source GPU

That proprietary junk has given me over a decade of beautiful game visuals.

I do look forward to an entirely Open Source hardware computing platform. That way we might have some measure of assurance that our tablets and phones of the future are not 5-Eyes-compliant right out of the box.

Company in shambles, marriages ruined. My work here is done, says Ashley Madison CEO

I don't think that someone who is rich and powerful has any need of a dating site.

All he needs to do is throw a pool party, then he can pick and choose among the candidates - because there will be candidates.

Channel surfers and the irresistible rise of Content Delivery Networks

Worse, it's an atmospheric processor on LV-426 !

Re: not distracted by the Celebrity Tits and Arses

That's because you were on a CDN network.

You should try a CTA network instead !

Google watchers react furiously to ad flinger’s competition case defence

Well of course

Obviously Google does no want an open hearing - why allow your competitors to have a voice ? They just might have an argument that sticks.

Google is not about openness, and nothing about the inner workings of Google is open in any way. Google is all about backroom deals, lobbying and whispering softly in the right ears. With a brown envelope if need be.

Anything to avoid proper regulation and oversight. It's such a hassle to find ways around that.

Mass redundancy marathon nearly over at HP

"walk voluntarily"

Somehow I think they'll reach their designated goal, what with the atmosphere being rather toxic these days.

The real question is ; after all these years of hearing about how HP is not a good place to work (at all), does it stand a chance of changing ?

BACS Bank Holiday BALLS UP borks 275,000 payments

"Bacs is aware of an isolated issue affecting one of its member organisations"

Oh, it's just another "isolated issue". And it's only affecting one customer. What's all the fuss about, eh mate ?

Gotta love PR drones.

Before headshotting them, that is.

Spooks, plod and security industry join to chase bank hacker

"extortion attacks against major banks"

Wrong move, bud.

Never threaten the money. You'll spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder.

New low for humanity: ONE BEELLION lost souls log on to Facebook in one day

Re: who on this planet buys a new baby shoes

Sorry ?

We have an article telling us that Zuckerberg is planning to allow Facebook to automatically order and pay for stuff in our name and without our consent* and you're up in arms about baby shoes ?

Wrong priority, man.

* yeah, I'm sure there'll be opt-out in some version of an upcoming change to the T&Cs but, from the article, it sure doesn't sound like Facebook is going to pop up a confirmation request every time

Google tells iOS 9 app devs: Switch off HTTPS if you want that sweet sweet ad money from us

Absolutely

Thanks Google !

Best shot to the foot I have ever seen !

Win10 PCs still stuck on slow boat from China, warehouses empty

Microsoft refused to comment

I wonder why.

Maybe it's because there's nothing they could say that would be taken seriously unless it were the words : "We goofed. Big time." ?

One thing I wonder, why didn't they push back the launch date when it was becoming obvious that they were not on track to succeed ?

Is it that urgent that Microsoft push out a new OS now ? They could have easily pushed the date back eight weeks to coincide with delivery and I don't think anyone would have actually noticed.

Nano – meet her: AMD's Radeon R9 4K graphics card for non-totally bonkers gamers, people

Re: Hope to read more on this subject

We might find more in the fried graphics card column in some weeks or months.

Malware menaces poison ads as Google, Yahoo! look away

Re: Try getting this plan past the accountants

Apparently, to get accountants to approve this plan, all you'll need to do is show them the trend in ad-blocking software.

Yes, it will cost money. There is no such thing as a free lunch. But I do believe that something along the lines of what I said is the only viable solution to the problem the article outlined.

Anything else is just going to cost more money for nothing. We have no way of tracking which ad shows up where, and if Google knows it ain't talking (as usual on this kind of matter).

The industry urgently needs to inject some oversight on the whole ad publication process, and the logical place to put that oversight is where ads are accepted for publication. By removing the ad-creation tools from the hands of the ad makers, you straightjacket them into a scenario in which they simply cannot abuse the system any more.

You nuke the problem from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Looking at the problem backwards

From this article I gather that the ad system is basically anyone foisting a program on ad companies who then push it out via Google (mostly).

This is the easy way to do it, and puts all the tools in the hands of the entity making the ad, giving scum the possibility to wreak havoc like they are.

So take the tools away from the ad makers and put them in the hands of the ad companies. Create a PHP-like ad-creation language. Ad makers will have to submit the code and content for their ads, and the ad company will be in charge of vetting and "compiling" the two into an actual ad before pushing it out. Simulators can be made to allow the ad maker to be sure that it will display as intended.

In doing so, we do away with every single security nightmare we currently have without having to change a major part of the current infrastructure.

I'm sure it's not difficult to do.

ClearSky: Keeping your premises free of unwanted clouds

Re: Welcome to the Real World

In the Real World, you don't go putting confidential company data in the hands of complete strangers, penalty clause or no. Fat lot of good a lawsuit will do you when your IP starts showing up in competitor's products, or your customer base starts shrinking so fast your head spins.

When you have your data in-house, you have the possibility of witnessing the progress, assessing the situation, calling in expertise if necessary, switching to another server you hastily set up (or have carefully planned). You know what is going on.

You can't call for expertise when your data is managed by another company - that is their call.

"having [..] storage silos is a costly nightmare of managing [..] storage infrastructure"

Whereas having your data in the Cloud will be a nightmare of idle workers and frantic manglement when the link goes down for whatever reason. And you will have no way to know when it will be back, nor can you do anything about except shout on the phone.

IT has a cost. Putting data in the Cloud does not remove that cost. It does, however, remove your control over it to place it in the hands of you don't know who.

I cannot imagine anyone thinking that that is a good idea.

Google Images: EU Commish opens new front against Chocolate Factory

@Dr Jones

What I said was would have the means to do something. I didn't say anything about blocking completely, nor did my example imply that that is what I was thinking.

You came up with blocking entirely on your own.

"Google has succeeded in [...] created a captive environment "

Well duh, that's what you get when use Google's API everywhere.

Apparently, someone should tell Getty that it is possible, as a poster above has already said, to control web spider acces to one's site. I remember 15 years ago having found out that a page on my own personal website was being displayed somewhere else without any credits to me and without copying the entire frame, just the data they wanted, so that everyone would think it was their own page. I quickly found out how to force them to display my entire page, with my header and logo.

If I can do that all by my lonesome, I do believe a company, let alone Getty, would have the means to do something about Google's image copying.

Hardened Linux stalwarts Grsecurity pull the pin after legal fight

Can't find a thing

The aforementioned company has been using the grsecurity name all over its marketing material and blog posts

If that is the case, the why, when I search for "grsecurity", do I only find sites that discuss a version of the product, or its merits, and no sites that say that they're using it in a product ? Or even a marketing page mentioning it ?

French woman gets €800 a month for electromagnetic-field 'disability'

Re: inverse square law and all that

I get my TV from satellite transmission. If it can reliably get a signal to my satellite dish, then I do believe that my body is also "receiving" the signal.

I have no idea about the power of the satellite TV signal compared to that of my mobile phone or a WiFi transmitter, and I am quite ready to believe that the local sources are more powerful. However, I do seem to recall that only microwave ovens work at a frequency that can actually affect living matter; phone, satellite and radio pass through us and do not affect us.

Her condition is not physical, it is mental - but that doesn't mean she is not entitled to treatment, if there is any.

Cisco's RAT-catchers spot sysadmin-targeted phish

The script “contained the actual functionality

Hopefully that means that analysts will now be able to incorporate this valuable information and make all applications more secure.

Why is the smart home insecure? Because almost nobody cares

Chilling

A chilling, but oh how realistic, tale.

And I'm pretty sure it's true as well.

D-Wave: 'Whether or not it's quantum, it's faster'

I find it hard to believe that any government anywhere would have a working quantum computer and there would be absolutely no knowledge of the fact.

It's like AI - we've been working on it for decades, we hear about a bit of progress every now and then, but there is no functional AI computer anywhere.

Quantum computing is more recent than AI, but is progressing faster - probably due to the fact that it is purely a physics challenge. Nevertheless, there is no functional quantum computer yet.

The Raspberry Pi is succeeding in ways its makers almost imagined

Awesome

Congratulations to these kids. Most impressive.

Reminds me of the old saying : "when you don't know what you can't do, you don't know you can't do it, so you find a solution".

These kids are finding solutions, and proving to themselves that they can do it. That is the best confidence-builder there is. I can't wait to see what they'll come up with next.

The most tragic thing about the Ashley Madison hack? It was really 1% actual women

"Women can use the site for free"

And they still don't. What a failure.

I wonder how representative this is of all the dating sites ?

In any case, I've never liked dating sites before and, with numbers like these, my dislike is reinforced.

FBI collars exec who allegedly tried to nick secrets of game fronted by babe Kate Upton

Yeah, but thanks to Farmville it is a scam that is proven to work.

All you need is to gag, bind and blindfold your conscience in the basement before embarking on such a career knowing you could have made an actual, fun game and instead chose to get rich.

Well, you can't really blame the game makers. If there were only 10 people on this ball of mud willing to pay (and pay, and pay) to play, then this kind of gaming paradigm wouldn't be all that successful.

You're hosting Uncle Sam's files in the cloud. You get hacked. This is what happens next

In their defense, cloud security issues are the same for everyone, and the solutions adopted are likely to be identical once their efficiency is proven.

Angry Birds maker Rovio takes aim at staff, axes a third of them

"focus on where we are at our best: in creating magnificent gaming experiences"

You had ONE good game, guys, so the plural is unnecessary and you should have stopped your sentence there.

Talk about success getting to one's head - this guy obviously thinks he deserves it for all his hard work. Actually, he just got lucky and is now up the creek wondering why he doesn't have a paddle.

There are so many bigwigs who think they succeeded. They then proceed to act like everything they think of is genius until it all comes crashing down around them. Then they blame the market conditions.

Glaring flaw in Apple car hype-gasm: The iGiant likes to make money

Re: "Drive on the left" signs

"the Germans instinctively flinched to the right [..] the Italians coming towards them made the matching mistake"

So two wrongs have finally made a right ;)

But that is exactly why I will never drive in the UK - I would be deathly scared of injuring someone (or worse) because my reflexes have been conditioned by more than 30 years of driving on the right.

Windows 10 now on 75 million devices, says Microsoft

At least you've admitted that you're just trolling.

"This suggests that Windows 10 is being installed faster than any previous version"

Obviously. MS is using its own internal figures (that it never publishes) to justify the PR spiel.

What I'm interested in is the percentage of installs that revert to Windows 7, aka the only Windows worth using. Remember Vista ? Microsoft's PR department went nuts about installs as well, but in the end, everybody (well, everyone intelligent) removed it and put XP back.

I'm waiting for the final figures. Up to now, Windows 1 0 is eating into Windows 8 market share. It would really be quite a slap if Windows 7 didn't shrink in a notable manner.

C For Hell – Day Two: Outage misery continues for furious C4L customers

It's called a business opportunity.

Because these days, anything that helps you shaft your competitors is fair game.

I'm sorry, you thought that morals are still important ? Come with me, I'll have you pass the Managerial Moral Vacuum Initiation certification, then you'll be fit to pass the Sold Your Soul To Capital certification and you'll make millions every year.

Agreed ? Don't bother signing, Vlad here will seal the deal with a little bite. You don't mind needles, do you ?

Ashley Madison hacked potential competitor, leaked emails suggest

Re: Built on evidence obtained illegally? Yes, good luck with that.

The NSA is legal.

We've been told that repeatedly.

Devs are SHEEP. Which is good when the leader writes secure code

As a programming consultant, I have worked in just about every environment. The places I like to work the most are the ones where I can code on a dev server, but do not have access to the production server.

The benefits to that configuration are enormous. No more worrying about what my code is going to do, if it's a cockup, I just roll back the data and go back to the drawing board. I can debug to my heart's content, destroying the same data again and again until I get the whole procedure right. And when the code has been approved and is ready to be put into production, well I can't do that so if there is cockup then, it's no water on me.

When, on the other hand, I have to go and work on production environments (and it happens depressingly often, and not just in mom-and-pop shops), I take an inordinate amount of time in analyzing the code changes required, implementing as many safeguards as I possibly can and doing dry runs (no data change) until I'm as sure as I can be that nothing bad will happen. I hate working like that, but that's the job.