Posts by Pascal Monett

LulzSec turncoat Sabu avoids jail time thanks to co-operating with Feds

26 years ?

Who did he kill ?

I'm all for justice, but it seems to me that, if he didn't kill anybody, he shouldn't be locked up for longer than a murderer would get.

ARG! A GHOST SHIP! Pirates sunk by UK cops return from watery grave

Operation Creative is a ground-breaking initiative

That it is. It's breaking so much legal ground that it's creating potholes.

But being useful, not to mention relevant, is beside the point.

DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR? New leccy BMWs have flimsy password security – researcher

Re: I use my name all the time so why shouldn't I be able to use it for online services

Maybe because when you give your name to someone in Real Life (TM), you don't expect them to be going through the roof of your house in the next ten minutes to check out all your stuff, mosey in the cellar and leave a turd in the fish bowl.

Because on the Internet, they can do that and more, if they are determined.

Microsoft Cortana EULA contains the Greatest Disclaimer of ALL TIME

Re: Lots of the stuff in EULA has no legal backing

The EULA has no legal backing. You can only agree to it once you have forked over the money and removed the shrinkwrap. Following where you are in the world, doing that can void your possibility of returning the software you bought.

Even if you can return it, you still cannot read the EULA before you have installed the product, making the EULA anything but a contract.

If you check up on your commercial law, I'm pretty sure that, whatever your country, you will find that a "contract" is an agreement between two parties to exchange goods for currency, or something approaching that. The key notion here "agreement" : you cannot agree to something you can't read before having already paid for it.

The fact that we're talking about EULAs at all is simply because, as of right now, nobody wants to enforce anything legal about them because doing so would require shops to house stacks and stacks of EULAs for their customers to read before making the purchase. And nobody wants that to happen.

Antivirus firm Avast! takes down forums after breach

Could someone please specify

If I have never used Avast forums, am I at risk ?

After reading the article, I understand that it is the forum passwords that have been compromised. If so, never having had an ID there, I am not at risk.

Right ?

Care to explain exactly how a "backup strategy" is going to do anything to protect my personal information ?

You've got Mail! But someone else is reading it in Outlook for Android

Nailed it

All apps installed on a standard Android have all the "permissions" they can want since, if you want it, you have to accept everything. So any app at all can go read the storage area, extract any useful information and send it off to God knows who.

There is zero actual security on Android "smartphones", and I suspect that Iphone is not much better.

Smartphones. Riiight.

Windows XP fixes flaws for free if you turn PCs into CASH REGISTERS

Updates for free ? Maybe not. But I certainly do not think that Microsoft has the right to arbitrarily decide to no longer support a product that millions of customers are still using.

The proper lifecycle of a product is that it is retired when its market share becomes negligeable. Millions of customers are not negligeable. Software, as it has been said, has no date limit, so Microsoft should continue and support its product until at least 90% of XP users have switched to something else.

Google tells indie labels to take its YouTube deal or face OBLIVION

Seems to me that the Indies should become a Union

It is time for Indies to unite and dictate their terms.

The Internet allows anyone to create a forum, one of them should create an Indie Label Union site and get the word around.

Order of business would be : set the rules of what an Indie label should accept, get agreement on said rules, then go to Google with THEIR template.

It's always in the numbers. Ideally, ALL indies should just remove their videos on their own, now. Once Google's revenue has been eviscerated, then they can come back and say ok, now we do it like this. On their terms.

The problem, of course, is getting the indie labels to play ball together - the difficulty of which is, of course, what Google is counting on.

Pirate Party runs aground in European Parliamentary elections

Which is not, apparently, a voter concern.

Yet.

128-bit crypto scheme allegedly cracked in two hours

Nice to know

It's nice to know that there are still some seriously intelligent people on this planet.

Too bad for curvy ellipses then, I'll just be happy to still find them in magazines.

What ? The door ? Oh. Right.

New XSS vuln hits eBay as rubbish passw0rds persist

A half-million in fines ? Who cares ?

The real hit is going to be in consumer confidence. Hopefully it will cost them a lot more than that.

Scientists capture death star in violent explosion

Re: stars end their lives in one of two ways [..] they go out, or they go supernova

Um, seems to me that there is a "Nova" between "go out" and "Supernova".

Rubber-glove time: Italy to probe TripAdvisor over 'fake reviews'

"This system employs sophisticated algorithms"

That do not spot spelling mistakes, obvious strawman arguments or downright falsehoods.

I'm sure the sub-contracted company (that may or may not be located in Earth's Southern hemisphere) that "controls" the reviews had a hoot when they read that.

By the way, what "penalties" can you leverage against anonymous people with false logins, false contact details and changing/spoofed IP addresses ?

JJ Abrams and Star Wars: I've got a bad feeling about this

Re: I wanted the Thrawn trilogy

YES ! That !

Absolutely. That would have been awesome.

Maybe in another 75 years, when MPAA is bankrupt and forgotten along with its copyrights, and when technology has given us artificial voice simulators and CGI has lept forward in power, we will get a proper Thrawn trilogy with the original cast all in well-done CGI without (too many) lens flares.

And maybe I'll win the lottery this week.

Re: JarJar

I think many people would pay to see that !

But torture ? In a kids' film ? Can't have that.

A dip in lava maybe, but not torture. That would be too cruel.

Yes, let's not

Fringe was brilliant. Brilliant character development, and a relations story that actually brought something to the series and was not just tacked on as an afterthought once a thousand bored housewives had sent a petition to have some smooching (like in Bones, Castle, House, FBI Missing Persons, and just about all the others).

Abrams has his name on Fringe ? I'm surprised, but I will accept it as the one good thing he did.

Except for Season 5, that is. That season doesn't exist.

It bloody well is.

Wacky 'baccy making a hash of FBI infosec recruitment efforts

"good for lulz" ?

I'll be curious to see how much you lulz when you see iron bars all around you.

In case you were already high when reading the article, the FBI does not hire people who are under influence. It did not say whether said people got arrested, though.

Google is tech industry and world's most valuable brand as Apple rots

WTF ?

Twitter is now a tech vendor ?

In that case, why isn't Facebook on the list ? At lease FB sells ads. Twitter doesn't sell anything.

No such luck: Apple, Samsung say peace talks are off – way off

That sounds like a rather nice idea.

Have a pint on me.

Microsoft walks into a bar. China screams: 'Eww is that Windows 8? GET OUT OF HERE'

Nailed it.

What I really don't understand is how IBM did not make all Fortune 1000 companies understand just how much better their OS was, and how more suited to business it was.

IBM has so missed the boat in the PC space and it is continuing to do so.

The loss is all the more bitter.

Re: it's about Microsoft designing their software around a business model

I'm rather surprised that Microsoft bases its business model on everyone having 100Mbps connections whereas most people in the US barely have 2Mpbs.

Sure, in Taiwan they have 100Mbps (or so I heard), but for most other people in the world, the Cloud is just a slow remote drive that is not always there. And not secure. And not under your control.

So yeah, what's not to like ?

Re: those of us running it

Three people do not make a valid representative sample.

Windows 8 has changed a lot more than just the Start menu. It has also attempted to lock users into a walled garden, among other issues.

But I do not expect someone happy with a Playskool UI to be knowledgeable about issues. Go back to clicking your shiny tiles. I'm glad you're happy with it.

Creepy Facebook urges users to pester friends about their SEX LIVES

1.25 billion people ?

Certainly not.

1.25 billion accounts, undoubtedly, but not people.

Yahoo! Saves! Trolls! From! Session! Jacking! Holes!

So Yahoo is patching holes like crazy

Too bad it still looks like they're trying to bail water from the Titanic.

Silverlight finally becomes popular ... with crims

So you're saying that your clients are not media cartels (since industrial espionage does not concern music or video companies) and yet they use DRM ?

Interesting. I didn't think that anyone outside MPAA affiliates had any use for DRM.

Boffins teach robo-arm to catch flying beer bottle

Re: Catch unconsciously?

If I judge by the content of this article, if you're catching an object reflexively you are still using your brain because you need to know where the object is, thus you have to use your view and correlate with the reflexive action.

The kind of reflex you refer to is the bump on the knee thing. That does not go to the brain and if you end up kicking someone it has nothing to do with aim.

LA air traffic meltdown: System simply 'RAN OUT OF MEMORY'

I think the time has come

It is high time aircraft have some collision-detection hardware installed. With a local radio network, each aircraft could automatically identify itself to all the others in the local zone and they would all "negotiate" their passage.

That should take the brunt of the work off the traffic controllers, who would then "just" be monitoring the state of affairs and intervening when necessary to avoid a cock-up.

Just dreaming here, may not be practical.

"There may be _HOURS_ before the flight plan is punched in and the actual time it needs to be executed."

Um, I don't think this is about flight plan stuff _before_ take-off. This is about controlling that the craft is not going to crash into anything else right now.

I agree that pre-flight flight plan control could very well be farmed out to a mainframe that would happily control its validity without resorting to real-time constraints. But when you have a hundred flights over your head at that instant and need to integrate a new object and control its parameters, you need the result straight away, not in ten minutes.

Plus, I believe that flight control has a tendency of reassigning altitudes to ensure that collisions do not occur - that is not something that a pre-flight check can take into account.

That NAKED SELFIE you sent on Snapchat? You may be seeing it again

Totally agree.

So Twitter is going to be a roaring success, isn't it ?

Get BENT: Flexy supercapacitor breaks records

Let's ask Michael Bay !

Boffins say hot air makes Antarctica colder

Re: Yet climate modellers [..] don't have that imperative to be correct

Climate modellers are also dealing with the single most complex field of science : thermodynamics. And they are trying to create a model that not only deals with that science, but does it on a planet-wide scale.

I have no beef against scientists, their job is one of the most demanding and unrewarding that can be. What I disagree with is the gravy train that has sprouted up around the existing flawed models, and what I am incensed by is the so-called scientists that are guilty of massaging the data to fit the conclusion that lays the tracks for said gravy train.

No one with a brain can deny climate change. It's happening all the time. What I can deny is the need to go Chicken Little about it and approve throwing gobs of money at ill-conceived schemes that 1) are not renewable, 2) do not actually have results compatible with being eco-friendly and 3) give their greatest benefit only to the people that are actively involved in the scheme.

Whoosh !

Yes, but in electronics feedback loops are easier to identify and comprehend.

Nurse ! He's lost his meds again !

Re: Warming more slowly=getting colder.

That's the same line of reasoning as "spending more makes you save more !", or the beancounter view that earning less means losing money.

Warming more slowly is not getting colder. Getting colder is when temperatures drop, not when they rise less quickly.

Hey, does your Smart TV have a mic? Enjoy your surveillance, bro

" internet-connected coffee makers and such "

Nobody, and I mean nobody, will ever convince me that my household appliances have any need of being "connected".

A coffee maker is to make coffee, not listen to the radio. For that, I have a radio.

Actually, I'll make it really simple : now that we have tablets that are readable and can connect to them thar intarwebs, there is no good reason to connect anything else.

The best appliance is a dumb appliance.

London cabbies to offer EVEN WORSE service in protest against Uber

Uber has been banned in <city>

Seems to me that that is a sure sign of monopoly disruption (since we're not talking about criminal or immoral activity), and I don't see how that can be a Bad Thing (tm).

Netflix FREEZES prices for existing UK users to stop them quitting vid-streaming service

Re: Why should a stream service have to negotiate "rights" to stream content?

Because the rights holders will sue to the ground anyone who streams stuff without their prior permission. They do that because they have the mistaken impression of living in a world where they decide what is on offer, thus "managing availability", and where it is on offer.

Unfortunately for rights holders, the Internet means two things : firstly, everything is available everywhere as soon as it is posted, and secondly, whatever is available now will be available forever. If rights holders attempt to limit content availability or accessibility, they are attempting to artificially limit content access and the Internet is bloody good at routing around artificial limitations.

That is why the content majors have not set up their own portals - they do not want to take the brunt of the backlash they will be getting if they set up shop on the Internet like they are used to doing on the street. That, in turn, explains why streaming services are continually short of content to stream - rights holders are handing out limited contracts with the same generosity as Scrooge before that fateful XMas night.

So let's make one thing clear : the only acceptable user experience is where the user logs on to a major's portal, finds the entire catalog available regardless of his worldly location, and clicks on what he wants to watch and starts watching. Anything less than that and piracy will continue because piracy is providing that experience.

So, Hollywood, RIAA, MPAA et al, you set that up for a price we're willing to pay and you will do away with piracy overnight. Guaranteed.

Twitter jitters: Investors turn into quitters as shares hit the sh...

"Every one involved agrees that the shares are worth that initial 25B"

Not any more.

Bill Gates: Sell off Bing? Nah. Xbox? Maybe...

Server OS & Desktop OS = Windows.

Application business = Office

I said those two lines were the money makers, no contest there.

Developer Tools = free, so no money from that

As for Office 365, it's not doing as well as Microsoft wants it to, and Azure is not the rush either.

I will grant you Exchange, but it's still a dog to run, and Hyper-V is making some people happy, no doubt there.

But I don't see that Microsoft is making billions on those last two.

Bing was shit 5 years ago and it is still shit today. It'll probably still be shit 5 years from now. The fact that Bing gives you personally the results you need is irrelevant.

What is relevant ? Investments. Like this. And this. Google has been investing billions in datacenters for years now.

That is why we are seeing this kind of news. And this. Microsoft is playing catch-up, because Microsoft has decades to catch up with.

Even Facebook is getting into the act.

I don't know how much money Google has put into its worldwide datacentre architecture, but I do believe that, until Microsoft has at least equalled that amount, Bing will remain a 2nd-rate search service. Which is not to say that it can't be useful before that time.

But right now, Bing is shit.

Recently ?

Microsoft has screwed up every major project for the past two decades.

The only thing that has kept Microsoft afloat is the fact that Windows+Office is everywhere and is the default choice. That tag team has made Microsoft its billions, nothing else.

And that is why Microsoft is desperate to get people to use Office365, because it knows that the future is going to see PCs relegated to developer/content creator tools. The masses have already ditched the PC for tablets, iPads and smartphones. Windows is going to lose the mass market, and that plus the no more Office licenses is going to put a serious dent in Microsoft's revenues. Maybe businesses will keep PCs for office drones, but the PC of 2050 will probably not be a tower. And this Bring Your Own nonsense is not helping Microsoft either.

So Microsoft is going to have to get its web services into top shape if it wants to survive. As usual though, it is pretty much screwing that up bit by bit as well.

But fear not, fanbois, Microsoft has plenty of cash to see itself through these difficult times. It will be able to screw up Windows 9, 10, 11 and all the way up to 25 if it wants before really getting into trouble.

Because it will screw up. It is much too used to having things work its way.

Scariest NSA revelation yet: Spooks are RUBBISH at CIPHERS

The NSA is longer in the shadows.

Personally, I don't know what I find more disturbing : the fact that the NSA publishes a job recruitment pitch on Twitter, or the fact that the NSA has a Twitter account in the first place.

Oculus rips ZeniMax over claims of Carmack foul play

I thought this was about Carmack

Who is this Palmer Luckey they mention ?

In any case, if all the source code is available on the Web, I think this is going to be pretty much an open-and-shut case.

And apparently Zenimax is in good standing to lose, because you don't publish code online that contains unlicensed IP. That would be a suicide note.

French software developers are all beautiful women

Automatic upvote for mentioning Girl Genius !

Re: so bad it's funny

You mean something like this ?

Denmark dynamited by cunning American Minecraft vandals

So the download is so popular

That's nice to know. Could someone please tell me how to get it ?

I would appreciate something more specific than just "go to the Danish geo site and download it there", because I went to the site and can't, for the life of me, find out how to get the download.

Yes, I found the interactive map where they show you the 10km2 chunks to choose from, but after that ? Is there any easier way ? Torrent link maybe ?

Any info is welcome.

Google forges a Silver bullet for Android, aims it at Samsung's heart

Re: Is Google becoming the big-bad corporate entity and Microsoft the one that plays fair?

Let me reassure you : Google is simply becoming as bad as Microsoft, in its journey to become worse than Microsoft.

The only reason Microsoft is where it is is because before smartphones, there was only the PC for getting mail and going to the Web.

Now there is phones and phablets and the PC is going back to being used only by content creators and professionals, so Microsoft is on its way out and Google is taking its place.

The king is dead, long live the king !