Posts by Pascal Monett

Life support's ABOUT to be switched off, but XP's suddenly COOL again

Re: writing new malware for an obsolete OS

An obsolete OS that still holds 29% of the market.

Win98/95 are part of the block labelled "Other", representing 0,10% of the market.

So Win98/95 are definitely not worth working on. WinXP, on the other hand, encloses almost one third of all computer users, who are more and more clueless home owners, ie ideal pickings for scammers and criminals.

This is very much an opportunity for the crims, since XP users may only be a third of the market, but probably represent a better return on investment since anything that works is something the crims can soon consider stable.

Re: "none of them have had any security problems"

You mean to say "none of them have been targeted yet", don't you ?

Crafty French hackers tweak 'My Account' page, slurp 800,000 Orange users' details

"never provide personal data over email"

You mean, over the email address that you guys just leaked ?

Why, thanks for the suggestion. Now all the affected Orange customers need to do is reinforce their spam filter to face the veritable deluge they will no doubt be getting.

Yup, now is the perfect time to remind users of security measures THEY should be taking.

Well done, Orange.

Indian press focuses on Satya Nadella's love of cricket

So now we'll see what a cricket player can do at the head of Microsoft

Once he has shown his mettle, maybe we will see the next MS CEO tout his experience at StarCraft as reference ?

Or maybe Counter-Strike:Global Operations ?

What would be the best game for leading Microsoft into the future ?

New Microsoft CEO Nadella could earn FOURTEEN TIMES what Ballmer banked in 2013

"79 per cent of the max"

Just curious, but what maximum are we talking about ?

Greenland glacier QUADRUPLES speed, swells seas

Sorry, but could you explain just exactly what your third point has to do with climate change ?

Re: Your move

This is not a game of chess.

This is science in the making.

You can quote whatever URL you want, when it comes to science I don't give a damn about the opinion of someone who is not a scientist.

What I want is a scientific study giving unequivocal proof, approved by every other scientific body, with no caveats, no shady issues and no omissions.

When I see that report, when scientists have finally understood how climate works and can reliably predict its evolution, then I will know that we know what is happening and why.

And that ain't happening tomorrow, so let the scientists work and stop being oh-so-sure you know what's going on because you don't and nobody does.

Climate science is based on thermodynamics, and anybody who has studied thermodynamics knows that it is by far the most difficult are of science. Climate studies have only started, we have weather data that is barely 200 years old and reliable data that is less old than that (when it's not being mucked about with to fit someone's agenda).

We do NOT have sufficient knowledge of our planet, or of the science, to claim that the planet is warming, or that Humanity is a cause.

Deal with it.

The revival of survival – the gaming genre that refuses to die

I've hated PvP since Quake I.

When I do play online, it is almost exclusively with my friends and people I personally know in Real Life (tm). Every time I can, I set up a private server with a good password, and only said gaming buddies have access to it. We have loads of fun.

If we have to connect to a public server, we look for empty ones with bots. Nine times out of ten, when someone else connects to our game, it is some lame idiot who does crazy things or asshole things before leaving with some smarmy insult. Every once in a while, it is a good player who says nothing but thoroughly kicks our ass and we are left admiring how he did it. On top of that, he leaves after typing a "gg" for us to cherish.

Doesn't make up for the idiots, though.

Steam will be the #1 cause for Linux gaming to actually take off - if it ever does.

And I do hope it does, because I would just love to let my Windows box finally die and be rid of all the endless OS quirks, the thrice-damned Registry and Microsoft thinking it knows what I want better than I do.

Now all I need is to find a good Linux distro that has help files that are actually useful and a n00b guide that doesn't insult me for not being a Linux guru on the first day.

Facebook turns 10: Big Brother isn't Mark Zuckerberg. It's YOU

A message from your anti-Facebook association :

BOOOO ! HISSSS !

Thank you for your attention.

I concur with you, JonP. It is not Facebook that makes people conform.

It's the conformists that flock to Facebook and revel in conforming together.

I revel in letting them conform outside of my horizon.

I totally agree. My own wife created herself a Facebook profile to "see what it was all about", but she created it under a fake name with fake details.

There certainly are real-name profiles in that hive of scum and . . oops, wrong train of thought - there are real-name profile in Facebook, but I doubt that they are even a majority.

Not if you take into account the pet profiles, the fake name profiles, the multiple-account game profiles, and the business profiles. Heck, there may even be a profile or two for famous landmarks.

There are real people who post in there, but the only way you can be sure is if you already know the person in Real Life (tm).

Anonymous means NO identifying element left behind – EU handbook

Yeah, but

Since you're electing the next batch of snoopers, you might as well go the whole nine yards, no ?

Microsoft claims victory over second-hand software broker

Interesting idea.

Given Microsoft's behaviour in the open document standard fiasco, I wouldn't put it past them.

HELLO LENOVO. Do you really, really want to make smartphones?

Upvote for acknowledging what you are ;)

EU warns United States: SHAPE UP on data protection OR ELSE

Re: "a stupid weights and measures system"

Only considered stupid by people with zero grasp of basic mathematics.

But carry on, ignorance is bliss after all.

'I had a rare Twitter handle... I was extorted into giving it up'

Re: "he didn't want to sell it"

I can understand that position.

I have a little website which is nothing at all, but I wouldn't want to sell my domain name off either.

On the other hand, this tale now prompts me to think that large piles of money are harbingers of the end of whatever it is they target because it would seem that, if someone is offering you a suitcase of money for something, someone else is lurking in the shadows, looking for a way to steal it. Either way, you lose the thing, so you might as well get some dough out of it.

I do hope that criminal will get caught and prosecuted, though. Piece of slime. Obviously the NSA has nooooo information on this, no sir, not at all.

Tell us we're all doomed, MPs beg climate scientists

I disagree.

I'm sure there are more than a few very bright people in politics.

Unfortunately, being bright does not imply being honest.

Snowden: Canadian spooks used free airport WiFi to track travellers

"I imagine even the slowest data analyst would need little more than a MAC address before giving the ok to storm your house and cart you off to Guantanamo."

TFTFY

Re: "the Americans have promised never to spy on that one again"

And anyone with a functional brain got a good chuckle out of that one.

Re: "[..] how someone in traditional Muslim dress [..] is bad"

You have to admit that, in these times, it does seem rather a surveillance magnet. I'd say cops will have a tendency of keeping their eyes on both types, actually, because you just know that some nutcase somewhere will assault them in some way and everything will go downhill from there.

Really ? Governments infecting people with spyware willy-nilly ?

Funny, I don't remember reading anything about that in the news.

Any sources to back that statement ?

Google's ad-slinging juggernaut gobbles more BEEELLIONS in revenue

So Google is rolling in it

Good for Google.

So, how much did you say Google was paying in taxes ?

Yahoo! Mail! users! change! your! passwords! NOW!

Something that died last millennium but is still not aware of that fact.

It's not just you

I also immediately thought "hey, opportunity grab !".

It is telling that Yahoo! adopts the same strategy as Google for grabbing you phone number.

Unfortunately for them, I'm not giving Google my number because the less it knows about me the better I feel, and I certainly won't be giving it to Yahoo! because I find it even less trustworthy than Google.

Google may be an evil, all-watching Internet overlord, but at least it is an efficient one. Yahoo! just looks like a bunch of confused amateurs next to the Big G.

Boffins build electronic tongue that can distinguish between BEERS

The only people who know how to make good beer are the Belgians.

No one else can come close to either their quality or their diversity.

Give hackers your data, says former RSA man

"yield ten thousand fake-but-plausible numbers"

I love the idea !

Let's get that implemented ASAP, please.

Facebook's dying? HA! Get ready for another DECADE of us – Zuck

Re: "After all, Microsoft and Apple have always been famous for dividends too"

Yeah, and I don't have any stock in those either.

Matter of fact, I only have stock in companies that actually pay out dividends. Shocking, isn't it ?

May be, but I'm not a billionaire, and I don't see the point of bragging about the value of a stock that brings nothing until you sell it.

If you don't sell it and it doesn't reward you, it's just dead money.

I understand that Zuck is rated as being a billionaire because of the system, good for him. I didn't nick someone else's good idea at Uni, so I can't play the same game.

My loss, obviously.

BBC Trust: 'LA LA LA I'M NOT LISTENING' to this DMI mega-tech FAIL

"Without the ability to drill down through the corporation's own material"

I'm sorry, what was that you said ? Are you trying to tell me that, at a time where a foreign spy agency has been revealed to have access to everything on the Net wherever it is, you're telling me that a sovereign government does not have the means to drill into documents that belong to an entity that is directly under its responsibility and purview ?

How exactly is that possible ?

Trojan-laden FileZilla clone slurps data, sends it to the UNKNOWN

Re: "full control by the user"

That has always been Microsoft's Achilles heel.

If Win7 is only marginally more secure and stable than XP, it's because user control has been toned down a tiny notch.

Still not enough, but it's a start.

The article clearly states that the miscreants removed all update code to keep it from being replaced for as long as possible.

OK, Wyse guy: So how do YOU think 'boosting' legacy tech is a winner?

Imposter !

That's not Tarkan Maner ! That's Castle - laughing at the perpetrator he just caught thanks to a keylogger his daughter surreptiously installed on the perp's PC !

Valve showers Debian Linux devs with FREE Steam games

Re: "So I pulled out the drive, hooked it up to my desktop, and tried it out on there"

And if you had tried to do that with EAGames, the first time all of your games would be invalidated and you'd have to download everything again, and the second time your account would have invalidated and you'd have lost everything permanently.

But it's Steam, and Steam is more intelligent than that.

On the other hand, I now have the possibility to legitimately run my Painkiller game that I bought years ago on DVD but with DRM so draconian it didn't even recognize its own install disk. Now that I have purchased a Gold Edition of the game for a low, low price, I can do away with the pirate copy I had to get to play MY game.

And I can run Sim City 4 again. And I got Space Marines, a game of last millenium that I had missed but knew about. I runs beautifully well.

I have CSCZ, played it for some years. I now have CSGO and am playing it twice a week on average with my friends. Never realized anything was broken with CSCZ since we haven't played it since CSGO.

Steam is the best online gaming vendor there is bar none. But everyone stumbles from time to time.

Ex-NSA guru builds $4m encrypted email biz - but its nemesis right now is control-C, control-V

"we would fight an order to cooperate"

And here's how the fight would go :

Government Spook : "Hand over the encryption keys for user #362846284, please."

Virtru : "We. Will. Not."

Government Spook : "Then you go to jail as a terrorist and get held indefinitely without trial, and we'll ransack your servers and get the keys anyway."

Virtru : "Here. They. Are."

Government Spook : "If you say anything to anyone about this, you go to jail same as before. Sign here."

Virtru : "Sir! Yes Sir!"

Microsoft seeks patent for blade server chassis

And that was your big mistake !!

Snowden speaks: NSA spies create 'databases of ruin' on innocent folks

Re: A single example

I've got an example for you : the continued existence of Guantanamo, despite it being illegal, immoral and supposed to be shut down.

When ZOMBIES go shopping: 40m Target customer breach? That's NOTHING!

Re: 40 MEELLION? Now that, is incredibly hard to believe

No it isn't. Every family unit needs to shop for food at least once a week. The latest census states that US population has hit 315 million.

Even if only one in ten of those 315 million people go shoppping, that's 31.5 million cards right there.

Now, if what you're saying is that you find hard to believe that 40 million high-rate cards were lifted, I tend to agree with you. But 40 million bank details ? That's easy to believe.

What I find difficult to believe is that they didn't get more.

Cryptocurrencies now being pooped out by cartoon cat

Coming Next !

<drumroll>

SpongeBobCoin

<ba-dum, tish!>

Sweet work, fellas: Boffins build high-density battery powered by sugar

Boffins build high-density battery powered by sugar

No they haven't. They have demonstrated that a hypothetical energy source can be made to produce electricity.

The day that that process can be found in a battery is decades away if all the previous impressive declarations of these past years are anything to go on.

Not knocking the work in any way - I find what they did quite interesting - just putting things in perspective.

Botnet PC armies gulp down 16 MILLION logins from around the web: Find out if you're a victim

Re: "governments are not entirely immune to the will of the people"

The NSA might disagree with that statement.

And I'm pretty sure the CIA will ROFL.

Boffins measure 27 quantum states of light

27 Dimensions ????

We can barely measure 4 properly, what on God's Green Earth makes them think they can measure 27 ?

"Dimension" must not have the meaning I think it has.

MPAA spots a Google Glass guy in cinema, calls HOMELAND SECURITY

No, but ...

The MPAA is apparently allowed to whistle and Homeland Security will come a'runnin' to bitchslap the terrorist motherfucker who dares to attempt to bring prejudice to the Glorious Land of IP Protection.

It is not the MPAA that detained the bloke, it was DHS. The DHS has the right to detain anyone they just suspect has been talking to anyone they might feel needs a bit of detaining (like a journalist learned to his detriment a few weeks ago). And they bloody well have the right to ship you off to prison for terrorism if you sneeze too loud.

So keep your buttocks well clenched, citizens of The Land That Used To be Free. Otherwise, Homeland Security will probe you like the alien you might be.

Idle question : when will DHS agents wear jackboots ? It's about time they did, isn't it ?

Microsoft empties a can of BUG SPRAY on Visual Studio 2013, hands sticky result to devs

Agreed, a simple fix - that involves editing registry keys.

No problem for proficient PC users, I agree again.

I wouldn't want my mother to have to do that, though. I have a number of friends who would probably go into shock if they had to be exposed to the Registry Editor.

Bottom line is, yes, the Registry Editor is the official application hack tool. What people want is not a hack, they want a vendor-made solution, in this case, a correction.

You shouldn't have to hack your products so that they function as per specifications.

Office 365 Microsoft's fastest growing business, ever - Microsoft

"it’s time to stop [..] Microsoft products and start selling its online services instead"

Of course he would say that. Doesn't mean I'm buying into it.

150% uptake ? So you're still small-time then, call me back when you've got 51% of the market using your stuff.

Even then, I'll still ask you why I should rent my data to you when I have already paid for the right to create and use it - several times.

Telling me you have x hundreds of thousands of customers does not impress me. There are alledgedly half a billion people getting their personal lives scrutinized by advertisers on Facebook, I still don't see that as a reason to throw myself into that particular pit either.

In fact, I'll go so far as to say that there are two types of customers going to the cloud : those who have money to burn and are trying out something new to see how to adapt it to their existing infrastructure, and those who have no resources for local IT and are outsourcing until they do.

That leaves those who care about the security of their data and have the means to manage it locally. They will likely not be swayed by the siren calls.

Look out, Earth! Here comes China Operating System (aka Linux)

Re: I don't think there will be any other way to get this to market

Maybe not to our market, but I doubt the entity making this is targetting our market. This product is clearly for their home market, and I don't know if Chinese users have yet grasped the importance of Open Source.

And if their product is user-friendly and useful, then the question may be moot. Besides, we all know that, if the Chinese government wants integrated surveillance, there will be no one (alive) to oppose it.

Nearly HALF of South Korea hacked in insider data theft

Re: "Are [..] marketing companies allowed to buy personal records that include sensitive stuff "

Do you really think they care if they are "allowed" or not ?

Note that the guy heading for prison is not the one who <alledgedly> bought the data, it's the one who sold the data.

Which, of course, is the reverse for drugs, where it's the people buying the stuff that get locked up.

Obama reveals tiny NSA reforms ... aka reforming your view of the NSA

Re: Anyone cares to explain how it will work exactly?

You don't need to know, Citizen.

Carry on with your life and Trust Your Government.

Move along, now, move along.

Smog-hit Beijing shows sunsets on a giant TV to remind people what the sun looks like

Re: probably mostly caused by power plants burning dirty old brown coal

Unfortunately it would seem that the pollution problem is caused in greater share by individual furnaces using dirty coal for heating purposes.

The industry most likely has a share of responsibility, but it would therefor seem that it is much more the amount of population, its concentration and its heating source that is the issue.

Therefor, you could likely replace all cars with eletric versions, and convert all power plants to nuclear and you will not see the pollution issue disappear.

Not until people in Bejing can heat their homes with electrical-based solutions instead of coal-based.

And that will take a lot more time.

Feds to flog off $28m in Bitcoin from Silk Road drug souk seizure

Re: Big Banking does not like competition

What makes you think that BTC is competition for Big Banking ?

They deal in a hundred different currencies all day long, one more is not going to be a problem.

BTC is anonymous and not beholden to the banking system, you say ? Then why is there a conversion rate ? Who do you think tracks the conversion rate and updates it ? Where do you think the conversion rate is logged and analyzed ?

Big Banking already has its claws in BTC, like a remora on a shark. Big Banking doesn't care what makes a currency, it already doesn't make the currencies that flow through it. Big Banking just wants to ensure that ALL currency flows go through it.

So dollars, euros, drachmes, bitcoins, it's all the same for Big Banking. BTC can go on being "anonymous", a dollar bill is anonymous too.