Posts by Pascal Monett

Security holes in Word, the Windows kernel and Adobe Flash. Party like it's Patch Tuesday again

I thought it was Java that is a remotely exploitable hole

Modern spying 101: How NSA bugs Chinese PCs with tiny USB radios - NYT

"compromised 100,000 computers around the world"

Maybe they should have targetted 100,000 computers in China if they wanted to spy on the Chinese ?

Ok, I got my coat . . .

Top patent troll sues US regulators for interfering with its business

So their scam is "protected" by Free Speech ?

Well I've got some Free Speech for MPHJ : Fuck You.

That will be all.

Two websites you should show your boss if you want to be paid in Bitcoin

Re: The ones who were paid in them previously and made huge profits seem that way

Of course the ones who started this whole things were savvy - they are on the top of the pyramid !

Everyone knows that the higher you are in a scheme's hierarchy, the more rewards you reap.

Not knocking Bitcoin, but those who started it minted coins in way less time than it takes now, so sorry, but it does look like a pyramid scheme to me.

Google stabs Wikipedia in the front

State religion ?

State religions are based on rhetoric and imaginary friends.

Google is a state in itself.

It is not imaginary, it is not rhetorical, and it certainly is not your friend.

Re: "the constant lowering of standards of content on Wikipedia"

Wikipedia has content standards ?

Woz backs Chinese 'Apple of Far East' in play for US hardware market

golf shirt, not turtleneck ?

Hang the traitor !

Hackers slurp credit card details from US luxury retailer Neiman Marcus

You think of $7500 and compare it to your revenue per month, and your jaw drops. The people who get this kind of invite see $7500 and think in terms of revenue per day and they don't even blink.

If you get that invite you'll be thinking about it in your mansion by the fire, playing a game of snooker on your own snooker table. You'll finally accept during one of your weekly $1000 dinners.

At that point, the fee is the last item on the list of your worries.

Hubble 'scope snaps 600-LIGHT-YEAR-wide pic of star-spawning nebula

It's called planning ahead.

Or job security.

Ok, I got my coat.

Microsoft to RIP THE SHEETS off Windows 9 aka 'Threshold' in April

Threshold

I wonder if that name will become eerily prescient in the coming years.

As in, "Microsoft was on the threshold of (success ? failure ?) with the release of what became known as Windows 9"

Sharepoint ? Great ?

I'm not sure I want what you're smoking.

Dropbox outage was caused by 'buggy' upgrade: DDoS us? You hardly know us...

1775Sec

All hail the new bunch of slef-important jackasses who will "entertain" us for the next few months by being uselessly disruptive and proving nothing, then either fade into obscurity or put the final FBI nail into their rickety coffin.

I look forward to forgetting you before the end of the year.

No, it's a stark reminder of how much you rely on cloud-based services.

Sane people don't rely on it, they use it when it's convenient and as a stopgap, temporary measure.

Target's database raided, 70 MILLION US shoppers at risk of ID theft

Sony was "brutally" honest ? Really ?

Oh sure, I remember Sony as a paragon of virtue, always fully disclosing its issues and never trying to stab its customers in the back. Oh wait . . . no it hasn't ever been that.

Sony is a powerhouse of paranoid executives who consider every customer as a potential thief and will respect no limit in nailing customers to a post to bleed them dry. HDMI is entirely geared to do just that, as there is nothing HDMI can do that a CAT-6 Ethernet cable can't - except limit user rights, of course.

If Sony was a bit more forthcoming about its infamous PS Network outage, it's because you can't really punt in a corner the fact that you are shutting down the whole thing because your security was abysmally stupid. No "only affects a few customers" this time.

The timeline is clear. The intrusion happened starting April 17th, but it was only on April 20th that Sony said anything about it. At that time, the solution was supposed to be a day or two away. Of course, Sony had shut down the network, so it had to state some facts, distasteful as that may be.

You probably don't remember, but there was a veritable hurricane of outrage hitting Sony's Twitter account at the time. Sony was being ridiculed left and right, and PlayStation owners were incandescant with rage.

So yeah, Sony might have been rather honest on that one, but with over 20 million angry customers and a downed network, what choice did it have ?

It's not like the rootkit issue, where Sony blithly denied everything until a class action was instigated, or the DRM backpedalling on the PS4, where Sony tried to pass the notion that there wouldn't be any but an alert Joe Public soon found out that there was.

That is Sony's usual behavior : sneak the bad stuff under the radar and deny it until millions of angry people are knocking down the doors.

On that subject, Sony is certainly not the only company to adopt that attitude.

Nevertheless, the only thing brutal with Sony is its total disregard for consumer rights and privacy.

Never mind bungled Universal Credit rollout, Maude wants UK to be 'most digital' gov by 2015

The UK with the most digital gov by 2015

In light of past projects, I think we can all agree that the UK will certainly have the most expensive digital government by 2015 - if that isn't already the case.

Also, if 500M is the best economy they can do, it'll take near 40 years to recover the more than 18bn already splurged on non-working, unfit for purpose government projects.

At least, those are the figures I read here and there, IIRC.

New FCC headman brandishes net neutrality carrot and stick

Re: There is no reason we can't have

I think there are plenty of reasons. Historical limitations, no magic wand, and it's not because Ferrari exists that everyone has one.

Yes, it all boils down to money, namely who foots the bill.

No reason not to have 1Gbps ? How about changing all copper to fiber ? That's a heavy cost right there. Then there's changing all the switches everywhere with ones that can handle the new load. I think that won't be a small cost either - we're not talking about a new 4-port home box, we're talking about heavy-duty industrial switches. Not the same cost. The company that goes and pays for all that needs to pay for other things as well, and needs to be sure to recoup the costs as quick as possible or go down because of the strain. Municipalities aren't rushing to pay for it either, they have other problems to deal with.

Last, but far from least, if all the above was done, you only have a thousand-fold increase in the amount of traffic, not to mention everyone and his dog piling in for access rights. That's another pretty nightmare to manage effectively.

Gigabit Internet for consumers will happen - in its own sweet time.

As for the telecomms industry, their model was based on one copper line for analogue phone connections, which they implemented across the country. That was already a pretty impressive task, and they've been milking it for years. Then, all of a sudden came this Internet thing, requiring much higher quality connections, and throwing their entire backend into one godawful mess.

I have no intention of defending the telecomms industry with rabid support, but accusing them of having imposed artificial scarcity just for the fun of it seems a bit much. They have an entire network that was created to do one thing, and is now tasked with doing something entirely different. There will be adaptation problems, that is inevitable.

Now I do feel that they could adapt a bit quicker, no problem there. But asking them to change everything overnight is not realistic either.

Well done for flicking always-on crypto switch, Yahoo! Now here's what you SHOULD have done

Very sorry for your misfortune.

Congratulations on coming back from that (what I infer from the tone of your post).

No more syncing feeling with file portability service Younity

Oh great

Yet another security hazard that uses social stuff to hook people.

Haters of lurid supershow CES: The consumer tech market is still SHRINKING

Re: "by their rules; otherwise, you go home"

On my way already.

I have no use for 4K. I have no intention of replacing my entire set of living room appliances (that work just fine) just to pander to some corporate paranoia, and I will NOT submit my personal viewing habits to the Overview of people who I deem have no right to put their noses in my living room.

They want to lock down their system ? They're welcome to, and they're welcome to rot with it as well.

The future is open. Those who lock down will die of suffocation.

No sign of Half-Life 3 but how about FOURTEEN Steam Machine makers?

SteamOS means Win7 is my last Windows ever

I'm not all that chuffed by the SteamBox, now that I know that it's just a PC.

But SteamOS ? Hell yeah !

As soon as that puppy is released I am installing it on a free partition and, from then on, I will only use Windows when I have to - i.e. for working from home.

For my gaming needs, most of the games I play are already in my Steam library, so there will come a time (soon) when I'll be booting into Steam more often than into Windows.

And for a lot of Steam gamers I suspect that it will be the same. Dual-booting to get rid of Windows cruft in order to play on a lean OS is not a chore, it is a godsend.

This will most probably also give a kick in the rear to nVidia and co to get their driver departments into gear and making their Linux driver versions better more often. nVidia in particular has a rather weak history concerning Linux drivers, the SteamOS has the potential to change that.

But the SteamBox ? I wish it to be successful, but somehow I don't really see it happening.

Doesn't matter. A+ for the effort, whatever happens. The SteamOS will rock the gaming world anyway.

Prez Bush email hacker Guccifer is BACK: A-list celebs' inboxes 'raided'

Random attacks on celebrity personal life, and for what, exactly ?

Proving that he can do it, proving that their security is insufficient, or what ?

We know that email is not secure thank you very much you can stop flogging that horse now it's long dead.

Another pathetic individual with an overblown sense of self. He's not proving anything, he's not doing anything useful, he's just a nuisance.

Pah.

Google tickled with TINY fine from French privacy watchdog

Penalty laws in France are ridiculous for multinationals

It's like oil barges - the penalty for degassing in the high seas is less than the cost of doing so in the proper fashion. No points for guessing where all the oil slicks come from.

It really is high time that France and some other countries stop treating multinationals like movie stars and get gritty when it is required.

The issue is law, of course, but it is also the idea that, if you're actually going to levy a heavy fine, the company could up roots and go somewhere less costly, thus "taking away" their business. Well the facts are that they'll do that anyway whenever it suits them, so fine the buggers with a heavy hand and at least get something out of them.

Sony seeks mojo reboot with 147-inch 'honey-you-can't-afford-me' 4K home projector

No more 'just good enough' products

Start with no more DRM at all, then we can start talking.

Block The Pirate Bay? Arrr, me hearties, new P2P client could sink that plan

And the sooner the NSA will be able to insert the seeds of future backdoors into it.

For "the people", of course.

Amazon, Hollywood, Samsung: PLEASE get excited about 4K telly

Re: digital anything upscales very well

Oh really ? Here's something to try : go take a picture of anything, put it in an image editor and enlarge it by a factor of 4.

Then I dare you to come back and say that again.

I love seeing Internet forum commenters tell other people that they don't have a life.

China finally lifts 13 YEAR gaming ban

Seems like console players disagree with you.

For me, there is no better combination than Microsoft Strategic Commander and mouse, preferably loaded with buttons as well.

There are never enough buttons....

<turns away muttering to himself>

Gorilla Glass fights dirty, dirty germs with antimicrobial coating

Not to be flippant or anything, but if you think "your" germs are the only things that are around you then you are sadly mistaken.

Personally, I am happy to remain ignorant, but if we knew just how many hostile microbial organisms are hovering in our breathing zone, we'd probably live 24/7 with a filter mask on. Not to mention gloves.

And all that would be mostly useless, because we already have one of the best microbial barriers : our skin.

Not perfect, of course, but if you compare the number of times you fall ill to the number of different micro-organismes that are just begging for a chance to make you sick, you'll see how good your skin is at protecting you.

Scientists discover supervolcano trigger that could herald humanity's doom

The ultimate catastrophe flick

Asteroid is approaching Earth. Size is estimated to be small enough to not destroy more than one continent. General panick subsides after location is determined - evacuation of continent taking place. Amid many social issues caused by the most massive migration ever, the asteroid hits Earth and buries itself in a supervolcano - triggering its eruption.

Question : which actor will be the plucky scientist realizing what will happen and finding a way to use duct tape to build an Unobtanium protection sphere, thereby saving humanity ?

Italian woman stunned by exploding artichoke

"a chemical reaction provoked by fertilisers "

Sounds more like food poisoning to me.

Pervy TOILET CAMERA disguised as 'flash drive' sparks BOMB SCARE on Boeing 767

Haven't you seen Fringe ?

Anything is possible !

But to be honest, I'd have been more worried if it had been taped to a window.

Bill Gates is once again the richest man on Earth

I stand corrected, and thank you for the heads-up.

Except that we're both wrong : it's 2000 upvotes for silver ):D

Sorry to contradict you, but Bronze badges are awarded after 1000 upvotes, not a number of posts in a year.

And to all those saying "Money can't buy happiness", I will reply "but it can sure as heck prevent misery".

Money is not all ? Not when you have enough of it. If you don't have any, it becomes pretty much your biggest problem.

Planning to rob a Windows ATM? Ditch the sledgehammer and bring a USB STICK

"Anyone with an understanding of CEN/XFS, or the time to peruse the online manuals"

Time to add another key to the NSA red flag database.

Oh, right. Silly me. The NSA is not interested in dangers to the people, just in dangers to the people in power.

Malware! tainted! ads! infect! thousands! of! Yahoo! users!

"technology rarely needed to surf most websites"

Rarely needed that may be, but it's implemented almost everywhere and a fucking nuisance most of the time.

It's come to a point where Java/Javascript is used over HTML in some websites. I guess that some website owners think that killing URL references and destroying easy bookmarking is an acceptable price to pay to prevent . . what? Page scraping ?

I use Firefox with AdBlocker and NoScript. Never been to Yahoo! except when forcefully redirected there.

Now I have another reason not to go there.

How to kill trolls and influence Apple people: A patent solution

Re: "Eliminating the patent system completely would aid only mega business"

Find me one thing that mega-business cannot find a way to make its bitch.

BAN CARS !

Except mine, of course.

'BILLION-YEAR DISK' to help FUTURE LIFEFORMS study us

If they ever get here I doubt we'll have much to teach them.

Oh, sorry - I was thinking extraterrestrials.

China in MASSIVE rare earths industry consolidation

"The country’s illegal rare earth ore production reached 40,000 tons in 2012"

Interesting. They know exactly how much illegal stuff was produced, despite the fact that illegal should also be unrecorded.

We can find how much illegal meth was sold during a time period, but I doubt we can know how much was produced.

Not without having an inside line on the meth production industry, that is.

So how do they know how much rare earth was produced illegally ? Are they just totalling the bribes and inferring from there ?

Snowden docs: NSA building encryption-cracking quantum computer

"It is, on the other hand, quite reassuring if you think that the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary are composed of men and women who, on average, are not greatly different from the population mean in most ways."

Sorry, but I am hardly reassured to think that my privacy and security are being handled by people like that numbskull at the other end of my street.

HP: A firmware update is just for Christmas, not for EVA

HP, the nickel-and-diming store of technology

Now that you've got them locked, set grip to strangle.

It's all about maximizing revenue, baby.

HP: This Xmas, get the SACK... and not the one filled with presents

"Your leaders are all working very hard ...

to maximise shareholder value by slicing into the very fabric that actually creates value - the workforce. Because next year's bonuses are next year's problem."

There, fixed that for you.

We don't need no STEENKIN' exploit brokers: Let's FLATTEN all bug bounties

"companies would most likely rather employ full-time vulnerability researchers"

And I am to understand that that would be a bad thing ?

How would that keep white-hat searchers from finding bugs ?

I think that the more eyes are watching the more secure the product will be (except if those eyes belong to the NSA, obviously).

Asteroid-hunting beauty AWAKENS, takes cheeky snaps of neighbours

Re: I don't understand why this is a bad thing

Here's a tip : hardened criminal psychopath escapes prison with nothing to lose and two weeks to kill before everyone dies. What do think his party will be like ?

Do you really think he's going to stop at just going after people who have "wronged" him ?

I understand that a lot of people think that we will not be told. If I were in a position of power, I would most likely take exactly that decision. I also think that we'll find out anyway, because someone who knows will make a mistake and text/tweet/FBpost something that gives away the secret.

Governments are good at keeping secrets. People are terrible at it.

United Nations signs off on 'right to privacy in the digital age'

Even if they try, someone will veto it.

And since the UN must pass all of its resolutions without any veto, it will be buried.

And that is why the UN is powerless : it is not the fact that it is the UN, it is the fact that there will always be someone to step up and veto something someone else doesn't want.

If the UN had existed in 1939, it would have pressed for a motion to condemn Hitler for invading Poland - but Russia would have vetoed it (or Italy, or Japan, or whoever).

It is not the UN that is powerless - it is our own damn incapability to work for higher goals instead of working for personal interests.

Go on, buy Bitcoin. But DON'T say we didn't WARN YOU

Re: should do some thorough reading up on it

I'll read up on it the day I have to use Bitcoins to fill my gas tank.

It won't happen in my my lifetime, I'll wager.

Re: dollars and pounds that the central bankers have been printing $£Trilions of

Yup. Those work in 99.9% of the stores that sell stuff.

The fact that russian gangsters have some as well is just proof that it is good. They are professionals, after all. They won't go after something that has bad returns on investment.

So call me when a russian mobster is hoarding Bitcoins - that's when I'll believe it has value.

James Bond's 'shaken not stirred': Down to trembling boozer's hands, claim boffins

I like the part where the report states : "This is likely to be pure fiction ..."

No shit, Sherlock ?

Lovers of Tor can now sprinkle Bitcoins on its developers as thanks

Did I read that right ? $40,000 per coin ?

Looks like the ones who started bitcoining at the beginning are the ones who will cash in on the whole thing the best.

Beauty firm Avon sticks spike heel into $125m SAP-based sales project

Re: our implementation project is going pretty well by all accounts

Reminds me of an old Murphy's Law :

If you think everything is going fine, you don't have the faintest idea of what's going on.