Posts by Pascal Monett

Automated profiling tech is crap, says Home Office

"the better use of intelligence"

That would certainly be best served with more intelligent people in charge of security.

It's time for a close-up look at mobile porn

Thank goodness I'm not like that !

I prefer my films - smutty or otherwise - on a proper widescreen telly that takes half the wall, thank you very much. And as for zooming, I'm over 40 so I have no more need of anatomy courses.

Just how someone can spend 100 whatever a month to squint at a hand-held screen for hours is beyond me. But hey, it's their money to waste and it doesn't hurt me, so . . .

On the other hand, all these people spending their money on airwave entertainment just might be paving the way for something actually useful - I just can't think of anything right now.

The Casey Report: Putting your mouth, not brain, in charge

I wonder how much she drinks per day

I mean, if being sober is no way to get work done, and if she practices what she preaches, then she must be tanked every day.

Or am I misinterpreting something ?

UK.gov ready to get muddy again on GM foods

GM crops are not necessarily bad

It's just that the so-called "tests" are a joke. GM-crop testing has been conducted a bit like typhoid vaccine in the middle of a big city.

So, when we have proper, scientifically tested GM crops in a controlled environment (read : where nothing gets out and no external influences get in), then I will gladly accept the conclusions.

Until then, GM crops is nothing but a nice excuse to sell expensive seed to poor people who can barely afford it. That is not what I call working to feed the global population.

And to Mr. Jack Coupal, Ph.D., I can only say this : you Yanks are eating GM food all day long, and what did that bring you ? George W. Bush.

I rest my case.

Zuckerberg's Google boycott reaches 32 days (and counting)

Doesn't matter anyway

Facejunk & Co will soon be bankrupt anyway. If not by lack of income, the lawyer fees will do them in for sure.

Roomba robot maker to build DARPA squidge-droids

More credible ? No !!

Bring on the magneto-rheological materials and phase-change thingamajigs ! I want a Transformers car that can shapeshift into a helicopter for the purpose of landing in the office parking.

USAF ramps up kill-bot fleet following Gates sackings

Schizophrenic

They don't like the job, and they can't stand the thought of anyone else doing it.

Sounds like the USAF needs a good slap in the face.

AT&T brainstorms Time Warner-like bandwidth cap

Bandwidth hogging ?

Excuse me, could someone please explain to me why, having bought a 8MB/s package, and paying the price for it, I would actually be hogging anything by USING said bandwidth ?

Thank goodness, for me the whole thing is academic. I live in France, where there is no such thing as a hidden bandwidth cap. I bought unlimited, and by golly that's what I have the right to use.

If you can't take the charges, don't sell the contract I say.

PayPal ambushes users with mystery Skype charges

Man I'm glad

I don't have a PayPal account !

Yahoo! and Microsoft terminate talks, this time for good

"only interested in the (...) search business"

Because Yahoo! has something beside the search ?

That's news to me !

(flame away)

Apple under the gun to master the iPhone's 'second album'

Web on a phone

I prefer the web on a PC with a proper connection, proper screen and keyboard-mouse worthy of the name.

A phone is a phone, as long as the stupid thing holds my address book, can connect and allow me to have a conversation, and doesn't need recharging every night, I'm happy.

I use a PC all day long anyway, so I don't need a phone to browse with.

Google silences Android critics

"certain Google-specific services" will remain closed

Yep, as in everything that is actually useful. The skin will be completely configurable, though ! And you'll even be able to invent your own buttons !

Biofuel 2.0 gets off ground in Kiwi airliner trial

algae, eh ?

So that is why they're fishing the sea until there's no fish left !

Once the oceans are covered in algae, we will have enough biofuel for everyone. Then, of course, we'll have biofuel wars on the high seas, where there is no territorial jurisdiction. And the US, with its impressive fleets, will be masters of the stuff.

Although we won't have any more fishsticks, but that's a drawback that the soy bean industry will certainly solve in some (rather unsavory) way.

Peak oil ?

Bollocks. We haven't BEGUN to see peak oil yet, you're just saying that because it has never been so expensive.

I'm sorry, but the current oil industry has been tailored for around 1 billion individuals (The Americas, Europe, small part of Africa and some of the Eastern Asia area).

China is now in the process of adding 10 million new drivers a year. India is not far behind. Both countries have over a billion citizens.

So the oil industry has to adapt from 1 to 3 billion customers.

Peak oil ? Pah ! We ain't there yet. Not by a long shot.

Can you say €6/liter ? Start trying.

Holographic storage kingpin turns staff and product into an illusion

Shipping in December

If it's only a question of shipping, does that mean that all the research is done and they have a finished product ? Or are they going to ship a test unit to someone in December ?

Shipping, meaning in quantity for public availability, mandates that a product exists to ship. Without a final product - supported by benchmarks and reviews and blogs all over the Web - there is no shipping possible.

And if the company has canned half its engineers, well it sounds like the product is not going to be finalized any sooner.

Is this another Phantom ?

Online payment standards fall on deaf websites

Paypal excuses

I've seen some interesting explanations about PayPal here - except for the only one that is needed.

There is but one explanation for PayPal and its behaviour : PayPal is not a bank. PayPal has not signed any bank charter anywhere, nor is it subject to any banking rules.

Thus, PayPal can "do what it wants", and that pretty much explains everything that has happened to unwary PayPal "customers".

Of course, PayPal does get it right sometimes - heck I'll even accept most of the time. Unfortunately, it's not when all is fine that you need help. And when you do need help, PayPal is most definitely no longer your "pal".

What continues to gall me about PayPal is the fact that this company that is not a bank continues to (mis)manage people's money without any government stepping in and checking what is going on.

Old Windows exploits dominate hack attack traffic

@Steve Evans

You are perfectly right - not many people have a proper router with a hardware firewall.

I have had one for the past six years, and I know nothing of infections or even scans. I don't exist on the net - not until I go and request a page.

I have six or seven friends with which I regularly converse electronically - but the only ones that have a router/firewall are the ones who work in the IT business.

The others, with little IT knowledge and just enough Windows know-how to get them by during the day, have software firewall, anti-virus and anti-spam apps because I insisted they should.

So yes, I totally believe that most home users have insufficient protection. They are simply not aware neither of the dangers, nor of the solutions.

Paypal glitch hits merchants with 12-day headache

Once again it must be said

PayPal is not a bank - much less your pal.

A bank must conform to a charter, is under surveillance and has the duty of managing your money for you and making it available to you on request. The only way a bank can refuse to give you money on your account(s) is because of a court order.

PayPal, on the other hand, can and routinely does lock down your account as soon as "suspicious bahavior" (ie anything PayPal doesn't like) occurs. When this happens, you have no recourse because PayPal is NOT a bank and HAS NO OBLIGATION to give you your money. And contacting support is a nightmare.

When I understood that, I struck PayPal off the list of companies I was willing to do business with. Sorry, but the pimp next door is just as reliable as PayPal and works the same way - he gets off his arse if and when he feels like it.

That is no way to do business.

International copyright talks seek BitTorrent-killer laws

There is a terrible confusion

In most people's mind, copyright is about the artist getting a fair return for his works. Almost all of the above comments are in agreement on that.

And Disney, Sony, RIAA and co. are operating heavily on this notion, it is their justification.

Except that, when Lawsuits & Co. goes for a new, more restrictive and uglier anti-consumer law they label "anti-piracy", it is not in order to pay the artist more, it is to keep their own coffers well-filled and their powder stashes bulging.

The real issue with copyright law is that copyright is transferable to a non-physical entity (ie. a company). It is companies that are screwing up copyright law, not pirates.

Make the copyright the sole property of an individual or group of individuals, and make it non-transferable, limited to 25 years or the death of the individual - whichever comes first.

Of course, I realize that the RIAA is a group of individuals, but since they have never produced anything and only bought off the rights of actual artists, they do not count.

Disney is also a group of individuals and that group actually makes things, but the group that really makes the films is the actual people who make it, not Disney.

So let us bring copyright back to where it is supposed to be : the property of the artist who creates, not of a corporation that profits from the creation.

Do that, and the very next day RIAA and co. will dissolve into nothing, and their despicable, freedom-limiting DRM and lawsuits will as well.

Right, time to wake up !

Microsoft urges developers to tag sites for IE8

@Rick Stockton

Now that is an insightful comment !

I read with interest that web devs do apparently code for standards first, which comes as a relief to me, but I had never thought that this could be a windfall for other browsers to check what kind of page they are reading.

Unfortunately, Kanhef is probably right as well, and the use of the tag in css files will still force other browsers to revert to trash-rendering mode, but still, other browsers will most certainly take this tag into account.

Aussie droid planes in Barbados hurricane probe

The key

Methinks that the key to avoiding another Katrina-style disaster would simply be to follow already established rules and procedures, maintain the levees properly and not have a moron for President who appoints a monkey at a federal emergency institution.

No need to spend hundreds of thousands for a robot to go throw itself at a hurricane.

That said, I am quite interested in knowing how a hurricane - the most important atmospheric force of this planet - forms and draws its energy from the sea. We cannot know too much about them.

Indian gov denied BlackBerry snoop

"master key" to be given to Indian officials

So just like Lotus did with France then ?

More of the same. Frankly, with the incredible amount of terrorists that have been caught because of their mobile phone/Internet usage, I cannot help but think that this is all just a load of crock. Give us our 2048-bit encryption keys already, if the Government is snooping on me it has a lot more to do with RIAA then with Osama !

Wireless links to be trialled in Gulfstream flight controls

Re:trust low power, flaky, unencrypted GPS signals

No, I don't trust them to fly the plane. I trust them to tell a human pilot where to fly the plane. I also trust all the land-based radar tracking stations to report on the plane's position, thereby ensuring that the low-power signals are indeed leading the pilot on the right course.

As for fiber security, obviously if you run the wires and fiber through the same path, cutting one will cut the other, duh. In a plane there are 4 cardinal points. I expect one technology to be routed through one point, and the other tech to be routed on the opposite side - but I'm no expert in avionics.

I guess WiFi might just be acceptable as a backup, but only if there is no electrical interference in the surrounding atmosphere. If your engine has blown up violently enough to shred the fuselage, you're a goner anyway, so I don't believe that WiFi would help in that situation. Again, I'm no expert in avionics, so maybe it is a good idea.

If you can't hack it with Excel and a VBA script, that is.

Deutsche Telecom caught doing an HP

Hang on

"the company gave executives false information" ?!?

Man I wouldn't want to be the one having taken THAT decision.

Japanese customs dish out free dope

Re:Paul Holloway

If it happened today, he'd be whisked off pronto to a secluded site where they'd hammer the truth out of him while the news would crow about how another terrist plot had been foiled.

His wife would probably have been shot in the scuffle.

Japanese children warned off mobiles

Nonsense

Children - especially below 15 - have no use knowing where I am. I'm at work, and they are at school.

Mobiles for any youngster below 15 is an excuse to waste money and worry uselessly, or to exert GPS surveillance on the kid.

A mobe only becomes useful when the sprog gets his first scooter. That is when he might actually need to make a phone call - when he runs out of gas, for instance.

Reg readers split on Vista readiness

@people hate it without even knowing why

I know why. DRM and unacceptable resource hogging are my two gripes.

Frankly, we are in the 3rd millennium now. Why does a new OS version have the right to use up even more resources than its predecessor ? If anything, it should use less, be more optimized and have a smaller footprint.

Of course, that would mean that MS stop throwing everything and the kitchen sink in the same package, and call it an "operating system". Windows has never been an Operating System, it's been an Encapsulated User Experience.

The second point that really gets my blood pressure rising is the embedded DRM. I simply cannot accept that an OS be rigged to decide what I can and cannot do with my hardware and software. An OS is supposed to do exactly what I want it to do, no questions and no fuss. I've been working with PCs long enough to not need a nanny behind the keyboard, thank you.

And please do not come beating the "better architecture" drum. Vista is based on x86 errors and as long as the kernel (the actual OS) is not entirely and 100% protected from tampering like in Linux, no amount of tinkering and backyard shortcuts will ever surmount the basic security issues that come with this historical cock-up of an architecture.

So Vista is and always will be out of the question for me.

That said, I can believe that Vista is quite an acceptable platform for companies that have the resources to splurge on it. It must surely be better from an admin standpoint (what with all the Big Brother attitude floating around these days, I'm sure its been extensively programmed for compliance), and I can accept that it is more secure (even though it strangely seems to have the same issues as XP does, although it was supposedly developed from scratch - cough).

Then again, companies most often have a competent IT department (more so than home users), with security products in place and monitored. Firewalls, network-monitoring AV packages, email malware-sniffers and so on. So I can't help thinking that anything Vista can bring is redundant, security-wise.

In that case, what's the use ? From a ROI point of view, I'm not convinced that companies are getting a good deal out of upgrading their hardware, fussing with software compliance and installing Vista. And I doubt that any company with Vista installed is going to retire the AV monitors, malware sniffers and other firewalls that are already in place.

So Vista is still a turkey, even in the enterprise environment.

But hey, we've got a three decade tradition of Microsoft research funded by companies, why stop now ?

Brown brown-noses Google, Brin demands privacy

"your ability to provide that in all the different continents of the world"

Google's "ability" to provide anything depends solely on the people who lay down the pipes that allow Internet access.

Unless Google became an ISP while I wasn't paying attention, I fail to see why Google should be singularly congratulated for hosting a web service. Of course, Google can and should be congratulated for being successful, but not for being present on the Internet.

Boffins' breakthrough boosts fuel cell output by 50%

Step by step

We are coming closer to the Star Wars energy pack. One small cigarette box that can power anything from a blaster to a pair of Radon-Ulzer 620c turbines, or even a lightsaber.

It's the wait that's killing me.

In Google We Trust: Health docs depo now open to Americans

@Pete Dixon

Be my guest, log in and put all your medical records online.

I look forward to viewing them in the article related to Google-security cockups. Who knows, you might become the poster child for demonstrating the evils of trusting a Net corporation that doesn't actually care about you.

We need a Google icon with horns.

Google unveils Image Search image ads

Re: Isn't Paris a place?

Yes, it's a place where lots of guys go. And girls too.

Mine's the one with the big H stenciled on the back.

Legal experts wary of MySpace hacking charges

I'm sure no new law is needed

I'm sick of this knee-jerk reaction whenever something "bad" happens - make a new law to cover it !

I'm totally certain that existing laws can effectively be called upon to deal out the justice that is deserved. A person communicated under a false pretense with another person and, through deceit and lies, brought the victim to kill herself.

There is no country in which this behavior is not morally reprehensible, and it's not because computers were involved that it is the first time such a thing has ever happened.

So I would like the lawyers to get a grip, go find the relevant cases and do their job properly.

We don't need new laws. I'm sure we already have way to many. And I'd like to see the ones we have properly enforced before some enlightened do-gooder drops another load on the seat of the already groaning Code of Law.

IM represents 'new linguistic renaissance'

"show off what they can do with language"

More accurately : how much they can mangle it.

In school, I was taught that a "dead" language was not spoken any more and thus, did not change, whereas a "living" language was used and changed over the course of time.

At that time, I was brought to think that having a living language is quite a good thing, adaptability and all that.

Unfortunately, along the way I learned one crucial fact about how a living language changes : it's because of all the mouth-breathers who can't be arsed to spell their own language correctly, and thus impose their repeated mistakes until said mistake gets its own place in the hallowed pages of a dictionary and becomes "part" of the language.

That irks me to no end.

MySpace wins record $230m judgement against spammers

Re:not really the phishers fault

How insulting and irresponsible.

That's like accusing a rape victim of being at fault for getting raped, except that for the rape victim the consequences are much worse.

We geeks resent that you paint yourself as being part of our enlightened community. Those who are enlightened educate those who are not, they do not belittle them.

Wireless can be good for your health

Wireless "reliability and security have improved"

Oh yeah ? Since when ?

It is still trivial to hack into a wireless router, and I've read that even so-called "secured" routers can be broken into by knowledgeable hackers.

As for stability, am I to understand that wireless is now just as reliable as a good ol' Ethernet cable ? No more trouble with walls or floors/ceilings ?

Somehow this "report" smacks a lot more of joyous/immature optimism than actual fact-finding and reporting.

Do any of the people who drafted this piece of wishful thinking have any experience in securing a wireless router ?

I don't think so.

Besides, if the NHS is anything to go by, the first guy to have his pacemaker hooked up to a wireless antenna will also be the first casualty of the scheme. I wouldn't trust those goons anywhere near me, that's for sure.

Korean DMZ droids 'unfit for combat'

So let's recap

The merkins have a robot sentry that doesn't work, but they don't really have a need for it anyway. The South Koreans have a robot sentry line that doesn't work, but they don't actually need one either. Honestly, North Korea is just posturing and it would seem that no one is taking him seriously.

The Israelis have a robot sentry line, and they think they need it like they need to breath.

Is it any wonder which sentry line is actually working ?

I think not.

Taser rolls out taser-on-a-roll, new military zapbomb deal

Interesting perspective

So, soldiers prefer killing their opponents "cleanly" as a . . professional courtesy ?

I don't think so. Today, warfare is waged on the principle of "overwhelming force". You assault your enemy when you're sure that you have 10 times whatever resources you need. You go in, and you blow anything that moves to smithereens to make sure it won't fire back.

And if they could just call in a precision airstrike and carpet bomb the area they would, but there's that nagging little problem called collateral damage which makes it not always possible.

It has nothing to do with any "I'll kill you cleanly if you kill me cleanly as well". It's a lot more "I'll blow your ass to Kingdom Come before you blow mine away".

How ComScore can track your mouse clicks

Nothing laughable here

It is simply amazing how some people do not understand the far-reaching effects of what this kind of product does. Personally, the fact that this company does indeed appear to be more honest than typical malware does not make them better.

Imagine this : a company asks you to let yourself be followed by a camera crew all day long, 24/7. You will even be recorded in your sleep. Anything that the camera picks up can be sold for profit to any number of TV channels, and you will gain nothing from it. Your life, even intimate, will be recorded whatever happens. Oh, they'll give you a motorcycle for all your troubles.

Would you accept such a contract ? I know I wouldn't.

Yet there are people who accept this for their surfing habits.

My mind is well and truly boggled.

On the other hand, what irony there is here. Scores of malware writers have tried to get this in under the radar, and are being foiled by every AV/anti-malware app out there. But these guys ? They're open and honest, and require that you blow your mind with reams of legalspeak before shackling you to the bench. Only after your explicit consent do they start whipping you until you bleed. And no AV vendor can go against it, because they are legal.

Isn't the perversity of it all simply beautiful ?

AMD plans 12-core server chip for 2010

24 cores ?

Personally, I think that given that we already have quad core and nothing to do with it all on a desktop, a radical redesign of the front side bus is required.

I don't think 24 cores is at all feasible if all 24 are plugged into the same 64-bit interconnect. Massive lag should probably occur at that point.

It looks like someone is going to have to design a multi-64 bit lane FSB to cope with the data streaming to/from the cores and the RAM/IO thingys.

And THAT will be a major engineering feat.

Maybe on-board SATA interconnect between each core and each peripheral ? Or are we going to see segmentation between cores - one group with HDD priority, one group with GPU priority, and the rest take whatever is left when available ?

The possibilities are endless, but plonking 24 cores on today's bus is a non-starter.

Creative settles MP3 player capacity clash

Gib standardised in 1999

And before that (from 1985 forward), the megabyte was 1024 kilobytes and there was no MiB. Hard disk manufacturers initially labelled their disks in the proper byte notation, until some jerkoff thought of the scheme and invented some "Joe User" issue with the real byte.

Which is all irrelevant nowadays, but back in the day the megabyte was over $15, and getting stuffed for 7% was not a small deal.

Today, however, with 1024 megabytes coming in at pennies, it is really irrelevant to continue arguing about GBs and GiBs. I will remain true to the original GB, since gibbing is quite a different activity.

Blu-ray-for-Xbox 360 rumours restoked

Free multiplayer ?

Wow ! I've only had that on my PC since 1995 !

The battle of Lesbos: Exclusive combat pic

@DrewHew

Gotta admit I rather agree. Frankly it is tiring to be titillated by the NSFW tag, only to see tiny plastic bosoms worth nothing to oogle over.

Please, could El Reg change that tag to something more appropriate, like NSFL, and keep the NSFW for real, honest-to-goodness bulgarian airbags (inflated or not) ?

No-fly list grounds US Air Marshals

RE:AC

Your figures demonstrate that China is getting there. I think that, in the next 20 years, it will be first in line.

The US, what with $120 billion of war debt, will be hard-pressed to keep up.

And it's not anonymous cowards who fling useless insults with ease that will do anything about it.

Union blasts chip industry's 'cancer risk denial'

In related news

Diebold - creator of the e-voting machine - has dismissed any independant review of its machines, citing Intellectual Property and baselessness.

Sure, we'll trust you because you say we should.

Yeah, right.

Yahoo! pimping malware from banner ads

@Robin

A great big thumbs up for you !!

Botnet agent plays lost sheep to avoid detection

Impressive

It's really interesting to follow the evolution of the industry in this domain. The impressiveness of the adaptability and ingenuity of the malware writers is only outdone by the sadness of their quest : to infect even more PCs with spam-sending filth.

It's kind of like meeting a psychopathic serial killer who is on the verge of discovering faster-than-light travel. You know he's good, but you have to kill him anyway.

Pity.

Natasha Henstridge braces for Impact

@VulcanV5

"exposing creative people to unjustified ridicule"

I daresay what with all the bull these "creative people" have been subjecting us to for the last quarter of a century, this little bit is hardly going to leave a dent in their hides which, by now, must be thicker than an elephant's.

And besides, I don't see that the version you report is any better. I think I'd actually prefer a dwarf star. Since they already take us for fools, they might as well go the whole nine yards.

Seagate ships 1 billionth drive

Interesting evolution

I find it quite curious to see just how the perception of size has changed in the eye of the market. One is arguing about the "purity" of decimal, the other is bringing forth a difference between MB and MiB (a fan of Will Smith, perchance ?).

That's all nice and cute, but the facts are these :

At the beginning of the hard disk, manufacturers did indeed represent size in its proper power-of-2 base. 1024 is a kilobyte whether you like it or not, and a megabyte (MB, not MiB, which is term that came into being around Y2K and was probably invented to placate those who do not comprehend what MB actually stands for) is 1024 kilobytes (or KB, not KiB either).

One might argue that giving sizes in their proper base-2 format was confusing for the layman, but given the amount of hooplah that has been going on for the past eight years (and continues unabated) in the graphics arena around shaders, texels and megahertz, I seriously doubt the validity of that argument. Besides, the layman doesn't actually need to understand what the exact size of his storage is, all he needs to know is that he's getting more every year for less money.

Occam's razor states that the truth is much more simple : Seagate & Co discovered that they could twist the truth a bit and label their disk sizes in megabits or somesuch, thus implementing that wonderful "decimal purity" and, more importantly, cheating us out of an ever-growing proportion of what we should be getting.

And when you were buying the megabyte (so that there's no confusion) at over $10, the sensation of being cheated was a particularly expensive one.

Of course, given the price of storage today, I don't really mind any more. But I won't forget either.

French Colonial Marines to get Aliens medic-datalink

I agree with Keith Rogers

Having a soldier transmitting all the time is akin to giving the enemy a location fix. Find enough in a given area and you're just begging for an artillery strike.

As for the glory of the Camerone battle, it is not because they lost - it's because they stuck together and resisted in spite of impossible odds. It's because they stood their ground and never gave up, never surrendered.

Yes, they knew they were going to die. They knew they were doomed. But they did not kneel and wait for the slaughter. They made the enemy pay dearly for the victory, and to a man, they fought to their last breath.

It is the heroic display of resistance and combat brotherhood that is celebrated, and rightly so. Because if you can remain trustworthy and steadfast when all is lost, then you can do so anywhere, anytime, under any conditions.

I would think that any soldier would understand that, and appreciate it.

YouTube divorce rant vid wows the crowd

Call that an actress ?

IMDB has her listed in an impressive 3 films or TV episodes.

Good grief, if they start listing YouTube videos she'll get to 4.

What a career !