Posts by Pascal Monett

NHS computers hit by voracious, data-stealing worm

It's a twofold problem

First of all, management wants people to work quickly without much training. Instead of creating a Linux network with a bespoke application and spending money on hours of training to use the platform, they prefer the idea of a Windows network with a bespoke application and spending money on a small booklet that will explain the salient points, leaving users to guess the rest.

Second, there is the support issue. And today, whether you like it or not, consultants and technicians who know Windows are a dime a dozen. Those who know Linux are . . . well nobody even knows how many there are.

Cameron promises yet more Avatar

Hang on

6 more minutes ? So now we have Star Wars-type rewrites that are implemented in less than a year after the original screening ?

Good Lord, at least Lucas was polite enough to wait until most fans had worn out their VHS tapes of the originals before creating his "definitive vision" release.

Anyway, are we going to get a shark moment in Avatar 2, what with all the ocean stuff ? I mean, Pandora it may be, but there's not much chance that water pressure will be taken into account any better than it was in Phantom Menace, now is there ?

Space Station lightsabre-sparring hoverdroids to be upgraded

If I recall correctly

when you wire two batteries together without any resistor, you get current flowing so fast the batteries heat up and end up melting.

So what's to bet that this "power exchange" thingy will end up in two lumps of very hot metal floating in the ISS ?

Suddenly that doesn't sound so funny.

Fring cops to unchangeable passwords

Another service I will not be using

Thank you, El Reg, for keeping me informed of all these malware services I do not want to touch with a 20-foot bargepole.

On a related note, who the hell thought it was a good idea to never even ALLOW password changing ? In what IT universe does that person exist ? Does he use Hotmail ?

Youth reject Facebook's death of privacy claims

"[those] who abuse personal data should face jail"

Damn right.

Political targeting: An unhealthy business

Good

It is seriously time that people notice just how distasteful and privacy-violating targeted marketing can be.

School secretly snapped 1000s of students at home

Let me see if I get this straight

In order to protect our precious children from paedos in the streets, we'll give pic-snapping capability to so-called safety products so that we can have our kids oogled at by IT workers in our schools - positions now undoubtedly extremely sought after by . . . paedos.

So all is well now, right ?

Google in talks to re-admit Android to Linux kernel

Forks are good

but only up to a point.

Too many forks dilute the available coding time for each fork, thus reducing the chance to get each fork to a viable status, thereby increasing the chance that every fork will, ultimately, fail.

Intel: Killer cables may leapfrog USB 3.0

10Gbps ?

So when is this going to replace our old 100Mbps Ethernet cables ?

Popular Facebook game caught serving malvertisements

Well whaddya know

Facebook, as much as I despise the rank stupidity that it exhales, just might turn out to be useful after all.

As an experience in managing large hordes of idiots continuously assaulted by large hordes of malfeasants, that is.

I look forward to more accounts of how Facebook gets hacked in various ways, what solutions are found and how many people that obnoxious 'bitch' kid manages to piss off in the process.

Austrian takes pickaxe to Street View spymobile

Call Hollywood

This requires a feature-film adaptation. May I suggest a working title ? Street View Zombies takes my fancy.

Yahoo! tech! boss! quits!

That's wierd

It's funny how the "family reasons" excuse immediately ticks a "fired" box in my mind.

Especially when followed by quotes mentioning "dream job" right after.

Come on, people, quit the transparent double-talk. He's not going to go look after his family, he's going to go look for another job because he's been sacked.

How not to screw up an ERP implementation

"bang heads together when they don't"

I've been in this kind of situation, parachuted in an organization where the key project people went missing 6 months into the project - not enough time to devote to the project any more.

I got to handle the users directly, make all development decisions myself - without any authority to say no to anyone. Tried once, and got rapped on the fingers, hard.

Of course, eighteen months later, the project was working - I do know how to code - but nobody was happy. Not my boss, not the customer, and most certainly not me.

I really would like someone to tell me how I could have banged a few heads together. The only head that got banged was mine, and I'm looking for a job now.

Microsoft teams with Google in name of privacy

Microsoft teams with Google

Just the title sends a shiver down my spine.

I mean, think about it : the world's most prolific bug-and-insecurity generator has teamed with the worlds most powerful user data collator.

My guess is that the LHC collision yesterday did actually end the world.

Novell (not SCO) owns UNIX, says jury

are becoming ?

Nay, my good sir. They were a laughing stock last millenia.

Now they have become distasteful lepers.

Soon they will become shambling zombies.

Maybe then someone will finally blow their brains out.

Video giant embraces Flash-phobic iPad with HTML 5

So it's HD vs Blu-Ray all over again

Only this time the contenders are H.264 vs Ogg Vorbis.

And it seems that, surprise, surprise, the big money is going towards the codec that requires a license. Color me shocked.

The only little grain of sand in this clockwork play is that the medium is the Internet. This is not some living-room issue where the likes of Sony can shoehorn their solution with a trojan game console under the noses of the clueless.

The Internet has a marked tendency to prefer open and free.

But hey, this battle will be faught for decades, so be sure to grab lots of popcorn.

Tinfoil Condition Red! LHC 7 TeV mega-blasts today

Oh dear !

The armchair prophets are in a turmoil ! The end is nigh !

Excuse me while I consider the vast implications of the proclamations made by wise entities who haven't got a clue.

Hmm, seems to me there are no implications. Sounds rather like Paco Rabanne prophetizing the dreadful land-impact of Mir, and in the end such pie-in-the-sky foretellers will be proven to be just as wrong as he was.

I mean really, if it was so easy to divine the end of the world, given the number of times I've had Jehovah's Witnesses falling over themselves to warn me I think we'd already be done with the whole thing and playing our harps in the rosy clouds.

No, the world is not going to end. Not before the Sun goes nova anyway. Suck it up, doomsayers, and go rant about porcine fever or something.

Apple uncloaks deep details of its 11 iPad apps

Speaking of batteries . .

Can you replace them on this Pad thingy, or does Apple once again expect you to buy another one when the battery dies ?

Facebook prepares for another privacy row with its users

"we look forward to providing ... new privacy controls"

And we look forward to watching just how badly those fail.

Are you a 'supertasker'? Probably not

One question

Are those supertaskers also superjerks ?

What are the odds ?

Free anti-virus scanner hits the cloud

free scans

I know I only use freebie scanners nowadays. No local impact when I don't want it, and up-to-date scan engine are the advantages for me.

Getting drunk the night before has no effect on exam results

Sorry, could you repeat that ?

Excessive drinking is not a problem, but a higher dose of alcohol might be ?

When you're drinking to excess already, how can the dose get any higher ?

Sorry, Uni was a long time ago.

Russia to crack down on abuse of .ru addresses

Sounds good to me

Anything that puts roadblocks in place to keep spam from getting to me is good in my book.

Unfortunately, I'm not going to believe that this is going to solve the problem - spammers and other Internet lowlifes will just sign up with another country to do their business.

The question is : which country will take over as spammer haven ?

Register.com argues it can't be sued for negligence

Ordinary negligence

So, failing to ensure that the customer you think you are dealing with is actually the right one is just "ordinary" negligence ?

I've got to find Bill Gates' bank teller and have him wire me a billion off of "my" account.

Let's see what kind of negligence THAT would be !

Home Office planning to brick version 1 ID cards in 2012?

A replacement whip ?

Why, nothing to worry about good sir ! We have a storage shed full of those. And we have about £100 million budgeted for their replacement.

In your friendly government institutions, the one thing we shall not brook is missing whips. It is what makes the day bearable, you see. So, when one is broken, you just call up the Stationary department and ask for a new one, which is dropped off in a priority procedure within the next ten minutes.

So you see, you needn't worry about our whips, dear Sir, we are taking very good care of those.

Very good care, indeed.

PayPal enables cash-by-slap

Sounds like another failure in the making

Let me sum up the indicators :

- the exact time

- the rough location

- the force of the bump as measured by the accelerometer

- various other clues

Time is maybe the indicator with the most probability of exactitude, except that there is no guarantee that the two phones have the exact same time. So it'll be the exact same time within a given number of many milliseconds.

The location is charted probably following triangulation. Without other reference, you could be giving your cash to anybody in a 10-yard radius.

The force of the bump. Okay, one question : how accurate are those accelerometers ? Two random phones have what probability of containing similarly-accurate accelerometers ? Is this really needed ?

Frankly, I'd be more inspired by a solution that said "place the two phones together within 3 inches of each other and then authorize the transaction manually - the phones will sense their closest neighbor and, when authorized, complete the transfer".

In that kind of solution, there is no timestamp, no hazardous evaluation of location, no worry about someone else butting in. It's just the phone that is closest to yours, detected by BlueTooth or something similar. That would be just about as reliable and fool-proof as you can get.

Hidden Windows 7 costs worry upgraders

"sweet as a nut"

Personally, I don't find nuts sweet, but rather bland. Either that or totally annoying.

But I'm sure that's just me.

Half of the bloat ?

Don't worry, that old XP bloat has been removed and replaced with some brand new, shiny Vista bloat that we're going to get to keep for the next 50 years.

There you go, all happy now, right ?

IE9 - the big questions and Microsoft's half answers

"no reason why they can't code IE9 to run in a sandbox"

Oh yes there is : it's because IE is "tied into the OS at the system level"

or somesuch rubbish like that if I recall correctly the minutes of the DOJ trial.

And, given that the DOJ lost its balls somewhere between dragging MS to court and actually wanting justice done, nothing has been done about it since.

Madoff geeks charged for writing book-cooking code

"they'd have been out on their backsides"

Yes, you are wrong and need to re-read the article.

Not only did they not contact any authorities whatsoever, but they did the job knowing the fraud consequences, profited from the results and added what sounds like a bit of blackmail on the side to increase their share of the spoils.

That is not honest work by any stretch of the word.

So hang 'em high ! Next to Maddof preferably.

Cybercrime's bulletproof hosting exposed

think before you post

Agreed, but trolls don't think.

At least, not the way we do.

Google Apps punts kill-Microsoft-Exchange-now tool

Wonderful news, except for one thing

I'm all for obliterating Exchange and Outlook from the face of the Earth, and anything furthering that end is welcome to me.

Except that replacing a bug-infested, malware-friendly platform with one that is unproven (because beta, eh?), insecure and managed by an ad broker is not exactly the smartest of moves.

And whoever does it, I'm sure of one thing : marketing and accounting are NOT going to put sensitive data on a 3rd-party server hosted somewhere in a cloud that can't reach and much less manage.

Don't agree ? Then think of this : do you really think that management wants to risk putting records of its bonuses on a server they can't be sure is secure ?

Game developer's lost electric buggy FOUND ON MOON

Return to your cave, troll

Or to your delusions, whichever applies.

Google China uncensors verboten tank man

Nice substitution argument

You sir, are a troll.

Pirate Bay blocking row silenced in Norway

Hats off to Telenor

The only ISP in the world where management actually has balls.

China warns Google over uncensored search threat

They don't need to

They make it up as they go. You don't agree, you wind up in a camp. With luck, you might survive.

Former model sues Universal over 'x-rated prop' outrage

"the snap languished in stock photo agencies"

Sorry honey, but if a pic of you is in a "stock photo" database, it means you've already waived all rights to it.

And you know it.

So this is just a publicity stunt.

Of course, you may not realize that the publicity is not for you. Your picture was a prop in a film, now your name is a prop in a headline-grabbing gesture that has no legal chance to go anywhere, but might just get a lawyer a name.

Meanwhile, the only thing you will have managed is that, by calling attention to your name and pics, there will suddenly be a lot more guys cracking one off to you.

I hope you like soggy spotlights.

'We're on a virtual walk out of Africa', futurologist tells Intel partners

OK, I wasn't there

but still, how can 3D, massively parallel processors and terabytes of storage equal human intelligence ?

That's a bit like saying I've got a cow, a field of wheat and another of tomatoes, great I can make a hamburger. Ultimately, I could, but there are, erm, a few intermediate steps.

Right now, as far as artificial consciousness or intelligence is concerned, we are at the cow stage. We know where we want to go, but nobody has any idea of how to get to the hamburger yet.

And until we understand exactly how the human brain functions, you can throw as many miniaturized transistors on whatever technology you want, we won't know how to put it all together to make it work.

And that is just the hardware side of things....

SCO's Linux litigation architect angles for SCO's mobile biz

Amen

to that

Is it ta-ta for Flash?

Should have known

Yeah, it's cool.

So ?

What a waste of bandwidth.

Large Hadron Collider briefly back on over weekend

Know what ?

There's a reason it's called "research" - it's because it's never been done before.

Not on such a scale, not with such complexity, not at such temperatures.

When you can buy an LHC off Ebay, then you can complain about it not working 100% on the first go.

And at that point, Ebay will probably tell you to re-read the 2.5 trillion page manual before logging the complaint in the first place.

Fnarr, fnarr.

DarkMarket founder jailed for five years

A former pizza man ?

I find it harder and harder to believe in the "safety" and "security" of the whole credit card scheme if a mere pizza delivery boy, heck, even a pizzaiolo, can set up a scheme like this and pull it off for so long.

Microsoft warns over rogue Security Essentials

Nothing to fear

I already don't trust Microsoft for its "security" essentials, so I certainly won't be downloading any kind of copy from an unknown source. Or even from a known source.

I have my computer security essentials since years ago :

- a hardware firewall, admin password changed and properly configured

- IE relegated to the status of secondary browser for specific needs. Most browsing done with Firefox configured with NoScript and AdBlock

- MSN banned from the house

- regular scans made with online scanning tools from official sites

Guess what ? I have no issues with my PC.

And Microsoft is certainly not going to change that, with or without its Essentials.

Apple uncovers child workers in its plants

Agreed

It would seem that the risk of child labor is somewhat of a "normal" business risk in some countries. Good on Apple for dealing with it professionally.

It is a shame that the kids only got discovered when they were finally of legal age, but I don't think you can fault Apple for not trying.

Facebook patents user news feed

It is no longer the US Patent "Office"

It is now the US Patent Lottery.

US Navy SEALs' new airlock minisub - made in Blighty

You must be new here

El Reg does not support 'the military-industrial-entertainment". El Reg does support any good point for Britain's industry and know-how, as well as giving brownie points for anything that supports its troops efficiently.

As for your slur on the honorable men that take risks beyond your imagination and put their lives on the line at the whim of paper pushers way higher up on the food chain, I prefer not to respond.

Microsoft slams nails in Windows Vista, XP SP2, 2000

One question

When is MS going to issue a Windows Activation Patch for XP then ?

To remove the need for activation, obviously.

Because, if it soooo obsolete, and not even sold anymore, then they don't need to control its use, right ?

So ?

Woman sues 50 Cent over sex vid leak

She got her 15 minutes of fame

And has obviously decided it was not enough.

Come on girl, you're fooling no one. When you're in an honest relationship with someone, you don't film the sex you have and you most certainly don't have someone else film it.

You get filmed while getting bonked means you know the film is going to hit the intertubes and you probably got paid to do it anyway.

In any case, having sex with a camera rolling means that you risk more than just STDs.

German jugs pulled from iPhone

"explain the rules"

I thought it was already self-evident. The rules are whataver His Jobsness decides they are when he gets up in the morning.

A serious, professional business sets guidelines that are clear and then enforces them mercilessly. Apple, in not having set clear guidelines and enforcing rules that are known after the fact, is seriously putting itself forth as not being a professional business environment.

That, of course, irks the other professional businesses to no end. And they will rock the Apple boat until the situation clears up : either Apple stops inventing new rules without telling anyone until the cat is already out of the bag, or these important corporations will probably stop playing with Apple.

And that, in the long run, is going to hurt Apple more than help it.

Talking about the bottom line, of course.

Because you can go on and on about how the "little" developers will always be coming to the Apple "platform", once enough of them have had their app yanked without explanation, there WILL be backlash.

And everyone knows how hard it is to recover from burning your developers.

Well, everyone except Apple, apparently.

Yahoo! turns! Twitter! firehose! on! self!

Oh great

The sewer spewer has gotten an extension to its territory. Glee.

Or not.

In any case, that definitely signs the death of the Yahoo bookmark on my browser.