Posts by Pascal Monett

Data broker amasses 100M+ records on people – then someone snatches, sells it

What a bunch of liars

"we process publicly available business contact information, and do not collect, store, or process consumer data or any type of credential information or sensitive personal information including accounts, passwords, home addresses or other personal, non-business information"

Oh yeah ? Then how do you explain that you had physical addresses of people on a server that decommissioned for two years AND NOT SHUT DOWN ?

There should be a law specifying that, if you deal with data that can identify physical individuals, you must have the proper procedures and protections in place or else you go to jail.

Take 'em behind the chemical shed and shoot them.

EU irate about geo-locked Apple IDs

DVD region blocking is extremely annoying and should be illegal.

I live in France. If I go to the UK and buy a physical DVD, what right do companies have to refuse me the right to play it in France ?

I BOUGHT THE FUCKING DVD.

Let me play it where I want, or I'll just find a pirate copy and play that.

No pilot? No problem! EHang's autonomous air taxis take off in Thailand

Yay ! Progress !

Destruction will now rain down from the skies !

The dystopian future is coming closer every day !

Celebrate while you still can !

FBI issues warning as crooks ramp up emergency data request scams

"adopting critical thinking"

Ah, but that means going to HR to get approval to open the safe in the basement that's behind the door marked Beware of Leopard.

It's so much easier and quicker to just blindly obey.

Gang of monkeys escape South Carolina biomedical research facility

Sounds like a "farm" run with minimal funding

Either that or it's a place where the budget is kept lower than possible because the top brass wants their big cars and swimming pools.

Serving moldy food ? Food doesn't get moldy in a day. Multiple escapes over the years ? Lack of organisational supervision springs to mind.

This place doesn't sound like a good place to work, much less to be a monkey in.

Microsoft 'resolves' and 'mitigates' Windows Server 2025 update whoopsie

"working with 3rd-party providers to streamline best practices and recommended procedures."

Best practice #1 : don't include full upgrades in patch updates.

When Windows Server 2025 is delivered like it's 1999, nobody gets to party

Well said

I approve absolutely everything written in this article.

The fact that Redmond has cut QA teams is well known, the fact that it also has oodles of money is also well-known. Those two facts are contradictory in nature, but their coexistence is the entire basis of the problems millions of people and businesses are facing on a monthly basis.

Maybe a class-action lawsuit across five continents will do some good, because it's quite obvious that Borkzilla will continue on its merry way of not giving a flying fuck about delivering a proper product in the proper manner.

Somebody is missing a good whipping.

Intel: Our finances are in the toilet, we're laying off 15K, but the free coffee is back!

Well, it's either that or company offices are going to smell bad and the cleaning crew is going on strike.

Captain Peacock ? Are you free ?

Beautiful series. A lot of good laughs. British humor at its best.

Just check out Starbucks.

WordPress's Automattic openly tracks websites bailing from rival WP Engine

So, getting petty are we ?

This whole story is visibly being drawn into the depths of the sewer.

I would like to know if publishing data on the customer activity of your competitor is legal. It seems to me that it is not, even if the information is so-called public.

Watchdog finds AI tools can be used unlawfully to filter candidates by race, gender

Re: "he was turned down for every single one of the more than 100 jobs he applied for"

Yeah, stupid fat fingers mistake. Sorry.

"he was turned down for every single one of the more than 100 jobs he applied for"

So ?

I lost my job in 2011 (yeah, right after the two towers). I spent two years and sent dozens of applications every month during that time.

I got two answers, and one interview where I was told that I was highly qualified, but they just weren't hiring at that time. I could have choked the bastard for making me take a 90-minute train ride to hear that.

You were turned down for 100 applications on a web platform ?

Cry me a river.

Tech support world record? 8.5 seconds from seeing to fixing

It always amazes me how people sometimes just want to take the longest road.

NASA fires up super-quiet supersonic X-59 aircraft

"external cameras [..] provide a view for the enclosed operator"

Sounds like an ideal setup for remote, drone-like operation.

I understand this is a test prototype. I wonder what a full-size, 500-person passenger jet could look like.

Winos4.0 abuses gaming apps to infect, control Windows machines

Ah, gaming

Miscreants have long been attacking gamers. Back in the day when CDs were a thing, NoCD tools could often be infected (a very practical little program that would allow you to play that game without inserting the CD). But I don't really understand the point today.

Gamers don't have the money. They're worth nothing as far as ransoming is concerned, so there has to be another reason and the only one I can see is that gamers often have powerful rigs, or at least more powerful than the common PC user.

So it's a question of harnassing that power to do what, DDOS attacks ?

Astroboffins tune into the wild origins of fast radio bursts

Re: I'm beginning to think...

Distance as well.

It's a lot easier to objectively evaluate something curious that is light-years away, but that screaming brat nearby is going to drive you nuts.

And especially in ALL CAPS.

Killer app for AI is still years away, says industry analyst

Indeed.

Trough of disillusionment ? I never even got to the excitement phase.

With all the billions that have been and are being spent, I'm happy for the people who are making a living out of this, but as far as I'm concerned, AI is heading straight into Virtual 3D territory - sounds nice, but remains useless except in very niche cases.

Thanks, Linus. Torvalds patch improves Linux performance by 2.6%

It shows indeed

It shows why Linus Torvalds is still the top programmer in existence.

All hail the Torvald !

Sysadmin shock as Windows Server 2025 installs itself after update labeling error

"paying for the required license"

You have got to be kidding me.

The proper procedure is Redmond sends its engineers to reinstall the original version - at its own cost - and presents its excuses to the customers that it fucked over.

I'm pretty sure this is not going to hold up in court. No way.

A new city springs from the rainforest to become Indonesia's tech hub

"75% of its area dedicated to green spaces"

That will never hold true.

I wonder if they have a plan for the inevitable homeless people that will flock to the city.

UK watchdog hints Voda-Three merger will likely pass

Bonuses to the board is never considered mismanagement.

Former Facebook lobbyist joins UK comms regulator as non-exec director

"we're not sure we are entirely comfortable"

You shouldn't be.

Wolf garding the sheep pen comes to mind.

But I'm sure that this has been decided in the best tradition of UK Government, aka somebody had a friend in need.

So all is well, right ?

Grindr used RTO to screw union, labor watchdog claims

Ah, America

The land where anything getting in the way of capitalism is considered de facto demonic and communist.

Labor unions ? Giving employees a proper living wage ? Bah, humbug.

It's the shareholders that count. They must have the highest possible return on investment. Well, after axing half your workforce, I trust the shareholders are going to be quite enthusiastic about the future of their investment.

Well shareholders are going to have to realize that a happy workforce is more productive than a slave workforce. People who worry about their bills are people who are not conentrated on their job.

It's as simple as that.

Microsoft has reached $1M giveaway levels of desperation to attract users to Bing

Ah, Bing

Not even a runner-up in the search engine market. Second only because all the others are practically non-existant.

Goes to show that the search engine market requires billions in datacenters and software. If Borkzilla can't make it work, who can ?

Public sector cyber break-ins: Our money, our lives, our right to know

I completely agree

The entire computing industry has been surfing way too long on the Ts&Cs of Borkzilla, aka "if it goes wrong, it's not our fault".

The aviation industry (despite Boeing's best efforts) is like a hawk on every failure. Lives are at stake.

The vehicle industry is subject to recalls and almost self-regulates its problems. Lives are at stake.

Computing ? It's a bunch of bits. Nobody dies.

Yeah but, more and more, those bits determine the livelyhood of actual, breathing, living beings.

Lives are at stake now. It's high time we bring in the inspectors and the full failure reports and we stop letting it happen again.

I don't care if Facebook drops off the Internet for a while. I do care that my government-mandated identity is protected and properly cared for.

Relocation is a complete success – right up until the last minute

I've already told this story, but it seems fitting to tell it again.

I was once (long ago) an operator for a Bull DPS 7. Back then, that meant an entire room, with four dishwasher-sized things for holding one HDD each, HDD which could hold a magnificent (at the time) 40MB of data. Not to mention the four backup tape arrays. It was a pretty impressive site at the time, is what I'm saying.

There were no less than three engineers on site, and one day, two of them entered the server room in the middle of a lively discussion. It wasn't an argument, from where I was sitting (the other side of the room, in front of the console), they were just talking about something and it was obviously interesting.

The point is, the big red button was right next to the door, and one of the engineers was finishing what was obviously his big story. To emphasize the end of his story, he spread his arms wide and - whack - hit the big red button.

I believe that he didn't expect his story to end with the total silence of the server room . . .

That position you just applied for might be a 'ghost job' that'll never be filled

Ghost jobs ? How about ghost contracts ?

I have been self-employed since 2012. I have tried many times to get into a "government" contract because I knew that I had the required experience and competence.

Except that the contract had been explicitily written so that only one specific provider could answer and be awarded the contract.

I now have the experience to recognize those contracts and not waste my time with them, but they are nothing new.

Not by a long shot.

Financial institutions told to get their house in order before the next CrowdStrike strikes

"better prepare for IT meltdowns"

Simple : stop downloading unverified code to your production servers !

LottieFiles supply chain attack exposes users to malicious crypto wallet drainer

"supply chain attack"

That path would not exist if Agile developers would stop downloading unverified code to production servers.

As usual, business is going to learn the hard way.

Microsoft turning away AI training workloads – inferencing makes better money

"we are literally going to the real demand"

Who are you to decide what the real demand is ?

You have customers, and apparently a lot of them, willing to pay for your services. You take the money and do the job.

Meta spruiks benefits of open sourcing Llama models – to its own bottom line

"made $270 million in the quarter but lost $4.4 billion"

That's about $16 lost for every dollar spent.

And they're still spending.

Chinese attackers accessed Canadian government networks – for five years

"can disrupt critical infrastructure"

That's only because critical infrastructure is about as protected as a newborn baby.

Get your finger out and start protecting critical infrastructure before somebody actually brings it down.

US Army should ditch tanks for AI drones, says Eric Schmidt

Because he's a billionnaire. And an asshole, but that is politely ignored.

Don't forget that the media is controlled by billionnaires and those people like to help each other.

Sketchy financials send Supermicro auditors running for the hills

Re: $17.5 million .... without admitting wrongdoing.

I completely agree. This "not admitting wrongdoing" thing galls me beyond measure. You paid a $17.5 million fine and you did nothing wrong ? Then why did you pay ?

Combustion engines grind Linus Torvalds' gears

Ah, an electric car

I'm sure Torvalds had no trouble buying it.

I'm waiting for his comments in 8 years when he'll have to replace the battery.

Also, does anyone know the volume of the second-hand market for 4-year old EVs ? Because I don't think there is one.

Musk, Bezos need just 90 minutes to match your lifetime carbon footprint, says Oxfam

"Rich countries have failed to keep their $100 billion climate finance promise"

Well, let's not forget that Trump bowed out of the Paris accords, shall we ?

Brit Apple semi supplier IQE's CEO departs amid reshuffle

"effective immediately"

That smacks of serious leadership issues. This is either a clash at top level, or a gigantic sex scandal that is being quashed.

I'd vote for the former.

OpenAI reportedly asks Broadcom for help with custom inferencing silicon

What ? On-prem is cheaper now ?

But . . but . . all those expensive suits with their beautiful presentations that said that The Cloud^TM was the best thing since sliced bread ?

Were they lying ?

Ok, seriously, if even cloudy companies are starting to look as on-prem as advantageous, it won't be long before the vast migration from The Cloud^TM back to in-house will be starting.

And then, The Cloud^TM will be viewed as the thing it is : a vast, money- and energy-gobbling distraction.

A bit like cryptocurrency, actually, come to think of it . . .

Beijing claims it's found 'underwater lighthouses' that its foes use for espionage

"secret sentinels"

Because Chinese fishing boats have only ever been used for fishing, right ?

Uncle Sam outs a Russian accused of developing Redline infostealing malware

Re: Russian safety net

Agreed.

I'm thrilled that US law enforcement has identified yet another Russian criminal.

Call me when it has the means to put him on trial.

Softbank CEO says 'super AI' will arrive in 2035 and cost $9T

"$9 trillion is not too big"

Oh ? Then put up the money yourself and shut up about it.

Chinese chips, quantum and AI now on US investment blacklist

We've always been at war with EastAsia

Those words are starting to become prophetic.

Merde! Macron's bodyguards reveal his location by sharing Strava data

Who cares ?

It's Macron.

His entire presidency is a joke (albeit a costly one).

It's no surprise that the French equivalent of the Secret Service is stupid enough to continue to reveal their location after the previous reports in the news : they can't speak English.

And let's not forget the brilliant perfomance of the French "elite" commandos in the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior.

The halcyon days of the French Resistance are, apparently, long gone.

NASA narrows Artemis III landing target list to nine

Re: Artemis IV

Hello ? Do you know what a subject is ?

Come back when they post an article on Artemis IV.

Chinese engineers wire Raspberry Pi into 600-meter railway tunnel to find any holes

Awesome

It is absolutely amazing how those little things can be applied to the most astonishingly different domains. If I had invented that kit, I would be proud as peach.

Those who invented it and brought it to market certainly can be.

Apple quietly admits 8GB isn't enough in 2024, M4 iMac to ship with 16GB as standard

Re: Apple should be honest enough to say that

There is no multinational multibillion-dollar conglomerate that has any honesty whatsoever. It's all lies, all the way down.

The only honest thing is the sales price of the smartphone when you purchase it and, even then, you get surprises with the "additional charges" on your monthly bill.

Delta officially launches lawyers at $500M CrowdStrike problem

So, briefcases at dawn it is

The popcorn futures are looking more and more interesting.

ClownStrike may well respond "aggressively" (I wouldn't expect anything less), but their failure has been rather well documented and I think any lawyer worth his salt will counter the feeble "their infra wasn't up to scratch" argument with ease.

Your job is not to count on your customer's infra and disaster recovery to ensure your business continuity.

Boeing launches funding round to stave off credit downgrade

Funding round ? For Boeing ?

HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAA !

You'd have to be daft to throw money into that company. Might as well use it to light your barbecue.