Posts by Pascal Monett

Microsoft: IE9's web privacy hole? A feature, not a bug

I just love it

So the IE9 "do not trace" function has a hole that depends on TPL creators to not be abused.

Obviously, it's a "feature", because anything Microsoft does that the public does not like is never a bug and there's always important "public" (i.e. big-spending customer) support to justify it.

I'm sure that, if a general outcry against said "feature" is raised, Ballmer will certainly trot out the line that the "customers" wanted it. And he will be right, of course, albeit not mentioning that the "customers" he considers are not the teeming millions of anonymous users, but the select few business partners with deep pockets that made the requirement list (and screw the rest of us).

Download data versus piracy claims: the figures don’t add up

I totally agree

Your point is most interesting and I subscribe to it 100%.

If I were a politician and content creators came to tell me that 100% of the population are pirating stuff, then the obvious thing - WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS - is to legalize piracy.

And I would do it in an instant - well, right after having had a proper, earth-shattering public announcement drawn up.

Man, I would love to be in THAT press conference !

FTC sanctions behavioural ads firm over deceptive 'opt-outs'

"it will honour for at least five years" ?!?

Whaddya mean, only five ? And after that it will resume its cheating, sneaky ways ?

Who do they think they are ? Microsoft ?

Man do i appreciate AdBlocker !

Make streaming a felony: Obama

"Come on people, let's get real."

That said by a guy who is soooo far off topic it's comical.

But of course it is

Next, in the news, a new law makes it a criminal offense to cut someone off on the road.

The penalty is death by firing squad.

But hey, people, it's a *good* thing on the whole, because we can't have a world where people are so impolite to other people, now can we ?

Aussie TV production house takes on Apple

Partly ? No sir

They vet the apps that are published, therefor they approve them and are FULLY responsible for them.

You can't have your cake and eat it.

Microsoft releases IE9 for chip happy Windows world

Re:"People don't want a browser more closely tied to the operating system"

Most people cannot even understand what you wrote there.

Not bashing, but it's fact that, for a vast majority of users, a computer is a black box and they haven't the faintest idea of how stuff works.

Telling them that the browser they use is more tightly integrated to the system than an other one is an argument that will just bring you wide-eyed incomprehension. As long as it works, it's good enough for them.

And that is why Microsoft can tout that kind of argument - it doesn't matter anyway and, to some, it might even be considered a guarantee of sorts.

It's only the geeks that rail against that - and Microsoft can afford to ignore the geeks.

IE6 to stop Faebook ?

Don't corporate users go through a corporate firewall that is something more than just a poor app running on a box ?

Meaning : don't corporate users have something more akin to a firewall rule for that ?

Feds charge 10 with running Nigerian 419 scam

Brain disengages when con is convincingly presented

Let's face it : none of us are millionaires, ergo, we all need money.

For some, all it takes is a promise, the "opportunity of a lifetime", or a really charming smile, and we give our life's savings to someone we have never met and will never see again. Lots of paperwork in small letters is very convincing as well. And if it comes out of a leather suitcase with a bunch of office letterhead stuff and small furnitures, then it can be easy to get hooked.

I do think that 419 scams require a special brand of stupid, but lets not forget : make something idiot-proof and a better idiot will be found.

The world population is seriously in need of lots of training in critical thinking. Maybe even just in "thinking".

Man sentenced for breaching former employer's computers

Lame

Attacking a former employer from home, without even using a proxy. No wonder he got caught.

I'm sure he'll have plenty of time to reflect on what he should have done to avoid that while decorating his house with "Renegage Rules" scribbles.

Meanwhile, his former employer should have been a bit more diligent in changing its passwords.

Google vanishes 'DroidDream' malware from citizen phones

"we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull"

Quite right old chap - and I would be irresponsible to put good money on a toy that has a lever like that that someone else can pull without my consent or even knowledge until after the fact.

I don't care what you think your reasons are, if it's MY toy, then nobody but ME gets to put something on it, or take something off it.

A truly responsible company would post a proper removal procedure for the offending app, not just yank it out without even asking.

People are supposed to be responsible for their actions, you know. Of course, that is the real problem.

Ten... fantasy swords you wish you owned

Who ?

Who's Only ?

Apple to Microsoft: 'App Store name is not generic'

It's simple, really

Neither "App Store" nor "Windows" should be allowed to have a trademark.

The fact that it is up to the USPTO means that common sense will not be able, as prior evidence proves.

US trade rep bashes Baidu for 'deep linking' naughtiness

The USTR

Now a proud RIAA/MPAA affiliate.

Euro court slaps down insurers over gender risks

Women paid less for the same job has been corrected ?

In what universe do you live, sir ?

Killzone 3

you didn't read that right

He's not complaining about having to kill things repeatedly, he's complaining about having to kill things in the same way repeatedly.

It's the corridor crawl that is the bad point, nothing else.

Apparently, there are a small number of scenarios which allow for different tactics (stealth, flanking), but these are too few compared to the rest, which is just wearing down the enemy before advancing to wear down the next batch.

NO-SH*T CURE FOR BALDNESS discovered by accident

Shhh ! You hear that ?

That is the sound of a tidal wave of entirely new spam heading toward your mailbox.

Sarkozy: Microsoft represents all that is great about France

Indeed

They really do give it to anybody these days.

Google Apps boss says cloud computing is your destiny

"build confidence over time"

Oh, but I am 100% confident right now.

I am confident that this cloud thingy will expose my data at one point or another. I am confident that the cloud will not be available precisely the day I need it the most. I am confident that anything I put on the cloud will be used to target specific ads at me.

That is why I will keep my data locally, thank you. Unless you have real magic in your fingers, you are not going to get through my hardware firewall to sift through my data locally, so having it exposed is not possible.

And if my PC dies ? Well first, if that happens I won't be able to access my data whether or not it is on a cloud, and second, that's why you have backups - to recover your last one when the PC works again.

I see zero benefit for me in this cloudy thing, but I see golden opportunity for hackers and marketeers. Hmm, marketeers - that must be why this cloud is growing.

Steelseries World of Warcraft mouse and keyboard

The mouse I like

I like the look, and 14 buttons is nothing to sneeze at.

As for the keyboard, sorry but I prefer my Logitech G15.

Of course, you must know that I own a MS Strategic Commander (look it up). That means that, for customizable keys and stuff, I have a solution that nobody can even approach.

But the mouse, I like.

Microsoft loses global ad head to Facebook

"We look forward to continuing to expand our relationship with them"

In context, I take that to mean "We look forward to poaching even more MS talent".

Texas antitrust investigators request Google 'ad rate formula'

Turn over the formula ?

Will. Never. Happen.

I predict Google will even expatriate its headquarters if that is the only solution.

Money gone, people gone: Oracle's open-source blowback

Unreliability of Oracle servers ?

Ouch.

This whole story stinks of egomania and power grab. Not Oracle's finest hour.

Mozilla: 'Internet Explorer 9 is not a modern browser'

"(IE9 is) meant to suit real-world practices"

Sure, and we all know that, for Microsoft, real-world is what their valued customers are doing.

You think you're a valued customer ? No you're not, unless your name is part of the Fortune 1000. Those are the "real world" for Microsoft.

You and me and the millions upon millions of Windows licensees count for chickenshit at Microsoft.

And I highly doubt that developers have much say, even if they do work in Fortune 1000 companies. Their managers probably have more clout, which means IE9 is going to do what highly-paid suits want it to, not what the vast majority of its users want it to.

Business as usual then.

Apple suppliers: Child labor, bribery, suicides

"Gates is actually out in the world doing great good with his Trust"

Ooh, the world's richest man (or 2nd richest, whatever) is spending one percent of his fortune on poor people, isn't he nice ?

Well, okay, it's obviously good that he's doing that, but do not forget that he's just spending the interest, not the capital.

So let's not transform him into St Gates yet, shall we ?

Wanna puff the Old Republic? Only if you do it for free

That's an idea

Except that I give it a month before Bioware amends its stance and refuses to support the Fansite A because they will have found the link between the two.

But I'm not interested in anything EA anyway, so this is pure rhetoric on my part.

Kid spanks a grand on Xbox using Mum's bank card

more like

a troll and his tool

Julian Assange wins peace prize

Is it possible for you

to read The Reg in the spirit that it is written, i.e. with biting sarcasm ?

No, apparently not.

No, no

More of a TOOL, truth be told

Google to Microsoft: You're stealing our search results!

Well that makes for MS this month, when's the third ?

First we learned that MS forgot how to implement IMAP in its WP7 phone thingy, now we learn that it can't do search properly either and is scraping results off Google.

Two bad points in two days, that must be a record of sorts.

In any case, I'm interested in finding out what I may read tomorrow.

Elon Musk looking to get into 'black' spy sat market

"That will certainly upset the aerospace titans"

Ouch, cry me a river. If Musk is there with a more performing solution that is also more economical, the laws of capitalism state that he should be getting the market.

If the so-called aerospace "titans" want to keep their position, they only need to create a feasible and economical solution to get into space that beats anything else out there.

Funny that one guy with money can beat a whole industry supposedly full of bright minds. Seems that the one guy hired better minds than the rest.

Or maybe the industry is holding their bright minds back, or bogging them down in administrative nonsense that takes time away from actual work.

Either way, the underdog is besting the establishment, and where progress is concerned, that can only be a good thing.

Cold call scareware scammers aim to bring Mac fans into the fold

"they weren't even trying..."

That made me laugh !

Then that made me sad.

LinkedIn to go public this year

Countdown to trashy stuff started

LinkedIn is going public ? Not long after that the quality of service and opportunity for abuse will no doubt go in diametrically opposite directions.

So thank you for warning me. Now I know that, as soon as I see anything fishy on LinkedIn, it'll be time to destroy that account.

CoD: Black Ops 'not fit for purpose', fans claim

My how times change

To think that, back when I was a young'un, you could host your very own Quake III server and have friends connect to it. That was back when I had a 1MB connection.

Now, Internet connection speeds have grown pretty much all over the place (well, except in Blighty, from I read around here), computer hardware is much, much more powerful than it was is 1999, and we now have the luxury of buying games that no longer allow personal servers.

Yeah, maybe there was server hacking. Yeah, there were client hacks making some pricks unkillable and able to shoot through walls. But if you played with your friends, you didn't get those issues, now did you ?

Oh, right, I see the problem. Friends. Nowadays that's just a number on a Facebook page.

Samsung TV app competition - no winners here

"Fast forward a streaming offering off the end and the TV crashes."

That is exactly why I want my TV to remain a dumb display terminal.

Why, oh why is there so much pressure to include programming into every single kitchen/room appliance we have ?

The TV we currently have works fine. Shows whatever the input is transmitting, never ever should crash for any reason except hardware.

The DVD player can crash (even though I don't like the amount of code they put in there), doesn't harm the TV. The Media Player can (and will) crash, doesn't affect the TV. The bloody BluRay player will crash, but the TV stays rock solid.

Can anyone say Single Point Of Failure ? If your TV is blue screening, you can have as many consoles, DVD players and other peripherals you want, they are useless because the frakkin' TV cannot resolve its code !

That IS NOT a situation I want to experience.

Apple patents miracle combo mouse-keyboard

Indeed

I have a keyboard and a mouse and I fail to see what all the hoopla is about.

Of course, I never use "smartphones", or tablets or any other digital thingy outside of a PC or a DVD reader, so I never will have any use for this kind of stuff.

Passenger cleared after TSA checkpoint stare-down

“Annoying the TSA is not a crime,”

Somehow I doubt that that notion will catch on. TSA agents have (apparently) dark uniforms, just like USA police. The public always reacts the same to people in dark uniforms - they obey.

It's nice to know that someone had the balls (and the willpower) to go through with his idea and be vindicated by a court (it really is high time this "security" nonsense at airports was brought to a stop), but you won't be able to do that in a bank, my friend, however much you're willing to.

iTunes gifting scam plunges Reg reader into the red

And that just demonstrates the sheeple mentality

If we were actual, thinking people, once such a report became public there would be a flurry of account cancellations until the Itunes store became a virtual desert.

Only then would Apple understand that its policy and behavior is unacceptable, and change it.

But here ? In this reality, Apple conducts itself like any unwashed street tramp having successfully hawked damaged wares to the unwitting at the curb - when said witless numpty wises up a bit and complains, the tramp just stares him down and turns his back, laughing all the way to the bank.

And the numpty, pissed off though he is, continues dealing with the tramp, thus justifying the haughtiness in the first place.

Seems to me that there has been a world-wide ablation of testes in the current generation. Given the fact that beauty stores see more and more men coming in to purchase creams and lotions, I guess it was inevitable.

I'm going to buy a shotgun and a dog and retire to the mountains now.

"Pay with PayPal if necessary."

Yeah, like PayPal is more trustworthy than Itunes. That's like burning your eyebrows instead of singeing your foot.

Way to go.

Microsoft Windows guru turns to cybercrime (fiction)

"Endorsements have come from [...] White House cyber security czar"

That kind of diminishes the credibility of the book in my eyes.

Writing good fiction is difficult. Writing good political thrillers is difficult. Writing good code is difficult as well, but keyboard jockey skills do not translate to story writer skills. I doubt that this text will be in any way captivating. It might be technically realistic, but the usual over-the-top adjectives of the New York Times Bestseller list will most probably not be used on this.

That said, it will certainly be good enough for idea-starved Hollywood. We might get another Sandra Bullock film out of it (or six, the way Hollywood is going these days). Whether that is a good thing or not I leave to the reader to judge.

Smartphone makers to embrace multi-core chips

a fallacy ?

The fact that it is now virtually impossible to double the speed of a CPU has what impact on your argument ?

Not to mention the fact that multi-core systems are almost always benchmarking better than single-core systems in all user tasks, and in any mult-core enabled game or application ?

Are you the kind of person who dissed the 486DX line because the CPU was no longer synchronized with the bus ?

Renault denies tech at heart of spy scandal

Changing the story, are they ?

First I heard of it, the story was all about how a few engineers were fired for suspected industrial espionage. The way it was told led me to believe it had something to do with technology, especially since the fact that the engineers in question were all part of the department in charge of electrical vehicles was heavily referenced.

Now I hear that it is not industrial espionage, but business methods that these people were selling. Well excuse me but that is ridiculous on two counts. First of all, it is an about-face for the initial accusation - never a good sign when an accuser changes the why of his accusation. Second, Renault's business methods are not worth spying to retrieve - Renault has no business method. If they had one, their cars wouldn't break down so often.

I had a very interesting discussion three years ago with a person working in Germany for a company that makes parts for the automobile industry in general, and sometimes for Renault. That person told me that, of all the customers his company had, Renault was the only one for which the specifications were never complete. In other words, they had to call Renault time and time again to get an idea of how resistant, pliable, brittle or whatever the part had to be.

If that is due to a method, I don't think there is a company on Earth that needs to steal it.

Blizzard green-lights fan-made StarCraft mod

What was that, Blizzard ?

Being a dick is now routine procedure ?

My, how times have changed. Once upon a time it was unthinkable to attack someone else's work without being 100% sure that you had good cause and the moral upper hand. Nowadays, it's done automatically at the slightest whiff of challenge, with a provision to maybe reverse the decision a few months after it's too late.

Blizzard, you disappoint me greatly.

Bot attacks Linux and Mac but can't lock down its booty

Not able to survive a reboot ?

But it's a well-known fact that Linux users never reboot their machines - which gives this crap a lot of time for acting out its nefarious duties.

Razer StarCraft II peripherals set

Hang on, did I see a cable on that mouse ?

They're making such a highly priced set of kit and they didn't even make the mouse wireless ?

I have a G7 mouse, a G15 keyboard and a Microsoft Strategic Commander (look it up, it's the best). Personally, I find no other combination of any interest whatsoever.

Changing the key color following the situation of the base is cool, but I don't find that really useful. If you can't keep track of alerts, you're a goner, whatever the abilities of your keyboard. Being able to assign specific macros to any key seems interesting, although I'd like to see how that works in practice. Still, the G15 has macro keys, and a LED screen, which is really useful.

No, the cool factor is sky-high, but I don't see that the set brings me anything technical I don't already have.

Windows 7 Phone glitch spews phantom data

400MB of data ?

From a bloody smartphone ? Where do they get all that data in the first place ?

Seagate sees big drive capacity jump coming

"but who else is going to use it"

Uh, gamers ?

Let me check the folder size for some of my favorite games :

Battlefield 2 takes 9.9GB

Crysis Warhead takes 3.7GB

Freelancer takes 4.1GB

Hellgate London takes 6.8GB

Lord of the Rings Online takes 12.9GB

Starcraft II takes 8.7GB

Company of Heroes takes 3.9GB

and my Steam folder, with dozens of games, takes up 95.5GB.

Sure, this only takes 145GB in all. You might think that a 250GB disk should be amply enough. Yes it would - for now. But neither you nor I know what games I will add to my collection in the future, and I'll be darned if I want to start worrying about disc space again like I had to ten years ago (when game size on disk was counted in MB, not GB).

I bought a 1.5TB disk for the express purpose of installing my games on it. Yes, I have more than 1.2TB available on it, but that means I have space to install a lot more games. More importantly, it means that defragging is not an issue, and the disk can manage its sectors without problem either. Plus, I have peace of mind and room to grow.

Finally, the disk only cost me 89€. Hey, that's the price I paid for 320GB back in 2007 !

'Methanotroph' bacteria feasted on blown BP rig's methane belch

Your comment seemed interesting

Right up to the point where you reference the Christian Science Monitor.

That's when you lost all credibility and became ridiculous and hypocritical because of your rant against someone else's "slant".

The next time you want to play the high road game, try and reference a REAL scientific publication. You'll look better and your argument will be taken seriously.

Facebook riddled by 'my first ever status message' scam app

Beautiful

So you can now get in one file all the inane and useless blabber you posted on Facebook by uploading it from your PC ?

And you call that "genuinely useful" ?

Interesting.

For sale: 50,000 compromised iTunes accounts

"no action taken so far against the iTunes pillagers"

Of course, it is much easier to take down a lone Bittorrent user and claim "victory" against "piracy" then to actually go after a real pirate using criminal methods to make money. With real pirates there's all this "foreign country" stuff and nonsense about "different laws" and you learn, shocked, that the entire world is not actually subject to a U.S. court of justice.

Bummer.

So you go back to sending threatening letters to P2P users and hope to cash in a little something while real pirates turn your "security" into a joke and laugh all the way to the bank. But that's not important to you because the real pirates only swindle . . . your customers.