Posts by Pascal Monett

Seething CEO shoulder surfed techie after mistaken takedown of production server

if you're working in education, you should not use a vendor who doesn't give a fuck about how you work.

And if you don't, don't come crying when it all falls down . . .

New York Times source code leaks online via 4chan

Wait, 4chan is an image board now ?

I thought it was a cesspile of fould language, threats to my Mother and endless "I did not - Yes you did" competitions.

When did they upgrade ?

Uber ex-CSO Joe Sullivan: We need security leaders running to work, not giving up

How credible

The guy convicted for not doing his job calls for people to do the job.

Look, I'm glad he has seen the light and walked the path of redemption, but maybe we can avoid making a media darling out of him ?

What's the possibility that he damn well knows he's never going to get another job like that, so he's just milking the media circuit for all he can ?

Next stop : his book on How I Found Security, complete with multiple seminars where he explains the pain he's been through and how you absolutely should buy his book.

Along with talk shows and conventions where he is "invited" (with a large check) to talk about his "experience".

What ? Me ? Cynical ? Why do you ask ?

Microsoft updates accessibility feature Voice Access to auto-restart

"the investigation into the Voice Access crashing issue"

Ooh, I believe then that Voice Access must have something to do with Business.

Because if this was just a Dark Theme for fanbois, there wouldn't be such a kerfluffle, now would there ?

Raspberry Pi IPO is oversubscribed multiple times

"Certainly while I'm in charge."

May you remain in charge for a long time.

More than a Joule required to power up enthusiasm for SAP's AI strategy

"pulling the sheets off of AI features"

Holy shit. One of the most complicated, consultant-heavy, difficult-to-configure application sthat has ever been invented and marketed to the clueless CEOs is now touting AI as ahmm, benefit ?

Yeah. Sure. Companies who have paid through the nose for a never-ending "configuration process" are now supposed to believe that "AI" is going to make everything work ?

So they can get rid of those SAP consultants who have been leeching their bloodline since forever ?

Methinks this strategy is a bit of the gun-meet-foot variety.

Tesla chair begs investors to bless Musk's billions or face an Elon exodus

board chair Robyn Denholm

Top line on his Curriculum : Whore.

Should be a shoe-in for the Republican Party. I wonder when he's going to start supporting Trump ?

TikTok confirms CNN, other high-profile accounts hijacked via zero-day vulnerability

Re: Ah, Beijing again

Terribly sorry to have disappointed you.

We'll talk about credibility again when you have a convicted felon in the Oval Office.

Re: Ah, Beijing again

Oh sure. America are the Good Guys. I keep forgetting.

Remind me when Trump is back in the Oval Office, choosing which international treaty he is going to shit on next.

Ah, Beijing again

I've always loved the supposed paranoia around Beijing being able to order a company to give up data.

Curiously, nobody ever mentions that the White House has the National Security Letter which can do the exact same thing.

I'm pretty sure my own country is not going to think twice about sending a legal order to a French company to hand over data.

But obviously The Yellow Threat is the current push to make people worried and obedient, so . . .

A tale of two missions: Starliner and Starship both achieve milestones

"before toppling over into the ocean"

Well then it was a failure. Yet another one.

But hey, it's not called rocket science for nothing.

HP CEO: Printed pages are down 20% since pandemic

"450 billion fewer pages"

So, basically you're telling me that we used to print over two trillion pages a year ?

Holy fucking shit. How many trees do we kill for that ?

Spam blocklist SORBS closed by its owner, Proofpoint

So, another one bites the dust

A free service that was useful, accurate and regularly updated. And now it is shut down without so much as a warning.

Proofpoint may have managed its existence properly, but it botched its ending. You tell people you're going to shutter a service like that. You give them time to adapt. You don't just pull the plug and then say "Yeah, we can't be bothered no more".

Bad doggie. No cookie.

Samsung union stages its first ever strike – very politely

What ??

"management encouraged employees to use annual leave on this day"

Sorry ? Why use annual leave on a national holiday ? How fucking bonkers do you have to be to tell your employees to use up the few holiday days they have on a day when you'll be closing because it's the NATIONAL HOLIDAY ?

That is insane.

I didn't touch a thing – just some cables and a monitor – and my computer broke

Yeah, sure. Nothing changed. Pinky promise.

I cannot fathom why a sane person would state that nothing had changed when they know that they made a change.

You can screw something up without knowing you did bad. It's in the Constitution or something. So, instead of a blatant lie that will be caught, buy yourself a pair and say : "I touched this for that reason and now I think I screwed something else up. Could you help ?".

Why are people so cowardly ? Why does it take brass balls to admit that you might have made a mistake ?

Babies try standing up for weeks before getting it right, but it would seem that, as soon as a boy makes it upright, he loses the courage to stand by his actions.

Pff.

And get off my lawn !

<wanders off muttering>

Brit tech tycoon Mike Lynch cleared of all charges in US Autonomy fraud trial

Re: Caveat Emptor...

It's been a long time since HP had a clue.

Everyone can make mistakes . . .

OpenAI to buy electricity from CEO Sam Altman's nuclear fusion side hustle

Fusion, fusion, fusion

Funny how so many companies are talking AI, but hardly any are talking fusion. Must be because the budget is an order of magnitude higher for fusion and it's harder to bullshit your way through.

Meanwhile, ITER is progressing. We will get there, apparently, but there is no billionnaire to thank for that. It would appear that space is an easier frontier for their low attention spans.

Microsoft shows venerable and vulnerable NTLM security protocol the door

"that time is fast approaching"

Gotta do something to keep those juicy US Government contracts . . .

BT chief blames regulations for UK lagging in next-gen network rollout

"about 80% of homes in Sweden have a fiber connection"

Gosh, might it have anything to do with the fact that Swedish government actually gives a fuck about its citizens ?

As in, allocating funds where they are useful, and not just filling the pockets of some MP's nephew ?

Just wondering.

And besides, what is a private company in charge of comms complaining about the state of something it is in charge of ?

You don't like the state of things ? Put your money where your - oh, silly me. BT does not exist to serve customers, it exists to serve its investors.

Can AI models trained on human speech help us understand dogs?

Re: Grant capture 'science'?

Agreed. Even with humans, there are many silent forms of expression that no AI can pick up through language. I mean, just ask any married man who feels the need to ask his wife if everything is okay.

Animals have a multitude of physical options to express themselves as well. A cat doesn't need to hiss at you to make you understand that you're unwelcome.

But, this is a start. However ridiculous it might seem at first glance, it might provide a few clues that can be built upon in the coming years. I say go for it. Nobody knows what we might find out in the long run.

High-flying drones on a leash could blow traditional wind turbines away

I don't know how all that works, but you're obviously supposing that everyone's maps will be up to date.

I hope you're right, but I'm not sure this kind of thing in remote areas is going to be all that well-tracked.

Especially outside of the USA (or Europe, for that matter).

Not to mention that those tethers are a flight hazard for small, private planes piloted by people who may well know how to fly, but might not know that there's a cable in their flight path until it's too late.

Wi-Fi can watch your heart beating, Taiwan’s datacenter power outfit Delta finds

"a bed with smartphones on adjacent nightstands"

I was going to ask when our closest bit of toxic waste would be used for such things, but the good doctor has already borged the problem.

So, heartbeat detectors are just an app away then ? Oh, silly me, they're already a dime a dozen.

Well, it seems the Terminators won't have much trouble finding targets . . .

Study finds 268% higher failure rates for Agile software projects

While I agree with you, we both must admit that either methodology has lost the primary aspect in both cases : talking with the customer.

I was doing Agile before it had a name. I'm a Notes developer (silence at the rear). The first thing I learned when becoming a consultant was : the customer doesn't really know what he actually wants. My job, as I learned it, was not only to listen to the hierarchy and document its needs, but get the view from the groundpounders (the ones who will actually use the product) and learn what their needs are and how to best fullfill them while placating the management.

I don't care what methodology you call that. What I see is that I have now spent 25 years of a career where I can say that my successes have vastly overweighed my failures. I have helped people do their jobs better and more easily, and I am rather proud of that.

Microsoft paid Tenable a bug bounty for an Azure flaw it says doesn't need a fix, just better documentation

"our cloud working by design"

I've got a hunch you're going to be changing your design pretty soon . . .

Russia takes gold for disinformation as Olympics approach

He craves attention. Even when people are shouting at him, he's happy because they're paying attention to him.

I sincerely believe he has a medical condition. He's not right in his mind. In any case, he's not fit to occupy the position he has.

But that's democracy for you . . .

"trying to undermine French President Emmanuel Macron"

They can stop trying. Given the amount of shit he's taking every day from regular French citizens, their efforts are wasted.

Airbus shows off uncrewed AI-powered Wingman for fighter pilots

"details on how pilots control and interact with Wingman"

Simples. They just ask Siri to bomb that target . . .

More layoffs at Microsoft: What's really going on here?

"Measured in executives, Microsoft is laying off about four Nadellas"

Brilliant. That puts things in perspective indeed.

I think El Reg should adopt measuring in executives as a standard when talking about company layoffs.

Well done.

Intel CEO says sanctions on China squanders opportunity for US chipmakers like Intel

Boo Hoo

Oh dear, there might be a country in the world that has its own chip industry and Intel won't be able to run roughshod over everything and reap all the rewards.

Sorry, Pat, but it's going to get worse. Sanctions and economic pressure has already taught Beijing that China must become independant.

Guess what ? With over a billion citizens, China has the manpower. China has universities. China has industry, because it has been producing everything we use since the last five decades.

It's a bit late to complain about sanctions now. US industry should have thought about that five decades ago when they decided it was a good idea to shove all production down south because it was less expensive.

You reap what you sow.

I hope you enjoyed your bonuses.

Analysts join the call for Microsoft to recall Recall

"letting the user scroll the archive of snapshots"

Letting the user.

You mean the idiot who can't think unless he has his smartphone telling him what he thinks.

You mean all those users who have now gotten used to Windows Search telling them where their applications were.

I'm sure those people will be eminently capable of understanding what all those screenshots mean . . .

Crooks threaten to leak 3B personal records 'stolen from background check firm'

277.1GB from a "small" information broker

I shudder to think of how many "small" brokers there are, and how much data the big brokers have . . .

Windows 11's Recall feature is on by default on Copilot+ PCs

My hardware is not compatible

Thank $Deity for that . . .

Boeing's Starliner finds yet another way to not reach space

Apollo 13 returned safely as well. By a hair's breadth, but all astronauts were alive and recovered after splashdown.

Apollo 13 did not accomplish its original mission, but after it came back, there was one hell of a do-over for the specs of the following capsules and modules.

"The redundant power supply did not activate"

So what is this ? Sloppy engineering, bad procurement or just bad luck ?

I can understand that a power supply fails, but if the power supply fails and the redundant power supply does not activate, it seems to be that there is a whiff of bad engineering floating about.

NYSE technical error sends stocks tumbling

"limit up/limit down rules that are in place to prevent stock volatility"

So, rules in place to limit stock volatility create volatility.

LOL.

JAXA's Akatsuki probe goes silent after more than a decade studying Venus

Re: 14 years? Not bad at all

Not only 14, but more than 3 times the initially-planned period.

As usual, space missions far outlast their initial planning - when they don't fail right at the start, that is.

More than can be said for most earth-bound projects . . .

VMware by Broadcom has a licensing portability win with Microsoft

So, Redmond has extended its greasy hand to Broadcom

A match made in corporate heaven. Why am I not surprised ? Broadcom is starting to notice that its near-termination of VMWare is not going down well, and Borkzilla certainly has the might to pressure Broadcom's board into understanding Redmond's best interests.

In hindsight, this was inevitable. If Broadcom hadn't agreed, Borkzilla would have just bought it and be done with it.

Cisco's emergency caller can send first responders to the wrong location

So they goofed

Unfortunate, but in a project with this level of complexity, I can understand.

The important thing is that they have corrected the goof, and published the problem without pressure from some hacker threatening to go public.

Yes, I know, that's normal you say. Sure. But "normal" these days, at the corporate level, doesn't have the same meaning any more . . .

So, let's patch and move on.

DARPA awards in-orbit manufacturing contract to Momentus

"the departure of its Russian founders"

Looks like the messy IPO was a blessing in disguise. I'm pretty sure that, would said Russian founders still be on the Board today, Momentus would ever even have been considered by DARPA.

Actually, I'm surprised it still was.

Twitter 'supersharers' of fake news tend to be older Republican women

What you say is absolutely true, people are willing to dive into conspiracy theories.

The fact that the CIA has been responsible for many fuck-ups that they covered up and then got caught out for doesn't help.

When your government is responsible for MK Ultra, the deliberate non-treatment of black men who had syphilis, the military poisoning of an entire city to "see what happens" . . . well let's just say that conspiracy theories are unfortunately not entirely unjustified.

When you pollute the waters of truth at the highest level, you reap the harvest for apparently a long time.

NASA and ESA take a close look at Europe's International Habitation Module

Re: Bet this never flies.

I hope not.

Zero-Gee science is indispensible for furthering our knowledge of metals and biotechnology. At least, I'm convinced it is. So we need to have a permanent base in orbit, so as to do Science (yes, with a capital S), as well as serve as a launchpad for missions that go beyond low orbit - which we need for our knowledge of the Universe.

So I do hope that there will be a successor to the ISS - one not managed and owned by China, for example.

But I can only hope.

Recycling old copper wires could be worth billions for telcos

"should they take the trouble to recycle them"

Why bother ?

Copper thieves have been taking care of that for a decade already . . .

Telcos are not renowned for proper management of their hardware anyway, now are they ?

Google to push ahead with Chrome's ad-blocker extension overhaul in earnest

I really don't care about what corporate does in its own space. Corporate has money, and it is responsible for its own decisions.

The US education market is a joke anyway.

For the rest, intelligent, knowledgeable users will know how to manage Chrome in a suitable way. And that includes Firefox users, however much you seem to look down on 3% of the market.

Personally, I don't mind being part of the 3%. NoScript is a blessing.

Thanks for coming to help. No, we can't say why we called – it's classified

You think I'm impressed by your bullshit ?

Can't access actual data, don't have any unclassified test data to test on.

What do want me to do, wave a magic wand ?

Do you know that I don't actually need to see the data to be able to test it ? No ?

Why am I not surprised . . .

Dell predicts 20 percent jump in memory and SSD prices later this year

So, ya hear ?

Time to buy is now ! Come and get it before the price hike !

Our managers will appreciate their bonuses . . .

OpenAI is very smug after thwarting five ineffective AI covert influence ops

"sowing distrust"

Thanks, but AFAIC, Facebook (and social media in general) has already taken that crown.

California's Governor Newsom is worried AI will be smothered in regulation

Go ahead and stifle

There are, IMO, very few pseudo-AI projects that actually bring benefit to the user.

There are many pseudo-AI projects that can easily harm people. Deepfakes started the landslide, and we now have the means of faking not only image, but sound as well.

And you don't have to be a rocket scientist to use these "tools".

So yes, go ahead and stifle innovation before lives are destroyed by this monstrosity.