Posts by Pascal Monett

Welcome to 2024: Volkswagen really is putting ChatGPT into cars as a gabby copilot

"Generative AI should be available and accessible to everyone"

Available and accessible, okay. Forced upon, not okay.

I do not want that thing listening to me all the time. Car makers already have a pretty dismal history when it comes to electronic security, I'd rather not find out years down the line that PussyIFarted has gained the ability of simulating entire car conversations because of data scraping.

If, and that is a big if, I buy a car (from any automaker, VW is just the first - the rest will follow) that has this thing in it, I want a button (or a setting) to turn it off.

The day we have truly autonomous cars that I can hop into, tell it to take me somewhere, and then read a book or watch a film, then fine. Give me Internet access and do whatever you want, the world is my oyster and I'm happy. But today, when driving, I concentrate on the road. I have a small slab of toxic metals that connects to the Intartubes, it is enough when I need it.

Apple sets new 16,000-foot iPhone drop test after 737 fuselage fail

"I found a phone sitting on the side of the road that had apparently fallen 16,000 feet."

Apparently ? Not disputing the fact that you found it, but if it was undamaged, how can you say that t had fallen 16,000 feet ?

Avoiding AI-capable PCs will be impossible by 2027

Indispensable ? Really ?

Looking forward to the many UI and OS modifications from intelligent people who cut this shit out of Windows to put the Personal back into PC.

The harder you push, the more resistance you encounter. I'm betting that this is going to raise shields like Borkzilla has never encountered.

For Apple, probably less. Jobsians are already brainwashed, they'll just think that this is the new reality field and will be fine with it.

Nearly 200 Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplanes grounded after door plug flies off mid-flight

She called it "a concern"

Yeah, having your passengers sucked out of the plane just like in every airplane catastrophe film is indeed a concern.

That is what Boeing is now, the groundwork for the scenarios of future flight accident films.

Thank God I don't need to take the plane anymore. TGV fills my travel needs nicely, thank you very much.

NASA science bound for Moon after successful Vulcan Centaur launch

Re: How the mighty are fallen

Well what do you expect ? Congress is done giving NASA a blank check, Soviet Russia is gone. Now NASA is being nickel-and-dimed to death, and billionnaires with a penchant for erecting great big, uh, rockets, are the only thing still giving us access to orbit.

Remember the theory of trickle-down economics ? This may be the one valid example.

Open source's new mission: To boldly go where no software has gone before

"the user-focused, data-centric ecosystem we so badly need"

The ecosystem we are living in has been defined by companies. Users that are not employees do not have much influence on it, they are not organized and don't have the time to care. Users that are employees follow the diktat of their management, which doesn't care one bit about user-centric. Management is management-centric, employees just need to learn the wierd, illogical steps to give them that shiny graphic at the end of the month.

Need to plug in an EV? BT Group kicks off cabinet update pilot

"comes from renewable energy, we're told"

Well of course we're told that. You don't think that they're going to admit that it's that coal furnace nearby that is going to charge the carbon-emission-free focus of greenies everywhere, now do you ?

No, those dirty coal plants (of which more are being built, thanks Germany) only provide leccy to other things, their electrons are prohibited by public moral from entering the sanctity of an EV.

Yeah, sure. Pull the other one.

Facebook, Instagram now mine web links you visit to fuel targeted ads

Re: these are maximums

Yeah, and the suspect is black and he robbed charities. Somehow I don't have the impression that either judge or jury are going to be lenient.

As for the sentencing, you need to understand that law enforcement throw everything they can in hope that something, anything, will stick and remain after the tireless efforts of the attorney to remove charges on whatever basis he can conjure from the rulebook and from prior sentencing. That explains their tendancy to go somewhat overboard with the charges, it's likely most will be dismissed (maybe not in this case, though).

That is also how the police press innocent people into admitting a crime they never committed. Stick someone in a windowless room for 24 hours, subject them to endless questioning and impress them with all the maximum sentences the police can try to dream up (carefully avoiding the sentence "I want my lawyer"), and many people fold just to get rid of the pressure.

Don't forget : it's the best justice money can buy.

Everyone's suing AI over text and pics. But music? You ain't seen nothing yet

"AI makers believe training their models on copyrighted material is fair use"

Of course they do. The courts will teach them otherwise.

Ransomware payment ban: Wrong idea at the wrong time

"Such a ban would need to be universal"

No, it wouldn't. And there is no reason to not do the right thing simply because your neighbor won't do it when you do.

That level of reasoning means that it's useless to implement electric cars, since not every country is doing it. It means that it is useless to promote renewable energy sources since some countries are not.

Not an excuse. Banning the payment of ransomware means that countries that don't will be targeted. Their problem, and they'll get around to a ban when they see how effective it is.

Not a reason to not do it.

Re: class ransomware as a weapon of mass destruction?

"make it clear it's no idle threat"

Oh great. How do you do that ? You nuke North Korea to show that you're serious ?

Please.

Nobody is nuking anyone. It's bad, whatever the reason.

Keep nukes out of this, the waters are muddy enough as is.

Re: how do you even make this illegal ?

You seem to forget that kidnapping ransoms was made illegal to pay, and that worked pretty well.

If you can "frame it" to make it illegal to pay to get back your child/spouse, then you can damn well frame it to make it illegal to pay for data.

Re: What happened to "don't negotiate with terrorists"

What happened is that it was just a soundbite. The US government has always negociated with terrorists, just never openly.

That way the electorate can believe that the liberation of hostages was obtained through diplomacy only and the good work of negociators (makes much better TV), when the back-room dealings and many brown envelopes were the actual solution.

NIST: If someone's trying to sell you some secure AI, it's snake oil

"trustworthy AI"

I can't help feeling that those two words just don't go together.

A bit extreme, but not entirely wrong either.

Tesla's latest Autopilot safety patch hits 1.6M Chinese vehicles

Agreed. That's not much of a recall. In any case, it is far from being required to get every car into a dealer shop for updating.

It's just another Borkzilla Tuesday, basically.

SpaceX snaps back at US labor board's complaint, calling it 'unconstitutional'

"SpaceX has sued America's National Labor Relations Board"

Good luck with that.

Huawei finally gives up on US schmoozing efforts

"it may have given up"

I think Huawei is right. For the USA, China has taken the Soviet Union's place (given the Putin has demonstrated how weak Russia actually is). It doesn't matter that Huawei is a private company, it's Chinese, and the White House has a problem with anything Chinese (except when it comes to inexpensive tat to be sold in its stores).

It's hilarious to read that the US considers Huawei a security threat because Huawei is "beholden to Beijing", when any company in the US is subject to National Security letters which, technically, means that they are "beholden to the USA". I'm still waiting for the pics of motherboards with that special chip that phones home to Beijing.

Hypocrisy for the win.

Microsoft pulls the plug on WordPad, the world's least favorite text editor

Re: Word Processor?

Notepad++ does that and much more.

I will not regret WordPad. I will not regret Notepad. Borkzilla has spent billions on pie-in-the-sky failures, but improving basic tools is not part of its preoccupations.

Thank God for open source contributors who do a much better job.

Windows keyboards to get a Copilot key – but how quickly will users jump?

You need to ask the question ?

How quickly will I jump ? I will jump as fast as I can - away from it.

Here's a thought, Nadella : how about you suggest to everyone to modify the standard Windows keyboard to include, for example, six new keys disposed vertically on the left-hand side of the keyboard - keys that are user-definable. And provide a program that allows the user to choose what sequence of keys, or what pre-determined function the user could assign to which one of those keys. You could then include "Launch CoPilot" as one of the possible options.

Wouldn't that be revolutionary ? Wouldn't that be empowering the user ? (hint: Logitech has already done it).

Oh, silly me. You don't want to empower the user. You just want to empower your bonuses.

As lawmakers mull outlawing poor security, what can they really do to tackle online gangs?

Now wait a minute

"There is also the genuine possibility that the hard work infosec has done to promote a culture of transparency is wholly undone. Attacks could once again be hidden from the public and authorities, and payments continue to flow, but more quietly."

Didn't they say the same thing about it being illegal to pay kidnapper's ransom ?

They still made it illegal.

It worked.

Formal ban on ransomware payments? Asking orgs nicely to not cough up ain't working

"$1.5 million to rectify"

Sure. All private businesses have that kind of cash on hand and in reserve just for that. Oh, you're counting lost business as well ? And adding stock devaluation ?

Of course. Anything and everything to sweeten the pot so you can go before the camera with thundering figures and impress everyone.

Sure, there are intrusions that cost a million or two in equipemt and man-hours to rectify, but I hardly think that that is an average figure.

Then again, if that's what it takes for businesses to sit up, pay attention and start actually protecting their data and procedures, well, carry on then.

Crypto-crook Sam Bankman-Fried spared a second trial

"a line of credit of up to $65 billion dollars"

That alone is a clear sign of how badly managed funny money is. I seriously doubt that there is any honest crypto scheme that could possibly build up to that amount of money.

Of course, I seriously doubt that there is any honest crypto scheme, but that is another matter . . .

While you holidayed, Microsoft brought Copilot to mobile devices, again

Re: a standard older than most left-pond cities

I'm guessing that's why it is obscure . . .

UK government lays out plan to divert people's broken gizmos from landfill

"financed by the hardware producers rather than the taxpayer"

So it will be financed by the customers.

We all know that companies pass along their costs. They really can't do otherwise. The only thing they can do is diminish their margins and I'm not sure a company making XMas lights has a lot of margin to squeeze.

A ship carrying 800 tonnes of Li-Ion batteries caught fire. What could possibly go wrong?

"its crew handled the situation admirably"

I'm glad they did, but I suspect they're ever happier than I am. After all, they were the ones in the middle of the sea with a bonfire risk under their feet. Had those batteries all gone off, we would be reading of another ocean tragedy during the holiday season.

So good for them ! And good for whoever trained them.

Scientists mull Solar Radiation Management – a potential climate-change stop-gap

Re: CO2 absorption by iron fertilisation of the oceans

Yes. Great idea. Let's go modify our oceans just like we've modified our air in the last two centuries.

What could possibly go wrong ?

Clue : check out Australia and our wonderful history of introducing foreign animals into an ecosystem and what the consequences were there.

We need to stop shitting our bed and start cleaning up our act.

If we want to stay alive as a species, that is.

You might remember that scientists are working on fusion ?

And they are making progress ?

‘I needed antihistamine tablets every time I opened the computers’

Ah, Mythbusters. Great show. Always ends with a bang ;)

New York Times sues OpenAI, Microsoft over 'millions of articles' used to train ChatGPT

Big Money going after Bigger Money

Don't be fooled, it's all about money. True, NYT can claim the moral high ground, but it's still all about money.

We need a Mr Moneybags icon. Or maybe a Scrooge McDuck icon.

Infosys loses ten-year, $1.5 billion contract announced just three months ago

Re: he doesn't get to wage steal their hard work right into his checking account

Isn't that called Justice ?

30 years and still sunbathing: SOHO probe continues work as a space weatherman

Re: There are plans

I'm sure there are. Planning doesn't cost much.

But when those plans include replacing a bunch of stuff by a bunch of other, more solar-flare-resistant stuff that costs x times more, I'm guessing that those plans are still at the discussion phase.

Because you need to show me one, just one, example of some for-profit company that spent money to prevent a problem that might happen next century.

They don't do that. They spend money on shit that happened and prevents them from making more money. That's how it works.

How the tech toy century has troubled Santa's sack

"what Santa might be bringing 20 years from now"

A bottle of mineral water, a solar charger and iodine pills ?

ESA's Mars Express continues to avoid retirement home

NASA, again, proves its worth

I'm going to say it : there isn't a single successful NASA project that hasn't outlived it's projected mission time by a factor of at least two.

Sure, when probes crash land instead of touching down, it's curtains for the mission. NASA has had its share, and other agencies have also learned the hard way. Because space is hard.

But if that bird gets to its planned orbit, or touches down intact, then you can bet your entire fortune that the mission will outlive its initial parameters by a large margin, one that would have the golden boys on Wall Street salivating.

Of course, such a level of engineering in our everyday objects is unthinkable. Who would want a toaster that could last a hundred years ? Who would pay the price for such a thing ?

Hey wait, I would.

Go Science ! Go NASA ! Merry XMas and a very Happy New year to all ! (we need a Santa icon)

Iranian cyberspies target US defense orgs with a brand new backdoor

"Moscow [..] won the battle"

What a surprise. With Washington, all you risk is a mail expressing disapproval, whereas with Moscow, you risk an entirely friendly "special military operation".

Not that Putin has the means to open a second front, but it's Kazakhstan. It already belongs to the Russian Federation. So no tanks, just an envoi and a 9mm bullet.

So yeah, extradite to Moscow, that way Kislitsin can get back to work right after Christmas.

Windows 12: Savior of PC makers, or just an apology for Windows 11?

Windows 12 ?

Anybody remember when Borkzilla declared that Windows 10 would be the last version of Windows ?

Anyone ?

Because Redmond sure doesn't.

So, how do you trust a company that can't remember its own promises ?

Cyber sleuths reveal how they infiltrate the biggest ransomware gangs

Fascinating insights

Just one question : what keeps those scum from reading this article and drawing some conclusions for their own benefit ?

They're not stupid. We're way past script kiddies, these days. These are intelligent scum. They can analyse data.

This is data. Are you not giving them them keys to better protect themselves ?

Don't get me wrong, I'm very interested in finding out how the scum are taken down, but I think there's a reason why the police doesn't reveal their methods. This article seems, to me, to reveal methods.

So I ask : is this article really a good idea ?

Bricking it: Do you actually own anything digital?

Re: When does something become truly "owned"?

When it's in my library.

That's MY book. You don't touch it until I give you permission.

BOFH: The Christmas party was so good, an independent inquiry is required

Yeah but, incredibly, they seem pretty happy with themselves.

Intel trims a few hundred workers in Cali just in time for Christmas

"These are difficult decisions"

Ho ho hoo. Sure they are.

They're just in time to ensure bigger management bonuses.

Merry XMas !

Artificial intelligence is a liability

"Artificial intelligence, meaning" . .

Meaning marketing bullshit invented by people that couldn't invent a way out of a paper bag if their life depended on it.

We don't have AI. All we have is vast arrays of climante-change-inducing silicon that obey the rules of statistical engineers in a black box that makes the ignorati exclaim "marvellous !".

Agreed. I don't care that civil lawsuits will follow. Two lives have been lost due to the carelessness of an imbecile.

He should be jailed for life.

At the very least.

Why Nvidia and AMD are roasting each other over AI performance claims

"benchmarking shenanigans"

AMD and Nvidia have been at that schoolyard game since forever. Tech sites have long learned to point out how either present their performance in the best possible light, such as showing a bar graph with a vast difference between competitors, but the graph doesn't start at 0. If you take a look at the numbers, you see that marketing avoided doing that because otherwise the bar graph would have shown just a pixel or two better. And other such sleight-of-underhand methods where neither of these companies come out looking honest.

Something nasty injected login-stealing JavaScript into 50K online banking sessions

I think the only real solution for Joe User is to deal with a bank that uses MFA.

My bank gives me a website, but I also have a keyfob that presents me with a OTP. To log in, I have to input my credentials and password, then I need the OTP.

If a miscreant manages to fool me via email to let him install stuff on my PC, when I log into my bank account, he'll get my credentials and password, but he won't get the keyfob, so my access is still secure.

The one thing I do not do is access my account from my smartphone. I do not care giving my bank data to a platform that can be remotely hijacked via a simple SMS I don't even have to read.

Data loss prevention isn't rocket science, but NASA hasn't made it work in Microsoft 365

Re: all they really required to pass audit

Ah, the beauty of auditing. You can get certified and flaunt that, but when disaster actually strikes, you'll be running around like headless chickens (and just as useful).

The advantage of being on The Board is that you can decide just how much you want to be bothered by procedures. The disadvantage is that it will be difficult to find someone else to blame when the chips are down. And if you do find a scapegoat, there's a fair chance that your faulty procedures will find a way to get published, which will demonstrate just how incompetent you are.

And the next audit might be a bit more harsh.

Re: Complex Things

Human politics is simple : someone is always trying to screw over someone else.

Europe classifies three adult sites as worthy of its toughest internet regulations

So, a few porn sites are now VLOPs

I think this is a right move. Obviously, porn sites are a magnet for a large part of the (male) population, and I'm guessing that the 15-18 bracket is not insignificant. If I'm not mistaken, porn sites are already putting up a popup requiring that you are of age, but obviously there is no verification yet. I don't see that being a VLOP is going to change that. The regulations concern security, privacy and consumer safety, not age verification.

Obviously, age verification could be added for porn sites.

That'll throw a spanner in the works !

Singapore wants datacenters, clouds, regulated like critical infrastructure

Interesting

When will Singapore start considering operating systems as critical parts of digital information management ?

That's going to have an interesting effect on Microsoft . . .

Biden urged to do something about Europe 'unfairly' targeting American tech

"ultimately makes America less globally competitive and less secure"

Less globally competitive = less able to run roughshod over other people's rules. Yeah, I agree. You're competitive enough, I think. It's already all about you.

Less secure ? Beg your pardon ? What does your security have to do with our right to police your wanton data mining ?

Pakistani politician deepfakes himself to deliver a speech from behind bars

It had to happen some day, I guess, and now it has. And indeed, this is liable to become a political tool to wreak havoc with the opposition. However, in democratic countries, even being a politician does not grant you immunity from libel cases if you put words in someone else's mouth, and your opponent will pounce on you if you try (and he'll win). So doing it openly is a big no-no, but that doesn't mean that covert machinations are impossible to realize.

After all, a well-known politician who specializes in nothing but demonizing his opponents to the everlasting joy of his base only needs to drop a hint and at least some of them will rush to realize a deepfake of their "hated" opponent saying ugly things.

It will happen, the only question is when.