Posts by Pascal Monett

Feds arrest and charge exiled Chinese billionaire over massive crypto fraud

"a state-backed misinformation campaign"

As soon as he became a friend of Steve Bannon, that campaign was no longer misinformation.

Hands up who DIDN'T exploit this years-old flaw to ransack a US govt web server...

Re: And just when I thought replacing all my Adobe Flash controls with Telerik

Who could possibly think that it wouldn't cause problems ?

Google stops selling its biz-grade augmented reality specs

This obsession with "enhancing" our vision

In Sci-Fi, it looks great. Holographic screens, near-weightless glasses that do real-time augmented reality without any lag, stutter or power issues, magical interfaces that interpret exactly each and every wave of the hand or keyword spoken to it and doesn't get confused by conversations going on around or in front of it, Sci-Fi shows the awesome power of what could be. If there wasn't that pesky thing called reality, that is.

Reality means that you need a helmet on your head in order to have your eyes covered by a screen. Said helmet needs batteries, and those things are not lightweight. It mostly needs to be tethered to the workstation as well, or you won't be using it for long.

And you can get physically sick.

But the idea endures. Even when it has been killed by public apathy, like the zombie it rises again as soon as some new tech makes someone with deep pockets believe that it could be feasible.

It's the tech that just won't die, because Sci-Fi makes it look so cool.

Meanwhile, almost everyone is getting bored with Cortana.

Go figure.

Anyone want an International Space Station? Slightly used

Re: I've got a better idea...

Orbital mechanics are complicated, you need engineers to calculate things right.

I think that gaining altitude is a lot more costly in energy than losing altitude, but I am far from being an authority on that question.

I'm pretty sure that, if NASA wants to de-orbit the ISS, it's likely because that will be the least expensive option.

Russia's Roscosmos

"will also be responsible for disposing of their own parts safely"

Somehow I very much doubt that Russia will be doing much about the ISS any time soon, it seems to be a bit more preoccupied by Earthly matters at the moment.

NASA is going to have to shoulder that burden, I fear.

Re: Mir

I think Mir was a bit smaller.

Samsung to splurge $230B on five new chip plants for South Korea

"a wider $380+ trillion [..] investment plan"

Don't anyone ever tell me there isn't any money going around ever again.

This is definitely in the "a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money" domain, no doubt about it.

SVB collapse's mix of money, urgency and uncertainty makes it irresistible to scammers

The fan is rotating, the sewage is coming in fast

It looks like this is going to be a shitstorm of major proportions.

Batten down the hatches !

Bing AI feels like ChatGPT stuffed into a suit – not the future

"what makes search useful today"

Point #1 : fast results.

Google has never made me wait a few seconds before giving a result. Results are near instant on Google. The few times I did try Bing, results were rather quick as well.

I doubt people are going to accept waiting for anything more than a second, generally. If this BingBot needs to put down its coffee before getting to work, people will not be using it for long.

China debuts bonkers hybrid electric trolley-truck

Re: Nice until

Oh, so like Germany, then ?

Tough luck, Brits: Binance suspends UK deposits and withdrawals

"a prudent decision on our part taken in an abundance of caution"

So, not the usual decision-making process, then ?

Did you have an excess of caution in your reserves to use ?

And don't you just love being part of the "less than" 1% ?

Yes, Samsung 'fakes' its smartphone Moon photos – who cares?

Re: Photography today = digital manipulation

The camera has been lying since day one.

Ever since images have been captured, people have been looking for ways to influence the result to their need or desire.

And with digital, it has simply exploded.

Including some cloud manipulation is par for the course these days.

Samsung is lying, bears in the woods, call me when something new is actually happening . . .

So, basically the marketing is working ?

The UK's bad encryption law can't withstand global contempt

Re: Use of encryption was illegal in France

Not quite. Encryption itself was not illegal, but strong encryption was.

As such, the French version of Notes 3.x had 64-bit encryption enabled, but only used 40 bits effectively. The first 24 bits had been handed over to the French government, so that it could be easier for them to decrypt emails (because the French government only had itty bitty CPUs to decrypt stuff with and nobody actually knew how anyway).

Thankfully, this nonsense fell out of fashion and, since R6, everyone is using full-fat 128 bit or better encryption.

Check it out here.

Techie wiped a server, nobody noticed, so a customer kept paying for six months

Re: Obvious which company this is

Even Twitter did not invent all the mistakes.

Yes, it has invented a pile of new ones, but this kind was old before the Internet was born.

And I'm sorry, but when I'm told to unplug something, it's not my job to ensure data or function continuity. You said the Sharepoint team was now in charge and the Notes database could be wiped ?

It's wiped. Go cry next door.

I disagree. Getting paid five times my normal hourly rate because some idiot chucked me out and couldn't be arsed to know just what his job was just makes me feel good.

I don't care whose purse it comes out of as long the money goes into mine.

US government says Silicon Valley Bank depositors can get their cash on Monday

"What did he know two weeks ago?"

Whatever it is, he'll have to very carefully and completely justify it to the SEC if he wants a chance to keep the money.

Catholic clergy surveillance org 'outs gay priests'

Ah but Catholic priests do not take the vow of chastity, they take the vow of celibacy.

It's the nuns that take the vow of chastity, demonstrating once again the positively Midieval mindset of the Roman Catholic Church. Men ? Don't marry, but you can diddle. Women ? Ain't nobody touching you but the Holy Ghost in your dreams.

Personally, I couldn't care less if a priest is gay or not.

Just leave the children alone.

Two tech-centric banks strike trouble, spooking markets

"as the Bank is not in significant trouble – it just needed to find $21 billion in a hurry"

Reminds me somehow of that famous exchange in Cloud City :

C3PO is lying in pieces in a box

Calrissian : "Having trouble with your droid ?"

Solo : "Trouble ? No. Why ?"

WANdisco suspends shares pending fraud investigation

"the company is now flying headfirst into a potential cash crunch"

Quick ! Someone call Michael Bay ! There's an Oscar to be had here !

UK Prime Minister wants £800M to spend on big British iron

10 exaflops of "AI performance"

Is that enough to give us "42" as an answer ?

If you think that 1.6 million is enough to bring any country to the status of superpower in anything, I have a bridge to sell you . . .

£2B in UK taxpayer cash later, and still no Emergency Services Network

the UK Home Office

Keeping to their main goal : pioneering a new definition for the term "efficiency" . . .

Yeah but, the director's cousin third removed needed an entry on his CV . . .

Microsoft wants you to build quantum apps in Azure, the cloud that's both up and down

IBM is a quantum monster

Out of the 67 quantum processors existing in 2023 so far, IBM makes 34 of them, so half of all the model types in existence. It therefore follows that IBM is #1 on the list of quantum companies.

Microsoft is #3 on that list, following Google. The first two have their own quantum processors. Microsoft has none to its name (yet), so that means it's buying from someone - and there's an even chance that that means IBM.

I had no idea that IBM was so into quantum computing. Must explain why I've been feeling like it disappeared from the IT landscape for the past decade . . .

China's semiconductor and IC imports have slumped. Why on Earth could that be?

Re: So China may be forced...

There would be more competition. You know, that thing the US is always crowing about when it's the top dog in the market ?

Intel rattles the tin for another €5B in subsidies to build German fab

Intel is asking for a few billions ?

Intel full-year 2022 revenue : $63.1 billion.

You're going to have a hell of a job convincing me that they need more money to generate revenue.

Great Graph Database Debate: Abandoning the relational model is 'reinventing the wheel'

"there usually isn't any money available for a DBA"

So if they can't do it right the first time around, then they can pay forever to keep it hobbling along until they understand that they need to do it right.

Excuse me if I have little patience with Borkzilla-era managers who know nothing about how things work but are happy as soon as they see their pet project on their screen, and costs be damned.

So, let's forget relational because it's too complicated. Well bugger, but IT is complicated.

Personally, if you're a manager and you haven't yet understood that, you should be condemned to working with paper and punchcards until you get it.

That not being possible, paying ever more for ever more resources is an acceptable substitute.

South Korea moves to resolve WWII dispute with Japan that troubles tech supply chains

Maybe, but it's the best worst term we have.

When you say "war crime", nobody is expecting to hear about how a bunch of baguettes were stolen.

Atlassian to dump 500 – by email – in the name of 'rebalancing'

Watching doesn't imply learning

Why our solar-storm sats corrode – and probably not what you expected

Now that is one hell of a debugging !

And deserves one hell of a pint.

Can we interest you in a $10 pocket calculator powered by Android 9?

No, it does not. You should have read the thread your linked to more carefully :

"Keylogger is a huge stretch. The function you are talking about collects invalid input and writes it to a log. Which has not been seen to go anywhere. You would have to enter in your password into the calculator. This is NOT a keylogger a keylogger is a malicious program that secretly records all keyboard input. This only logs input that is entered into the program. Which I hate to tell you there are a lot of programs that do this at some level to make sure errors aren't thrown unless they are supposed to.

German Digital Affairs Committee hearing heaps scorn on Chat Control

"Proposal to break encryption [..] challenged as illegal and unworkable"

Halleluja !

Kinda unfortunate that it has to be a guy from the Pirate Party to talk about it, though . . .

Anyways, let's see : up to now, every single attempt to thwart encryption for whatever lame excuse possible has ended up in the bin.

And yet, the surveillance nazis continue to try.

Oh well, they never were good at having a clue . . unless they had a lot of intercepts telling them so.

Arm swans off to Nasdaq despite UK gov pleas to IPO in London

"consider a subsequent listing in due course"

Sounds like : "When the UK is relevant once again"

But hey, you took back control ! Whoop !

Service desk tech saved consultancy Capita from VPN meltdown, got a smack for it

Data missing

If there's something wrong with the words "Capita Savior", then I didn't get it.

What kind of wierd mentality must one have to find issues with those words together ? Could someone enlighten me ?

Thought you'd opted out of online tracking? Think again

"header bidding via prebid.js"

So all this tracking is done via JavaScript ?

Well then, once again NoScript to the rescue.

Why am I not surprised ?

China leads the world in tech research, could win the future, says think tank

"China leads the world in tech research"

Given that China also leads the world in stealing tech research, yeah, they're going to have a good long leg up on most everyone else.

At Citrix, 'perpetual licenses' means 'we'd rather move you to a subscription'

"the vendor will stop maintaining products sold [..] under that scheme"

I propose a law that obliges the following :

1) If a company sells any product with a perpetual license, the company is obliged to support said product in perpetuity - and if said company folds and its remains are bought by another company, that new company will have to respect that legacy. Consequence : Companies will stop the nonsense of trying to make customers believe that the company will support anything for any longer than it feels like.

2) If a company sells any product that includes the words "Unlimited","No Limit" or any variation of or other wording intending to make customers believe that they are not limited, then said company is forbidden in perpetuity on that product from introducing any scheme that would limit or throttle the use of the product in any way, shape or form beyond the natural limits of technology.

Stop with the malarky. Don't sell anything in perpetuity, you won't last that long. Don't market anything as unlimited - almost nobody has been able to put up with the costs in the long term.

Honesty in marketing, it's a good thing. Would make for a kick-ass comedy platform as well.

My God, it's full of tabs: Vivaldi's coolest new features shine on phones and cars

It's called a challenge.

For the same reason you need a barbecue, or a sauna - because you can.

This is the insane mentality of people who just can't leave well alone. A car is a tool to get you from one place to another, not an office or entertainment system replacement. No, I do not want a high-end audio system with a 96" flatscreen to watch films in my car. It's nonsense because the sound of the tires on the road are going to spoil any other experience you care to try. Besides, you're supposed to be driving in a car. You have a bloody smartphone to surf the web with.

Stop putting stuff everwhere you can jack it in just because. A hammer does not need to be "smart".

NASA finds crashing spacecraft into asteroids is a viable defence strategy

"we can prevent an asteroid impact with sufficient time, warning and resources"

So stated the venerable Theodore Rexaminus in his well-known encyclic "On Asteroids And Saurien Capacity To Save The Species".

Unfortunately, the printing press would have to wait almost 67 million years . . .

Re: Crashed. Will the insurance pay?

I think it is plausible that, given the costs involved, the ESA and NASA would coordinate a bit more than "oh, so you launched something on that as well".

APNIC elections: Reform activists rejected, org welcomes stronger election protections

Congratulations

"the APNIC community detected a threat to its operations and successfully rallied to defend against it"

It's always nice to see that bottom-feeding scum get defeated in their never-ending goal to drag the world down to their level.

I wish APNIC the best of luck in its future work, it seems it has gotten off to a good start.

Politeness prevents me from stating what I wish for the bastards who used unfounded innuendo to try to gain a foothold.

No really, put those hot irons away . . . for the moment . . .

Microsoft adds features to Windows 11 monthly – managing it is your problem

"Continuous innovation coming to Windows 11 in March"

So, Borkzilla has officially adapted the "move fast and break things" approach to OS design.

I'm so glad for Windows 11 after all. At least all that shit won't be contaminating my work laptop.

Oh, and users can avoid things by setting the proper policies ? Don't make me laugh. Most users have trouble setting a network share, I don't see them setting policies any time soon.

And apparently neither does Borkzilla, which is why it has decided to do this.

Bosses failing to offer hybrid work lose out in recruitment

"knowledge workers – those outside retail"

What ? There are people who know something in retail ?

Forget ChatGPT, the most overhyped security tool is technology itself, Wiz warns

"in the end, it's not really about the tools you buy"

Um, Mr. Herzberg ? The boss just called, he wants to see you in his his office right away. Something to do with a long vacation, I think . . .

FBI boss says COVID-19 'most likely' escaped from lab

So the FBI thinks it's a lab leak in Wuhan

The FBI. The US organization that is specifically prohibited from operating outside US borders.

Excuse me if I don't think that the opinion of the FBI on international matters is something I should pay attention to - especially when it is expressed on Fox Spews.

I note that the CIA has not expressed any opinion on the matter, and is specifically cited as remaining "on the fence" on the matter.

Personally, if I were American, I'd be asking as to why a domestic security organization that has no possibility of even investigating outside US borders is using resources to investigate this question when there are actual intelligence organizations that are already on the job and have access to international operations.

But hey, that's just my opinion.

Re: The FBI is way out on a limb here

Well, they're expressing an opinion on Fox News, so it's not like it's anything newsworthy . . .

Re: the communists [..] tried to cease power

Did they toggle the power button to OFF ?

It's official: BlackLotus malware can bypass Secure Boot on Windows machines

"exploit it because the affected signed binaries have not been added to the UEFI revocation list"

So the solution is already known, but nobody's working on it ?

I would have thought that adding a new entry to a list is something that wouldn't take days, let alone weeks, to get done.

I'm going to have to seriously rethink my project time estimates. Modify the input form ? That'll be six months, sir.