Posts by Pascal Monett

Google changes email authentication after spoof shows a bad delivery for UPS

"that call would be highly regarded by an end user as genuine"

Um, it's very likely that it would have been regarded as genuine anyway.

Just this week I got an email posing as from Amazon Prime, nicely alerting me to the fact that my automatic renewal had not gone through and click here to allow us to take care, or I would incur some additional renewal fee of €59.

Initially, the only thing that bugged me was the "additional" renewal fee. I thought to myself : huh ? There is no renewal fee on Prime ! Then my brain kicked into gear and I checked the link and, sure enough, it did not go to any domain registered by Amazon.

Finally, I logged onto my Amazon account and checked : my Prime subscription is in December.

Nice try, guys. For a tenth of a second, you caught me compliant. But that link would have given you away anyway.

But that's only because I always check the link. 90% of people don't (and that's more like 99.9% probably).

So good on Google for correcting the issue. Now someone tell me that changes anything in the Luserverse.

Robot can rip the data out of RAM chips with chilling technology

You have physical access

So this is just one more thing miscreants could get their mitts on.

Now, when I read "and through using ball grid array (BGA) packaging", I am intrigued. How does BGA packaging make it more difficult to "read" a RAM chip ?

Microsoft injects ChatGPT into 'secure' US government Azure cloud

Ok, what is the point ?

Who and in what government agency is going to have a use for a babbling "generative content" toy that can't actually bring itself to define anything specifically ?

Are there that many government employees that will ask how long it takes for a tank cannon to cool down ?

ChatGPT is not a reference tool, nor an encyclopaedia. It seems like just yesterday ChatGPT was but a toy for university types to play with, and today it is being monetized like crazy.

Hey Borkzilla ? Have you checked that its output is reliable and accurate ?

Don't think so.

MediaTek accused of setting 'patent troll' on rival, says it will defend itself

"a fabless chip company"

In other words, a company that invented nothing itself, but bought patents for the sole purpose of sueing any other company that might have something slightly similar.

A hangman's noose is too good for that lot.

BT boss Jansen agrees to 'waive' future salary bumps

Wait, where's my hankie ?

Oh, a multimillionnaire is going to get slightly less millions for doing what already ? Laying people off and parading in front of news cameras ?

Excuse me while I am not duly impressed.

Microsoft says share the wealth with cyber-info for business

Re: Just stating the obvious...

Because then the cost is for Borkzilla to shoulder, whereas by talking infosec, the cost is for everybody.

Deepfakes being used in 'sextortion' scams, FBI warns

Not a deepfake

"Such concerns surfaced again this week when a deepfake video aired on Russian TV purportedly depicted Russian President Vladimir Putin declaring martial law against the backdrop of the country's ongoing illegal invasion of Ukraine."

More of a forecast, actually.

Boeing discovers Dreamliner defect, delivery delay decided

"we've made it an imperative to de-risk the next decade"

Gosh, such a good thing that you decided that !

Whistleblower claims Uncle Sam is sitting on hoard of alien vehicles and tech

So, preparing a book tour, are we ?

Looks like somebody checked his retirement package and found it lacking.

AWS teases mysterious mil-spec 'Snowblade' server

"due to the sensitive nature of the device"

What's so sensitive about a server ?

It's not the hardware that is sensitive, it's what data you put on it.

Hong Kong tries to outlaw uploads of unofficial and anti-Beijing anthem

"the song contravenes China's National Security Law"

I did not know that China's National Security was so fragile as to be put in danger by a song.

That Beijing wishes to have Google correct the fact that the song is not the national anthem is fine and perfectly justifiable, but to forbid it is just nuts.

But it's China, so nuts it is . . .

Sweden’s Evroc going full Viking with Euro cloud to raid US providers

"Europe's digital economy must be built on a European foundation"

I can only agree with that.

Enough with sending data to the USA !

Microsoft Windows edges closer to SMB security signing fully required by default

"this is all part of many more changes coming to SMB"

Wow, many disasters in gestation then ?

I've gotta stock up on popcorn . . .

Metaverse? Apple thinks $3,500 AR ski goggles are the betterverse

Re: Longevity

Nobody who's actually working, that's for sure.

Re: bound to sell more as demand picks up

If demand picks up, you mean.

There's a fair chance that those 10 million sold are all they'll ever sell.

In any case, I'm not buying anything that is even remotely tied to Zuckerturd, and I'll be damned if I'm strapping a diving bell to my face.

Sorry Apple, count me out of this.

Cry-pto: Feds bury Bitcoin exchange giant Binance in 13-count fraud lawsuit

Re: Really mad

I'd wait to see how it ends, if I were you.

Setting up an unlicensed securities exchange is indeed easy. It's keeping it alive and avoiding jail that seems to be a tad more difficult.

And yeah, criminals who put their deeds in writing . . .

Thanks for making the job of law enforcement easier, guys.

Stanford Internet Observatory raises alarm over 'serious failings with the child protection systems at Twitter'

As if Musk cares

So the lowest tier is $42K ? Guess what, he already doesn't pay his bills and he's not known for doing favors.

Twitter is dead. Leave it to rot.

Windows XP's adventures in the afterlife shows copyright's copywrongs

Will never happen and is unreasonable to ask.

Code is the source. You publish it and anyone can use it. That entirely defeats the object of copyright because you'll be spending all your money on chasing infringers. Either that or nobody will buy your product in the first place, so you have no money for the chase.

Releasing the source code has nothing to do with copyright.

The only source code Microsoft has ever officially released is MS-DOS, and that's only versions 1.25 and 2.

The code to XP has been leaked, but not in its entirety. There are some bits missing.

Apparently, the source of NT 5 has also been leaked, but not released.

As for the code base, yes. Even though Microsoft stated loudly that 7 was a complete rewrite, the fact that vulnerabilities targeted Vista and 7 equally demonstrates that that declaration was pure hookum.

Borkzilla has never written anything from scratch since XP.

Microsoft Windows latest: Cortana app out, adverts in

"fixing Ethernet connections"

If you are a company and you need Borkzilla's help to debug your Ethernet connections in this day and age, you don't deserve a network.

Hire yourself a fucking admin worth the name and get the problem solved.

What supply chain crisis? Supermicro lifts rack-scale system production

"With up to 7.5 megawatts of power alone"

Do they also sell nuclear power plants ?

Amazon finds something else AI can supposedly do well: Spotting damaged goods

"it's 3x more likely to spot damaged goods"

Three times not much is not much better.

This is supposed to be AI, right ? Why is it not 99% efficient ? Is it so hard to detect that a package is not what it should look like ?

If anything, I would have expected complaints about the fact that a mere scratch sent the package for evaluation, but apparently it takes a lot more than that to declass a broken package.

Either that or the system is shit at its job.

Buckle up for meetings on the road as Cisco brings Webex to Audi autos

"the modern place of work"

is NOT part of my driving attention.

Laid-off 60-year-old Kyndryl exec says he was told IT giant wanted 'new blood'

Nothing teaches IBM.

Bookings open for first all-electric flights around Scandinavia … in 2028

Re: Assuming SAS is still in business by then

That's another point.

I was just considering that I prefer waiting until a few hundred flights have taken place before I try inaugurating an entirely new type of airplane.

You might have been phished by the gang that stole North Korea’s lousy rocket tech

"Do not enable macros on documents received via email, unless the source is verified"

It is crestfalling that this still has to be said at all.

Deployed publicly accessible MOVEit Transfer? Oh no. Mass exploitation underway

"a way for people to share files supposedly securely between each other"

So, what does Dropbox have to say about this matter ?

Is their marketing asleep ?

US Air Force AI drone 'killed operator, attacked comms towers in simulation'

"It was a virtual experiment"

For the moment.

I note, with some sadness, that we hear all about AI, but apparently nobody has bothered implementing the Three Laws yet.

Might want to get around to that, guys ?

Oh, silly me. It's the military. Of course they don't want those laws.

Carry on !

Kremlin claims Apple helped NSA spy on diplomats via iPhone backdoor

"Russian intelligence"

I stopped reading there.

Millions of Gigabyte PC motherboards backdoored? What's the actual score?

Unfortunate, to be sure

Now that I know that motherboard makers are inclined to this kind of shenanigans, I'll be on the lookout.

That said, I do not expect that my motherboard is supposed to adhere to the general insane update schedule of software.

It's a motherboard. It's supposed to work right from the box.

I'm glad that an update mechanism is in place, but, again, it's a motherboard. Everything depends on it and its stability.

Stability.

Now that's a word the software world needs to reacquire.

India official fined after draining reservoir to recover phone

"accused of abusing his government position"

Fucking DUH !

I'd say only in India, but given how some of my local officials prance about, I will refrain.

NASA experts looked through 800 UFO sightings and found essentially nothing

2. Settled: https://xkcd.com/1235/

Yeah, I'm gonna keep that link.

UFOs

From my point of view, the UFO craze started after the second World War. At that time, very, very few people carried cameras around with them, and the "sightings" were few and far between, but they were sensational (as in, caused a sensation in the public). There were news reports, investigations, and everyone was interested.

Today ? Almost everyone has a rather high-quality camera. Curiously, if you want UFO news, you now have to go to specialized sites on the Internet because it would appear that hardly anyone snaps a pic of a UFO anymore.

And, funnily enough, the pics are always blurry . . .

Google veep calls out Microsoft's cloud software licensing 'tax'

"put some kind of checks and balances on Microsoft's policies"

No, Google, what you should be saying is "put some kind of checks and balances on Cloud Provider policies".

The rules should apply to all clouds, not just your competition.

Because I see what you're doing there, Google. You're just trying to climb to the #2 spot, and you do that by dragging down the others so as to float your own boat. Par for the course, as it were, but you're fooling no one. You're not doing this for your customers, you're doing it for your own bottom line.

Get ready, Snowflakes: Azure AI is coming for you with one click

"As clouds offer elastic access to hardware"

With elastic billing to match.

Since when did my SSD need water cooling?

I was going to say that I'm sure I agree with that, but actually I'm pretty sure I disagree with that.

I have a Maxtor 2TB external SSD. In normal use (aka working) I rarely have any issue with it because it is my large data drive, aka don't use it very much. However, when I do a full on backup or restore of the data, I have to put it on its side because, if I leave it flat on my desk, it heats up to the point that it basicall loses connection to the PC.

If it is on its side, it remains cool enough to complete the transfer procedure without issue.

So no, things slowing down when hot is not just a coincidence.

Alien versus Predator? No, this Android spyware works together

"zero user interaction to infect victims' devices"

And to think that some people are actively trying to get us to transform said device into our universal passkey.

Ain't that reassuring ?

BOFH: Get me a new data file or your manager finds out exactly what you think of him

Now that was slick !

Bring the guy to trip himself and then blackmail him into getting what you want.

THAT was true BOFH wisdom !

Europe’s biggest city council faces £100M bill in Oracle ERP project disaster

Europe ? Why ?

Birmingham in in the UK.

Brexit has happened.

Why reference Europe ? It's the UK's biggest city council, in yet another UK ERP disaster (starting to sound familiar - are there any ERP successes in the UK ?).

It's funny how there is a dearth of ERP disasters on the continent, compared to the UK. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the UK has more ERP issues than all continental European countries put together.

Facial recog system used by Met Police shows racial bias at low thresholds

"at certain thresholds"

I.e. : it was turned on.

This legit Android app turned into mic-snooping malware – and Google missed it

"how it managed to miss the malicious update for nearly a year"

I guess we'll just have to consider ourselves lucky that it finally "found" it.

Google : promises aplenty, actions lagging far behind. Hey, when you're swimming in money, why sweat the small things ?

Supreme Court leaves warrantless camera surveillance an open book

But the Court balked

Yay for the Land of the Free, eh ?

One might just think that having an overaged frat boy at such levels might not be a good idea.

Microsoft finally gets around to supporting rar, gz and tar files in Windows

“Just like you would with Bing Chat"

No, I wouldn't

And I won't use Copilot any more than I'm using Cortana (which I am still hoping for a way to entirely uninstall from my PC, with Bing as well).

You're not fooling me. All of this is just to hook me up into your advertising engine and I won't have anything to do with it.

I don't need to talk to my computer, I have a cat for that.

US bans North Korean outsourcer and its feisty freelancers

Re: $300,000 a year?

Yeah, but it's like the tens of billions that a virus outbreak used to cost.

Note that, when Borkzilla fouls up Azure, there's never a price tag associated with it, even though sometimes entire continents can't access their email . . .

Microsoft enables booting physical PCs directly into cloud PCs

Typical

Well done, Nadella.

Trying to convince users that have a PC they've already paid for, that they need a PC they'll pay for monthly.

I'll sign up as soon as I've had an aneurysm.

Social media may harm kids. US Surgeon General says so

The Chamber of Money

"The Chamber of Progress, a tech industry lobbying group, asked lawmakers not to harm the internet in the name of protecting children "

Yes, of course. Think of the children profits.

After all, cigarettes are still legal, so what's a few suicides among billionaires ?

That Meta GDPR fine is €1.2B. Plus biz must stop sending EU data to US

Grrr. There's a "not" too many in my previous post.

Re: Imagine if Facebook was a Chinese app/platform

I have to agree with that.

Anything that has been said about Wuawei/TikTok beholden to Beijing could not have those elements replaced by Cisco and the NSA and retain 100% of its threat level.

The USA has National Security Letters, with the legal obligations for companies being subject to one to shut up about it.

How's that for being beholden to the NSA ?

Why is that any better ? Because Beijing is not a democracy ?

You think the USA is ?

AT&T warns T-Mobile US, Starlink may disrupt terrestrial cellphones

“SpaceMobile’s point of differentiation is its huge antenna"

Oooh, so we're down to comparing size, eh ?

This is getting nasssttyyyy.

Parent discovers the cost of ignoring Roblox: £2,500 and heart palpitations

Re: Dystopian

Maybe don't let them play on a platform that has your banking details ?