Posts by Pascal Monett

FTX CTO and Alameda Research CEO admit fraud, pair 'cooperating' with Feds

Reminds me of a saying

Something to do with rats and sinking ships . . .

Re: That must hurt

It's just another proof of the Dunning-Kruger effect in full swing.

When you're too stupid to know that you're stupid, you end up on the wrong end of the plank.

They can thank their lucky stars that they weren't dealing with Russian Mafia. That would have put a serious limit on their life expectancy.

Apple accused of censoring apps in Hong Kong and Russia to maintain market access

Not really a surprise

Apple only takes a stand for freedom and justice when its CEO does not run the risk of ending up in jail.

In China, he would.

So he kowtows to Beijing and, in return, gets to rake in the dough.

Conscience ?

That's for those who can be fired.

It's time to retire 'edge' from our IT vocabulary

Re: What exactly is the edge?

In my experience, it's a piece of kit with vastly overblown resources that is being repurposed for things it was never initially supposed to take care of but, because it has all this CPU and RAM, it now can.

I find it curious that, now that fiberoptic connections are almost everywhere in the business arena, stuff with more resources that they ever should have are also popping up everwhere.

It would have been vastly more efficient to have those "edge" resources back when a 1Mbps line was considered the height of tech, but here we are.

Lawyer mom barred from Rockettes show by facial recognition tech

"MSG's use of facial recognition"

Apparently, MSG is not using facial recognition for the security of its guests, but for its own.

How is that legal ?

Godfather malware makes banking apps an offer they can’t refuse

"a malicious application hosted on the Google Play Store"

Thank God Google scans all apps it hosts, right ?

Being one of the 1% sucks if you're a Rackspace user

Rackspace Chief Product Officer Josh Prewitt

With a friend like that handling corporate communications, who needs enemies ?

Oh, you're aware that Rackspace has lost the trust of its customers ? No kidding. I'll wager that Rackspace lost a lot more trust when you openly stated that it's "just 1%" of your customers that have been impacted.

And I'm thrilled that you're committing to a full disclosure - when the time is right. When you're ready to. In the fullness of time, as Sir Humphry would say. Except that that is not how it's done when you want to show that you're actually committed to transparency and want to demonstrate that you're doing everything you can to get everyone back on their feet.

Vague promises of "the vast majority" is just a load of hot air, and you're blowing very hard right now with nothing to show for it.

Refrigeration failure at Hong Kong datacenter takes out Alibaba Cloud and others

"the vast majority of customers" . . .

. . believe what Marketing told them : that The Cloud^TM was a magical place that took care of all their worries for next to nothing and they could Just Use It ^{patent pending}.

Of course, the monthly bills should have been a wake-up call, but people are like that. They prefer to believe the hype even when the ugly truth is staring them in the face.

Microsoft patent eyes ads in streaming online games

"options that would provide a richer gaming experience"

I can think of a dozen things that would enrich my gaming experience, but ads are nowhere in that list.

And since when are ads the answer to "immersive, personalized content" ?

Just take the marketing department out behind the chemical shed and shoot the lot of them.

Eurozone plans to formalize passenger data, improve security

Re: Border, what border?

Yeah, but it's all about catching criminals.

You know, the guys who traffic women, drugs and weapons and, in order to do so, have to spend hours in airports buying multiple tickets in cash to try and muddy the waters.

Maybe a quicker way to catch them would be to track who is buying more than one ticket for different destinations on the same day and check on those people.

An honest person is not going to book a flight for Berlin and Rome on the same day in the same timeframe. A top-level marketdrone might need to go to Berlin in the morning and Rome in the afternoon, but that will likely be rare.

OneCoin co-founder pleads guilty to $4 billion fraud

"As Ignatova allegedly put it in an email to Greenwood"

Why did this stuff need to be put in writing ? Didn't the two shysters know what they were doing, or was the lady giving an ABC to a newbie ?

It baffles me how criminals seem to universally love documenting their crimes to one another. Oh, look how smart we are, we're pulling this scam on stupid people with money. Ha Ha, life is fun, isn't it ?

Sure, real fun. Right up until the prosecution pulls out that email destroying your defense based on "not my fault, Your Honor, I didn't know this was going on".

In any case, the smart one obviously has the skirt in this case. Though I'm willing to bet she's blonde now.

Elon Musk starts poll with one question: Should I step down as head of Twitter?

Indeed he did.

It's just that the term is getting shorter, apparently.

BBC is still struggling with the digital switch, says watchdog

To further your conclusion, I learned not long ago that France is dropping the TV tax that was in effect since forever.

For the French government to actually remove a tax is almost as groundbreaking as finding life on another planet.

Microsoft Teams: A vector for child sexual abuse material with a two-day processing time for complaints

"will depend on whether those that make policy decisions are aware of what computers can do"

We're doomed.

Corporate execs: Get back, get back, to the office where you once belonged

"they'll take a hardline approach and fire those that refuse to come back"

And we will take a hardline approach and document the names of companies that do so.

Good luck finding tech replacements . . .

Musk bans private-plane-tracking @Elonjet on Twitter, threatens legal action

Re: I'm appalled

And I am appalled by the continued insistance to conflate this issue with privacy and personal attention.

What part of "it's the plane that's being tracked" do you not understand ?

What part of "the information is publicly available" goes above your head ?

We're not talking about some guy with a camera and an absurdly expensive telephoto lens climbing on top of a hill to snap pics of someone beside a private pool, we're talking about using official public data to record the whereabouts of a piece of equipment.

Climb down from your soapbox already, you're off-subject.

Re: Crazies jumping around on the hood of your car

Alledgedly.

There is no proof provided as of now.

Malicious Microsoft-signed Windows drivers wielded in cyberattacks

"it has suspended several third-party developer accounts that submitted malicious Windows drivers"

Hey Google ! Are you paying attention ?

Meta, Google, TikTok and friends sue California to block kids privacy law

Interesting

It's slightly astonishing how, in the USA, any measure destined to legally protect children online is immediately met with ferocious resistance by corporations who, on any other subject, immediately spout things about "thinking of the children".

Limitation of Free Speech ? Violation of the First Amendment ? Really ?

What I conclude from all of this is that US corporations are perfectly willing to think of the children, as long as it doesn't hit their bottom line.

NIST says you better dump weak SHA-1 ... by 2030

Re: Are there woolly horses?

Do Llamas count ?

China reportedly bars export of homebrew Loongson chips to Russia – and everywhere else

Yes, Putin is getting some weapons from Iran. It woud appear that the quality of said weapons leaves something to be desired.

That being said, Iran is going to get some useful battle-conditions data out of this, so it is entirely possible that their next generation of weapons be more efficient.

Re: Israel's obstinance where Iran is concerned

I believe it is Iran being way more obstinate than Israel.

Iran is so hell-bent on annihilating Israel that it has even made its Arab neighbors tired of it.

The only thing Israel is being obstinate about is surviving. Can't blame them for that.

I don't think they ever left that point of view.

On the 12th day of the Rackspace email disaster, it did not give to me …

And, apparently, you also reduce any chance of data recovery.

Positives all around !

SEC charges crew of social media influencers with $100m fraud

Re: And of course ....

Well they are guilty.

"We’re robbing f*cking idiots of their money"

And there goes the "it was just for laughs" defense.

You forgot the cardinal rule of making money : shut the fuck up about how you're doing it.

Tossers.

European telco body looks into terahertz for future 6G comms

Business as usual, then

“The only reason ETSI is looking at terahertz frequencies is because they are technically possible, not because anyone wants them”

Have to justify the paycheck, right ?

NASA starts assessing Orion capsule for refurb

"Orion is supposed to be ultimately reusable, after all"

And NASA has a great history of making things reusable.

The Shuttles were a fine example, if you call a $1.6 billion cost per launch "reuseable".

Soyuz leak puts a stop to planned ISS spacewalk and work on Nauka module

What ?

Russian hardware leaking and unfit for purpose ?

I'm shocked.

Shocked, I say.

Shocked.

Voice assistants failed because they serve their makers more than they help users

Re: My wife loves Alexa

This is probably going to get a chuckle out of her.

Improve your lexicon here.

Re: "... they serve their makers more than they help users"

The butcher, the baker and the brewer want to sell us stuff to make money, and we want to buy that stuff to fill our stomachs and enjoy. They don't want to sell our grocery list to some 3rd party advertising group.

Yet.

New research aims to analyze how widespread COBOL is

"ye ancient code wizards"

So, dinosaurs will once again roam the Earth ?

US Air Force tests its first fully functional hypersonic missile

If you wait for it to be over the horizon to detect it, you've already lost.

To have any chance above zero of resisting a hypersonic strike, you need eyes in the sky that can bring your reaction time into a more comfortable range of 10 seconds at least.

And most of the stuff doing the reacting needs to be completely automated to avoid meatbag reaction time.

Twitter dismantles its Trust and Safety Council moments before meeting

"the world's second richest man"

Soon to be third, then fourth, etc.

He's on his way to irrelevance and, AFAIC, it can't happen quickly enough.

Bahamian rap: Crypto villain Sam Bankman-Fried arrested

"akin to a bank"

Weasel words.

You cannot be "akin" to a bank.

Either you have a banking charter, or you don't.

It's only the idiot who has never even seen a banking charter who can spout that kind of bullshit.

I can't wait to see how his goose is going to be cooked at trial.

Server installer fails to spot STOP button – because he wasn't an archaeologist

"restore it to a bright red hue"

No, the layers are not too hard to clear. That is a lame excuse. Three minutes with a sledgehammer and I guarantee those layers will be gone, along with that part of the wall.

Then you can redo the wall, the connections and the red button, and you can even put a nice clear plexiglass guard to keep said button from getting inadvertantly pressed again.

Because just painting the layers in red in one spot is not going to solve the problem.

NASA's Orion Moon capsule to splash down this Sunday

It's not a question of favorite, it's science and should therefor be expressed in proper scientific units.

Those who cannot grok science can go and convert into toes and elbows.

Italy, Japan, UK to jointly launch sixth-gen fighter jet by 2035

I'm willing to bet that there are a lot less "top egamers" than there are jet fighter pilots.

I'm also willing to bet that their careers are shorter.

And don't get me started on the OHSG.

San Francisco investigates Hotel Twitter, Musk might pack up and leave

Re: I call contrived

Musk does not apply for permits. He does what he wants and, if and when opposition mounts, he flees like the courageous, visionary man he is.

While the USA is a vast country, there is a limit to the amount of places he can flee to. In time, he might reach it.

Greater London wing of comms union urges BT workers to reject pay offer

"equate to between a 6.68 to 14.78 percent increase"

I've got no skin in this, but I wouldn't mind getting a 6.68% increase in my revenue.

States label TikTok 'a malicious and menacing threat'

Re: Disingenuous

The article is about banning Tik Tok from government platforms, a move with which I totally agree.

No because Tik Tok is Chinese, but because I don't see why a government employee should have that on his government-issued smartphone or computing device.

All governments should have a blanket ban on anything not government-related when using government-oriented platforms, period.

End of an era as the last 747 rolls off the production line

It's always over budget

You'd think that, after more than a century of designing and building airplanes, Boeing would have a better idea of how to plan a budget.

Apple brings DIY fix-it store to Europe, UK – with gritted teeth

Re: Is UK not part of Europe?

No, politically it isn't and never has been.

Don't you remember the famous journal article entitled "Fog on the Channel, the Continent is isolated" ?

The UK paid lip service to the EU, but never took the Euro as currency.

It's only on maps that you can confuse the UK with being part of Europe. Nobody in the UK has ever thought they were part of Europe - especially not in the political arena.

Tech contractor who uses an umbrella company? UK tax is coming after them

Re: always going after a contractor and not after the umbrella

Umbrella companies have more money to afford lawyers.

Blockchain needs a reason to exist, Boris Johnson tells roomful of blockchain pros

"the public needs to be convinced"

Yup. That's the basic step for every Ponzi scheme.

I'm not surprised that BoJo is aware of that.

Domain aging gang CashRewindo picks vintage sites to push malvertising

And people want me to allow ads

Sorry, I won't.

At the best of times, they're useless. When they get creepy, they want to sell me something I just bought.

Then there are the ads that are downright threats to my computer and/or my privacy/money/data.

NoScript and Ublock Origin, or Brave is what I use, and you can pry them out of my cold, dead hands.

Mozilla, Microsoft drop TrustCor as root certificate authority

"I feel it is reasonable to have an explanation"

So do I.

A transparent and honest explanation, not just a "promise, we didn't do nuthin' wrong" explanation.

In any case, when you are root certificate, you should be above suspicion. That does not mean you shold not be suspected, it means you should do everything, continuously, to prove that there is no need to suspect you.

TrustCore has failed on that count, so its status as root cert should be revoked.

Creator of spec for melting RTX 4090 cables urges Nvidia, others to 'ensure user safety'

Interesting read. Thanks for the link.

Re: Sure blame users ..

Yeah but, it's also work, plus admission of blame.

When you have major companies paying hundreds of millions in settlement fines and going before the press proudly stating "we admit no wrongdoing", you can hardly expect a standards body to admit that it fouled up when it's the others making the cables following the standards who can be blamed.

Exchange Online and Microsoft Teams went down in APAC because Microsoft broke itself

"this incident is getting worse"

So, the rot is spreading.

When will it become sentient ?

Mine's the one with the sentient yoghurt in the pocket.