Posts by Charlie Clark

Bad news: Google drops macOS zero-day after Apple misses bug deadline. Good news: It's fiddly to exploit

In many respects 90 days is too long. If Google can find the exploit, then it's reasonable to assume that the various even better resourced national security agencies and organised online gangs will have found it, too.

Security exploits will no doubt in time be considered as product defects much like, say parts in a car. Should someone discover a fault with them, should they hold back and expect the manufacturer to fix the problem at some point? Currently, most software is exempt from strict product liability as long as it can provide software updates. Such disclosures are, in my opinion, essential should the exemption continue.

Re: Retaliation for the certificate suspension...

I don't agree: I think Google's security team is given the licence to do the research and required to treat all results the same, not least because lots of Googlers use Mac's for work and should all be considered potential targets.

But the real test will be when someone else is able to do the same with some of Google's own software such as Android or GMail.

Prodigy dancer and vocalist Keith Flint found dead aged 49

Re: Keith Vaz, it's on you now

Where does Mark E. Smith fit in that list? And, while we're at it? What is Iggy Pop? Surely, no human could have survived what he's done to himself?

Re: Smack My Bitch Up

I'm not from that generation and could never get on with the whole rave scene which, in my opinion, subsequently led to techno and drum'n'bass… But always had time for The Prodigy. Rave on, Keith!

MPs tear 'naive' British Army a new one over Capita recruitment farce

Re: conscript

I think you're making the mistake of assuming the guns work, or that the troops have ammunition…

Re: Lather, rinse, repeat

Not met many squaddies, have you lad? For informed consent, there has to be something to inform.

Re: Easy solution

OK, I'll bite. While politicians are notoriously bad at running projects, their SNAFUs tend to get discovered sooner or later. The military on the other hand generally has a freehand once the budget has been allocated and overspend is a given. If necessary the details can be wrapped in the fog of national security and politicians routinely fall into line to defend the flag. After all, lucrative board membershiips up for grabs for those who play along.

US military spending, for example, is so out of control it's got it's own law, the Augustine Law.

So. To the question we really wanted answering: How real is 5G?

Re: now,

The UnityMedia deal hasn't been finalised as it awaiting regulatory approval but I don't see that not being given. There is still a market for ISPs, more so than for mobile where we're down to three networks in most countries, although I thiink it was demonstrated that >= 4 networks are required for effective competition.

Currently UnityMedia is operating as a cheapskate MVNO with O2's network, which is presumably why it doesn't have LTE codecs. And shitty coverage.

Can anyone hear the tumbleweed?

I thought the whole point behind LTE and the switch to an IP stack was to make future network upgrades less monumental? In the West, in most places (defined by % population) coverage is good enough for most people already. We only got the moniker 5G because manufacturers wanted something to badge their kit with.

The drivers for 5G are countries with higher population density and, supposedly, the billions of sensors clamouring to be online constantly. Still waiting for the credible use cases which don't include things like cars sending monitoring data in real time and fridges that take all the bother out of stocking up, …

So, China needs 5G as its citizens are mobile first / mobile only. Hardly surprising then that Huawei and ZTE have done so much work in the area.

Re: now,

Consider yourself lucky: still got "only" UMTS from Unitymedia. It's generally okay except for some worringly large blackspots. Noticeably better when abroad because they generally don't apply traffic-shaping. Still 500 MB / month for nowt so I shouldn't complain too much but maybe I'd be better off with a data SIM from another EU country…

IBM hunkers down for no-deal Brexit, warns of disruption to supply chain, data transfers

Re: "Omnishambles"

If you scripted this, the script would be thrown out for being too silly. May's repeated trips to Brussels where she is "making progress" are just like DoSAC SNAFUs. Hm, maybe we need a new acronym for this farce: BALLSUP? Suggestions, please.

Re: Just follow Jacob Rees-Mogg ... is that OK?

Well, of course, in the 18th century there were no computers so no pesky GDPR to worry about. And, of course, JRM still didn't have to wash the dishes.

It would be funny if it wasn't just an act he's putting on: bugger you Jack, I'm all right, he says from his investment company's Irish office.

Foldables herald the beginning of the end of the smartphone fetish

Re: FAD ALERT - A modern day flip-top

That's why the Samsung has a secondary display on the case for notifications.

You're still going to need something for the biometrics, so boltcutters and pliers may still be required.

Re: Roller phones are the future!

Plastic Logic promises just that but I think the problem has always been the reaction times.

Andrew has elsewhere pointed out that the material science guys are the unsung heroes of the computer industry and I think we can really see this with the OLED screens.

US Supremes urged by pretty much everyone in software dev to probe Oracle's 'disastrous' Java API copyright win

Re: Before people get in to a panic...

I think the reason it's still in the courts is that the initial judgement was also well argued. On issues like these there are often (at least) two contradictory but well-founded opinions. Google's behaviour was certainly questionable, but Oracle's assertion of scope is even more egregious and with potentially far greater consequences for software development in the US.

IOW: be careful what you wish for.

Re: Before people get in to a panic...

Google's purpose was to to create a language that was familiar to Java developers but fitted in with Android.

I'm not sure if this is entirely correct. Google could have continued to work with Java but decided for commercial reasons not to, ie. there is some degree of bad faith on Google's part. However, it's still reasonable to argue that this was still fair use.

If the decision does get upheld by the Supreme Court then I wonder if Oracle is prepared for the inevitable countersuits on things like its core business: lots and lots of database code is based upon the principle of reimplementing existing APIs and this would be a treasure trove for patent trolls.

This is probably why so many companies are against the ruling as it could open the floodgates for all kinds of cases, which even decided against in the courts would divert huge amounts of resources.

Musk is in contempt of court, screams SEC after Tesla boss brags about car production rates

Re: You know, screw that...

If you list on the stock market you agree to abide by its rules and those regarding "forward looking statements" are very strict. He's been done once for misleading the market so now he's very likely in contempt for which he could easily do time. Not that he'd really care as he'd see it as another just more PR.

Re: Vetting process

Trump's tweets don't pump share prices.

Except those about international (trade) relations. There has recently been a direct correlation between sentiment regarding the trade negotiations with China and the market.

Re: Vetting process

At some point either Congress or the US Supreme Court will probably catch up with the rest of the world and decide what the status of such publications is: policy or unofficial opinion. But I doubt it will be within his first term. The SEC might move faster because some pronouncements, such as those over trade negotiations with China, are relevant to the market and it doesn't take an orange-skinned genius to work out the potential advantages of knowing about this before everyone else.

'God, Send Mobiles,' the industry prayed back in the '90s. This time, 5G actually has it covered

Re: Coverage? We've heard of it.

Rhetorical question. It's the same underlying tech but needs more base stations closer together for the desired bandwidth. Given how poor the networks have got at building out capacity, due you see them doing so for 5G? No, me neither.

Re: Three

One of the problems with the early 3G sets was that used lots of power so it took of generations before they could be made at the sizes people were used to. That, and the networks made a real mess of the business case by trying to charge a premium for everything.

It all hinges on this: Huawei goes after Samsung with its own foldable hybrid Mate X

Re: How long before it breaks ?

Yes, havng a screen on both of the outside planes sounds a bit fragile, and putting a protective case on it would make it a pain to unfold.

What I tend to think and, based on Planet's feedback from the Gemini, what many people who already own foldables think: secondary, minimal display on the outside makes sense, but fold out to use. The Huawei can't help but fall "butterside down". But I'll reserve judgement until we see more of these.

While Samsung must be kicking itself seeing the competition launching at the same time, the launch of such similar form factors looks a lot like convergent evolution, which might suggest there is life in it.

BOFH: Bye desktop, bye desk. Hello tablet and a beanbag on the floor

Re: The Boss

Yep, a boss who goes along with the BOFH is compromised… I sense a couple of new server racks and space for a new cooling unit at least!

HPE's cold storage digit: 2% growth better than a kick in the teeth – but it's no Dell EMC

Comparison with Dell?

Only if you're also going to compare debt. You might try looking at free cashflow, but basically I think Dell is trying every trick in the book to put itself in a good light after some fairly hair-raising financial engineering.

Samsung pulls sheets off costly phone-cum-fondleslab Galaxy Fold – and a hefty 5G monster

Re: Madness

Let's just hope you don't crack!

Re: Something new?

Royole beat them to the punch by half a year.

Except that it didn't: the Royole has not been fully release yet.

If this was an Apple product you'd fawning all over it, but because it isn't you're pointing out the many potential pitfalls.

I won't be rushing out to buy one and it will be interesting to see what problems do occur, but no doubt that, yet again, Samsung has stolen the march on Apple when it comes to innovation, note DeX is just as important as the foldable screen. So what if it costs twice an S10, if the product is as useful to some people as a phone + tablet, or even phone + notebook then they won't hesitate to use it. Just a stupid name, I'd have gone with Folio or something similar.

Germany tells America to verpissen off over Huawei 5G cyber-Sicherheitsbedenken

Re: Get the facts right

Giving up the hegemony would be wrenching for the US and lots of other countries, but I don't think Trump really understands what will happen if the dollar loses its status (currently unlikely as current exchange rates and bond yields suggest) as reserve currency. But the SPV (special purpose vehicle) being set up for trading with Iran could be the first of money. Difficult to see Trump's chums really doing well if bond yields really were suddenly to spike. Of course, the US, as has nearly every other country, defaulted on its loans, but the size of that government debt… you could probably build a wall just with all the bonds issued to finance it.

I've said it before, I don't think Trump is stupid, but he does seem very thin-skinned and with a very short attention span. His chummy business deals of "you'll go bankrupt before me" just don't work so well on the international stage. While the "policy by tweet" works well in the US (news cycle on steroids, with Trump in control), it is really destabilising international relations. Cue trip to meet Kim Jong Eun again as a photo opportunity pushing Japan, South Korea and China closer together because they don't think they can rely on the US not to fuck things up.

Get the facts right

There is, of course, a risk with Huawei. As there is with American equipment. And Europeans are caught in the middle wishing to upset neither party, both of whom are important trade partners.

Which American companies are still making mobile networking gear? And which of those are making it in the US? After the 3G hype the equipment market essentially collapsed with Lucent merging with Alcatel, Siemens with Nokia and production moved almost entirely to China. The shift and consolidation was completed with the 4G rollout with US-only standards like WiMax, CDMA, and iDEN being dropped in favour of LTE, because it was cheaper to buy.

If there is a race to 5G then the Chinese and Koreans have already run it. For years, Huawei has been building small and efficient base stations, and it was the efficiency and design as much as the price that got them sold. The Chinese internet has been largely mobile for longer than the US and, with a much higher popular density, has a far greater need for the bandwidth that 5G promises.

So, there are few real business arguments here, it's clumsy Trump's usualy attempt of leaning on a couple of companies as part of trade negotiations. Just like declaring european-built cars a threat to national security so that they can be given tariffs as part of negotiations over importing US gene-modified produce… But there are real risks associated with the bullying, for the US threatening Huawei is only likely to boost the Chinese chip market so that it is no longer dependent on Intel, Qualcomm or nVidia. Europe is already annoyed over tariffs slapped on it and is getting more so over the Iran deal. Currently the US benefits from its hegemony in world trade and the status of the dollar as the world's reserve currency, but by forcing countries to work around its restrictions, the US is actively undermining its own position.

U wot, m8? OMG SMS is back from dead

Google should throw money at Apple to cooperate with RCS.

Better still: Apple should be forced to provide a standards-compliant RCS app. There's still room for private messaging, but universality is what most of us need, most of the time.

What did turbonerds do before the internet? 41 years ago, a load of BBS

Re: Not dead yet

You can do topic subscription on mailing lists. But generally, you just create new MLs when required. Google Groups does a reasonable job of serving both kinds (e-mail and forum) of users.

Article-based forums à la Reg are fine, I suppose because they're so ephemeral. I haven't looked at any posts elswhere on the forum because it's too much bother.

Re: Not dead yet

Indeed, my neighbour still runs one. ISDN was one of the drivers for BBS in Germany because it made having multiple lines easier and had "vastly" superior data rates. OS/2, and to a lesser extent AmigaOS, also made it easier to run BBS because of the flexibility of ports.

Twilight of the sundials: Archaic timepiece dying out and millennials are to blame, reckons boffin

Would the death of sundials really be that terrible? Not only are they imprecise to read (oo, erm, is it 11:31 or 11:32? YES, IT'S IMPORTANT)

Well, actually if you make them too accurate, they'll point out how inaccurate our current time is. Famously, it was the introduction of railway timetables that forced standardisation of the meridian at Greenwich on us; Bristol is about eight minutes behind if memory serves. However, depending on where you are in the world, the classical design may be of little utility if you don't have a lot of direct sunlght, like much of the west side of the UK. But then again, being accurate to the minute is perhaps less interesting than watching time change in the course of the year so that when the sun starts to rise over point X, is a good time to start planting.

I'm a big fan of having analogue and/or non-networked timepieces even though I have a plethora of digital devices using different techniques (NTP, mobile networks, radios) to synchronise and find it funny that they often have several seconds of drift. And then there is digital broadcasting…

You know the drill: SAP has asked Joe Public to name Munich arena so go forth and be very silly

I hate "naming rights"

And there is a special place in hell for whoever came up with them!

Especially galling are the numerous sporting venues that are paid for by local councils – the City of Manchester Stadium springs to mind, but there others – who usually then see no cash for the names but are responsible for renaming transport stops, etc. The net effect is that people who already have more money than they know what to do with have more. Renaming sports grounds is the equivalent or renaming menu items in a GUI!

Amazon triples profit to $11.2bn, pays ZERO DOLLARS in corp tax – instead we pay it $129m

Re: This is really very easy

As for investing sufficient to avoid tax, I've done that myself for quite a few years.

Lots of do that, but there is more than a difference in scale for companies like Amazon doing this because their effective cost of capital is so low. This, as much as anything else, is what gives them a competitive advantage in any particular area.

Futhermore, Amazon's strategy benefits certain types of investors only by favouring share price increases over dividends, a point that was made by someone else on this forum years ago. This is why Amazon actively cross-finances, or subsidises the low-margin warehousing and logistics business with profits from AWS. It's all more or less legal, but it's disingenuous to pretend that any company can do it.

Re: Tax

the contracts drawn up in such a way that there is no corporate penalties for not living up to the promises

They don't really need to. The contracts will almost never be that specific and the associated verbiage usually says things like "upto" or "around" X jobs. But Foxconn's deal in Wisconsin even includes provisions for cutting out the courts.

Re: Tax

Such moves are almost always announced with the promise of lots of new jobs. The loss of jobs elsewhere is almost never reported at the same time, and Amazon is a prime example of employment displacement. And, once the dust settles, it usually turns out that the number of jobs actually created is less than initially announced. The Foxconn plant in Wisconsin is a good example of this.

Blockchain is bullsh!t, prove me wrong meets 'chain gang fans at tech confab

Re: I've yet to hear of an actual, real application of blockchain

I don't see the point of it in any situation that cannot be replaced by a cryptographic signing.

That's really what it is. The decentralisation stuff is really just a distractiion. In any contract the parties can agree to use an indepedent third party to hold the signed contracts / chain. There is just no need for chains that span multiple, mutually independent contracts, hence requiring the spectacularly expensive infrastructure of the crypto-currencies.

And, if Oracle is offering it, you can be almost certain it's something you neither need nor want.

Return of the audio format wars and other money-making scams

Re: ZpulNg

Yep, I think this has even been demonstrated in scientific papers. The scams aren't that much different to those used selling knock-off gear on street markets. Or, for the well-heeled, pyramid investment schemes. Terry Pratchett's conman Moist von Lipwig nails it in "Going Postal": "You can't fool an honest man". The point being that there are no honest men.

Why does that website take forever to load? Clues: Three syllables, starts with a J, rhymes with crock of sh...

Re: "By making this information available, Hulce hopes to help encourage efficient coding."

I'm not even sure faster coding will help: some of the delay is bound to be down to the time it takes to auction and source the ad "in real time".

Basically, the only thing that will encourage media companies to change is if enough people use ad-blockers. The current approach hands all the power to the advertisement brokers to the detriment of the users, but also of the website owners.

How do you like them Apples? Tim Cook's iPhones sitting in the tree, feeling unloved by the Chinese

Re: What did they expect?

What is the addage? Buy on the rumour, sell on the news.? Or is it the other way round? Basically, as a retail investor you're screwed anyway and should stick to low-fee indexed funds.

The only thing the XR has going for it over the 8, is that it will take two SIMs. But it still has a fucking notch. So, unless you're heavily invested in the walled garden, and the Chinese have their own walls, there are lots of reasons to go with one of the much cheaper copycats.

Is Oppo short for Opportunistic? BBK opens UK doors

Phone for payments

The Find X lacks NFC so no contactless payments.

Maybe it's just me but I find this just asking for trouble. I do this with a card but can configure it to work only if the phone is close. There are plenty of situations where whipping out a phone is not such a good idea.

Samsung Galaxy's flagship leaks ... don't matter much. Here's why

Re: Station idents become invisible to the TV viewer

Of course, we can all see the ident if we look for it, but usually our focus is elsewhere and it requires some effort to find it again. Lots of studies about the stuff we think we see but Richard Wiseman's videos can be recommended.

I fucking hate the notch and am not enmoured of the hole but could live with it even if I'm happier with a bezel. Thinking about replacing my S5 at some point but not in the least interested in spunking around € 1000 on anything new, but the bigger (4100 mAh) battery is worth a mention.

Headphone jack?, Meh. Used Bluetooth for years because it means no catching cables. Bluetooth also doesn't get shorted if dipped in beer (happened a couple of months ago, took a couple of days to dry out and during that time phone though headphones were permanently connected) But just say no to underpowered and eminently losable buds! Music time needs to be > 8 hours and the damn things should be as well attached to the body as children's mittens!

It's now 2019, and your Windows DHCP server can be pwned by a packet, IE and Edge by a webpage, and so on

Re: Disk in continuous use.

Update went pretty smoothly in my Windows 7 VM. Have you got indexing active?

Re: Is it Acrobat or PDF itself?

If it was PDF, then won't every single PDF client in known existence be affected?

Possibly, but it could also be fixed by a change in the specification. Which hasn't happened.

It's easier to target Adobe Acrobat and Reader because they include extensions and also use some of the AIR (ex-Flash runtime) IIRC.

PDF as a format is just too damned "useful" (for a given definition of useful) to go away, even if for many cases EPUB would probably make a decent replacement.

Prez Trump orders Uncle Sam to step up AI efforts – we all know the White House knows a lot about artificial intelligence

Re: I can never understand anything the guy says

While I personally find it difficult to listen to him, I do think there is some mileage in the idea that his delivery is designed to appeal to the "cognitively challenged" (a larger part of the population than we both might imagine, because I don't mean just the idiots). They're just listening for key words and phrases that signal he's on their side. This is why his team isn't worried that his speeches are so full of inaccurracies and downright fallacies. It's worth reading some of the stuff Scott Adams wrote about his campaign back in 2015 and 2016, before he switched to his periscope casts.

The only problem with this interpretation is that it fails to take into consideration the problems associated with his international speeches.

Oh, and anyway, way your downvotes with pride! Echo bubbles are for losers!

NHS needs to pull its finger out and prep staff for future robotics, genomics, data-led healthcare

Don't worry about the IT, what about the staff

Getting any kind of trained healthcare staff is already a problem and about to get a whole lot worse. Not much point in kitting out those not existent GPs with machines that go ping. Well, unless you've got shares in one of the companies with the contracts…

Is it just me?

For instance, it said that "digital medicine" – such as appointments by app or video

I keep reading this with reference to "digital" medicine and remain enormously underwhelmed. How do video appointments improve yield? What do they bring that can't be done over the phone?

I do think there is huge scope for improving service, and telemedicine has its place, but an awful lot of medicine needs to be done on the spot. Telepresence perhaps for specialists in areas but otherwise IT should be providing support services in things like triaging and diagnosis.

LibreOffice 6.2 is here: Running up a Tab at the NotebookBar? You can turn it all off if you want

Re: CSV compatibility

Probably MS trying to get more people to use XLSX

I don't think so. It's probably more to do with the fact that double-clicking on a CSV and just hoping it will work, often doesn't because of encoding, etc. Meetup laughingly offers attendance lists as Excel files, but actually provides CSVs which Excel chooses the wrong encoding and "helps" with the dates. Importing as data encourages people to check the structure of the file first.

But CSV is in any case my view a poor format for data exchange largely because it's untyped, so passing round XLSX files is generally more reliable (just as long as they don't have dates < 1900-01-01).