Posts by GF

Brit D-cell torpedo in icepack-bottom probe

Cost of Recycling...

...must be high since the 4 tons of batteries have to be returned and recycled.

Visa yanks creds for payment card processing pair

Not a DSS Problem...

Lack of real Visa audits to ensure that DSS compliance is for real is, IMHO, the main problem. Instead of going to management parties and large dinners, Visa should invest their time and money in performing real DSS audits on a more frequent basis.

Obama balks at recovery of lost Dubya emails

Obama has bigger things to worry about...

Than trying to recover Bush's past garbage e-mails.

Mr. and Mrs. Boring lose Google Street View tilt

Google Does Not Opt Out

I tried to opt out from Street View, but their procedure only works AFTER your street and house have been scanned and posted on the Internet. Once the photos are posted on Google, the photos are potentially cached everywhere, so opting out is a smoke screen to allow Google to say that they met their Privacy Policy requirements.

Street View vehicle kills Bambi

Need to starting arming the deer...

It is time to start arming the deer so that they can defend themselves from these Google StreetView speeding maniacs. :-)

IMHO, this deer hit could have been avoided. The deer comes out of a small driveway on the left and it is a clearing, not a bunch of trees right up the road. If the driver was actually paying attention, he/she should have ease off the gas while Bambi runs across. Then, the evasive maneuver while braking is to go on the left lane since there was no incoming traffic and the road is straight (clear view ahead, no curves). Of course, if the driver was doing 70-80MPH in a 55MPH zone (U.S. equivalent for rural roads), all of the above steps are irrelevant. Or, Bambi makes a 180-degree turn while you're trying to pass on the left lane... In both cases, Bambi loses.

Kirk's Khan nemesis beams up at 88

RIP

Ricardo Montalban, RIP. He was a great actor. Yes, The Wrath of Kahn was the best. I am still waiting for the Blue-Ray format.

So when did the knives come out at Seagate?

Lessons Lost on the Board...

The unfortunate problem with the Seagate Board is that they refuse to acknowledge that a global recession has occurred and that is when innovation investments should go up, not down. With this strategy, corporate can be prepared to kick butt when the economy recovers. At the same time, Seagate should maintain the current business line and market to the reduced quantity of buyers to continue revenue generation, even at a reduction. Performing a total reorganization and reallocation of manufacturing struction will introduce a major loss in quality, which in turn will cause Segate to lose credibility in the marketplace.

IMHO, this is the beginning of the end for Seagate, just like how Micropolis disappeared in the 1990s.

US woman says Ubuntu can't access internet

She is an insult to womankind...

Abbie Schubert needs to just stay away from computers. She should have just returned the computer for a refund and just go to college for a liberal arts degree. Use the computers at school if needed.

She just lacked common sense on how to manage what she purchased, like buying a car and taking it back to the dealer if it was a lemon. This is not what I expect from a woman who should manage her money...

Columbia disaster 'not survivable', NASA concludes

Management Groupthink

Space flight is inherently dangerous. Management groupthink at NASA during the events leading up to the catastrophe made it suicidal. This accident was no different than the Challenger accident IMHO.

San Francisco's 'rogue' sysadmin faces trial

Interesting...

IMHO, it appears that what Terry Childs failed to see is that the computer-communication network is not his to lockout. It was paid-for by the San Francisco taxpayers, and they entrusted (through elections) the city officials to manage the network, no different than entrusting these same officials to manage the rest of the city's infrastructure.

I believe if Mr. Childs truly believed that he was the only one who can manage this network and that his superiors were incompetent, he could have just been a whistleblower and filed a complaint to the state auditor's office (preferably with solid evidence of the risks to the network). He could have even gone to the news media as a last resort. However, he instead decided to behave like a criminal and perform reverse-hacking to lock everyone out. Pretty sad indeed.

First lady of Star Trek dead at 76

Thank you...

Despite Majel suffering from leukemia, she finished her role in J. J. Abrams Star Trek prequel. That is a very dedicated actor.

I will definitely miss her and glad that she was able to see the success of Star Trek. She is a legend in her own right.

YouTube 'poisoned baby food' hoaxer pleads guilty

Free Speech? Sure thing...

This was "crying wolf" with implications of causing panic to the masses. It was stupid, irresponsible, and shows that he was a liar. The person is more than welcomed to make any speech he wishes, but he just needs to understand that there are consequences to his actions.

SonicWALL licensing snafu short-circuits protection

Sonicwall is OK

Having 3 Sonicwalls in a transcontinental VPN configuration, I have had no problems with the units. I also rolled out over 500 units in early 2000-2001 for a company with no real problems except for faulty power supplies (which the company replaced free-of-charge). I do agree with the posters here that the Sonicwall should "default to secure" when it cannot talk to the licensing-mothership.

Personally, I do not care for the licensing verification over-the-Internet schema that Sonicwall uses, but Microsoft and other companies appear to do the same. I just have to minimize the risk as much as possible if a licensing snafu occurs with any of their products.

WordPad zero-day adds to MS security woes

WordPad Zero-Day Flaw to Servers???

Only a stupid admin would check his/her e-mail on a Windows server and then open an attachment with WordPad. So why is this a server zero-day flaw?

'I don't blame pilot', says San Diego jet crash father

Mr. Yoon is very brave!

The San Diego Union-Tribune is the coward. You go for the nearest airport, and Miramar was the closest. Then you have a flying bathtub on your hands when both engines quit. Sure, I could say that may be the pilot should have gone to a higher altitude when one engine quit, so that he can glide his plane in if both engines quit. I wasn't there in the pilot's seat, and I am not in any position to criticise the pilot's decisions, which wasn't many to choose from due to the crisis at hand.

Sorry for the loss for Mr. Yoon and others from this accident. Based on what I read, I believe the pilot did what he could to avoid the accident.

MS hit with Red Ring of Death lawsuit

What a joke ... a game console rules your life?

Matt, I agree. People have too much time on their hands to be so concerned about the XBox RROD. Get your money back if your XBox is bad. Not worth the lawsuit, just a full refund for the XBox console and accessories purchase.

Like to see the excuses for the complaints in the lawsuit:

* Not having a working XBox caused me to have to pay attention to my spouse and family;

* I actually got a date in years because I was not playing with the XBox and was forced to socialize;

* My butt is no longer sore from sitting too long playing with the XBox

:-)

Apple surrenders the Pink (to Microsoft)

Rewriting History

"So, more than thirty years after stealing Apple's operating system,..."

Huh? Rewriting history? Both Microsoft and Apple's basis for the GUI came from PARC.

Apple fans besieged by iPhone Trojan and iTunes attack

Terrible Article

Even though I do not care for Apple Macs, iPhone, etc., this article is absolutely misleading and horrible. It had nothing to do with iPhone attacks. It would have been better to put "SEX" on the title to lure readers to the article ... at least the cold shower would be worth it.

Anonymous hacks Sarah Palin's Yahoo! account

Very Stupid and Sad...

I think it is absolutely sad that Anonymous had to stoop to criminal acts to get attention. I am not a Sarah supporter, but I also do not support these type of attacks. Two wrongs do not make a right, so to speak.

Web designer sues Brat City for assaulting hyperlink

@Mike - A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Your physical access example overanalyzes the virtual access of web sites. As far as I am concerned, anything on the Internet that is freely accessible (no login ID-password) is open to the public. You want to link, so what? Go ahead. If the web site does not want you to link, they can always block you from any referrals, but it won't prevent Internet users from going to that site directly. Of course, case law can definitely interpret the "process" differently :-)

American Airlines typo dispatches corpse to Guatemala

Could Have Been GUM

Hey, the "baggage" was within driving distance. The bloke could have typed GUM for Guam, and it probably would have never made it back.

The fact that AA asked for $321 extra for their mistakes show AA has no heart and sole. They should go bankrupt completely.

Pretty sad all around.

At least Paris would have an excuse...

Parents plant spyware to snare sex predator

@Graham Marsden

Look at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/berkshire/7594801.stm

> "Most likely"? Got any proof of that? <

I'm disappointed that since you are a lot closer to the action than I am, you did not look at other sources to refute my assumption. You made an assumption that the parents snooped immediately and it was the only thing they decided to do, and my assumption was the opposite. The Reg article can be interpreted either way. Even the BBC article, which has more details, still cannot refute either your or my assumption. So if you have any clear proof, show it.

> "We don't trust you, so we're going to spy on you for your own protection". Hmm, sounds familiar, do you work for the Government...?!

The point is, however, there are better ways of doing this than installing spyware on your child's computer. <

First of all, what does this have to do with the "government?" Don't distract the debate.

Fundamentally, I agree that there are other initial approaches to manage your child. However, I still believe that the spyware was of last resort since the child was quite under control of this pervert and she was lying to her parents before the spyware was installed (see the section after "Invading her privacy" in the BBC article).

> This was in the UK, not the US.<

And your point being? May be you can educate me and the readers on the legal definition of juvenile there?

>Is that the child trusting the parent or the parent trusting the child?! And how about a little *respect* from both sides? <

As stated earlier, this situation appeared to be beyond the trust and respect level. The child was being manipulated by this pervert, and the parents were losing control. Something had to be done to break this link, and I believe no amount of chit-chat was going to make any difference at this stage. Now, if the whole situation could be rewound to 2005, I believe the parents should have done exactly what you stated and the spyware route could have been avoided.

>So the parent *guides* the child and *teaches* them. They don't *snoop* on them. <

Again fundamentally, I agree. However, I do not believe this was even possible for this particular situation at this specific timeframe.

> And your Point 4 sounds like classic "Won't someone think of the children!" hyperbole. <

Huh? If you're going to smoke that stuff while typing, at least you should share with the rest of us...

Do you remember about the teenage girl in the US who committed suicide after being "dumped" by her boyfriend in MySpace, and come to find out that it was an adult neighbor who was causing the "grief"? (http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2007/11/26/girls_suicide_after_online_chats_leaves_a_town_in_shock/) That was basically point #4. IMHO, unless parents are proactive in managing their children, situations like this will continue to occur. What the parents did with using spyware was definitely drastic and personally would not be my first choice as a parenting tool, but it was still a lot more proactive than doing nothing.

Parents are allowed to spy on their own kids...

The first two AC comments ("Counselling" and "What!")are really stupid. These parents were being responsible for their own kid. Obviously, she was being brainwashed by the teacher, and it was the parents' job to protect their kid, even to the point of secretly monitoring her Internet access.

Graham Marsden, the parents most likely had already taken the steps in trying to establish/maintain trust with their daughter. Since she started lying about her activities, it was time to take it to the next step ... monitoring her activities. If someone consistently lies to you about something, is that trust still there? No.

Several items to consider:

1. Anyone under the age of 18 years old (at least in the US) is a juvenile, and his or her actions and inactions is the responsibility of his or her parents. (At least that's the theory ... too many parents make excuses for having out-of-control kids, but that's another blog)

2. The juvenile has no guarantee to privacy with his/her parents. Now, it would be very bad parenting to not provide an environment of trust where the juvenile should become a responsible family member, but that trust is earned, not given.

3. The juvenile is not mature enough to think for him/herself, and there are legal definitions supporting this statement. Why do you think teenage drivers have more accidents than older adults? Because they act like morons but they think they are smart.

4. If this relationship came to an end where the girl hitched up with the teacher, and she became pregnant (or worse, killed), is that better than the current situation where she was monitored by her parents? You tell me.

As far as I am concerned, I support these parents for taking responsibility as parents to monitor and manage their kids.

Rogue SF sysadmin may cost city over $1m

Two Wrongs Do Not Make It Right

Just because management is perceived to be screwballs, the IT admin should not act the same. Terry Childs may truly have major work performance problems and he may personally be a real as**oe with everyone he works with, and if so, his behavior is definitely inexcusible.

I had worked in government positions for some time, and there are employees who think they are indestructable and treat everyone like crap, while management act like sheep because their hands are tied due to employment rules and laws. These employees do not do anything illegal, so they could not get fired, but they treat every contractor like crap, launch "gernades" in almost every meeting to disrupt teamwork, and generally interfere with any manager's ability to manage. But yet they can still keep their job because there are government employees.

Anti-Kremlin website owner shot dead in police custody

Russians Believe in Putin...

Just like most of the Chinese people stand behind their leaders on their government's supression of the Pro-Tibetian uprising, the majority of the Russion people stand behind Putin to squash these rebels who are bent on "destroying" Russia. If the majority believes this, then it does no good what the people outside of these countries believe. It is time for the UK, U.S. and the European Union to stop being dependent on these countries for cheap goods & services (China) and energy (Russia).

Engineer accidentally deletes cloud

Accidents Happen...

Accidents like this happens. For example, a sys admin wanted to make a change to a SQL Server but accidentally selects 300 production servers. Despite two warnings, which appear repeatedly whether one or multiple servers is selected, the sys admin does the change. A week later, the business returns to service and the sys admin is fired in the process.

Businesses like this really needs to establish a thorough risk management plan with contingencies, which should include "two keys required to fire" for any configuration management changes. Unfortunately, technical tools do not lend itself to a hierarchical command approval process ... everything utimately depends on a single person to be wide awake, focused, and 100% dedicated to the task and this same person is God in the system. The former is an unrealistic work environment, but yet the later occurs all the time in IT.

Google stretching underwater comms cable?

Guam is for real

Chris Cheale and Antidisestablishmentarianist,

Guam is actual Guåhån in Chamorro, their native language. Plus, there are already underwater telecom cables installed by AT&T and other firms decades ago, so having additional telecom cables would only be for Google in the Pacific. However, they would not be able to control the entire trans-Pacific telecom since there are already other underwater cables in use.

Try also not to insult the nice people on Guam. They are proud U.S. citizens, and Guam is actually pretty modern location being a U.S. possession with a large U.S. military presence. Guam went through a lot between the Spanish-American War and World War II with the Imperial Japanese occupation. The last Japanese soldier was found living in a cave in 1972 (http://ns.gov.gu/scrollapplet/sergeant.html). I guess he didn't get the memo about the end of the war in 1945.

Judah 'Visual Voicemail' Klausner sues Google, Verizon, Citrix...

Judah the Parasite...

Klausner Technologies is a parasite company. Its name alone is an oxymoron. They do no technological research and development. They simply siphon protection money from telecom companies, and ultimately from the consumers. The mob of the 21st century, so to speak.

Winehouse jibe wins Fringe's funniest gag

Huh?

I simply did not get Zoe Lyons' joke about Amy Whinehouse, since I have no idea who is Amy. Must be an inside British joke that I American is too narrow-minded to understand.

Based on all of the blog entries, Amy must be a waste of carbon...

Apple's AppStore closes in on $500m in software sales

More Revenue for Apple and AT&T (in U.S.)

"But new versions of iTunes and the iPhone software propose to eliminate the problem by synchronizing only the metadata, not the content itself, from iTunes to the device."

In the U.S., this means AT&T will have a larger bill to charge to their iPhone 3G customers since they will need more airtime to play music they already purchased. I can imagine if you paid for a particular music and you played it 30 times (and it is not stored in full in the iPhone), you will instead have to be pay the same airtime 30 times.

If anyone interprets this differently, let me know...

BTW, middle and high school students are purchasing iPhones as status symbols. Why? May be they have no self esteem so they need iPhones to show how "cool" they are? Their parents have lots of disposable income to pay for the iPhone bills? Apple marketing at their finest.

allen arpadi, you would be the person that pharmers and phishers would love to have in their iPhone calling list. It is great to think the iPhone is like a refrigerator ... turn it on and forget about it. However, IMHO the iPhone "features" are very new and is really a portable computer with maturing security. PCs and Macs have protection hardware and software (antivirus, firewalls, etc) available, but on the iPhone, you are dependent on the telco and your iPhone software to provide a certain level of security. If PCs and Macs can get hacked, so can iPhones. I'll wait a couple of more generations before considering purchasing an iPhone.

COBOL thwarts California's Governator

Term debug?

I believe Admiral Hopper also coined the term "debugging" and "bug" in the late 1940s in relation to computing.

She does get around, doesn't she...

Pentagon hacker McKinnon earns extradition delay

If He Did the Crime, He Should Do the Time...

I'm sure I will be the minority based on the results of this blog, but he should be extradited. If an American committed a similar act against British systems, I expect the reverse would be the same and the American should be extradited to GB.

Trashman arrested for YouTube threats

Death Threats are Serious, No Matter What Medium...

Aaron Kempf, whether you do your threat face-to-face or via YouTube, death threats are serious and not to be taken lightly. I agree with the police to arrest Anton Dunn since he stated in clear text to poison in masses. If you ignore such threats, others would just continue to increase into a "crying wolf" syndrome and then when a real threat occurs, no one will listen. Let the police and the courts decide if this threat was real or not.

An example was when a taxi driver threaten my sister of bodily harm, including killing her unborn (she was pregnant), because of a car accident. My mother was there at the time, and she took this threat seriously, to the point that she showed up with a police officer at the taxi driver's house (the police traced the car license plate). The taxi driver stated that "it was a joke" to the police officer. Really? May be it was a joke AFTER law enforcement showed up. Anton Dunn's case sounds similar...

(BTW, the car accident was cited against the taxi driver...)