Posts by Mark 65

Apple's latest macOS release is breaking security software, network connections

Apple rapidly becoming the new Microsoft - don't update until the first point release is out

Europe's largest city council: Oracle ERP allocated £2B in transactions to wrong year

Re: Did the system do this on its own?

You're either a salesman or a victim.

HPE to pursue $4B claim against estate of Mike Lynch over Autonomy acquisition

They seem like a company that really knows how to cover themselves in glory

UK tech pioneer Mike Lynch dead at 59

The sinking of the yacht is thought to be primarily due to its design - a 75m main mast in aluminium with a stow-able keel that would typically be stowed whilst at anchor. Water spout hits vessel, tips it and the large mast that isn't being counteracted by the keel means it lays side on in the water and fills up through open hatches. There's a video of a water spout incident (in Auckland I think) where a catamaran gets backflipped and a yacht gets pushed over but its keel manages to right the vessel.

Open source versus Microsoft: The new rebellion begins

Re: Fingers crossed

Now the state of Schleswig-Holstein is hoping for third time lucky.

Should read...

Now the state of Schleswig-Holstein is hoping for the same volume discount the others got.

Zero-day exploited right now in Palo Alto Networks' GlobalProtect gateways

Once upgraded, device telemetry should be re-enabled on the device.

I'm no networking expert, but why? How important is the telemetry and what does it offer the user/client?

Seems like it just expands the attack surface at present.

Ad agency boss owned two Ferraris but wouldn't buy a real server

Depends on the consumer grade - my HGST drives have 80,000 hours on them and they're still rocking on.

Linux Foundation marshals support for open source alternative to Redis

Redict? Get f*cked twice?

Google bakes new cookie strategy that will leave crooks with a bad taste

Re: Seriously, author?

My first thought was that this sounds like a better way to track you across sites with a security sales pitch

Whistleblower raises alarm over UK Nursing and Midwifery Council's DB

Re: "Journey of Improvement"

This sounds like the friend of someone senior said "I can do that" when discussing a medical registration system and they promptly got the gig on an outsource-to-the-boys adventure. Outright dumb-fuckery then ensued as they endeavoured to create said system. A few corporate hangers-on were subsequently employed along the way to offer a veneer of substance.

As for "For clarity, the register of all our nurses, midwives and nursing practitioners is held within Dynamics 365 which is our system of record," the spinner continued. "This solution and the data held within it, is secure and well documented. It does not rely on any SQL database. The SQL database referenced by the whistleblower relates to our data warehouse which we are in the process of modernizing as previously shared."

If it doesn't rely on a SQL database but you make use of a data warehouse which is SQL then YOU rely on a SQL database. So, technically correct but utterly wrong. If that doesn't have the same levels of governance and security then what the primary system has is somewhat moot given you are obviously stuffing that data into it.

Redis tightens its license terms, pleasing basically no one

Re: Open Source developers

The original ethos of open source was not about enabling corporations to amass wealth. Instead, it was rooted in a philosophy of sharing, collaboration, and mutual benefit. The intention was to democratise access to technology, not to subsidise the research and development costs of wealthy corporations.

The problem with such an open model of sharing and collaboration is that you don't get to choose who benefits, and those who aren't so generous will always just take take take. I believe there's a license for that.

It's a bit like leaving an unwanted kids bike on the sidewalk with a "free to a good home" sign on it. Chances are it won't be going where you intended.

Over 170K users caught up in poisoned Python package ruse

Security or convenience...choose one.

German defense chat overheard by Russian eavesdroppers on Cisco's WebEx

There probably is but, as we know from the corporate world, if you're high enough ranking then such trifling inconveniences can be ordered to be dispensed with.

US accuses Army vet cyber-Casanova of sharing Russia-Ukraine war secrets

Maybe an old man who thinks he be getting some, as a subset of the above.

Toyota admits its engines are overrated – by its own power testing software

Re: So maybe...

Maybe you should read the article. Toyota was over-reporting power, not under-reporting emissions.

Maybe that's how they complied with the emissions regs but appeared competitive with peers on output?

Australian spy chief fears sabotage of critical infrastructure

Wot no treason trial?

Whether to move off Oracle is the $100M+ question for Europe's largest public body

You'd think that such requirements from so many would lead to some kind of collaborative or governing body to go about getting a solution built. Then you wake up, realise it would be a somewhat larger government IT project that would inevitably fail at large cost as everyone starts to chip in with must-have requirements and customisations for minimal gains, and carry on with your day.

Re: I think I see the problem

From 2019, the council had planned to adopt the Oracle system with few modifications,

Good decision on low mods, not sure about system

replacing a heavily customized SAP system.

Good decision - heavy customisation just leads to regular headaches around upgrades, loss of knowledge etc.

However, officers later decided to adapt the system and write modifications,

Really bad decision.

some of which failed, leading to onerous manual workarounds and inaccuracies in reporting.

with a predictable outcome.

SAP hits brakes on Tesla company car deal

Re: Tesla warp erp

Will never understand how it came to dominate the market.

Client entertainment goes to the person signing off on the payment not the poor bastard using the system.

Re: Are they kidding?

I have a feeling they could have had a lot better than 7% sales growth this year (though nowhere near 50%) if they had maintained their demand (i.e. if Musk had just shut the hell up

They were always going to fade as soon as someone came along to eat their lunch. In this case BYD. Tesla had first mover advantage which they used. As soon as manufacturing was moved to China that advantage diminished as the IP was there to be taken. BYD are a battery manufacturer by trade, and what's the most costly and important part of a BEV? Advantage, and sales lead, BYD.

Macy's and Sunglass Hut sued for $10M over face-recog arrest and 'sexual assault'

Re: "store's workers also picked out Murphy"

We don't know the precise details of them picking him out though do we? After all the company (their employer) had already "recognised" him using AI and informed the cops. No reason not to think they didn't run the match past the employees beforehand whereby human biases took over. If I was one of the people present during the robbery and you showed me a photo of someone that is, presumably, a close enough match and asked "is this the one" I'd likely confirm it too. Whereas if I were just presented with a selection of similar looking individuals the result may well be different.

And, yes, let's blame AI because too many people consider computers infallible whereas their opinion of people is less, and rightly, so.

Fujitsu gets $1B market cap haircut after TV disaster drama airs

Re: Accounting system

I've seen some dumb shit in my time, but that really does take some beating. I mean, WTAF?

British Library: Finances remain healthy as ransomware recovery continues

Re: Someone wasn't doing their job.

If the infiltrator is effectively nation-state backed and the motivation is likely more political with a side offering of cash then the damage can be massive. Especially when you don't know how long they've been in your systems or potentially how they got there.

HPE said to be moving in on $13B deal for Juniper Networks

HPE and the reverse Midas touch - everything they touch turns to shit.

UK may demand tech world tell it about upcoming security features

Yeah, but Charlie could become a legend if he did it. Just imagine this getting a regal "go get f*cked".

Brits make Amazon, Meta stop using third-party data to undercut rivals

Re: Amazon and Meta have agreed...

Don't forget "and future roles ensured". There's always a hint of that somewhere.

Why Chromebooks are the new immortals of tech

Re: MacBook Pro doing fine

Try Open Core patcher, my 2010 iMac is running Ventura and I'd imagine your machine would run it better. Just image the drive so you can go back if it doesn't pan out. Definitely worth a try.

Re: Dafuq?

You might be surprised how much data Microsoft Office slurps from your computer and stuffs into telemetry.

Not on my network.

Bombshell biography: Fearing nuclear war, Musk blocked Starlink to stymie Ukraine attack on Russia

Re: So Musk has blood on his hands

More nonsense from people who actually thing Ukraine (without direct US/NATO intervention) could ever defeat Russia!

Your comment reminds me of a scene in Layer Cake where Daniel Craig's character is driving a hard bargain on a drug deal.

Duke: You wouldn't be so ****ing flashy if you didn't have him standing behind you would you?

Gene: Yeah, but he does though don't he.

Power grids tremble as electric vehicle growth set to accelerate 19% next year

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Victoria in Australia has proposed/started a per mile charge for EVs as they avoid fuel duty.

BMW deems drivers worthy of warmth, ends heated car seat subscription

Re: connected services as a strategic imperative and a driver of future revenue

The annual servicing enema isn't enough for our balance sheet, we need a little monthly something something.

Largest local government body in Europe goes under amid Oracle disaster

have you been fucking sleeping?

I wouldn't know, I was asleep.

Microsoft teases Python scripting in Excel

Re: Pandas and Anaconda

If you're just using Python for pandas I'd be using R's data.table library as it is much easier to use and has a more SQL-like natural language filtering aspect to it whereas indexing in Pandas is somewhat of a comparative cluster-f*ck.

Rocky Linux details the loopholes that will help its RHEL rebuild live on

Re: To free or not to free

I think this could start to sound the death knell for Red Hat. Its previous selling point was support and stability allowing software vendors the ability to have a one-stop "works on (Red Hat) Linux" option.

Debian has stability and both support and stability are offered by Suse, Ubuntu, and potentially Oracle to varying extents. Containerisation, SAAS etc means that Red Hat's opportunity space is shrinking (likely prompting this nonsense) and if one of those other distros can seize the day it will thus have fully enshittified itself with this move and provided a case study for future reference.

Let's have a chat about Java licensing, says unsolicited Oracle email

I read

It's Oracle's IP, and they have a right to monetize it the way they see fit, and every customer who uses it has an obligation to be in compliance. No one is questioning that, but if I were receiving that email, I'd probably make a phone call back to Oracle and have a conversation with them and ask them questions without giving much information away.

and thought "I'd just tell them to go get fucked"

Rocky Linux claims to have found 'path forward' from CentOS source purge

as RH devs contribute a lot of work to open source projects

Be interesting to see what those same people's opinion is on this move and whether they remain at RH. Any such company that makes large contributions towards open source projects likely has a number of key people that does so.

Re: Specious argument

That's what I don't think Red Hat understands - CentOS was the gateway drug.

As I see it, IBM are testing the waters to see what they can get away with.

Now Apple takes a bite out of encryption-bypassing 'spy clause' in UK internet law

Re: Proof of the UKs diminishing political structure ...

The funnier thing is that, although they could enforce the inability to use the app on UK iPhones by forcing Apple to not allow UK phones to install it, the EU is busy working on Apple allowing alternative app stores of which overseas ones not affected by this would be perfectly fine.

Missing Titan sub likely destroyed in implosion, no survivors

Re: A fitting epitaph

At least in some countries you cannot sign away your statutory rights with a waiver. That's including, but not limited to, death or injury being caused by incompetence.

Re: A fitting epitaph

I don't think he did it because he wanted the money, I think it was because he considered himself infallible.

Another redesign on the cards for iPhone as EU rules call for removable batteries

...and at the end of the day, if big corporations didn't take the piss the EU wouldn't need to keep adding to the rule book.

Re: UK specific model?

Don't buy the marketing crap. There was never a need to remove accessible batteries or headphone jacks to achieve the ratings desired.

Planned obsolescence, wonderful for the balance sheet.

German finance minister says nein to more Intel subsidy cash

Re: AMD

I wish them the best of luck trying to squeeze the Germans for extra money. If they said they'd give 6.8 large then that's what you're getting. If costs have risen because you're delaying then they'll view that as your inefficiency and tough shit. There's clearly other players they can subsidise, TSMC seems like a reasonable horse to back.

Rigorous dev courageously lied about exec's NSFW printouts – and survived long enough to quit with dignity

Re: Shared printers

What boggles my mind is why anybody would print it out in the first place. Makes no sense.

They wanted a hard copy?

More UK councils caught by Capita's open AWS bucket blunder

Surely the best way of achieving savings would be for councils to pool resources and have a controlled entity service the common needs of all rather than each subcontract a set of nickel and diming muppets.

How anyone continues to deal with the entity commonly known as Crapita is beyond me. Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

Microsoft will upgrade Windows 10 21H2 users whether they like it or not

Does anyone know whether the registry tweaks will prevent this updating? Family member's laptop using some version of Windows 10 kept prompting about Windows 11 upgrade so, after searching, I found a registry tweak that locks the installation on a certain version. I was wondering whether this still holds true? Likelihood is I need to update to the latest 10 version to get security patches and lock it on that if possible. Using Windows 10 Professional (I think).

Fed up with Python setup and packaging? Try a shot of Rye

Re: Avoiding pip

I'm guessing they look up the package source code online and type it in locally using vi with pins wedged under their fingernails while fighting a bear.

Or maybe they use conda.

There's a difference?

Python head hisses at looming Euro cybersecurity rules

Re: Something needs to be done to protect consumers

FLOSS is everywhere those days, as is free stuff, and regular consumers are in no way able to determine if there are risks, or what they could be.

I think that is where you draw the line between bad luck with best endeavours undertaken and the couldn't care less end of the spectrum. Even if I sell a software library that I have thoroughly tested but happens to contain some bizarre edge case that causes someone using it in ways I may have not even perceived to really f*ck up then I don't think I should be held liable. After all I have done as much as could reasonably be expected. If, on the other hand, I just wrote it, sold it, and didn't give a sh*t whether it was fit for purpose then that's a different story.