Posts by Sir Sham Cad

Capita tells civil servants to wait for chatbots to fix pension portal woes

Re: What the hell

The part of TFA that I picked up as the main take-away was, basically, this:

!) Capita lost the contract because they were, er, Capita, and were replaced by MyCSP

2) MyCSP contract ended and a Public Procurement Exercise to find a new provider was undertaken.

3) Fuck it, Capita it is again, then. They've pinky sworn to be better this time.

The reason the same bastards keep getting these huge contracts is because they know how to complete a Public Procurement Tender rather than actually provide the service.

European Space Agency hit again as cybercrims claim 200 GB data up for sale

Re: honest question

In my experience it's a couple of factors and this is deliberately simplified:

1) Beancounters and bosses don't see the financial benefit of taking the time and spending money on something that, at best, you won't notice the benefit of as opposed to shipping code or spending the money on something they can see.

2) The bad guys have to get lucky once, and they are trawling with a large net, and we have to get lucky all the time. Sheer weight of numbers means someone is going to run out of luck very frequently

3) Yes, I know this is one more than a couple but if it works in the pub... people who actually, properly understand infrastructure-to--code security are like hen's teeth and most places don't have 'em so the rest of us are following Principles and doing Audits and Learning Lessons.

The most durable tech is boring, old, and everywhere

Re: In the raw

Oh god, FORTRAN is a good shout. Evil like that never dies.

Uber and Lyft rolling Baidu robotaxis into London next year

Re: bringing another safe and reliable travel option to Londoners

The Docklands Large Rollercoaster is always out. Usually "of service"

NASA tries savin' MAVEN as Mars probe loses contact with Earth

Or it's been on the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters whilst daddy wasn't watching

UK.gov doubles hardware spending framework to £24B in 6 months

Great in theory - hard to access

Two problems really:

1) When we Procure via one of these Frameworks we don't get access to fixed pricing so any savings are either impossible to quantify or non-existent.

2) We don't have the money in the system to buy in anything like the theoretical value of the Framework. We're looking at this locally rather than nationally with more modest but realistic value ceiling.

Re: How much of that £24 billion ...

Funnily enough, during the last Government, the husband of a sitting Cabinet member set up an IT Asset disposal company, fronted it with a separate company with an NHS-friendly face (we'll give you lots of money back or donate to your Hospital Charity if you give us exclusive access to all your stuff) and was aggressively selling those services to NHS vertical.

We all told them to fuck off once we spotted the scam and corruption.

JLR: Payroll data stolen in cybercrime that shook UK economy

outsourcing critical cybersecurity functions

To people who don't give a shit as they have no personal skin in the game.

It works the same if you replace the word "cybersecurity" with any other "business" function.

Welcome to America - now show us your last five years of social media posts

Oh well.

I called DJT a Cockwomble on Twitter a few years ago so that's me banned from Leftpondia forever.

In the immortal words of Hercule Poirot: Dommage.

UK tech minister vows more whole-government megadeals after £9B Microsoft pact

Lack of competition problem

See, if you take it and spend £9B on making it Policy then it ceases to be a Problem. Easy, this Government game.

Apply here to win a Microsoft Ugly Sweater. It's uglier than ever

Microsoft Vs Internet

Users: We want to text chat over the Interwebs, how can we do it?

mIRC: Choose me!

pIRCh: or use me!

ircii: Terminal based? choose me!

Microsoft: What can we do to get into this market? I know! let's create Comic Sans!

Palantir plots NHS skills drive for its controversial data platform

Re: Meanwhile...

The cutbacks are nothing to do with "AI" in the sense of a general GenAI CoClaudeGrokPilotGPT style LLM replacing desk jobs, it's because there's a lot of duplication of effort across different, non-clinical organisations (ICB's, NHS England, DHSC) which, aside from the duplicated costs in Pay, causes operational inefficiencies.

That said, everyone I deal with across the local ICB and NHSE are highly supportive, experienced, skilled, knowledgeable people who do not deserve to lose their jobs.

NHS left with sick PCs as suppliers resist Windows 11 treatment

Re: LTSC

The irony is that, even if they are on the LTSC they show up as Windows 10 on an audit and count against us for DSPT compliance. Network segmentation for these devices is the best way to manage this problem (some of these devices can't even be patched, ever, because that would constitute the Registered Device being changed and, therefore, fall out of Registration compliance and cease to be a certified Medical Device).

Our fantastic Medical Devices team do work well with us and it drives them mad too.

Most medical device companies typically operate on a 5-10 year refresh cycle

We have this situation at the moment. Some of the manufacturers do have devices/software that can run on Windows 11/Server 2022 but they can't sell them to us/upgrade existing software until MHRA issue a Medical Device Registration and that can take years.

This is one of the reasons NHS England negotiated a roughly 50% discount with Microsoft on the Win 10 ESU at the last minute having previously said they wouldn't (wanting, instead, to push us to upgrade rather than be lazy and throw taxpayer's money at the ESU)

Healthcare lags in Windows 11 upgrades – and lives may depend on it

There are some bits of kit, especially Certified Medical Devices, that you literally cannot patch because then the OS will not be the one that was accredited so the device falls out of Certification and can't be used.

Yes, this does count against us for the out of date OS count

Techie ended vendor/client blame game by treating managers like toddlers

Re: Who to blame?

This is even more fun when there are two Vendors involved in the system. It's basically that meme of the three Spider-Man cartoon characters all pointing at each other.

Vendor 1: It's definitely an issue with Customer network

Vendor 2: No, we checked that, it's definitely an issue with Vendor 1 widget

Customer: It's definitely one of you two. Or if it isn't it's IT's fault

Me: Girls, girls, you're both ugly. Here's some evidence I gathered earlier (wireshark, netflow etc...) now let me know if I can help you with anything else.

Microsoft crams Copilot AI directly into Excel cells

Re: Creative

At just north on 4m USD to roll this out across our user base (yep, I know not everyone needs it but they all apparently need it because AI) I doubt shareholders (in my case the taxpaying public) would like the numbers regardless of how much Steroid Clippy hallucinates them.

Voice, vision, pen: Oh dear. Windows boss says Microsoft is again reshaping OS

Just have done with the charade

Just call the bloody thing CopilotOS and save the marketing money.

Sorry but Keyboard/Mouse interface aren't going to be replaced by "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that" because life isn't an R&D lab. My work lappy is a hybrid touch screen laptop and very heavy "tablet" if you do the screen 360 flip thing. My previous laptop was the same. I have remembered that I could do touch things on the screen fewer times than I can count on my toes and I have the regulation 10 of those.

Windows RT is not a thing (and never really was) for a very good reason. As one commentard has already mentioned "those that cannot remember the past..." well they'll actually probably purchase a 3 year ESA and tell the C-suite that "We got that AI you wanted"

"Recovery" can't come soon enough.

Hyundai: Want cyber-secure car locks? That'll be £49, please

Re: Game Boy-like gizmo worth around £20,000

It'll probably run DOOM. Then again so could the car. Oooh. Idea for the next OTA software update!

Exif marks the spot as fresh version of PNG image standard arrives

Re: Re:MNG issues

Don't get me started on .webp

*shakes fist at cloud, mostly google cloud*

Re: What the web needs

Is obviously a merciless file format pronounced "ming"

There's no international protocol on what to do if an asteroid strikes Earth

Didn't we solve this in 1979?

All we need is a triangular spaceship that shoots little white dots!

Pew pew pew!

Microsoft's plain text editor gets fancy as Notepad gains formatting options

Re: Wordpad

There's a perfectly cromulent word for this and it is often used on this esteemed site. They (arseholes) have Enshittified Notepad which I have used to turn "Documentation" into CnV Config.

Copilot Enshittification incoming.

Notepad++ FTW I still hope.

Cook'd: Judge says Apple lied to court in Epic case, asks Feds to mull criminal charges

Re: Wow.

Hear Here, as the Audiologist's sign says.

Palantir suggests 'common operating system' for UK govt data

"optimize procurement, among other things."

I can assure you that anything that centralises Procurement into a one-size-fits-all Blob/Procurement IT system will do exactly the opposite of optimisation.

Currently going through end of financial year contract renewals for critical IT Infrastructure licencing and I can tell you this is why Daddy drinks.

Patch procrastination leaves 50,000 Fortinet firewalls vulnerable to zero-day

"internet-connected toothbrushes " should have been the end of that story right there.

Best thing I have with "Fortinet" written on it is a keyring bottle opener I got from an InfoSec trade show years ago.

Edited to add the bottle opener is not internet-connected.

Dude, you got a Dell, period! RIP XPS, Inspiron, Latitude, Precision

Dell Pro Max Premium sure is easier to say than XPS. Well done Marketing.

Also, thanks Dell, just as we're trying to do a multi-organisation hardware convergence by comparing catalogues.

Eight things that should not have happened last year, but did

Technically, Crowdstrike didn't have an outage, they just caused everybody who used their product to have an outage. Totally different, you see, as anyone responsible for their uptime 9's will tell you.

NHS major 'cyber incident' forces hospitals to use pen and paper

Re: Not the first

To answer your first question: Yes.

There's a lot of work across local Integrated Care Boards (the new CCGs it seems) to try to do more joined up thinking. However, each organisation (GP, Local Hospital Trust, wider Hospitals Group) are individually funded and run with different levels of Technical Maturity/Technical Debt and different clinical priorities which directs or diverts funding/attention. I can say that it's getting a lot better with, for example, NHS England, paying for Windows E5 licences so everyone can at least get MDE on the desktop and server environment and provide assistance from the NCSOC. Everything else is the wild west.

Re: while scheduled procedures are canceled

With respect, no they wouldn't. The issue is simply that, when the IT system(s) stop working, Business Continuity (going back to pen and paper in many cases) slows down the process back to those Matronic levels which means not as many patients can be seen, tested and treated in any given timeframe so the backlog, usually in Critical Care settings, increases and can get to a point where the A&E doors are closed. Cancelling non-urgent care, as bad as it is, protects the Critical Care services from getting so clogged up they need to shut.

China starts building world's largest fully steerable radio telescope

Re: the reasoning.

Biggest! More Big than theirs!

The workplace has become a surveillance state

Re: Motion detection

When I'm in the office I have the same issue but the motion sensors are hidden behind pipework and climate control units so actually have a limited field of view. This means often needing to stand up and wave like crazy (not in a calm, Jedi, 'credits will do fine' way, like 'help, someone's drowning over here' kind of way). I'm assuming this is my employer just checking that we're still alive. No need to pay the 'leccy bill if the employees are dead, I suppose.

Meeting about meetings

I thought that particular nonsense was bad before the Covid Times but now every meeting is a virtual one it's so much worse. I swear people now think everyone else is just a floating head on a video screen and don't exist outside of that context.

Another 'major cyber incident' at a UK hospital, outpatients asked to stay away

Re: paper records

Aside from anything else, there are IT systems required for tracking paper records. Yep. I know.

Almost 20 years ago I remember seeing paper records strewn all over the place as a building that was sold off to be turned into flats was just abandoned. I was just there to pull out the network kit. I hope to FSM that those records had been digitised first but I have my doubts.

Re: Whether or not ...

We know that Healthcare is being targeted by Nation States. The main issues in critical infrastructure/services is that you don't get downtime to patch the huge IT infrastructure estate (even though NHS England require resolution in 14 days or SIRO risk signoff) so can remain vulnerable for months.

Anything InfoSec: they need to get lucky once, we need to get lucky all the time.

A year after Broadcom took control of VMware, it's in the box seat

From information I've gathered from similar organisations, the Broadcom licensing change has increased costs up to 1300%, mostly around orgs with smaller VMWare footprint than my lot. The thing is that it's those smaller footprint orgs that are being gouged that are more easily able to migrate so Broadcom may be only getting a very short term boost here.

China-linked group abuses Fortinet 0-day with post-exploit VPN-credential stealer

The most useful thing with "Fortinet" written on it that I have is a keyring bottle opener I got from a trade show donkeys ago. As far as I'm aware it's not had a CVE attached to it since I got it.

Watchdog reluctantly blesses Vodafone-Three merger – with strings attached

Cool. Just as we're looking to refresh/renew our Vodafone mobile contract. This will definitely not shit that right up at all, oh no.

Cisco combines Meraki and Catalyst into single wireless brand

Re: And the Enshittification continues...

Yes, the weasel words do stand out "roughly, for included value, we are not increasing costs."

"Yes I know we're forcing you to buy two bottles of champagne and a whole iberico ham in order to allow you to buy your tin of beans and supermarket sliced bread but, I think you'll find, it works out no more expensive than if you'd have bought them all seperately"

Glad I'm sorting my Cisco EA now.

UK watchdog hints Voda-Three merger will likely pass

Re: How about approval only if...

Well, that's my hope if this deal goes through. I use 3 for my personal phone and Vodafone for the work device. I can usually get some signal on one or the other, especially on the train, but never both at the same time.

Of course what we'll actually get is them both being equally shit at the same time.

We know what Musk will probably dress up as this year: A victim

Re: It’s amazing…

Yep, as long as you have in inexhaustible supply of Lawyer Tokens, the inevitable can be delayed indefinitely.

Cloud repatriation officially a trend... for specific workloads

Re: Captain obvious

Absolutely the eternal bouncing between CapEx and OpEx. Especially when shit you've bought on CapEx eventually moves to the OpEx book when support/subscriptions run out.

We're currently spending a six figure sum to maintain a DR instance we don't (and hopefully won't) use and, naturally, that's rightly catching the eye of the beancounters.

Currently having sector-wide discussions on Cloud Adoption and, as one of the few in the group who actually have a significant (Redmond) Cloud presence, I'm waving my arms above my head screaming Noooooo!

Personalized pop-up was funny for about a second, until it felt like stalking

"Curt" The Regomiser strikes again!

Top tip: "Is it Banter?" -> Is your colleague in tears (Y/N)? -> If Y, are they tears of laughter (Y/N) -> If N then you are an utter Curt and should probably have a word with HR.

NHS drops another billion on tech in the hope of finally going digital

Re: Place your bets...

This is a Procurement Framework model rather than a Big Plan like the old, doomed, NPfIT.

No, this will fail because the NHS organisations who need the kit and software don't have the Capital funding to afford to buy it.

NHS dangles £1.5B carrot to be outfitted with everything from PCs to printers

Re: Costs

Problem is, if you're Procuring on these frameworks north of 50K you have to run a maxi-comp. Massive pain in the arse.

Public clouds are 'dirty' about VMware's on-prem push, says Broadcom CEO Hock Tan

Re: "all you guys are very important to the cause"

Fighting against a "Cloud First" strategy has been a difficult experience but nice to be proven right (again)

Japan stops measuring train crowding by ease of newspaper readership

Just use the old Japanese one

You can call it "The Evening Standard Standard" or just "The Standard Standard" for short.

Remember Nokia? Amazon's lawyers do, in patent infringement suit

across The Pond people don't have the same meaning

Over in Leftpondia they don't have the same Bankruptcy laws either, AFAIK, so the definition is not really translatable. Oh wait, I can translate "Nokia didn't invent the iPhone"

Post-CrowdStrike, Microsoft to discourage use of kernel drivers by security tools

I thought the issue was they did test the file before release and it tested OK, but they hadn't properly tested the testing software because it didn't test properly. The Friday thing is unforgivable, absolutely.

AI models face collapse if they overdose on their own output

Hang on, I think I know this one!

Doesn't it all end up with everything being pictures of crabs?