Posts by Glen 1

UK and Japan agree to free trade deal that excludes data localisation requirements

Re: 2nd?

The EU, when it acts as one, is a superpower.

If it ever manages to grow a spine, that is. (see GDPR and safe harbour)

Re: But this is the point

I dunno, given some of the high profile resignations in the Civil Service, there are at least *some* people for whom integrity isn't just marketing BS.

Of course those people are no longer in the Civil Service, so....

... and hope the other side still takes us seriously without the backing of the world's 2nd largest economy.

Vinyl sales top CDs for the first time in decades in America, streaming rules

For me, there are *whole genres* of music I would have never heard of if not for the "Continue playing songs like this after last song" thing on Spotify.

Kinda reminds me of the early days of internet file sharing where people would pad the file names with similar bands to aid discovery.

Hell, I'd never heard any Iron Maiden till the Carmageddon II soundtrack... These were the days where game music was extra tracks on the game CD, so you could play it on a regular player.

Radio used to be the primary means of new music discovery, "The rock and Metal show" on 12am on a weds isn't going to feature on peoples radars unless they seek it out... or come across it while channel hopping for music to fall asleep to.

Even when Kerrang Radio launched, it seemed to deteriorate into one sub-genre (emo pop punk), which in itself is fine, but when its gets difficult to differentiate between bands, let alone songs, that gets old fast. Add to that the fact you get at most 2 songs in a row without interruptions and you start wondering what the hell are you dong with your life.

Auto generated playlist with "continue playing" at the end, and suddenly a lot of the frustration goes away. A mix of the familiar and the new (to the listener).

Typical '80s IT: Good idea leads to additional duties, without extra training or pay, and a nuked payroll system

Re: whoops - wrong disk

"whoops - wrong disk"

I read that title and flinched.

NASA puts an Astrobee to work sweeping the ISS. Yep, floating cube good at taking pics and hanging around....

Re: Bacronym Creator

Surely that would be Яetrofuturism?

or possibly even Яetroꟻuturism?

Adtech's bogeymen are tracking everything - even your web visits to mental health charities, claim campaigners

Re: Too much javascript

That only has an impact where you have a monetary relationship with the site directly.

With somewhere like el Reg, how do the writers get paid? Remember, it's the *advertisers* that pay their wages, and its the advertisers that have their 3rd party domains serving up ads. You could do some proxy stuff, where el Reg acts as a MITM between the ad server and the reader, but that would cost a bunch of resources that are currently unnecessary - not to mention potentially falling foul of some privacy laws and defeat many ad blockers.

You say you don't want to give your data? That makes you *substantially* less valuable as a reader to advertisers, and the writers company paying the writers gets paid accordingly.

All in all, not allowing 3rd party assets currently breaks a lot of stuff (CDNs, embedded YouTube vids etc)

That said, I largely agree with you. I feel there should be mechanisms for specifying which domains are in use for *code* and which are for content - Think NX-bit but for browsers. Email clients (should have) learned years ago that arbitrarily loading/running remote content is dumb as hell.

Web browsers need to be a lot smarter. Same-origin policy was a good start. Maybe specifying a whitelist? We are already bombarded by "please enable notifications" pop overs on lower quality sites, having 3rd party JS disabled *by default* would force web folks to be a lot less obnoxious about what they throw at us.

Q: How does hydrogen turn into a metal? A: Hang on a second, I need to train my AI supercomputer first

Re: Beware The Gosling effect

"borders on the ridiculous."

No more ridiculous than requiring space to have curvature in "another dimension" to explain gravity. Yet relativity (and spacetime) is one of the most rigorously tested theories we have. Hell, GPS has to account for it to work.

Quantum teleportation describes the *observed* phenomenon, much like dark energy and dark matter describe others. The theories as to *why* are... less clear

Remember, the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment was a *critique* of the superposition theory (Copenhagen Interpretation). After all, saying the cat is somehow dead *and* alive "borders on the ridiculous". Yet it matches the observed results. (the superposition, not the cat thing -YKWIM)

*shrug* There are bigger brains than yours (or mine) working on it.

Tech ambitions said to lie at heart of Britain’s bonkers crash-and-burn Brexit plan

Re: State Aid? Trump??!

" But the incredibly entitled, selfish, worst part of America keeps wanting inbred fools like Trump, because they think it serves their purposes whilst they get destroyed by the very powers that they think they control."

Brexit in a nutshell. As a UKian, one sympathises.

Re: State Aid????

Is that because you don't consider the USA to be a democracy?

Re: Sigh

Up to a point, yes. Those are certainly noble intentions.

However, when a waft of the breeze of oversight makes it seem like its mostly lobbyists and party donors (whatever side) with their snout in the trough, one can't help be a little cynical. I mean, we *HAD* our version of DARPA. It was called DERA and was spun out as a private company, and is now known as Qinetic.

Look at what happened to academia in the wake of the referendum. As EU research funding started to dry up, I've seen friends leave the country chasing the jobs/funding. I'm talking phds, not canteen staff. I don't know what the current state is (the people who might tell me are no longer in the country), but the idea that this government gives a crap about research... I don't buy it.

Re: well maybe

How do you tax a transaction happening in another country? Outside your jurisdiction, and ultimately none of your business?

You cant. What you *can* do is put taxes on the end result as it comes into the country. Which is paid for by *UK* businesses/consumers.

but moving a call centre to "Elbonia"? Where is the transaction the *UK* can tax? Any attempt to do so will result in reciprocal Taxes set up damaging our own industries.

At what point is it moving (what you perceive to be) a UK job abroad, and not *importing* a foreign job from elsewhere. Look at Japanese car companies massively pulling out of the UK. Are *those* UK jobs? Or are they *Japanese* jobs that the companies no longer wish to outsource?

What is good for the goose and all that.

Re: Well it's kind of a good idea but...

#1 is the key thing for me.

Never in my living memory have I known such a transparently corrupt shower of shit be in charge.

We have racist dog whistlers barking at the migrant boats crossing the channel like a little dog yapping at the postman. Meanwhile our "owners" are warming their feet on the open fire of taxpayer money.

Tens (hundreds?) of millions are siphoned off to the incumbent's friends and associates, PPE contracts going to party donors for equipment that had expired. To ferry companies without ships.

Lets not beat around the bush. This is unashamedly a cash grab. How much can they milk from us (oh, but not *their* friends) before the next election.

I hope I am proved wrong.

The Honor MagicBook Pro looks nice, runs like a dream, and isn't too expensive either. What more could you want?

Re: Decimated

"prefix with a mathematical meaning"

I'll be sure to remember that this coming December.

Darknet market's peacemaker sentenced to 11 years in prison

Re: About your appeal ...

One wonders if there is an equivalent to "by Royal appointment" for the drug dealers supplying the houses of parliament.

Lets ask Gove.

Here's some words we never expected to write: Oracle said to offer $10bn cash, $10bn shares for TikTok US – plus profit share promise

Re: Keeping it local

I know what it means. Do you?

Wiki

However, in this case I was referring to you, personally.

*You* are the person who used the words "Nasty little nationalist" and "Racist" to describe a Scot critical of the "English Empire". Irony, it would seem, is not just a thing like Goldy and Bronzy.

Calling someone "insane" for questioning the wisdom of selling off our national infrastructure... as if wanting value for money is alien to you - or something that a private company can be absolutely trusted with Honest 'guv. Yeah, I'd say you were a foaming-mouthed cloud cuckoo-lander (apologies to the non-neurotypical). But given parts of your post history, that checks out. Like I said, I should have known it was you.

Re: Keeping it local

"Because they are insane"

Glass houses, old bean.

*looks at username*

Oh but of course, I should've known.

Adobe yanks freebie Creative Cloud offer – now universities and colleges have to put up or shut up

Re: Good

"jack up tuition"

In England, there is a limit set as to how much Universities can charge. So of course, many (most? all? - its been a while) charge this amount.

Which is partly why many institutions are desperate to attract foreign students, as those rules don't apply to them.

Be very afraid! British Army might scrap battle tanks for keyboard warriors – report

I think assumption is that they will be taken out either from the air, or with manpad type rocket launcher.

In this sort of clear cut tank-is-the-enemy war, we are already the point where if you can detect it, you can stand off several tens of miles and put a bomb/shell through it. With the bonus that you cant ECM a shell.. Tanks are quite tricky to hide while on the move, and are little better than a static gun emplacement when stopped.

The hard part is identifying proper targets. Is that group of people over there harmless or a threat?

However, a "Cyberwarrior" can cripple C&C systems with anything from spearfishing a higher up, guesstimate troop movements and number by keep an eye on the procurement websites, or at a push, hack a contractor and get complete technical data for one of their best fighters. Y'know, what Russia and China have been doing to us for years. No tanks required.

That's before we talk about the woeful state of civilian infrastructure security.

RasPad 3.0 converts Raspberry Pi 4 to a tablet – be prepared for some quirks

Re: Usage Case

.. or use an old/cheap phone/tablet as the remote?

Once the controls are web based, you can control them from anywhere.

Including stood right next to it.

If you didn't want to go the web route (no pun intended), you can SSH into it, or use a VNC session.

Firewall/access control as necessary.

The Viking Snowden: Denmark spy chief 'relieved of duty' after whistleblower reveals illegal snooping on citizens

Re: Corruption,... again

"probably doesn't extend further than everyone's own tribe"

Indeed, and with the internet, ones tribe is so much bigger, but so are the "others",

Case in point, this site (these forums) over the years has developed it's own culture. Healthy cynicism of hyperbole while quite happy to cheer on success. Holding knowledge and expertise in high regard ("boffinry"), while having disdain for the manglement culture of getting paid more than the actual experts for other people's work.

However, In recent years, it seems to have been infected by... whats the right word... Daily Mail types? No, that implies political affiliation. Dude Bros? People who make veiled homophobic/transphobic/racist comments under the umbrella of "snowflakes". You see it in some of the "name change" articles that have popped up recently. I *don't* mean the "Well that's jolly inconvenient" type posts, they go further than that. The folk who think trans or non white folk are the "other". "PC Brigade" or some other epithet.

I first noticed it around *here* during the Brexit debate. There is (was) a debate to be had, but it just came down to "IS NOT", and "IS SO - SOVRINTEEE!" Many of us would craft a well reasoned response going point by point with links to sources, but would just be dismissed as propaganda. Quite an effective response, as trolls go.

No, I'm not new to the internet. You see this kind of crap on Facebook and Twitter all the time. I am however, dismayed to find that attitude encroaching *here*.

I read some of those posts and was reminded of the guy on the soapbox:

Don't be a sucker (clip)

Epic move: Judge says Apple can't revoke Unreal Engine dev tools, asks 'Where does the 30% come from?'

Re: Is it 30% across the board?

As with other progressive taxes - The ones at the top don't see it as those less able paying less, they see it as *them* paying *more*...

Along with cries of "Why should *I* be penalised for being more successful?"

See also that Question Time segment where a bloke earning £80K (top 5% of earners in the UK) thought of himself as "not even top 50%" (median income in UK is about £25k)

Link

Sidenote: sort of how Epic themselves only charge Unreal Engine royalties after the first $1 million of revenue.

CREST exam cheat-sheet scandal: New temp chairman at UK infosec body as lawyers and ex-copper get involved

Re: Why is that good?

The willy waving comes from being *smug* about being self-taught, and a certain level of arrogance from not having to *pay* someone else to teach them.

If you can convince a company you know what you are doing, you don't *need* Industry certs/degree/ A-levels/GCSEs. The problem is that the hiring companies *themselves* often don't know what they are doing, so use certs as a proxy for measuring ability/performance.

So some companies rely on certs. They are trusting a cert company that the box ticking exercise is legit, so they can do *their own* box ticking exercise in HR/Legal.

--

Remember, the object of the game is to convince someone to pay *you* a lot of money.

Cert companies want you to pay *them* money, so they market the certs:

a) to *companies* to convince them that folk with these certs know what they are doing

b) to *you* stating that these companies will pay top dollar for people with those certs.

Your certificate buys you marketing budget with your prospective employers. If you don't need that, you don't need the cert.

Apple hits back at Epic, says Fortnite crew wants a 'free ride' on fees: Let the app store death match commence

Re: Serve at the pleasure of King Jobs

*Ahem*

https://altstore.io/

for however long it lasts, anyway.

Re: Serve at the pleasure of King Jobs

Is it within Apple's terms of service to sideload apps bought elsewhere? Do they try to pull legal shenanigans against such people? If there an Apple equivalent of F-Droid or SlideMe/Aptoide?

Epic is big enough they could turn around and go this route. No 30% for you (either of them).

Re: Compare

"Apple and Google are providing the screens..."

Do you expect Ford to get a 30% cut of Uber's revenue?

Can you imagine if Microsoft tried to charge Steam 30% for every game it sold on the windows platform? Its turtles all the way down, and they all want a percentage.

The app stores should get *something* for the services they offer, but saying, in effect, "We *own* your customers" is outright sinister..

So long, Top Gun... AI software waxes US F-16 pilot's tail 5-0 during virtual dogfight drills

So you're saying it would be easier to let the AI have control of the aircraft to provide extra "assistance" to to aim? Current off-bore targeting tends to be focused on missiles.

Hell, having RCS thrusters / Viffing / Canards to point and shoot while stalled would make some high-G manoeuvres unnecessary. (Think B5 Starfighter) Altitude permitting to recover, of course.

I dunno, autopilot is a thing. If they don't have macro hotkeys like "perform high-G blackout manoeuvre and don't crash/die until I come round" then are they even trying?

I would have thought "aim bots" would have been in use since the 90's and possibly before then. Remember, they had laser guided bombs in 1968 (Vietnam). Not to mention radar assisted guns in the 40s.

My point being that software like this would just be an extension of those systems, and thus usable on an F-35.

There is an old saying, "If you're not cheating, you're not trying"

Obligatory XKCD

Aw, Snap! But you should see the other guy – they're in dire need of a good file system consistency check

Re: Replacement PCI bus service

"I'm here all week"

Sounds about right for UK rail services.

Re: Rocket science or crash

TBF, how many hardware (or crappy 3rd party driver) problems has windows taken flack for over the years.

Pass that Brit guy with the right-hand drive: UK looking into legalising automated lane-keeping systems by 2021

Re: Just what they want.

"end of private car ownership"

Nah. People enjoy driving (sometimes). Being able to set it to auto for the boring bits is useful, but being at the mercy of taxis will not fly for commutes (imagine the cost alone). Besides, the eventually mandated auto-drive will be driving *safely* and *legally*. Judging by the current state of motoring, that would be unacceptable to many.

"Then home ownership, it's what the government want after all."

The gov *wants* private home ownership. As in, they want private companies/their mates to own *your* home. The government (or local council) owning houses (eg for homeless and unemployed or otherwise disadvantaged) is *socialism*.

<sarcasm>We can't have that. Can we?</sarcasm>

I thought the point of those was to slow you down slightly so by the time you got to where the traffic jam *was*, it had (hopefully) cleared.

IIRC, Cameron wanted to *raise* the speed limit on motorways.

Please stop hard-wiring AWS credentials in your code. Looking at you, uni COVID-19 track-and-test app makers

Re: Nope

"you put reading material online."

Given how many lecturers make money by writing the text books, make them required reading, then periodically change things so graduates can't sell them to this years intake... I foresee a fair bit of pushback in the transition to online only.

Of course, this is easily defeated by buying one copy for the whole class, scanning it, then distributing the PDF - to which the counter is to have the book as a requirement for the written exams, with no devices allowed... but I digress.

(Sorry for the run-on sentences.)

How do you solve a problem like Privacy Shield? US and EU policymakers kick off discussions

Re: gimlet gaze

*double checks*

Nope, It was Reaper Man. My bad.

gimlet gaze

"gimlet gaze"

'You mean like that Dwarf who runs the delicatessen on Cable Street?'

- Feet of Clay, PTerry

Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced techie is indistinguishable from magic

TIme Crisis

As a wee nipper on my Holls, I was spending as much pocket money as i dared on the Time Crisis arcade machine. (light Gun pew pew - with recoil!)

I had gotten further in the game than ever before, but this arcade machine was near a window, and during sunset, the sun was at such an angle that it blinded the sensor along the left edge of the screen. That didn't matter during most of the game, except near the end, where any bad guys along that edge became unkillable.

The only thing you could do was use a grenade as an AoE weapon. So I used the one I had, then died in the next section having no more grenades. Put more money in, used my single (new) grenade again. Repeat until I ran out of money;.

*shakes childhood fist at the sun*

America's largest radio telescope blind after falling cable slashes 100-foot gash in reflector dish

Re: Not sure?

He's been trying to give it up, bit it's been one of those nights...

Firefox maker Mozilla axes a quarter of its workforce, blames coronavirus, vows to 'develop new revenue streams'

Re: You know,

One-off fees only work if the software doesn't change much.

That purchase money only pays wages for a finite amount of time. The business is maintained by getting people to buy *again* to keep upgrading. (Think how Office and Photoshop used to be)

Otherwise, it would have to be a subscription service. (Like how Office/Adobe creative suite is *now*)

Overbudget and behind schedule, UK's Emergency Services Network reaches 500th base station milestone

Sort of like OpenReach for mobile?

I mean, the principle is sound, but historically, you have politicians flip flopping between nose-in-the-trough pork-barrel spending and cut-everything-except-their-own-wages spending.

Pen Test Partners: Boeing 747s receive critical software updates over 3.5" floppy disks

Re: King's Quest

Its not the download that causes the teeth gnashing, its not beginning the download until you try to play the game.

First alligators, then dogs, now Basil Fawlty is trying to standardise social distancing measures

Re: Standards

Depends if it had the Lucas alternator...

I got 99 problems, and all of them are your fault

Re: It sometimes works the other way

There is definitely a question of how much is it *actually* worth to you.

If you can manage tethering to a phone for a day or two, go for it.

If you are hosting client's stuff, or reselling the connection to a client site... An auto response email ain't gonna cut it.

Re: It sometimes works the other way

"Unfortunately, the vast majority of consumers are becoming used to this treatment and just accept it."

Partly because the customers just go for the cheapest, or near cheapest. Customer service only matters to customers if they need to use it.

Compare Andrews & Arnold to TalkTalk.

Intel NDA blueprints – 20GB of source code, schematics, specs, docs – spill onto web from partners-only vault

If I were AMD, I'd be watching the aftermath *very* closely in case some of the issues are not unique.

Apple re-arms the iMac with 10th-gen Intel Core silicon

Re: I believe....

Pros for x86_64:

• Playing AMD and Intel off each other
• the cost of moving in terms of software
• parralells/bootcamp compatibility (windows boot)

Pros for Arm:

• Apple has already designed similar chips
• Not paying for Intel/AMD profit margin
• Power/performance for portable devices
• Differentiation - difficult to make direct comparisons to competitors (eg MBP vs XPS 13)

"loss of some serious professional software big names and products."

Given how big Apple is in certain industries, the software for those industries *will* follow. Besides, Apple has a track record of ensuring transitions such as these go smoothly. I wouldn't be surprised if in many cases all you needed to do was to change the compilation target.

"Pretty pokey" in this case meaning "Has a lot of poke"

NSA warns that mobile device location services constantly compromise snoops and soldiers

"live like some sort of luddite"

Thus highlighting you as a person of interest.

High paying job, but no phone? That's interesting. Routinely encrypt email (PGP etc), but have no overt background in computing? That's interesting. Only communicate via courier to an internet cafe...

That's the thing about tradecraft, you need to look as "normal" as possible. Including leaked information. Bonus points for compromat consistent with any cover you're trying to cultivate.

Mind you, If the impression you are trying to cultivate is "Security professional", then *not* raising those flags is suspicious.

Dynabook Portégé X30L-G: So light, you might even forget about its terrible keyboard

Re: "...a capable machine for the road warrior..."

"Masked Twat.

(The last one needs a bit of work)."

Unmasked Twat

FTFY

See also: seatbelts, condoms, hardhats etc

If you're on invite-only tech-testing scheme, take care with Amazon's Alexa-powered answer to Google's Glass

Re: Go right ahead. "...take care..." is an understatement.

Folk used to say the same about mobile phones.