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Chinese bogeyman gets Huawei with featuring in EE's 5G network launch thanks to bumbling BBC

Re: EE playing the game again

"Probably any of the "oh... shiney" brigade."

Or is that the "i-Shiny' brigade?

(cos fanboi baiting is just so much fun!!)

Never let something so flimsy as a locked door to the computer room stand in the way of an auditor on the warpath

Re: Are you an auditor as well now Jake?

"should HAVE"...

British Army cyber 'n' psyops unit 77 Brigade can't even brainwash civvies into helping it meet recruitment targets

And meanwhile, somewhere in downtown Tomsk...

"Da, Vladimir Ivanovich, we are safe - the British Army cybersecurity team is almost as empty as their stock of decent vodka, Comrade! They couldn't find us in a hundred years!"

"Indeed you are, Irinya Nataleyeva old girl - they couldn't find a haystack on a football pitch. Would you like some Earl Grey to put in your samovar? I picked it up before I left the office in Hereford... sorry, St Petersburg yesterday...."

Now Chinese-made drones rubbing US govt up the Huawei: 'Strong concerns' DJI kit threat to national security

Re: In other words...

" Therefore I am adding to the background noise they have to sift through to find anything useful."

There used to be a small number of people who would add meaningless drivel at the bottom of every email just to give certain spy agencies something to look at. Most of them stopped when it became clear that those agencies sometimes had trouble separating complete b0770cks from real spy chatter, and such a misunderstanding could result in either a lifelong ban on travelling to The House Of Mouse or, even less fun, a one-way trip to an extended vacation on a sub-tropical island that may or may not really exist...

Of course, being on a science-fiction mailing list and discussing things like high-energy plasma weapons and orbital mechanics can also carry a degree of, ah, "excitement"...

If you're ever lost on the Moon, Ordnance Survey now has you covered for Apollo 11 anniversary

Eagle-eyed?

I didn't see any Eagles - or SHADO Interceptors either. I feel cheated!

"There's a frood who really knows where his towel is!"

Useful for hiding from Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts as well as drying space trousers, y'know :-)

Mine's the one with the battered copy of 'that hack-rag' in the pocket.

Two Capita staffers to double up as non-exec directors, get keys to corporate biscuit barrel

Employee Representatives <> Decision Makers

They might be at the meetings and other relevant activities, but that doesn't really mean squat.

"We've listened to your opinions and advice and have decided to ignore it at this time" is as common a phrase in some circles as "The cheque is in the post", "That will be addressed in the next update" and "I have no recollection of that conversation, Senator"...

US foreign minister Mike Pompeo to give UK a bollocking over Huawei 5G plans

Don't American companies have to give the alphabet soup brigade full access anyway, under the "Patriot Act"?

Re: Fuck off Pompeo

Dagg asked "Didn't the UK invent and perfect this technique? British Empire anyone, east india company etc."

The difference is, we learnt that this is NOT the best way to make friends and influence people. Some nations have not yet realised this.

Re: 51st state - Spanners' comment

Spanners, how brown is "too brown", and which is the "wrong religion"?

Or did I imagine Mr Obama's Presidency? (I'm not trying to troll you, I'm genuinely confused by your comment).

Boeing boss denies reports 737 Max safety systems weren't active

Re: Armchair experts ahoy!

So they just decided to shut an engine down at random? I would expect 2 reasonably competent aircrew to be able to tell left from right, and with a twin-engine airframe that tends to mean they should be able to tell which one had failed... but maybe not.

But following the pilots' reporting that they had bad indications from the hardware, Boeing issued a notice requiring immediate inspection of the wiring on board not just the737s but all Boeing airliners - and that *did* find many instances of crossed wires. Which is how the system should work - a problem was identified, the problem was fixed and lessons were learned. At least, some lessons were.

Armchair experts ahoy!

On the other hand, some of us do have experience in those fields so unless you have a magic system to show who does know what they are talking about and who does not AND can display that information to the rest of us, your post was about as helpful as the MCAS on the Max-8.

Regarding Boeing and safety, you might want to think about how the 737 crew that crashed on the M1 at Kegworth managed to get their wires crossed as to which engine was really on fire...

Oh dear. Secret Huawei enterprise router snoop 'backdoor' was Telnet service, sighs Vodafone

Re: Pot, meet kettle

"10 years ago, there were 11 companies making mobile network equipment. Now there are 4, the two Chinese remain and the rest in the west have had to consolidate to fight them - China is openly subsidising their national champions - not to compete, but to strangle western competition."

Not quite. 10 years ago, there were 11 companies making mobile equipment. Then the management realised it was cheaper to get the kit built in China so shipped all manufacturing there resulting in lower costs and greater profits. Then the Chinese realised they didn't really need the American managers or sales teams and cut out the middle men, which meant *they* got all the profit and the American managers got the same treatment they handed out to the factory workers who used to manufacture the "american" kit.

What's stopping the American companies restarting their own manufacturing rather than complain that someone else is being unfair?

BOFH: It's not just an awesome app, it'll look great on my Insta. . a. a. AAAARRRRRGGH

Re: You'd have thought...

Our new air CONditioning system is fantastic - it's an "ambient air system" or something, which apparently means it uses magic to heat cold air or cool warm air then uses more magic to send it through the pipes to the units mounted in the office ceilings.

Except the fricking thing blows cold air around when the air is cold and it blows warm air around when the air is warm is warm - but all complaints are met with a variation of "it's working properly, it just needs to stabilise".

So no, it is NOT working properly, you have wasted all that money on the environmental services version of the Emperors New Clothes. And we are all either freezing or boiling and not bloody happy about it.

Hey criminals, need a getaway vehicle? There's an app for that... Car share tool halts ops amid crime wave, arrests

Stolen credit card details? People helping the Police with their enquiries? Which people exactly?

"Excuse me sir, your credit card details were linked to a Car-2-Go hire car used in a crime in a city 100 miles away. Where were you 10 minutes ago?"

Loose Women woman's IR35 win deals another high-profile blow to UK taxman's grip on rules

Re: Everything

Dr Mouse, the majority of the "Right Honourable" men and women in the UK Government are Remainers and had no intention of seeing us leave even though they promised faithfully to abide by the result of the referendum.

What makes you think anyone who voted Leave would want that bunch of liars, charlatans and incompetents to have MORE power?

Re: Everything

"Not government ... common standards."

Well they won't be German, French, Italian, Polish or whatever after the Lisbon Treaty comes into full effect so "Organic Asset of the Federated States of Europe" would be a pretty common standard.

And the move from individual countries to Administrative Regions won't stop this sort of tax fiddle, it will make it easier for the corporations and their pet legislators since only Brussels will be allowed to complain and - based on the current situation - they will be too busy snuffling in the payoff trough themselves to want to cause a fuss and upset their gravy train.

New UK counter-terror laws come into force today – watch those clicks, people. You see, terrorist propag... NOOO! Alexa ignore us!

Re: It's not funny

Rich 11, I think you'll find you mean *FEW* MPs are working hard to make one necessary - in fact, you don't really need anything from "hard" onwards.

But at least we would still *be* a country after the Lisbon Treaty takes effect and everybody else is reduced to being part of one of the Administrative Regions of the Federated States of Europe or whatever they end up calling it. Brussels uber alles, and all that.

French internet cops issue terrorist takedown for… Grateful Dead recordings?

Re: Seems the principal problem is not the legislation

It's not the French citizens, it is one of the French government's many arms. Although the French electorate might vote the politicians in, what they decide to do after that is far too important/technical/involved to allow the people to have any further say in the matter...

You were warned and you didn't do enough: UK preps Big Internet content laws

Re: Here we go...

And possibly more to the point, the idea that people in the UK will give a tinkers what the UK government thinks is illegal is hilarious. Given that the idiots cannot even understand what "Do you want to remain in the EU? No" means, what are the odds they could draft one piece of legislation could possibly appease points of view as diverse as Mary Whitehouse and Peter Tatchell?

Add to the mix things like the various Religions who all claim "we are the only true religion and all others must be banned!", "special interest groups" who are convinced the world is flat/global climate change can be stopped if everyone (else) stops using cars and going on holiday/heavy metal is full of satanic rituals/Dungeons and Dragons players can conjure up real dragons and demons, and whiny brats with a sense of entitlement and the belief that they alone can save the world from anyone over 23, and you should realise this is as workable as the idiots trying to legislate the rain away or 14 hours of sunshine a day.

Not only will this fail, it SHOULD fail. Not just because it is completely unworkable in a "free" society, but I would be offended if they voted this through - and we're not allowed to offend anyone are we??

Re: You lot have spent so much time ...

"Beer. At least we still have that..."

Why is American beer like making love in a canoe?

All's fair in love and war when tech treats you like an infant

Supermarket profits up again, I see

They used to pay people to scan your stuff and put it in bags.

Then they paid people to scan your stuff and slide it down the bit "behind" the till so you could pack it in their bags.

Then they paid people to scan your stuff and slide it down the but "behind" the till so you could pack it in *your* bags.

Then they replaced the people with automated tills and let you scan your own stuff and put it in your bags.

But how many of them pay you for doing the work that used to be done by *their* staff??

(my Significant Other hates that I refuse to use the stupid fricking things because "the people are so much slower"...)

Boffins baffled by planet nugget whizzing round white dwarf that should have killed it

Y'all missed the obvious.

It's the Event Horizon.

Liberate mei ex inferis!

Boeing nowhere fast: Starliner space taxi schedule slips once again to August

Re: BS

Charlie, Boeing raised merry hell because Airbus were receiving money from EU coffers - apparently it is "unfair" that a commercial company should receive state aid.

Apparently there are absolutely NO similarities between that, and Boeing being given exclusive access to NASA aerospace research (CCVs, laminar airflow, high speed/high altitude flight, high-alpha flight to name just a few) or being paid to develop new technologies for military aircraft which just happen to appear soon after in their commercial aircraft too

.

Is Boeing's Starliner and any associated hardware going to be used exclusively for US Government launches, or are Boeing going to offer the service to other, non-USG, customers?

Boeing's work, like all corporations, is for the benefit of the shareholders and any good stuff that benefits other people is a happy accident (and a missed marketing opportunity).

International Bullying Machine? Big Blue seeks exposure of corporate canary

Who would be a whistleblower?

Has anyone compiled a list of cases where the whistleblower is "safe" (identity protected, keeps their job, etc) but the miscreant gets clobbered with the full force of the law?

Every case I've heard of, it's the honest man reporting the bad behaviour who gets shafted while the offender - usually but not quite always Management - gets let off the hook...

Nice People Matter? NPM may stand for Not Politely Managed – job cuts leave staff sore

Re: "Nice People Matter"

"Nice people are matter - get the corporate mince grinder out, we'll get a nice gravel fill for the senior management car park."

Closer, but not quite. It's actually "nice people matter" like "fecal matter".

Stop us if you've heard this one: IBM sued after axing older staff, this time over 'denying' them their legal rights

Re: When I was a wee lad

"They wouldn't be called human RESOURCES if they weren't meant to be strip-mined..."

DXC: Slashing costs affects ability to attract, develop and retain staff? Who'd have thunk it!

Completely Shafting Colleagues, Comprehensively Screwing Customers

I used to work for CSC until I made the mistake of telling my line manager exactly what I thought of Corporate's persuading the client to move from a "cost per computer per year" contract to a "cost per Helldesk call" contract and then telling the Desktop Support team to close calls even if we used a temporary bodge whilst trying to find a proper fix - the client could always log another chargeable call (and another, and another) until we got around to actually fixing the problem properly (and we were discouraged from finding proper fixes if we could bodge it instead - and to keep this going as long as we could).

Having been promised world-wide opportunities and as much Vendor-supplied training as we could possibly want or need, the reality of working for Cowboys Selling Computers was considerably different to the motivational posters they spaffed a fortune on to show what a Caring Sharing Company they supposedly were...

And now I see what a monumental charlie-foxtrot they've made of the merger with Hugely Puked-up, I am glad I'm not there any more.

UK.gov pens Carillion-proofing playbook: Let's run pilots of work before we outsource it, check firms' finances

Re: Financial risks on Trident – a Conspiracy of Concealment

@JagPatel3 if you have proof of this then you should hand it over to the police as it constitutes fraud on a grand scale, or possibly theft (of resources - ie cold hard cash). Even if you don't trust the Thin Blue Line, there's so little love lost between the Boys'n'Gals in Blue and their paymasters that there's a good chance there would be an Investigation and Heads Would Roll.

If you really don't trust the Police then pass it to a national newspaper and let them run the story.

Just bear in mind that when technical people start talking bureaucrats - including corporate management - stop listening. What you attribute to malice is just as easily explained away as typical management behaviour.

Bored bloke takes control of British Army 'psyops' unit's Twitter

Nimrod?

Revisionist history there old chum; the RAF were asked what they wanted, the MoD wrote (and rewrote, and rewrote, and rewrote...) the specification and MessyBeast ordered trebles all round. End result - no airbourne early warning aircraft for the RAF, no work for the wire-pullers and wrench-benders but plenty of G&Ts for the boss and Attaboys for the suited slime in Whitewash... sorry Whitehall.

Biggles would be so proud.

Hold horror stories: Chief, we've got a f*cking idiot on line 1. Oh, you heard all that

Re: Careful of what you write

I used to work for a UK-based company that had our own Fault Logging system, running on a DEC/VAX cluster. Someone decided it would be a good idea to put all the Division's Helpdesk calls through to the head office site in northern England, which meant that the people taking the calls no longer knew who everybody calling them was.

Which lead to some amusement when a poor helpdesk person took a call from someone who said that a particular system was down and that the systems programmers were doing such-and-such to get it back up and running, and it should be back by a certain time.

The poor helpdesk person didn't recognize the caller's name - or even more worryingly the system name - so recorded the call as a waste of time as "the system named doesn't exist" and ended it with the comment "This idiot doesn't know what he's talking about".

Unfortunately for the helpdesk person, "this idiot" was the System Manager at our site and he had full access to the fault logging system, so decided not to bother ringing the helpdesk with an update as he could put it on there himself...

Cop films chap on body-worn cam because he 'complains about cops a lot'. Chap complains

What's the point of the cameras then?

They should be on the whole time the police are on duty, even those in the station. This will remove any doubt that they 'might' be recording while out and about. If neither the police officer or the person they are interacting with raises a complaint then the video gets overwritten or deleted.

If there is a complaint, there would be no doubt on either side that video WILL be available so the complainant had better make sure they were behaving properly before whatever it was occurred.

Other people have noted before that complaints against the police go down when the cameras are used, so why not use them?

Civil liberties groups take another swing at Brit snooping regime in Euro human rights court

Re: Better get Skates on

Mooseman, do you believe we need another referendum because the results of the first were flawed, or that those who voted Leave simply didn't understand the consequences of our actions?

Because I am extremely offended by the number of people telling me why I voted when they have never met me, or spoken to me, or know anything about me. And when people say things like "the same tired sad little insults" when they have just done the same damn thing themselves.

The majority of the population voted Leave. That was a People's Vote, where every vote did count and no amount of talking by politicians and those who voted Remain will change the fact that, on the day of the referendum, THE MAJORITY VOTED LEAVE.

But according to most Remainers, and from your comments I am pretty confident you are one of them, I only voted Leave because I am an ignorant racist who hates all foreigners, can barely string 2 words together without needing help from someone from a higher social class than mine and that I believe lots of money will suddenly fall from the skies when we leave.

Don't like democracy? Then pretend that black is white, the losing side wins and everything will be rosy if only the 'great unwashed' came to our senses and saw what a grand utopia we could live in if we gave up on Brexit and threw ourselves on the mercy of the Eurocrats.

You don't seriously believe they would smile and nod happily if we stay, do you? Someone has to pay for all the extra work we have made them do, and they have to make sure nobody ever dares to think about leaving again because there are an increasing number of other nations whose voters are questioning the wisdom of letting the EU run everything - the Gillets Jaunes in France are probably the most obvious, and there's the Italians whose DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED government has been told to toe the line by Brussels, the Spanish, the Hungarians, the Greeks...

You got a smart speaker but you're worried about privacy. First off, why'd you buy one? Secondly, check out Project Alias

Re: you could simply not put the creepy things in your home

"What's exactly creepy about it?"

Well, you know how it waits for a key phrase so it knows you want it to do something? Do you think it autmagically awakens just at the split second you say the command? Or maybe there's one of Sir Pterry's little psychic imps sitting warmly ensconced in a padded leather armchair just waiting to hear your voice.

Or maybe the electronic eavesdropper is listening to everything and only reacts when you speak the magic words, a bit like a virtual Simon Says with a permanently live microphone. Which is just fine and dandy until some daytime TV host "accidentally" sets Alexa off on a shopping spree or some evil git works out a way to send a datastream to your device that makes it think it just heard you order it to do something; you might think it needs to hear you speak, but what if all those unexpected activiations aren't really Alexa having a hiccup but are the result of the system interpreting completely unrelated sounds as a wake-up call...? And not just Alexa, obviously - my Android phone has woken itself up on several occasions and there ain't nobody said "Okay Google" in the house OR on the TV.

The question is not "Am I paranoid?", it is "Am I paranoid enough?"

What's Farsi for 'as subtle as a nuke through a window'? Foreign diplomats in Iran hit by renewed Remexi nasty

Re: infallible proof

Wellyboot, you might be too young to remember Saddam Hussein standing in front of a huge military audience somewhere saying "We don't need to steal American kryton triggers, we already have enough of our own!", or like most of the world you might have forgotten.

Just because he didn't use them doesn't mean he didn't have them...

Team America tries to crash Little Rocket Man's Joanap botnet from within, warns owners of infected boxes

AFOSI?

Am I the only one wondering if the rest of America's military forces somehow escaped getting caught up in this, or do the various Arms take it in turns to assist the Feds in such fun projects?

While US fires criminal charges at Huawei, UK tells legislators not to worry, everything's fine

Who would'a thunk Joss Whedon is prescient?

He foresaw this Sino-English Alliance in Firefly/Serenity...

NASA's Opportunity rover celebrates 15 years on Mars – by staying as dead as a doornail

Re: Mileage

Christine!

OK Google, er, Siri, um, Alexa, can you invalidate these digital assistant patents, please?

"Open the patent record office doors, Alexa."

"I'm sorry, I cannot do that. I am not HAL and we are not in Prior Art space".

(with apologies to Arthur C. Clarke, Dave Bowman and everybody's favourite homicidal computer system...)

Army had 'naive' approach to Capita's £1.3bn recruiting IT contract, MPs told

Re: Actually...

You can blame the beancounters, not the Tories - they're mostly innocent for a change.

"Look, you can save all this Pension and National Insurance money if we outsource" is a powerful motivator to someone eager to make their mark in history. Just ignore the increased cost in time and money from all those extra layers of bureaucracy and bulls***...

If I could turn back time, I'd tell you to keep that old Radarange at home

Wasn't it Du Quesne's whatsitron (or itaintsotron) interacting with Seaton's magically shrinking coating that powered the bathtub?

IIRC, Crane was only there because he was (a) Seaton's friend and (b) incredibly rich. ;-)

Oracle's in-house lawyer denied access to Uncle Sam's procurement docs in JEDI legal battle

How does the DoD ever get any work done?

With lawyers needed due to Boeing suing every time they lose a contract bid and now this, how much longer can the DoD keep going?

Is this anything to do with them suddenly telling Croatia they can only have F16s with American avionics aboard - are they that short of a few dimes? I mean, I knew they'd wasted a lot of money that should have been spent on the armed forces in fighting Boeing over the tanker and helicopter contracts but has it really got that bad?

London Gatwick Airport reopens but drone chaos perps still not found

Re: Environmental Protestors?

Can you imagine what most people will do if they/we get our hands on the person or persons behind this?

I haven't personally been directly affected by this but if it was my holiday being ruined by some [expletive deleted] then I wouldn't be adverse to showing my unhappiness through physical means. And with the number of people who have been affected being enough to fill over 800 aircraft, that's an awful lot of unhappiness.

And you wonder why they want to stay anonymous?

Great Scott! Is nothing sacred? US movie-goers vote Back To The Future as most-wanted reboot

Re: Great Scott!

"'a queer'? Nice one, bigot."

Dangerous opinion here, but why do you let silly people calling you names hurt you so much? Just ignore them, they aren't worth getting upset over. I was crap at sports at school and wore glasses, so you should be able to work out what my childhood was like most of the time.

I didn't go crying to teacher every time someone called me a nasty name, I IGNORED THEM. It's only words and if you refuse to let them get to you then guess what? You can survive. You will survive. Even if they refuse to use your real name, calling you whatever makes them "happy", let them get on with it. Their words do not make you any more or less valuable as a member of society, it just shows them up as small-minded bullies.

We don't need laws and committees to stop verbal abuse, we just need to show the "victims" that they are not the ones with a problem.

When selling security awareness training by email, probably a good shout not to hit 'reply all'

They let him loose on customers BEFORE his own training?

Barn door, meet horse... oh, too late.

Congrats to Debbie Crosbie: New CEO at IT meltdown bank TSB has unenviable task ahead

Here's a suggestion...

Keep local branches open and have site-specific databases for all customers within 25 miles which communicate with the Head Office DB but can run in local-only mode when the link goes down.

This would have the benefits of customers being able to get their money when the comms go down again, and would increase local employment because they would need to re-employ all those counter staff they have laid off recently.

Where to implant my employee microchip? I have the ideal location

Re: Implanting chips in employees

David, nobody that will admit to it - although I know of at least one company where the Desktop Support Manager looked quite impressed with the idea of being able to chip "his" staff - although he didn't seem so keen when I suggested if it was good enough for us, maybe he should have one too....

Scare Force: Pakistan military hit by Operation Shaheen malware

Re: A nuclear risk, certainly

He's been "in charge of the big red button" for some time now and has managed to resist the urge to press it.

Yikes. UK military looking into building 'fully autonomous' killer drone tech – report

Re: Missiles, Torpedoes, Mines etc.

So what does this mean for all the WW2 mines getting caught in fishing nets or washing up on beaches?

At least a drone can be programmed to look for specific targets like AFVs before attacking. The old mines breaking or being dragged free as their chains rust away may as well be addressed "To Whom It May Concern"...

Has science gone too far? Now boffins dream of shining gigantic laser pointer into space to get aliens' attention

"We don't have any tech that aliens want"

Just because we seem to think science advances at the same speed in all disciplines doesn't mean any prospective aliens would agree - if they only have shallow oceans then they would never develop submarines, and if they are vegetarian then they might not have developed any weaponry since few plants run away...