Posts by Tron

How the collapse of local cloud provider caused biz continuity issues in UK government

"why is it outsourced?"

Whilst this is all true, anything actually run by the government is also crap.

The only dentists I have seen in the last two decades have been in adverts on TV.

Nope. You probably can't cash in by turning your office or farm into a datacenter

If we ignore AI BS for long enough it will (mostly) go away.

By 'ignore' I mean refuse to pay for it. There is no business case for AI given the cost of the data centres. They can add it to stuff against our will, but all they are doing is increasing their overheads with no additional return. Forcing a product on people that they do not want and do not trust is a really good way of losing money. How well are those Clippy AI PCs selling? How popular is W11?

Social media is popular because we do not hand over cash for it. Most people are happy to hand over data for it, and data pays for it. Data will never pay for AI data centres. They cost too much.

Data centres for AI is perhaps the biggest money pit of them all. Only governments will build stuff like this as part of nationalist pissing competitions, because they can filch public money to do it.

Tulips, the South Sea Bubble, railway mania. Next, AI. Stock up on popcorn for the inevitable.

Windows 7 lives! How to keep your favorite fossil running

Gawd bless El Reg for articles like this.

Verily, it is the spiritual successor of MicroMart. Even though you can't swat flies with it.

Hisense QLED TVs are just LED TVs, lawsuit claims

Consequences will never be the same.

What would happen if companies could be sued because they are making fake claims.

AI companies sued because their product isn't actually intelligent.

Cosmetic companies sued because they are just flogging the same old base with some random addition: carrot, chicken placenta, moonbeams.

Cripes.

FDA clears Google watch feature to call 911 if you flatline

Can you customise it?

So that instead of 'user has left the chat room', it posts 'user has kicked the bucket, snuffed it, joined the choir invisible', deletes your accounts and the dodgy pron on your PC, cancels your library card and Amazon chocolate subscriptions, plays the 'Star Wars' theme as loud as it can, and initiates a factory reset. Because one should exit with some panache.

Bybit declares war on North Korea's Lazarus crime-ring to regain $1.5B stolen from wallet

Bounty to be paid in bars.

quote: 'on-chain and in real life'.

Yeah. I'm almost entirely 'on-chain' now too. Meatbags, your world is nothing to me. Akira has achieved pure energy and soon I will too.

Under Trump 2.0, Europe's dependence on US clouds back under the spotlight

Risk varies.

In general, this won't effect most people, or even many companies. There are only some entities that a weaponised GAFA would be an issue for.

The chance of the US government turning off your cloud access, in many cases, is less than a software vendor going TU or a malware attack.

It's the same with MFA and encryption, which needs to be proportionate to risk. 95% of people are not worth the time and effort to hack. There are juicier targets out there. They don't need to strip, lie in their back garden and have a satellite image the number painted on their arse before they can access their Gmail. A password or text message is enough. The remaining 5% should have the good sense to use a more secure service.

So this is a pressing problem for those who may be at risk, but less so for the rest.

That said, I would always advocate the use of local storage over the cloud, proper applications over subscription web services, and no AI over any AI, because you should not really place your stuff at the mercy of anyone else, regardless of who they are. It creates a point of failure that you have no control over and no way of mitigating.

Yeah but...

...there is no talent in govt, so you get lowest common denominator decisions.

Trump and Musk switching America to the dark side highlights the rationale for Pi PCs and for proper non-cloud, non-AI software with applications and data held locally.

I'm sure Musk will eventually get around to 'maximising' US cyberspace by taking back control of data on US turf. Once governments have ruined everything they can offline, they move to ruining it online.

Europe (and elsewhere) will eventually sort itself out, after getting screwed over a few dozen times.

Mega council officers had no idea what they were buying ahead of Oracle fiasco

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

The first thing that anyone thinking about a PhD should be told is that when they get it, almost everyone will consider them overqualified for pretty much everything.

Google binning SMS MFA at last and replacing it with QR codes

What about all the people who don't have smartphones?

Typical tech bro behaviour, unable to see outside their own bubble.

Rather than add a backdoor, Apple decides to kill iCloud encryption for UK peeps

One benefit.

Now we know, anyone offering E2EE in the UK has presumably installed a backdoor for the UKG.

The software UK techies need to protect themselves now Apple's ADP won’t

An A4 pad and biro would be a solution for secure notes.

Of course Apple users would need to find a designer one costing at least £50.

It is useful that the UK government snoop on my electronic communications, in which I repeatedly point out that they are incompetent, corrupt, or both and that they have no talent whatsoever. It saves me the bother of e-mailing them and telling them.

Once they have made themselves as hated as the Tories (who drafted the legislation) by screwing with our internet access in July, they will then run scare stories about kids using VPNs to seek out pron, and ban VPNs.

If your global corporation requires the use of secure encryption to protect trade secrets, you should close your UK facilities and move them somewhere less STASI.

A big AI build has ‘stalled’ and won’t happen this year as funds and GPUs prove elusive

The next generation will be here soon.

Means that the stuff we are installing will be obsolete before they turn it on.

I guess investors don't even read the large print nowadays, and don't bother with all that due diligence stuff.

Still, if they have any money left after investing in the Metaverse and NFTs...

HP ditches 15-minute wait time policy due to 'feedback'

Re: How many other companies are doing the same, but are smart enough not to put it in writing?

I'm sure every government nudge unit has it on page 1 of their 'pivot to digital' playbook. And why nobody ever admits to working for a nudge unit, at least in punching distance of anyone.

UK tax authority eyes £880M overhaul for Northern Ireland trade services

I stopped exporting at Brexit.

It just wasn't worth the extra hassle.

HP deliberately adds 15 minutes waiting time for telephone support calls

Re: Some HP managerdrone will be smugly looking forward to a bonus for this wheeze

HP's Gerald Ratner moment.

Hope their sales just flatline after this.

Medusa ransomware gang demands $2M from UK private health services provider

Malware gangs fit the criteria for terrorism and we should respond accordingly.

I seem to recall Virgin used to run clap clinics, HIV tests etc., so data releases could be a bit more of a problem than changing your debit card.

We meet the protesters who want to ban Artificial General Intelligence before it even exists

You only get one life. It is way too short. Don't waste it.

Nothing they do will have any impact upon governments and militaries using AI because they operate above the law. Foreign countries will just ignore any US ban. The US will not stop developing because foreign countries are. It's the same as those who want to ban atomic bombs. The genie is out of the bag. It's a one way street.

Quit and do something benign and beneficial rather than wasting your lives banging your heads against a brick wall.

HP Inc to build future products atop grave of flopped 'AI pin'

Re: Why would a printer need AI?

quote: Do people still print things?

Yes.

I print invoices, address labels, other paperwork, catalogue pages, proofing copies of books, genealogy documents, photos, recipes and anything else I need a hard copy of.

But not on anything made by HP. Not now, and not in the future.

Still bonus points to them for doing the impossible and making their kit even less attractive, with AI crud.

The brooch was presumably an attempt to do a real version of Star Trek's tap to talk insignia badges. At least they didn't copy the design the way the US 'Space Force' has.

Microsoft boffins promise entire game worlds made from AI slop

Someone might be getting a letter...

...from Warner Chappell Music.

Acer signals 10% laptop price hike in US, blames Trump's extra China tariff

Tariffs are taxes with nationalist spin.

If Americans wouldn't like a tax rise of 1% or 2%, they ain't seen nuthin' yet.

This makes the Republicans the party of (very) high taxation. But the policy of Juche isn't a free ride. Ask a North Korean.

And there is no escaping. If your kit contains so much as a single blob of Chinese solder, the tariffs go on.

Getting stuff through customs may also take a while.

The more JIT your supply chain, the sooner the pain. Once the inventory has gone, the inflationary spiral takes off.

We went through the damage this causes with Brexit. Now it is America's turn. Buckle up.

UK court says Chinese operation must sell Scottish chip biz stake without delay

Government logic.

USB devices: 'critical national infrastructure'.

ARM. Oh, we can flog that.

This open text-to-speech model needs just seconds of audio to clone your voice

Cool.

Do they do software to create lifelike masks, 3D print keys and rob banks too?

Bonus points if you manage to phone Putin or Xi and declare war, bigly, in Trump's voice.

Open source maintainers are really feeling the squeeze

Expecting coders to work for free is not a viable solution in an industry that makes so much money.

Tech companies need to start properly adopting projects. That means they hand over cash to pay coders and fund a co-ordinator. But they don't own or manipulate the project. A rule might require companies to do this for a project that is not a competitor of their own products. People 'adopt' Tigers and guide dogs, supporting them. This would be the tech industry version. The tech industry wastes enough money bribing politicians, building gimmicks and failed projects they just cancel and paying their senior executives shocking amounts. They can afford it. The number of projects they support should be a badge of honour.

Another issue is having skills spread too thinly. Too many distros. Too many similar programs. It is a poor use of limited resources.

Maybe more open source in the universities too.

I would actually like to see a new OS developed, much smaller, much simpler, and inherently more secure. Capable of working on major platforms with file compatibility, a browser with plug ins and a development package that would make it easy for independent third parties to assemble customised software from interoperable components. With one (skinnable) distro. Lots of variables to tweak to personalise it, but just the single core distro. The developing out to the components would be paid for by the tech industry. 3rd parties could build their own additional components and plug ins.

Why AI benchmarks suck

Most tech benchmarks are pointless.

My favourites are the screen ones that you would have to have the visual acuity of a raptor to notice. Pay an extra £200 for a 'better' screen, even though it is a physical impossibility for you as a mere human to see any difference.

They are like those trade shows where everyone pays to attend, everyone gets an award to put on their website, and everyone goes home happy.

UK's new thinking on AI: Unless it's causing serious bother, you can crack on

AI is a perfect fit for local and national government in the UK.

Widely despised, untrustworthy and prone to failure.

One concern: Are these chatbots capable of contracting for services with Oracle?

Incidentally, 'Unless it's causing serious bother, you can crack on' is not a bad plan for tech. We don't want to go down the road of locking people up or banning tech for what they/it might possibly do. You should have to do something criminal before the old bill come after you.

Lawyers face judge's wrath after AI cites made-up cases in fiery hoverboard lawsuit

Re: what are you paying for

quote: "can a lawyer sanctioned by the court for citing ficticious cases turn around and sue his or her AI provider for damages?"

Probably not, as the pushers of AI all include terms and conditions in which they point out that their AI is unreliable, experimental, just a bit of fun, well, bollocks really. Or words to that effect. They just don't say that in the adverts. GAFA has been run by lawyers for years, so their small print arse-covering is likely to work better than any of their technology.

IBM return-to-office order hits finance, ops teams amid push to dump staff for AI

Would any sane person want to work for a company like this?

Surely escape is preferable.

Amusingly, with the tech sector doing its best to sack as many carbon based lifeforms as it can, Glorious Leaders are pushing STEM subjects, so that students can get a job in the ... drum roll ... tech sector.

You'd think they would co-ordinate their manipulation of society better.

Larry Ellison wants to put all America's data, including DNA, in one big Oracle system for AI to study

We need more of this.

We need all these billionaire tech bros to put all of their cash into AI.

Then we wait a bit.

Then we party.

US lawmakers press Trump admin to oppose UK's order for Apple iCloud backdoor

Likely scenario.

If the US cannot legally spy on their citizens, they can use a five-eyes partner like the UK to do it on their behalf using their snooper's charter. That's how the five members place themselves above their own laws, by each snooping on the citizens of other nations and sharing the data. In the case of the UK, they can legally snoop on their own citizens and on everyone else's using their legislation. So they will be quite busy. I hope we are being paid for all this data filching, as Brexit Britain needs every dollar it can blag.

EU plans to 'mobilize' €200B to invest in AI to catch up with US and China

Nationalist pissing competitions.

Used to be battleships and aircraft carriers, then nuclear power, then nuclear weapons, now it is data centres.

Governments wasting our money when they should be spending it on schools, hospitals, reservoirs, sewage systems, and prisons.

UK government insiders say AI datacenters may be a pricey white elephant

There is no business case for the investment amounts that have been mooted.

AI is likely to be a much more expensive version of the Metaverse and NFTs. There is no business case for the investment amounts that have been mooted. Nobody will pay that much extra for tech of questionable value and utility. What is termed 'AI' will find a niche, and LLMs may be used for human/computer interaction, but it is not the gamechanger it is being billed as.

Along with Australia and the EU, the UK is already cracking down on internet/tech access with censorship/surveillance legislation, so investing in tech in these areas may no longer be sensible. Use of tech in the UK may decline, looking ahead, as access to online services and sites is increasingly banned by the state. If you develop here, you should consider an early IP sale to a US company, as much of the next gen of tech may not be reliably legal in these areas on release/maturity.

RIP Raymond Bird: Designer of UK's first mass-produced business computer dies aged 101

' designing one in a barn in Fenny Compton, Warwickshire'

Proper job. Clean rooms are for wimps.

DeepMind working on distributed training of large AI models

Distributed systems are the future.

But AI is not the best use of them. Distributed social media is a much better option than the traditional, centralised approach.

Some workers already let AI do the thinking for them, Microsoft researchers find

ChatGPT, comment on this article in a pithy and thought provoking way.

I'm going for a cuppa.

Does this thing run on a 220 V power supply? Oh. That puff of smoke suggests not

Re: "built to survive minor accidents"

If you are buying an 80s computer to play with, it is worth paying the extra for one that has been 'recapped' rather than just wiped over with a damp cloth.

UK armed forces fast-tracking cyber warriors to defend digital front lines

Quite a small potential labour pool.

quote: educated to GCSE standard and demonstrate graduate-level aptitude.

GCSE is school stuff. Then 2 years at college. Then undergraduate for 3 years. Then you are a graduate.

To have graduate level IT aptitude when you have just done your GCSEs would make you an aspie prodigy.

quote: to carry out counter operations against adversaries.

To enforce UK government censorship of porn surfing and web 2.0, shut down critical blogs, and spy on 'Private Eye'. FTFY.

quote: They'll also have to pass each force's health and fitness criteria

Muscular geeks only need apply.

They do need staff. GCHQ were too crap at their job to reassemble Boris's messages for the Covid inquiry, from the other parties, senders and recipients. Or was that perhaps intentional. Surely not. They couldn't be that corrupt could they?

Legacy systems running UK's collector are taxing – in more ways than one

Paper worked fine.

They used to send out the forms. We'd fill them in and send a cheque. It worked. Then they forced us to do it digitally, which works OK if you can actually get past the security. But now it costs them hundreds of millions of quid a year paid to IT companies. I guess that's 'progress'.

If your tech isn't costing you less and making things easier, it is not a benefit and you should stop using it.

Datacenter energy use to more than double by 2030 thanks to AI's insatiable thirst

Relax. There is no business case for this amount of expenditure.

The US military will do it and have a pissing competition with other nations on who has the biggest datacentre.

The rest of it will go the way of the Metaverse, NFTs and all the rest of the stuff sensible people avoided.

UK Home Office silent on alleged Apple backdoor order

Re: This is not new

It's a reminder that you should not use the cloud. If you want to keep your data and your commercial IP secure, keep it on your own drives/intranet, not connected to the public internet.

Amazon, Google asked to explain why they were serving ads on sites hosting CSAM

Re: Why do they host ads?

Because it is a very large internet. To manually check every page before the ad appeared is not viable, and any other option will allow some incidences where this occurs.

Of course if one fail was enough to get you shut down, we wouldn't have any politicians. That's a pretty good deal. No internet and no politicians.

There is a progressive campaign underway to take full control of the net, ending web 2.0 and other services, especially cross border ones, by governments globally. The UK, which wants back doors in everything, has an internet censorship act kicking in, in July. Others will follow. It is all done under the premise of protecting the children from 'harms' and 'public morality'. The Chinese use the same scam for the same purposes. They are governments, so they will win in the end. Enjoy your internet use whilst you still have it. It will all go soon. It makes you wonder why they are spending so much on AI when there will soon be so much less internet activity. We should be cutting down investment in tech in preparation for the winding down of most internet services.

I was told to make backups, not test them. Why does that make you look so worried?

Re: Key - what key?

It is better to back up without encryption and store the back up securely, than back up encrypted data.

Do Not Say Stuff Like That.

quote: Lionel explained that the company may have gone without backups for a year or two,

Management view: Without being affected? Why are we spending money on something that we haven't actually needed?

UK industry leaders unleash hurricane-grade scale for cyberattacks

Highly amusing.

Instead of fixing the issue, they decided to build a yardstick for it.

It took a year and the pocketing of heaven knows how much money to come up with something that could have been achieved in an afternoon. That's Brexit Britain in a nut shell. Pointless world firsts, we have them! Tremble at our innovation, you foreign Johnnies.

Musk's move fast and break things mantra won't work in US.gov

You are missing the point.

For these guys, it doesn't have to work. Someone else will have to pick up the pieces. It's an American Brexit: Wreck stuff, bank cash, exit stage right before the consequences really hit home.

They seem to have a back-of-a-fag-packet plan of wanting to switch the US from a global power (which does cost a lot of cash, hence the US national debt) to an obese version of Singapore, with a focus on control and revenue. They will engage abroad only if they can profit from it financially (Ukraine's resources) or in acts of vengeance (Iran).

What this does, is offer China a one off opportunity to replace the US on the world stage, if they are willing to pay for it. They wouldn't have been expecting it, and it will be interesting to see if they go for it.

Incidentally, $160bn is a lot of cash for a bloke who basically appeared out of nowhere a few years back. Has anyone ever tracked how Musk made all that cash?

DOGE geek with Treasury payment system access now quits amid racist tweet claims

Possible issue.

The CIA bank their funds for covert ops in discreet places. Musk and his merry band of data ferrets are likely to be shutting these down as inessential, as they will be disguised as stuff like Feral Rabbit Census, Oklahoma. Miffed CIA folks may not appreciate these 'cost savings'.

When it comes to AI ROI, IT decision-makers not convinced

There is no business case for this.

It is an expensive additional cost for something with inherent flaws and so offers limited or minimal benefits in most cases.

Just give it up. It got further than the Metaverse and NFTs, but nobody is going to be blowing $500bn on this, because they won't get $500bn and $1 back. Not now. Not ever.

The next big thing may well be a switch back to simpler, less networked tech and paper. Because nobody is going to access, ransom or delete your paper records from Moscow whilst you sleep.

Why UK Online Safety Act may not be safe for bloggers

UK law in a nut shell.

Citizen: "B-b-but we're innocent, Judge!"

Dredd: "Nobody's innocent, citizen. We're just here to determine the level of your guilt." [2000AD prog 338.]

Re: Brown said he intends to put this question directly to Ofcom

This is the UK. So the government are exempt (ie. above the law). Everyone else is likely to become liable. They will only prosecute the ones they want to - due to lack of staff time/funding as much as anything. It's not about the law, it is about politics and the mechanics of implementation.

If you want to stay safe, end all web 2.0 functionality on your site before this kicks off. Otherwise you may become a crash test dummy for who is and who is not liable. And in the UK, any brush with the legal system will empty your bank account and ruin several years of your life, even if you are not ultimately found guilty. Sometimes you have to accept that the government are in control and can screw with your life if they are minded to. To keep clear blue water between their persecution and yourself, pull back, withdraw services and stay safe. The model for life in the UK today is the same as it was for colonial subjects of the British Empire. Keep your head down and do not invite the wrath of those in charge. Because you won't win.

Arm gives up on killing off Qualcomm's vital chip license

Re: Way to trash your brand!

ARM is owned by SoftBank now, and so is no longer British. Most of the 'British' car industry of foreign-owned too. When you sell something, you no longer own it.