Posts by Peter Galbavy

No ports, no borders, no hope: Xiaomi's cool but impractical all-screen concept phone

Have I missed the bit where someone explains how the mic and speaker / earpiece work?

Showering malware-laced laptops on UK schools is the wrong way to teach them about cybersecurity

Betcha that every single one of those off-the-shelf, low-spec, consumer grade laptops - that would retails at maybe £249 - will have been billed at about the price of a top-end Lenovo X-series laptop without the slightest hint of irony.

Negative Trustpilot review of law firm Summerfield Browne cost aggrieved Briton £28k

Oh! Look! The legal profession sided with the legal profession. I am shocked!

150,000 lost UK police records looking more like 400,000 as Home Office continues to blame 'human error'

If they are able to recover records from backups then that sort of puts paid to the whole deleting-illegally-retained-personal-data stuff doesn't it? I mean, you sue the police to delete your records when you are cleared of a crime, order is granted but then even deleting the live record just removes the current version, no? Perhaps the background here is an effort to allow backups to be routinely restored in the future?

Dropbox basically decimates workforce, COO logs off: Cloud biz promises to be 'more efficient and nimble'

I used to pay them money, but they kept offering a new tier of service about once a year and, silently, donwgrading the performance of the lower tiers - not just the extra storage or features of the new ones. Number of API calls per second / hour / day etc. and their support just pretended that there was no changes. I stopped paying them money and instead just use an S3 bucket (yes, protected) with rclone for out-of-home backup with another on Backblaze. The cost works out a little higher but both of those publish their performance commitments.

Whistleblowers have come to us alleging spy agency wrongdoing, says UK auditor IPCO

How long until these shady organisations self-authorise themselves to surveil the ICPOs wistleblower gateway systems?

Cayman Islands investment fund left entire filestore viewable by world+dog in unsecured Azure blob

Re: Stop calling it cloud

Except in this case the "lockup" hasn't actually got a padlock on it, so it's more an "unlockup"

For every disastrous rebrand, there is an IT person trying to steer away from the precipice

Served my inter year at Unisys in Uxbridge a couple of years after the Sperry/Burroughs merger and they rebadged a variety of UNIX mini systems. One was originally called the Arete (accents optional) and as I didn't speak any French the staffers had to explain to me why the source company had to change the model name once they started selling internationally. Memory is a little hazy.

Ah, found a reference to "Arete Systems Corp" from that era: https://www.cbronline.com/news/unix_banns_plexus_arete_agree_a_merger/

Tech support scammer dialed random number and Australian Police’s cybercrime squad answered

All my scam calls are recorded messages or digitised voices. I feel all left out.

Lift us up where we belong: UK's Network Rail puts elevators online

I wonder what the JSON tags will be for "stink of piss" and "someone's thrown up in this one" ?

Excel is for amateurs. To properly screw things up, those same amateurs need a copy of Access

Managers need to appear to have a purpose, especially when they don't.

NHS COVID-19 app's first weekend: With fundamental testing flaw ironed out, bugs remaining are relatively trivial

Re: Picky but...

My understanding, and information is a little vague, is that Serco are involved the the NHS Trace and Trace *system* (the one with the virtual call centres that have people doing nothing) but that the app is NHSX and is wholly an internal project and doesn't involved either Serco or Deloitte or Crapita..

Would welcome reliable references either way.

FBI boasts of dark-web drug bust: 179 collared around the world, $6.5m in cash and 500kg of narcotics seized

A lot of effort when you canjust let the idiots delivery themselves like they do down under: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-49079926

Das Keyboard 4C TKL: Plucky mechanical contender strikes happy medium between typing feel and clackety-clack joy

Wot, no numeric keypad? For how much? Thanks, but no thanks.

Don’t lump us in with Facebook, internet infrastructure companies warn European Union

Surely if the Chinese can do it with the Great Firewall, then why shouldn't European network operators?

Google wants to listen in to whatever you get up to in hotel rooms

"No, sorry, I didn't realise the devices cable had been cut when I entered the room that first night. Must have been a previous occupant."

SQLite maximum database size increased to 281TB – but will anyone need one that big?

If you don't use SQLite is some project of your own, are you even programming?

Peer-to-peer takes on a whole new meaning when used to spy on 3.7 million or more cameras, other IoT gear

There's an assumption in the article that these features are somehow undesirable (to the makers). Possible the only undesirable here is that the design of the system have been revealed to a wider world.

Rental electric scooters to clutter UK street scenes after Department of Transport gives year-long trial the thumbs-up

In an open and transparent democracy you would set standards for new types of transport (that are considered in need of regulating) and then you would allow private and commercial interests to follow those standards.

Instead, as we don't live in an open and transparent democracy but one where funny handshakes and the old boy network hold sway, we hand over the public roads to special interest groups to set their own agendas, standards and ultimately enforcement. Can't you just see [whoever has shaken hands on this] going to propose their "operatives" are allowed to stop "unlicensed" riders on public roads - obviously the police are far too busy, so just like the Post Office and the BBC being allowed to be judge, jury and executioner so will these chinless wonders.

It could be 'five to ten years' before the world finally drags itself away from IPv4

Q: What's an elephant?

A: A mouse, designed by committee.

Now, just change the subjects and you know whay IPv6 is still a bad solution to any problem.

Devuan Beowulf 3.0 release continues to resist the Debian fork's Grendel – systemd

The old labrador's getting a bit old and his fur is falling out... so let's buy an elephant!

systemd - why would I want it to manage DNS, NTP and more? There are perfectly good, previously "out of the box", solutions for them that can be managed by experts in their field without wondering what cute security hole some weenie has dropped into the systemd elephant.

Google rolls out pro-privacy DNS-over-HTTPS support in Chrome 83... with a handy kill switch for corporate IT

Well, just updated and the flag is still there to turn it off - not checked if it's a null op though

You overstepped and infringed British sovereignty, Court of Appeal tells US in software companies' copyright battle

Re: Fifty-first state?

Hey there son! You look like you need a dose of FREEDOM!

UK Information Commissioner OKs use of phone data to track coronavirus spread

Giving our glorious and enlightened authorities the benefit of the doubt for the moment, mobile operators already collect many metrics on cell hand-offs and transit times etc. Sharing just this data, on volumes of movement, could help with a view as to how well the - effectively - voluntary lockdown is operating and how it is changing over time-of-day and day-of-week and could also act as an alert if the behaviour starts drifting as the population starts getting bored and complacent and then if further measure, especially in certain geographies, are required.

Honeywell, I blew up the qubits: Thermostat maker to offer cloud access to 'world's most powerful quantum computer' within months

I know I'm getting old because no matter how much I read about Quantum Computing I feel much like my parents generation felt when the home computer started turning up. Lost, I'm lost I tell you.

Either that or I'm just too good at failing to see the Emperor's wonderful new outfit.

I suspect the former in this case though.

All that Samsung users found on UK website after weird Find my Mobile push notification was... other people's details

GDPR may even be useful here...

So, is the 72 hour clock now ticking?

GlaxoSmithKline ditches IR35 contractors: Go PAYE or go home

Once you change your viewpoint and look at this from the perspective of the big, expensive and incompetent consultancy firms (Crapita, et al.) then this is going perfectly to plan.

Stack the system to ensure all the fleet-of-foot and ocmpetative small players are forced out by regulation you have paid for, you will be rolling in the money.

This news article about the full public release of OpenAI's 'dangerous' GPT-2 model was part written by GPT-2

This statement is false.

A stranger's TV went on spending spree with my Amazon account – and web giant did nothing about it for months

This is odd, because "yes" if you look under "My Devices" you only see Amazon branded ones, but if you go to "Manage My Devices" under the Kindle page(s) you see all your connected/permissioned "apps", including those running on non-Amazon kit: https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/mycd/myx#/home/devices/1

The UK's Civil Aviation Authority asked drone orgs to email fliers' data in an Excel spreadsheet

The Australians, last time I renewed my optional "maybe commercial use" registration it was still free. Both getting an ARN (Airman's Ref Number?) and the commercial-drone under 2kg reg was simple and free.

This may have changed, I need to renew again shortly for a trip over in Jan.

Criminalise British drone fliers, snarl MPs amid crackdown demands

Nice to see last year's Gatwick strawman exercise results are being put to good use...

Spin doctors: UPS gets permission to expand drone delivery fleet in the US

So, instead of carrying some item - nothing too heavy or large - between buildings on a "campus", you now have to get it to a roof or an outdoor area, place it in a special sized carrier, submit a request for pickup and ... a solution looking for a problem, with a nice fat charge onto US medical insurance bills, I am sure.

Google: Read my lips. You cannot link up a G Suite account with Nest smart home gizmos

Also, in a similar position with an old Google Apps account, at some point I stopped being able to leave reviews on Google Play Store. I can still see my old reviews submitted using the same account but no longer.

Service call centres to become wasteland and tumbleweed by 2024

Who do the shiny new systems call when they have a problem handling the calls from their automated customers?

Recursion, n: See Recursion.

The NetCAT is out of the bag: Intel chipset exploited to sniff SSH passwords as they're typed over the network

Sorry? What? Who uses SSH without an agent on their local machine? Why is SSH (as a protocol) singled out here? Any interactive session over the network is open to this form of "attack" and if you type SSH passwords into remote machines over the network (whether already SSH wrapped ot not) you are already broken.

In Hemel Hempstead, cycling is as bad as taking a leak in the middle of the street

Re: Might a suggest a decent horn?

I was given an "Orp" as a present and it's normally enough, but I still have to use my shouty voice very very often. And believe me, I can shout quite loudly.

Shame there isn't an equivalent anti-social order for zombie pedestrians. As a law abiding cyclist commuting in London (that means respecting lights, crossings, signage etc.) I am regularly, daily having to swerve and brake to avoid those idiots - most often younger women, 80/20, based solely on personal experience - with heads down looking at a mobile screen and just walking out into the road. Similarly when driving, but they do seem to pay attention to the horn on the car more than the weedy bike alert horn.

Divert the power to the shields. 'I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain!'

Re: Testing is hard

For those older and with long memories, Demon Internet used to run out of Hendon Lane - a converted church hall type office. We eventually had a large UPS and noise insulated genny installed, after much gnashin and wailing of teeth (and Cliff was an accountant so he was both bean counter and MD). After a very very long all-hand weekend getting the downtime sequence done, wiring moved along with new component issues (three phase versus single phase contactors or something...) it was all back up and running at some point.

"So, it's all working and the batteries up to charge?" asked Cliff.

"Yep!" said the proud contractor

"OK then" says Cliff and proceeds to turn off the grid feed.

.... waiting, waiting ...

It worked, thankfully.

TfL inks £6.5m deal with Sopra Steria to build traffic data-munching and control system

I was just thinking, in a gentle fume this weekend how more and more London junctions have what I would term a "no go" settings on their lights. I was stopped at at least two junctions where none of the roads or the pedestrian crossings were green, and I even accounted for the change periods you would expect. I assume this is udner the guise of "traffic management" and will be used to justify some change later on having gathered the right kinds of statistics for vehicle or pedestrian movement.

Biz forked out $115k to tout 'Time AI' crypto at Black Hat. Now it sues organizers because hackers heckled it

Not sure about the Land of the Free (TM) but isn't "truth" a valid defence against defamation, or is that just in the written form (libel) ?

Psst. Hey. Hey you. We have to whisper this in case the cool kidz hear, but... it's OK to pull your data back from the cloud

Let's be realistic here... most "cloud" migration outside of core-IT companies was done because bean-counters and senior management were sold the idea of a single monthly charge (that was amazingly lower than depreciation of having their own hardware plus recurring costs like networking and maintenance) and of course savings on not having their own specialist IT staff. A few years down the line they have saved nothing in staff and that "fixed" monthly fee has attracted amazing unexpected and unbudgeted extras, as well as growing magically as usage is well above what was forecast.

You can easily secure America's e-voting systems tomorrow. Use paper – Bruce Schneier

But surely there are environmental benefits? Imagine how many trees could be saved if dictators in notionally democratic banana republics - like, say the USA - didn't have to stuff ballot boxes with pre-filled paper ballots all the time and instead just changed the totals online?

1Gbps, 4K streaming, buffering a thing of the past – but do Brits really even want full fibre?

94% availablity? Not quite. There may be coverage for 94% counted by BT (sorry, the puppet OpenRetch's) exchanges, but in many areas high density (urban, suburban) areas there is still a wait list as the street cabinets are full and BT are still dragging heels adding more, using every excuse possible to avoid capital investment. In those same areas there is still too much low quality, badly routed local loop to provide the line quality required to get more than the minimal signal.

Get ready for a literal waiting list for European IPv4 addresses. And no jumping the line

Re: IPv6 was designed by theorists

Yup. I remember the early RIPE meeting presentations and the non-academic attendees (I was there on behalf of Demon at the time) watched with open mouths as they - the tenured masses - simply didn't get it, couldn't understand why it would never work. My favourite still: Multi-homing with BGP? Not needed, surely!

It's happening, tech contractors: UK.gov is pushing IR35 off-payroll rules to private sector in Finance Bill

This is effectively the same as a company asking for voluntary redundancies... anyone with saleable and transferable skills and the ability to move (overseas) will take up the chance and leave the less able behind. Great short term for tax and NI income to the treasury, terrible for the country in the long term.

Hot desk hell: Staff spend two weeks a year looking for seats in open-plan offices

Hot-desking has zero to do with costs and flexibility and is solely there for upper management to remind the drones that you are interchangeable, expendable and no one would notice much if you were not there tomorrow.

Obviously the same upper management have to have private offices because of confidentiality and all that stuff.

Nvidia pulls sheets off EGX, an edgy machine learning platform based on Kubernetes

Re: Confused

Hipsters

No Widevine DRM for you! Developer left with two years of work stymied by Google snub

DRM and cartels... shocked?

DRM being used to raise the barrier the new entrants? I'm shocked! I'm socked to find gambling in the café!

I am just a mapper: Solar drones take to the skies above Blighty

How did you know my weight? Are you using a solar powered drone to spy on me? And I've not been a (professional) sysadmin for years either.

HMRC: We 'rigorously tested' IR35 tax-check tool... but have almost nothing to show for it

Betcha they still allocated a few million to the testing project. Odd that, eh?