Posts by simonb_london

Spooky entanglement revealed between quantum AI and the BBC

Potentially dangerous

An AI that has been trained on every episode of East Enders that ever was would be an immediate threat to humanity. It would be drunk, argumentative and a perpetual source of drama.

China is likely stockpiling and deploying vulnerabilities, says Microsoft

False alarm!

"Stockpiling and deploying vulnerabilities" is just Microsoft's way of saying "writing and selling software".

Sizewell C nuclear plant up for review as UK faces financial black hole

Re: Out of date?

If the BBC are claiming then the government has denied it then that obviously just confirms it.

Apple perfects vendor lock-in with home security kit

Company won't stop until you need a NEW Phone to operate every facet of your life

Corrected. I believe this is how the headline should have read.

India to lead drive for global crypto regulations to bust money laundering

Only governments and banks are allowed to launder money. And they hate competition.

India’s Supreme Court demands government detail internet shutdown rules

Then I got to the comments...

I don't normally comment on the other comments I've seen so far, but there seems to be a consensus that Internet shutdowns on a whim are justifiable and desirable because there are exam cheats in existence. I certainly wouldn't want someone monkeying with Internet availability where I live/work! Not for any reason.

Its up to the exam venues to police the students within their own boundaries.

Indian tech minister picks a fight with Wikipedia over cricketer's dropped catch

Re: Definitely a CTO-type

But wouldn't he fall foul of the "conflict of interest" guidelines on Wikipedia?

Digital Ocean dumps Mailchimp after attack leaked customer email addresses

So those Career Builder dot com adverts were true

They really do base their business on buying lottery tickets!

Iran cheerfully admits using cryptocurrency to pay for imports

I can see where this is going... "We must ban non-state-owned crypto and all sacrifice any notion of privacy and anonymity so that countries like Iran don't have any either".

Copper shortage keeps green energy, tech ventures grounded

Net zero?

Wouldn't it be better to aim for a healthy planet and healthy life on it? Obsessing over one of the most abundant elements on the planet is probably going to cause more problems than it solves apart from being a massive distraction.

Japan makes online insults a crime that can earn a year in jail

When I was at school...

I remember everyone was quite liberal with hurling insults at each other face to face. Being sensitive was not really an option.

Rising above the insults and developing self-confidence is part of growing up.

Its a bit like the highway code being changed to give pedestrians who don't look, and are therefore "vulnerable", priority over vehicles because teaching them to look before crossing at junctions is too much effort, apparently.

Acer's TravelMate laptops arrive – complete with Microsoft Pluton chips

"But what is that threat landscape?" That's easy. Its Microsoft.

Biden tours Samsung fab, talks chip cooperation with South Korea

Re: "The embarassment" should just stay home (and stop 'doing things')

How can you say that? He got enough votes to be the most popular president in history in the most "fortified" election in history!

Microsoft-backed robovans to deliver grub in London

Every automated car will become a police car

If you have loads of delivery vans everywhere, driving automatically, covered in cameras and sensors and connected to a network.... the ultimate totalitarian temptation!

Re: Parking like a human

Simple. Just identify the most appropriate and ideal parking position and do a logical NOT on it.

Apple to bin apps that go three years without updates

Benign?

"Apple argues the monopoly is benign..." - Enough ROFL to cause a whole herd of wildebeest to collapse in hysterics.

British motorists will be allowed to watch TV in self-driving vehicles

Who will the AI serve

Will the AI serve us, the government or the manufacturer? Looking at the recent trends to control everything we say and do recently I'm not sure I would want a car that decided where I could or couldn't drive to on the basis of "saving the environment" or, as the more often the case these days, for no clearly explained reason.

AWS makes auto-recovery the default for EC2 instances

About time

Why did this take so long? Of course I don't want a VM to randomly die one day because of something I forgot to do, or hadn't yet learned I needed to do.

Linux Snap package tool fixes make-me-root bugs

Easy on developers. Tough on users.

What are real organisations doing with zero trust?

I saw the title and assumed it was about the government.

Machine needs more Learning: Google Drive dings single-character files for copyright infringement

Not a big fan of more legislation myself but this issue of companies clobbering users with zero explanation, chance to appeal, human being to talk about it with is getting out of hand. That coupled with deflection-mode call centres and websites that just send frustrated customers round in circles to the same inadequate FAQs. It looks like companies now need to be legally bound to be accountable as to how they treat their users.

MPs charged with analysing Online Safety Bill say end-to-end encryption should be called out as 'specific risk factor'

Re: end-to-end encryption

And how are we going to see if they are conspiring against us? I bet they will still want to keep their secrets. I wonder if what they propose will be asymmetric or symmetric in terms of who it apples to.

Indian government committee slams 'gross misuse' of internet shutdowns – even in Kashmir

"Numerous comms blackouts were imposed on events protesting India's agricultural reform laws"

So they are being used to squelch democratic rights, then.

Ubuntu desktop team teases 'proof of concept' systemd on Windows Subsystem for Linux

Re: "2 users though have frequently requested systemd support"

....and the systemd cancer will spread to the Windows kernel itself....taking over all the services, logs and even user directories.....making Windows incompatible with itself!

Samsung boss Lee Jae-Yong convicted and fined for drug abuse

Re: Choice

Exactly. General anaesthetics should be mandated as a condition of employment.

Theranos blood-test machine demos for VIPs rigged to hide any failures, court told

Re: Arrogance of investors?

Reminds me of when Peter Jones was duped into thinking that a TV takes tens of watts of power in standby and this power-saving gizmo was required to save the planet. They were doing the demo with an obsolete plasma TV that would keep the grid warm in standby for a fast start-up time. No TV still did that by the time of the pitch.

Re: sub-header

Still too noisy. Make that &>/dev/null. I'm trying to sleep here.

Google to bake COVID-19 vaccine passport support into Android with Passes API update

Just what we always wanted. Not.

We're not saying this is how SolarWinds was backdoored, but its FTP password 'leaked on GitHub in plaintext'

"The Washington Post reports that unnamed sources believe..."

Hold the press! We've found some guy who "believes" it was the Russians!

PC makers warn of battle for air freight capacity, will have to fight for cargo space with... the COVID-19 vaccine

Wow, I had no idea this vaccine was so popular!

India to run optic fibre to 450,000 villages in 1,000 days and give 1.3bn a digital Health ID

Re: For health reasons ?

Think of all the wonderful things a Health ID, either giving bad news or by not having one, could stop you doing!

Two COVID tests, five-day quarantine, limited expense account abuse opportunities: Taiwan sets new rules for business travel

The first virus in history to be managed by committee.

India says 'Zoom is a not a safe platform' and bans government users

Jitsi?

Open source and you can run your own server. Would that help? Just a thought would be interested to hear other opinions on this.

From Brit telly presenter Eamonn Holmes to burning 5G towers in the Netherlands: Stupid week turns into stupid fortnight for radio standard

Anyone know where I can get my hands on a portable 100GHz spectrum analyser and a calibrated antenna for it? I can only find up to 6GHz so far.

I want to go out and do some research on this for myself to settle this matter once and for all. I know that sunbathing and having a picnic is frowned upon, but as far as I know walking around with an electric shopping trolley and coat-hanger is OK. Right?

Good luck pitching a tent on exoplanet WASP-76b, the bloody raindrops here are made out of molten iron

It does indeed seem like a bad place to pitch a tent. Looks like I'll be taking the caravan then.

A-high: Prototype drug squad bot to patrol Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, etc for dodgy ads for opioids

Simpler solution : Post adverts for ibogain treatment

So much effort to fight a war on drugs where the a possible cure for the addictive illegal drugs just happens to be the non-addictive illegal drugs.

We’ve had enough of your beach-blocking shenanigans, California tells stubborn Sun co-founder: Kiss our lawsuit

Communism??? Ah, glad you reminded us of that!

Just nationalise all his assets without compensation so the public has access to his whole estate too.

Boffins find proof that yes, Carl Sagan and Joni Mitchell were right, we really are all made up of star stuff

Not right about everything

Joni Mitchel went on to claim that we were also "golden". Last I checked we all a variety of colours but none of them gold.

She also asserted that we had to find our way back to the garden. This is potentially offensive to anyone living in a block of flats.

That's Microsoft price: Now you can enjoy a BSOD from the comfort of your driving seat

Chuck Norris can still see missing disks and read corrupt files.

RuneScape bloke was wrongly sacked after reading veep's salary details on office printer

When it gets as far as a tribunal ruling

Then one side or the other has probably been very stubborn and needs to be clouted round the head with a clue-stick by a tribunal to realise their mistake.

Otherwise they would have reached a settlement before it got that far.

Now everyone knows the company's name and what the attitude of their management is like.

We are absolutely, definitively, completely and utterly out of IPv4 addresses, warns RIPE

Re: Lies, damned lies, and statistics that don't lie.

Which in turn is probably due to a simple router/WiFi arrangement being easier to configure for IPv6 than a complicated and funky corporate network with various NAT IP ranges and upstream gateways.

I've been bashing my head against just two PFSense boxes for days already and now so far I have a headache. And that's just a small outfit.

Interpol: Strong encryption helps online predators. Build backdoors

Backdoors help police and security agencies become predators.

Python overtakes Java to become second-most popular language on GitHub after JavaScript

Re: Finally!

Not

print("Hello, Java, you suck"),

it's

print "Hello, Java, you suck"

Sorry. I'm a bit old fashioned for this new-fangled Python 3 thing!

Tor blimey, Auntie! BBC launches dedicated dark web mirror site

Not worth it

BBC News sounds just the same to me today as Radio Moscow sounded to me in the 1970s and 1980s. A useless, robotic propaganda station.

Register Lecture: Is space law 'hurting' commercial exploration?

Wild West

I, for one, think the Wild West was exciting and therefore represents an excellent model for lawlessness and disorder in space. Can't wait!

HMRC 'disciplined' almost 100 employees for computer misuse over 24 months

Time for a career change

When I got into trouble for using the Internet too much many years ago I ended up just making an occupation of it.

Now I am in the fortunate position of being encouraged to read the Register because I am keeping up with news and new developments in IT, which is part of my new career :)

For real this time, get your butt off Python 2: No updates, no nothing after 1 January 2020

Better headline

How about:

"from future import obsolescence"

?

FBI, NSA to hackers: Let us be blunt. Weed need your help. We'll hire you even if you've smoked a little pot in the past

Re: Depends on your clearance level

Is there any sane reason for that level of strictness or is it just an excuse for persecution?

Meet ELIoT – the EU project that wants to commercialize Internet-over-lightbulb

Re: So we are going to have flickering streetlights everywhere

Probably the exact opposite. We will no longer have flickering street lights because the current 50/100 Hz flicker is due to rubbish LED driving circuitry. If it has to be an advanced driver that pulses the LEDs at a much higher frequency than anyone can see then the 50/100Hz will disappear in the process.

Metropolitan Police's facial recognition tech not only crap, but also of dubious legality – report

I sympathise

It's about the same success rate I have as me thinking I recognise someone, saying hello, and then........."Sorry, thought you were someone else"!