Posts by henryd 33 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Apr 2010
I thought from the headline that we were talking about Phonotas.
For those too young to know what I'm talking about Phonotas was a company, oh 70 years ago, that employed people to come to your office and clean phone handsets, wiping spit from the mouthpiece and earwax/brylcream from the earpiece.
Who does this essential service now?
In the late 70's I was working in Israel developing an office computer. As Israel is a hot country rooms have stone tiled floors, not carpet.
Once ready we shipped our gleaming new computer to our first customer, in Germany (You can guess where this is going).
Soon reports of failure came in which we could not reproduce at home so we had to go to Germany to investigate on site. I still remember the electric shock going through my fingers when I touch a metal radiator while standing on a nylon carpet.
Back in the days (1970) when code was on punched cards and the language of choice FORTRAN.
My predecessor change all variable names to x, xx, xxx. You get the drift.
The code still worked so could not be accused of sabotage.
I privately admired his guts for avenging a perceived wrong.
It's obvious that we don't know the whole story and essential information is being withheld.
As a Jew I am happy that one less person hates me and shouldn't be punished for admitting it.
On the other hand I am unhappy that, seemingly, Google want to punish him for NOT being anti-semitic.
If anyone can provide a link to a better explanation of whats going on, please post here.
Why target the Mossad? More likely highly capable civilian software engineers who have spotted a vulnerability and have simply exploited it.
NSO are in the same situation as gun makers who also disclaim any responsibility for their use. We'll just have to live with it.
BTW I'm sure that everyones at it, it's just that NSO do it better. I reckon that if NSO was not Israeli then Amnesty, a vocal enemy of Israel, wouldn't show nearly as much interest.
master with main across its services
I well remember the RISC anxiety at Intel when I worked there 35 years ago.
No one was under any illusion about X86 vulnerability and the perceived attraction of RISC.
Andy Grove, the founder of Intel, taught us that "Only the Paranoid Survive" and was not afraid to do whatever it took to keep the competition at bay.
Never assume that Intel doesn't recognise danger or is afraid to use its formidable powers to survive.
Hey, that might be my code. In a previous lifetime I was one half of a team that developed, in Intel, gcc for the new 32 bit 80386 processor.
For the Whetstone measurements I had to write, from scratch, all of the standard C library in ANSI C.
Some of my code contained Easter Eggs so that I could identify it later. Can’t remember if the string library did though.
(Depressing thought, I just realized that was over 35 years ago)
In the days when your 'terminal' was a telytype machine, hence no on-screen corrections, you had to be creative when accepting input.
I remember well when I had forgotten how to exit from a certain utility. I tried Exit, Quit, Bye etc all to no avail. Finally in desparation I typed F*** Off - bingo it worked!
The savvy author of said utility only looked at the last 3 characters in input thus ignoring typos in the middle.
Back in the day the console of the IBM360 had a big red button to set off the fire extinguishers in case of fire.
All operators had instructions Never Press The Button except in case of genuine need.
It was in the 70’s when I worked in the computer Centre of a major university and, naturally, could not resist temptation..
This caused a crash stop, not an orderly shutdown. I recall it took around 3 days to get back up.
Here in Israel we discovered this new thing called the Internet years ago.
Booking appointments through a mobile or desktop app is a matter of routine and has been for years. I can order prescriptions and view lab results and generally save bothering my GP.
The app will even serve me up graphs of lab data over the years of results it has in store.
Instead of dropping another few billions on yet another failed IT projects just get in touch with one of our providers. They’ll be happy to help.
Intel have a major presence in the US as well, there could equally have been a snide comment on Trump.
If I understand your meaning correctly the “Jeremy Corbyn treatment” implies that I shouldn’t speak out when I see anti-semitism. Sorry, but no. I know an anti-Semite when I see one.
I still remember pre-DOS and even pre-CPM when the input device was a teletype, so no on-screen detection.
We had a program (weren't call apps back then) where you had to type OFF to leave it. As there was no way of correcting typos the program just looked at the last 3 characters typed in.
A technician using the program forgot the OFF sequence and tried typing in EXIT, BYE, DONE etc all to no avail. Finally in a fit of rage he typed in F*** OFF. Bingo!
Speaking as a British born Israeli I can speak with more authority than most of the twerps commenting here.
I much prefer the forthright say-what-you mean attitude of Israelis (a.k.a. rudeness to some people) that the totally insincere politeness of Brits. Its only rude if you take offence and my fellow Israelis certainly don't take offence just because someone says what he means.
When a Brit politely asks after your health you can be sure he doesn't give a shit and is just going through the motions. When an Israeli asks he really wants to know and will offer plenty of free advice as how to improve it. If you get offended and call it chutzpah, well poor you.
Finally regarding the last point. You mean we aren't the chosen people? Now I'm offended.
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