Posts by alain williams

Brit tech tycoon Mike Lynch cleared of all charges in US Autonomy fraud trial

Does Mike Lynch get compensation ...

for having wasted 13 years of his life being chased, and having his liberty infringed, by HP ?

Microsoft Research chief scientist has no issue with Windows Recall

People's value judgments ...

seem to be often affected by how much money it makes them or who pays them.

US standards agency reports back on just how good age verification software is

How does it cope if a child has an older friend ...

who is happy to help him/her pretend to be an adult ?

Do not pretend that adults will not do this.

UK may not hit goal of 95% mobile coverage, commons committee warns

Re: Should never have switched off 3G

Those who made the decision probably never go outside of the M25 -- so what is the problem ?

PayPal is planning an ad network built off your purchase history

This should be illegal

There should be a firewall between payment processing any any other part of the business.

This is rather like an ISP selling information about which web sites you visit.

We polled thousands of IT pros – and sustainability just ain't a priority right now

With an election coming up in the UK ...

if you think that climate is important https://voteclimate.uk/ will help you work out how to vote. A of background.

Europe buying more Chinese phone brands as market starts to bounce back

Re: I wonder what the response

Yes: folks will boycott them -- for about a fortnight and then forget or decide that saving themselves £30 matters more than Taiwan.

UK law gives green light to self-driving cars from 2026

Does this mean ...

that I will be able to get tanked up on a Friday evening and take the car home ?

Julian Assange can appeal extradition to the US, London High Court rules

The USA has achieved its aims

Julian Assange has lost some 14 years of his life being pursued by the USA. His life has been hard. His crime: embarrass the USA.

In the future others who have similar information will think twice before they release it.

Apple says if you want to ship your own iOS browser engine in EU, you need to be there

How does Apple determine location ?

Two ways occur to me, both of which can be worked around:

• IP address. use of a VPN with a European exit point could be used

• GPS. At last a valid reason to use GPS spoofing! (Need to be within a large faraday cage)

The above, especially GPS, are are not easy so only really usable within a corporate environment.

Google gives in to Hong Kong, blocks fake national anthem on YouTube

Long may event organisers ...

"accidentally" use the wrong tune.

Tax helpline callers left on hold for nearly eight centuries

Cost to the economy ?

Using the minimum wage of £11.44/hour that works out as £79,971,091 in lost time.

When AI helps you code, who owns the finished product?

Re: A goldmine for professors

They did: you paid up front as University/... course fees.

Should your current employer, who sends you on various training courses, get a slice of your future income after you have left for a new job ?

How much does it matter ?

I have seen a comment that about 90% of all code written is never used outside of the organisation that wrote it. Ie it is not sold (commercial closed source license) or open sourced or something.

If it is not distributed outside the organisation then does it matter who owns it ? You might be worried that the owner of code ingested by the AI will come after you -- but how will they know that you have used the code?

If you want to sell (a license to it) it: you cannot claim ownership. However since no one sees such commercial (closed source) code, no one will know - just as bits of open source within commercial code are only rarely discovered - vendors find it profitable to just ignore the problem.

If you want to open source what you are writing then you have the biggest problem: others can see the code and may be able to identify what the AI ingested. So if your intent is to open source then maybe what you should do is to use the AI to produce some code, inspect that code (ie learn how it works) and then write code based on your new understanding. This is much how those who write closed source code should use open source code -- except that often they just copy it.

So: those who have the most to worry about AI generated code are those who write open source code.

Ellison's exemplar SAP-to-Oracle region rules out ditching Oracle

£130 million & counting -- just for one council

What would it have cost to implement this using open source technology, eg using postgreSQL on Linux using Java or Python ?

This could be made available to other councils -- which must all have similar requirements.

True: there would be migration & other costs; but it would have to be less than pissing cash away to a USA based enterprise that will just suck licensing fees for years to come.

I know that large government IT projects do not have the best reputation (think: NHS), but it seems that ones done by private companies are not much better.

Yes: cash up front for the 5 years to develop it, but reduced costs later -- and you get something that is designed to do the job that councils want.

Brit publishers beg Apple not to hurt online ad revenue

Will AI be able to stop noxious ads ?

ie those that annoy people or slow the browser down.

I am OK with discrete ads that do not get in the way but hate things that: auto play video/sound; generate popups; obscure what I came to read; ...

This AI might be a good thing if it stops abusive ads and everyone might win.

Starlink suffers 'degraded service' from solar storm but emerges intact

What would it cost ...

to launch a simple rocket to push Hubble back up another 50km or so ?

Could it use the SCM to grab it ?

I do realise that it is more than pointing the rocket & lighting the fuse.

Did IBM make a $6.4B blunder by buying HashiCorp?

Quick - sue the HashiCorp CEO

for something or another -- ask HP for some tips on doing this.

UK's National Cyber Security Centre entry code cracks up critics

PINs on mobile 'phones

How many are aware that you do not need to use 4 digits ? Add an extra one or two will increase security vastly as most crackers only try 4 digits.

It is a shame that I cannot use a different number of digits on my bank card - which is likely the source of the meme "all PINs are 4 digits long".

Council claims database pain forced it to drop apostrophes from street names

Re: BS7666

CharacterString: a sequence of alphanumeric characters

I quickly scanned BS 7666 and could not see a definition of 'alphanumeric'. But we live in modern times so I would hope that alphabetic would include everything that Unicode says is a letter.

I am sorely tempted to persuade my local council to name a new street after some foreign person, eg François Mitterrand to see how they cope with ç. My next would be, perhaps, some Indian or Chinese person.

Open Source world's Bruce Perens emits draft Post-Open Zero Cost License

Re: It would be nice to fix IBM/RedHat

Yes: that is what I meant. Sorry - I should have been explicit.

Re: It would be nice to fix IBM/RedHat

They have effectively removed the right to give open source code to anyone you wish.

It would be nice to fix IBM/RedHat

and the way that they abused open source code - take without giving back.

UK government faces £17.5M shortfall from UKCloud liquidation

Typical government fail

Here was an opportunity to build a UK owned and run cloud. This would have kept UK data in the UK, kept UK money in the UK and built up a UK skills base.

What happened was the usual lack of joined up strategy where government departments used USA businesses (Google, AWS, Microsoft, ...) so profits go to the the USA as well as all our secrets (due to the Could Act).

Management company settles for $18.4M after nuclear weapons plant staff fudged their timesheets

Why not fine the individuals ...

who wrote lies on their time-sheets ?

Limited liability is, surely, for honest mistakes not fraud.

Microsoft really does not want Windows 11 running on ancient PCs

Is it really beyond the wit of Microsoft ...

to have 2 different repositories, each compiled with different CPU version flags ? Or perhaps run time detection of what is supported and run different code ? Those running older CPUs might get a performance hit but better that than not running at all.

Maybe there are back room deals with hardware vendors to encourage buying or new machines.

Not that it affects me: 100% Linux chez moi.

Protest group says Google has fired more staff over sit-ins opposing work for Israel

Re: shrug

Israel isn't an apartheid state

Many have long said that Israel is an apartheid state:

• 2007: Occupied Gaza like apartheid South Africa, says UN report

• +972 magazine pages on apartheid +972 Magazine is an independent magazine run by a group of Palestinian and Israeli journalists.

• Jimmy Carter's book: Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid

• Amnesty International

• Jan 2021: A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories

• Nov 2022: Understanding Apartheid Jewish Currents is an American progressive Jewish quarterly magazine and news site

• Wikipedia: Israel and apartheid

The media (journalists) are Israeli targets and used to push the Israeli message:

• Israel’s War on Journalists

• RSF files complaint with ICC for war crimes against journalists in Palestine and Israel

• Israeli military accused of targeting journalists and their families in Gaza

• ‘Journalists see their role as helping to win’: how Israeli TV is covering Gaza war

• How Israeli journalists carry out PR for the army

• Journalism out, hasbara in: How Israeli TV news joined the Gaza war effort

Explainers: Parallel histories (resources for schools) Jewish currents

Please read the above references, you might learn something. You might not agree but please do not close your mind to other views.

I know that this will be downvoted by those who believe that Israel who can do no wrong. Yes: I am critical of the Israeli government, this is not antisemitism but will be portrayed as such.

I have great sympathies for those innocents who are caught between two terrorist organisations: Hamas and the Israeli government.

Tesla Cybertruck turns into world's most expensive brick after car wash

Re: So much for the resilience of Stainless Steel

It's not 56m, but 56bn the muskyone is seeking - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/17/elon-musk-tesla-pay

He needs that $56B to pay for his losses on twatter.

Re: So much for the resilience of Stainless Steel

If washing your Muskmobile in direct sunlight voids the warranty? What happens when the sun is shining on the other side of the road and your side is in the middle of a downpour?

Hmmm: sun and rain at the same time. Look harder in the manual for the paragraph that tells you to pay for repairs using the crock of gold at the bottom of the rainbow.

Open source versus Microsoft: The new rebellion begins

Re: Fingers crossed

I don't think MSFT can coerce (bribe?) their way through this.

I wish that I had your apparent faith in the integrity of local politicians.

Judge refuses to Ctrl-Z divorce order made by a misclick

If the ancillary relief (== money matters) hearings have not happened then they can be opened, even after a decree absolute -- similarly for matters relating to children. All that a decree absolute really does is to allow the parties to marry again - to new partners.

Microsoft to use Windows 11 Start menu as a billboard with app ads for Insiders

Where can Microsoft be billed ...

for:

• the bandwidth needed to download these adverts

• the machine resources (CPU, RAM, ...) needed to display them

• the wasted employee time being distracted by them

Digital Realty ditches diesel for salad dressing in US to cut datacenter emissions

Does HVO really reduce emissions ?

If it is burned to generate energy it will release CO₂ - that is just chemistry. The claim to reduce emissions is that HVO is "renewable" -- what this means is that it is not dug out of the ground but is grown (crop or animal), and that growth captured the carbon that the burning just releases again. If what was grown was kept then that would be carbon capture - which is good.

This is greenwashing, sophistry to convince those who do not understand that these are "good guys".

To make the energy planet friendly it must come from something like solar or wind -- but understand that these do have a carbon cost, mainly in building them.

Any use of energy impacts the climate, some more than others, reduce energy use is best - but that often impacts profits. That is part of the dilemma: profits vs planet.

Netherlands arm of KPMG fined $25M for cheating in exams

Re: The conclusions are damning, and the penalty is a reflection of that.

Hopefully they will also feel some further consequences with companies thinking twice before paying KPMG a king's ransom for their services, knowing that this went on.

Nah. I suspect that this means that dodgy customers will take this as advertising that they can get their books certified OK with a few (non accounted for) brown envelopes.

Remember that KPMG was find £21 million for overlooking problems at Carillion, I doubt that this was the only "failure".

Note that "brown envelopes" might also consist of acting as auditors when more reputable auditors would not say nice things about their books.

Google is wrong to put AI search features behind paywall, says HPC leader

Re: Be realistic. There are only two options a seach provider can offer

2. Pay for search and give up (some of) your privacy for free still sell your data.

FIFY

If Google puts AI search behind a paywall

then Bing, or someone, does not -- what will happen ? I suspect that many will go to the free AI search.

Cloud vendor lock-in is shocking, but there's a get out of jail card

Why not have cloud.gov.uk ?

Surely the demand is big enough to do it ourselves ?

• Cheaper than paying a USA company

• Under UK control (more secure)

• Build up UK based skills

US government excoriates Microsoft for 'avoidable errors' but keeps paying for its products

"Who do you sue when it is Open Source"

is something that Microsoft shouted a few years ago. Have anyone/many successfully sued Microsoft for bugs in its software ?

VMware customer reaction to Broadcom may set the future of software licensing

It would pay large Broadcom customers ...

to get together and create a fund to pay to put missing features into an open source project. Then reap the benefit in a couple of years time.

The trouble with this idea is the C-suit mentality "why should I pay for others to take for free" - thereby locking themselves into paying much more in the long term.

Iowa sysadmin pleads guilty to 33-year identity theft of former coworker

Why did he do it ?

The write up does not give a clue.

Cloud server host Vultr rips user data licensing clause from ToS amid web 'confusion'

The problem is all or nothing "agreements"

that are deliberately made hard to understand, the result is that few people even bother looking at the first few paragraphs.

There must be government regulation, ideally resulting in a set of standard/boilerplate contracts.

Also must be banned is wording like "these T&Cs may be updated at any time, you need to check for changes".

Majority of Americans now use ad blockers

I do not mind small, discrete ads ...

but I hate ones that use a lot of screen space, auto play video, generate popups, ... this is why I use an ad blocker and also run no-script.

Blocking ads also makes pages load faster and use less of my monthly allowance. No-script helps with privacy.

In-app browsers are still a privacy, security, and choice problem

some garbled website address that goes through FB's servers

Something similar happens on youtube - it shows a clean URL but copy the link and it starts https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=xxx. This is not obvious and lets youtube collect personal information -- both of which are against the GPDR; not that our chocolate teapot ICO will bother to do anything about it.

Good news: HMRC offers a Linux version of Basic PAYE Tools. Bad news: It broke

"for businesses with fewer than 10 employees."

Why is there a limit of 10 employees ? If it works for 10, why not 11 ?

DARPA tasks Northrop Grumman with drafting lunar train blueprints

So what will be the excuses for late trains ?

Moon trees do not exist, so no "leaves on the line" ...

"Wrong type of regolith" maybe ?

Euclid space telescope needs de-icing

Re: Traffic Lights

They thought of that, but someone forgot to put the bag of £1 coins in the parts manifest.

Microsoft defends barging in on Chrome with pop-up ads pushing Bing, GPT-4

How is this not illegal ?

Yet another reason to be thankful that I use Linux.

Developers beware, Microsoft's domain shakeup is coming soon

Why break things with gratuitous change ?

Microsoft does not seem to understand the concept of stability.

Can AI shorten PC replacement cycles? Dell seems to think so

Re: My desktop is 10 years old

Yes, I could make a Linux box last 10 years but I'd rather spend my time being productive myself than spending it on keeping my kit productive

You are suggesting that I spend lots of time maintaining the system as the hardware is old. Not true. Replacing the PSU and CPU fan [I forgot to mention] did not take long.

Other admin: apt-get update/upgrade, backups, etc, all would be needed on new hardware.

The most time spent was when I moved from CentOS to Debian after RedHat went rogue on the GPL.