Posts by jake

Firewalls? Pfft – it's no match for my mighty spares-bin PC

Re: Bodged rack mount server

Out of curiosity, what drives do you prefer for your private use?

_{Yes, this is a trick question. We may learn why s/he doesn't miss SCSI.}

Re: Gaffer tape ... don't leave home without it.

For all around use, ShurTape P- 628 will handle just about anything you throw at it. I generally buy it by the case when I see it on sale. I also keep various versions of ProGaff on hand for specialty work (wet conditions, automotive/boat upholstery backing, etc.). Both are kinda spendy, but you get what you pay for.

Re: Guess what I found!

A promiscuous ethernet card and tcpdump worked quite nicely back then, and still is quite useful in the right hands.

Re: Eh?

I don't need knowledge of his config. I know lilo. Changing the kernel[0] called for in /etc/lilo.conf and then running (surprise!) lilo at the command line and rebooting is hardly difficult.

It would appear some folks disagree.

[0] The kernel was the only thing upgraded in the OP's scenario, so the only thing needing to be changed would be the image called out by the config file (and possibly a kernel parameter or two). And probably just the one kernel, even in a multi-boot system. Unless you're foolhardy enough to change all the kernels in such a system at once, sans testing.

Re: This is every IT project

Gaffer tape ... don't leave home without it.

Temporary hacks aren't.

If you are reading this, you're probably using the hack that I put together in 4.1BSD (now called 4.1aBSD) for part of the TCP/IP stack to be included in 4.2BSD[0]. It was supposed to be one of those "just get us through the demo, dammit" hacks. I got 'er done over Christmas/NewYears break in 1981. Virtually every version of TCP/IP since has used it. Not too bad for a quick hack ...

[0] Just to cut the usual pack of idiots putting words into my mouth off at the socks, no, I didn't write the whole stack. That's why I said "part of". It was only about 120 lines of C in total.

Eh?

"how I don't miss LILO and needing to rerun it for kernel upgrades"

Because it was such a chore?

MAybe a dozen or so keystrokes ... you must have been typing your fingers to the bone, poor thing.

Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram deplatform themselves: Services down globally

In other news ...

KGO television, Channel 7 here in the Bay Area is running a poll as I type, asking "Do you trust Facebook?"

Voting is running "Yes" 3%, "No, I don't use it" 37%, "No, but I use it anyway" 60% ... Take that as you will.

Re: It was only a matter of time

Speculation in Silly Con Valley is that it's damage control to patch stuff that might still be accessible to the whistleblower who outed herself last night.

Why a former employee would have any access at all has gone unreported (talk about bad security!) ... as has what Facebook can do to fix the barn door after the worm can was spilt.

::shrugs::

Re: Oh dear.

On the contrary, the sheeple are losing what is left of their tiny little minds. I've had a half dozen telephone calls asking why "the Internet is down", all from people who never call me for support anymore because I don't do Redmond or Cupertino. Seems they are so desperate for their fix that they are willing to risk getting laughed at.

In other news, the Realtor for a property I'm trying to purchase can't do business with me "because her Facebook is down". When I pointed out that I've never used Facebook when talking with her, she just looked at me blankly. Yes, we were standing talking to each other in person at the time. The mind absolutely boggles.

Maker of ATM bombing tutorials blew himself up – Euro cops

Re: Pretty much standard

"that it would be convenient if the knowledge was incomplete"

No. The publications were as accurate as they knew how to make them. Their reputation depended on it.

"that can easily be put on a watchlist."

Again, no. That kind of thing is fairly modern. I remember my grandad and uncles purchasing dynamite over the counter at the local hardware store, no ID required or even asked for. Usually they just bought enough to set off their own mix of ANFO, though ... made a better bang for rolling Redwood stumps out of the ground.

Re: Pretty much standard

"The first act of domestic terrorism was Guy Fawkes"

Representation from the Sicarii are on line one ... something about prior art.

Re: Depends

@Clausewitz: Oh?

Wow!

Who knew that those in charge would have left such huge loopholes! And you read it on TehIntraWebTubes, so it must be true!!!!!1!111one!1111eleven!

Hold my beer ... No, really, hold my beer, I'm low on fingers.

Re: History repeating itself.

It's "hoisted by", see: Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4.

If you want to be both petulant and archaic, it's "hoise by".

Re: History repeating itself.

Happens all the time. Just ask at your local Emergency Room (A&E, EW, depending on jurisdiction). Making homemade explosives is so easy that any idiot can do it. And frequently, they do.

We won't get into the "sport" of sitting on airbags removed from cars.

As we say around these here parts, "Stupidity SHOULD hurt!".

Re: You can just ORDER ATMs???

I can show you several new model ATMs (a year old or less) at a couple of Bay Area scrap yards. When they tear down a building or otherwise do demolition to make way for new structure, they'll often pull the ATM, remove some of the electronics (and leftover cash, if any) & junk the rest. It would seem it is far, far easier to install a brand new unit (if wanted) than it is to adapt the old system to the new building.

Anybody can purchase the "gently used" ATMs by the pound as scrap. No ID required.

YouTube expands vaccine misinfo crackdown, nukes anti-vax channels for good

"El Reg itself might considering worrying about when the culture warriors will start coming after snark."

They keep trying, but us Loyal Commentards keep beating them off with a stick.

Funny, isn't it, how we fight like cats & dogs over many things, but are united in keeping the general tone of this august organ as it is.

Personally, I think that useful info flows far more freely with an element of snark to lubricate it. That's what made the good points of Usenet take off as fast as it did. I could point to many FOSS projects that wouldn't be what they are without it, too. And many proprietary projects that withered on the vine without it,

Beers all around.

Re: 5G chip...

What are these "apps" you speak of?

Re: 5G chip...

::sighs::

Re: When does misinformation become information?

Yes, the US Government is stupid (all large governments are, almost by definition). But there was no NSL. Not this time. No need.

Ol' Bill of Occam sez follow the money.

Re: When does misinformation become information?

Exactly. Follow the money. The bad publicity was affecting their bottom line, so they have started pulling the obvious bullshit.

One wonders if profits actually increased in some measurable way when they pulled posting rights from a certain ex-president ... if so, it would explain why the various multi-billion dollar advertising companies are now more prone to jerk the platform out from under the bullshit artists.

And about fucking time, too.

Re: When does misinformation become information?

"What worries me is the idea that companies like Google consider themselves to be legitimate arbiters of what constitutes misinformation."

What worries me is that people as a herd consider the bullshit they read online to be TRVTH. As I've been saying for decades, Critical Thinking 101 should be mandatory for high school graduation.

"On one hand they benefit from being considered not a publisher but on the other they behave exactly like one."

Oh, horseshit. They allow you to publish any old bullshit, to your heart's content ... UNTIL you start to affect their company (and shareholders) negatively. At that point, you get slapped on the hand, the offending content gets removed, and you get told not to do it again.

It is NOT the stuff that they are publishing that gets pulled, it is the stuff that you are publishing that gets pulled. The freedom of the press belongs to he who owns one.

Re: When does misinformation become information?

And MeDearOldMum had dreams of me being an Astronaut. Sadly, I was pigeon-toed, cross-eyed and extremely near-sighted so I washed out of Air Force Pilot training before I even got there. Clearly, MeDearOldMum should have been blaming all those nasty vaccines I got as a child, not her own genetics.

Re: When does misinformation become information?

So Mavis is posting a question (not a statement) about a vaccine, and the question has to do with something other than Covid to boot ... So what was your worry about YouTube removing incorrect info about Covid, again? You seem to have lost track of the plot.

Re: 5G chip...

"Can I get my money back?"

You can have every penny you paid for the jab returned to you. Make sure you have your receipt(s) with you when you make your claim in order to expedite processing. Thank you.

Re: When does misinformation become information?

Get a second opinion, as allowed by law. And a third, if necessary. Make noise. But in useful places.

Posting to YouTube and the like will get you nothing but cranks. If you're lucky.

As a side note, how "little" is Malcolm? If he's all THAT young, he's in the experimental group and Mavis's doctor automatically has access to all the data available, most of which will not be found on You Tube as yet as it hasn't been published for the simple reason that it's still being compiled.

Re: About fucking time.

The few remaining fanatic Trump supporters?

Re: When does misinformation become information?

Does Mavis have a doctor to talk to about her little one? You know, the people who have years and years of study designed exactly to put them in a position to be able to help people out in situations like this?

No, no, no, whatever was I thinking ... Obviously she must post it to YouTube, that way she'll get all of humanity responding to her, and she won't have any trouble whatsoever separating out fact from fiction. Especially all those facts the doctors, the WHO and the CDC are hiding from us law abiding citizens.

Honestly, the mind boggles ...

"Good on United Airlines saying get vaccinated or get sacked."

Some cities here in California are doing this, too. The largest city that I am aware of which is going to be implementing it is San Jose. Naturally, some will quit over this mandate. Including some members of the city's police department ... not just "civilian" employees, but also sworn officers.

It occurs to me that the fucking morons refusing to get vaccinated probably contain the small subset of cops who play fast and loose with civil rights. Perhaps this pandemic will bring about at least a little bit of decent change.

It's an ill wind & all that.

Re: video giant said that content making false claims that approved vaccines are dangerous

Of course alphagoo are not going to return it ... the advertisers got their money's worth, didn't they? In alphagoo's mind, they earned it fair and square ... it's the advertisers that paid for all the bullshit leading idiots down the garden path, so how can it be alphagoo's fault?.

They are money-grubbing capitalist pigs, answering to no one but the shareholders, and they can do what they like because nobody has done the one thing that'll stop them.

That would be leaving the entire system behind en-mass, if you were wondering. Won't happen, though, because people as a herd flock like sheep, with roughly the same IQ.

Next question?

About fucking time.

'nuff said.

Labour Party proposes raising UK Digital Services Tax (so Amazon can pass the hike on that, too?)

Re: There is an easy way round this

I usually don't usually see my downvotes ... or upvotes. Ad blockers don't just block ads, they block all kinds of inconsequential noise.

Re: until they pay a fair amount of tax.

I have never, not once, purchased anything online. I much prefer to help keep the locals gainfully employed, rather than increase the size of the purses of the billion-dollar multi-national advertising companies.

This has not affected my lifestyle even a little tiny bit when compared to the neighbors.

Strangely, people like sabroni don't call me a superhero. They call me a neo-luddite.

I'm cool with that :-)

Re: There is an easy way round this

"I've got 9 thumbs up and 9 thumbs down which makes my plan middle of the road."

No, those thumbs only mean that 9 people chose, for reasons unknown, to give you a thumbs up, and 9 people chose, for some other reasons unknown, to give you a thumbs down. Even the troll and sabroni don't actually mention if they added a thumb or not, much less which way it was pointed.

So essentially, those thumbs mean precisely nothing because their providers haven't bothered to tell you what they mean in this particular context.

Worse, all those thumbs connected to your name, in aggregate, mean even less. As data, thumbs in this forum are noise, at best.

"Probably because they don't have the economies of scale for their physical premises that companies with digital shop fronts do."

Note that there is absolutely nothing stopping them from opening a digital storefront alongside their brick and mortar store.

Re: It's really just begging the question.

"But in a non-competitive market prices are already as high as they can go so the tax is paid by the seller and reduces their profits."

Or, more likely by far, the seller stops making that particular product, either temporarily or permanently, and shifts those resources to another, more productive, product line. The shareholders demand it.

Give put-upon infosec bods professional recognition to keep them working for you, says chartered institute

All joking aside, it boggles my mind that some try to turn it into a deep, dark art.

C'mon, people, it's not exactly rocket surgery!

"how should existing companies keep skilled professionals from jumping ship?"

As an employer, I've found two things that work in tandem.

The first is to treat your employees well.

The second is to pay them at the upper range (or over!) of the pay scale people receive in similar positions nation wide. Seriously. Pay them. Money. Lots of it. They are the best you can find, right? Almost impossible to replace, right? You want to keep them, right?

I've been in the biz for over half a century. I'm with you.

Most certification is (in my mind) a means unto it's own ... it only exists to provide the folks offering up the exams a job, near as I can tell. That and giving HR something to filter on ... and HR is almost as bloody useless as unions when it comes to IT.

I almost always trash c.v.s and resumes that lean heavily on certification ... After all these decades in IT, it's painfully obvious that there are those who can do it in the trenches, and those who can learn how to take tests by the numbers. People who can do things only by rote are mostly useless in real world problem solving.

If anyone can explain why Jupiter's Great Red Spot is spinning faster and shrinking, please speak up

Re: All these worlds are yours.

I was going to make a similar comment, along the lines of "It's McCarthy spinning faster and faster because of all the Commie sympathizers in today's Republican Party leadership", but I thought better of it.

Tough crowd 'round here. Have a beer.

_{"ElReg is infested with anonymous commentards. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Moderators as being members of the Anonymous Cowards who nevertheless are still writing and sticking their thumbs down in the ElReg forums."}

Kent County Council names eight suppliers on £500m education framework

Hands up all the Californians who ...

... read that as "Kern County", saw the half billion, and thought "WTF‽‽‽" momentarily?

UK altnet CityFibre's boss on its hopes to capitalise on market churn as fibre broadband rolls out

Re: Cityfibre ... arghhhh

Think you've got it bad?

Palo Alto rolled out a fiber ring around the City in 1983[0]. It runs along the same line of telephone poles that my parents get their PG&E electricity, cable TV and POTS from. They have been unable to get fiber from the city for nearly 40 years. Guess why. That's right, money. Palo Alto keeps trying, but the total cost always is far more expensive than any financial returns could possibly justify.

(The existing fiber is somewhat obsolete ... but last time I heard it still lights and passes bits with no errors, even when as saturated as the test equipment allows. More importantly, the right of way still exists.)

[0] Yes, I know. Very early. Palo Alto's always been progressive. As an example, they started brainwashingteaching school kids about recycling in the late 1960s, with a recycling center opening in 1971 for household drop off; curbside household pickup started six or seven years later.

Re: Cityfibre ... arghhhh

"the groundwork was subcontracted so not directly KCOM’s fault"

Eh? In these here parts, as a contractor, if I hire a subcontractor to do a job for me and the work done is shoddy, I am the responsible party. The people I do the work for yell at ME to fix it (which I immediately do, with apologies, not excuses).

Bottom line: If the work is done under my shingle, I am directly responsible.

_{Now ask me why I'm extremely finicky about my subcontractors.}

Re: Cityfibre ... arghhhh

As the old joke goes, if there are two barbers in town, always get your hair cut by the one who has the worst haircut.

Through the Looking Glass – holographic display hardware is great, but it's not enough

Re: Viola?

They were viewing it in 3D and the I and O had swapped places ... kind of a latter day variation of the serial gender benders of our yoot.

Or as I like to put it ...

... Who is "we", Kemosabe?

Agree with the both of you.

But sadly it isn't going to stop Marketing from selling it, existing or not ... nor is it going to stop suckers from buying into it.

The only remaining question is whether or not I want to ignore my scruples long enough to make bank off this latest mostly useless fad.

Re: What is that depth information used for?

"even from a single image, there are probably tools that can reconstruct missing background information with a bit of AI"

AI paint by numbers? Lovely. I'm sure the user's mummys and grans will tell them how much of an "artist" they are and stick it to the fridge with a gold-star magnet.