Posts by James O'Shea

US struck Iran with copies of its own drones

Re: So what's the difference between a cruise missile and a "suicide drone"?

One's Islamic ('La ilaha illa Allah!') and one isn't.

DOGE bites taxman

Re: The assignment....

'Vaya con Dios'? That sounds Mexican. ICE is going to be paying you a visit. I hear El Salvador and/or Uganda are sunny at this time of year.

Openreach turns up the heat to force laggards off legacy copper lines

Re: It worries me that *everything* is being forced to depend on the …

Here in Deepest South Flkori-duh, Always Totally Terrible. used to, I repeat, USED TO, supply a UPS to home/small business 'service points' which had their DSL service, and the 'landlines' supplied were VoIP. They no longer do this. I personally have provided a UPS to those 'service points' I am responsible for. As the only load on the UPS would be the router, the phone, and, where necessary, whatever is doing the work of a switchboard, the UPS can usually hold out for quite some time. We get power from FPL; Frequent Power Loss blinks the lights quite often, but outages aren't typically long (except when there's a hurricane, of course), so the UPS is enough. The cell sites have UPSes and might have generators; they typically can stay up for an extended period.

Light a fire under those responsible for comms; cell towers around here got extended life UPSes and generators after several hurricanes. did naughty things, and the populace got pissed off. It's a bad idea to annoy Florida Man.

Re: Apples and oranges?

I used a landline yesterday.

Workday reveals around 400 staff soon won't have to work another day

Oh, yes. We use it, but only because we must. It's achieved the impossible: it's worse than Teams.

Microsoft's Sinofsky saw Surface fail coming – then hit up Epstein for advice on exit

Re: Indicted

Err... you _do_ know that the first serious tablet computer things (that is, not doomed Apple Newtons, which lacked the Touch of The Steve because The Steve was still in exile and the idiots running Apple had no clue whatsoever) were from... Microsoft. In 2001-3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tablet_PC

There was a violent attack of Do-Not-Want, even worse than with Surfaces. Apple Newtons got Doonesburied; https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/mobile-computing/18/319/1714 but the Windows tablets were so bad that they weren't worth parodying.

no comment

I saw Surface RT fail coming, and I don't even work at MS. I looked into getting one, and noted that:

1. it wasn't as good as the iPad I already had

2. it cost more than the wireless-only version of the iPad I already had

3. it couldn't run the full suite of Windows apps. Indeed, many of the apps it could run were crippled.

4. it had limited RAM, limited storage, limited connectivity (no cell service)

5. MS somehow managed the impossible: they built a keyboard worse than Apple's keyboards for iPads. Apple hasn't made a good keyboard since the 'Saratoga' keyboards of the late 1990s, with the possible exception of their (very expensive) new keyboards for iPads; this thing was worse than Apple's stuff.

Basically it was a crippled, expensive, iPad which lacked apps. I saw it as a dead device walking. I was right. I couldn't see a use case for it that an iPad wouldn't fit better, and probably cheaper. I was right about that, too.

Frankly, the only way I would have got a Surface RT would have been if MS sent me one for free. But that's me, YMMV.

Cloudflare CEO threatens to make the Winter Olympics a political football after Italy slugs it with a fine

seems straightforward to me

1. the fine is more than double the revenue CloudFlare makes from Italy. "The regulator therefore decided to fine Cloudflare one percent of its annual revenue, a little more than €14 million, which is more than double the company’s revenue derived from Italy."

2. it would be... interesting to attempt to comply, given the way that CGNAT works.

3. there is no easy method of appealing the fine.

Cool. Pull the plug, remove all CloudFlare services from Italy, tell them to stuff their fine.

Microsoft teases targeted Copilot removal for admins

who's got the registry hack

which nukes Copilot. Permanently.

US extradites Ukrainian woman accused of hacking meat processing plant for Russia

It's Russia

How did they notice the difference from how things normally operate?

Affection for Excel spans generations, from Boomers to Zoomers

In many cases they need the macros and add-ins and extensions that exist only in Excel.

Australia bans teens from social media, but nobody thinks it'll really work

Re: At least they'll learn to count...

People in Oz have to be 17 before they can see these? https://www.instagram.com/p/DFVYxVzP3hp/ Oz is strange.

It is always enjoyable to watch England getting thumped in cricket. And rugby. And Real Football (even the Orange One admits that there can be only one! https://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/article/president-trump-wants-to-rename-american-football-we-have-to-come-up-with-another-name-for-the-nfl-181710848.html ).

He got that many downvotes because he's trolling.

X shuts down European Commission ad account after €120M fine announcement

The Commission should

Nuke X till it glows, then shoot it in the ark. And shoot it again, just to make sure. Ban it from the EU. Do it now.

Google and Apple ordered to stop fake government TXTs

Re: Indian Airplane

Hmm. Indian Flankers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-30MKI work better than Russian Flankers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-27 The Indians are also, allegedly, better than Felons, or would be if there were more than two and a half dozen Felons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-57

Eleven years after Lenovo acquired IBM’s x86 server biz, profits are still elusive

There's a reason

why IBM sold their stuff to Lenovo.

Microsoft issues patch to tackle Windows 10 Extended Security Updates failures

Re: To save storage and bandwidth, and your sanity...

CoPilot.

It does its job perfectly: it irritates the life out of users, just as it was designed to.

Ransomed CTO falls on sword, refuses to pay extortion demand

Re: Chief Technology Officer Mariano Albera said that his company takes "full responsibility"

Yeah. By hiring a large number of the less fortunate to work as security guards to defend against the rest of the less fortunate.

Happy holidays: AI-enabled toys teach kids how to play with fire, sharp objects

Think of it as evolution in action

AI toys: A Darwin award in a box.

You'll never guess what the most common passwords are. Oh, wait, yes you will

Re: India@123

England beating India? That never happens.

‘ERP down for emergency maintenance’ was code for ‘You deleted what?’

Re: "I've accidentally deleted some relations.”

King Jughead just did exactly that. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ylk9r336zo

And, famously, Michael Corleone did a little cleanup. https://youtu.be/AO-VFDYy9Rk

X says passkey reset isn't about a security issue – it's to finally kill off twitter.com

it's fine until it stops working

"Microsoft has long told customers they won't have the option to forgo the passwordless push,"

One of my cousins has a Mac, and MS Office. Over the weekend, he got a message from his personal OneDrive that he needed to sign in. Except that there was a problem: the password did NOT unlock OneDrive. He got an error message (8004de44, he called me to fix the damn thing) and a request for a 'security key' (the Mac doesn't have a fingerprint reader) and could not activate. Changing the password made no difference. He could access OnDrive in his web browser, just as he could access his MS account, and MS Office; he had a OneDrive Business account, which works. MS 'support' were less than helpful. The personal OneDrive works on a Windows machine and on an iPad as well as in Firefox, Brave, and Vivaldi. Apple support said that this is an MS problem, not theirs, especially as it works on the iPad.

In Ye Olden Daze of just passwords there would have been no problem. Probably.

MPs urge government to stop Britain's phone theft wave through tech

Re: Repairable? or Theft-Proof?

i do train those whose systems I admin. Family, friends, users at work. Some listen, some don't. Those who don't listen tend to feel the results. When they come crying, I point out that if they'd listened, they would not have this problem. Evolution in action, that's what it is.

I got a case with a lanyard not to protect against thieves, but so that the device wouldn't fall and break the screen; the lanyards work as anti-theft systems as a bonus. Those who don't get lanyards, or who don't use them and break screens or have stuff stolen (breaking screens is far more common), as a result, get zero sympathy from me.

Re: Repairable? or Theft-Proof?

My personal iPad IS on hand wherever I go, 24/7. Either it's open on the desk in front of me or it's in my carry bag over my shoulder.

Re: Repairable? or Theft-Proof?

My iPad and laptop are with me pretty much 24/7. The iPad in particular is connected to the car system by USB; I play music on it while driving, and have the maps up if necessary. I unplug it from the car USB and put it next to the laptop in my carry bag. And I have two phones; one is configured as a hotspot so that the laptop has a live Internet connection, which does NOT depend on a coffee shop or whatever wifi. If someone steals one of the phones, I'd be on Find My in under five minutes, probably under one minute. Apple Pay is on both phones and the iPad.

And the phones are in pockets, with zip closures, in the bag when not in use, and have lanyards. And the bag is itself secured adequately with a GOOD strap properly placed; snatch and run ain't happening. Besides, it's usually in the car until I get to my destination, then it's with me in the parking lot until it's in the building with me. The odds of the bag being stolen are... quite low.

Thieves go for the low-hanging fruit. Those who take proper precautions aren't attractive targets.

Re: Repairable? or Theft-Proof?

Grandparents are dead. Parents use secure systems; I set them up. And they know to check the passwords.

Re: Repairable? or Theft-Proof?

Install an ad-blocker on various devices. Use a DVR to record TV, and fast-forward past ads. I haven't seen an ad on my normal systems for years. Where possible, I put ad-blockers on every computer I use; if I can't put an ad-blocker on it, I keep the usage down to a minimum.

Apple's built-in password manager checks for reused passwords, flags them, and says why. It also looks for passwords that have been compromised, flags those, and tells why. Several 3rd-party password managers do much the same thing. if your password manager doesn't do this, or if it does but you don't pay attention, you're an idiot.

Yes, it's what they deserve. Think of it as evolution in action.

Re: Repairable? or Theft-Proof?

idiots deserve what they get.

Re: Repairable? or Theft-Proof?

Around here, all my banking apps (one for checking/saving, one for the credit union, two for credit cards) require at least two steps to get to the login. And the websites associated with them are quite bolshie about security. No, they don't just autofill. My passwords are locked up in either Zoho's or Apple's password managers. Both of them require multiple steps to access; with Zoho, I must fire up an access app... which requires a password, which is NOT autofilled. And has an MFA of its own. And lives on my iPad, so they'd have to steal it too. With Apple, I must log in with my Apple ID... which does NOT autofill and which requires a password or biometrics. I have it rigged to demand a password; it's a 15-item password, ten characters, two of them caps, four numbers, and a symbol. Yes, it's annoying to get into the password manager. It's supposed to be annoying. (The ten characters spell out something in a non-Indo-European language, except that it's deliberately misspelled. A thief would have to guess which language and how I misspelled it and the caps and numbers are not necessarily where most people would expect them to be...) Website passwords are NOT stored in the browser. And, oh, I have three browsers loaded on each of the devices, and I use different browsers for different tasks. The websites themselves will be in the cookies for only one browser. Guess which one. Do it fast, before I nuke the phone remotely.

If a thief gets access to my unlocked phone, he gets access to email and texting, but he had better move fast before I fire up Find My on the iPad or the other iPhone and spin up Lost Phone. (Note that Find My also lives on Macs, and in icloud.com, which is readily available from Windows, Linux, or even Android systems.)

The (very cheap, under $20) case for my iPhone came with a lanyard. Those who want lanyards can easily and cheaply get them.

Digital ID is now less about illegal working, more about rummaging through drawers

Re: All we need now...

Wilted.

Re: All we need now...

The Greens are one step ahead of PETA. This is not a compliment.

Re: Let's rebrand Starmer...

You are far too kind. He should be rebranded as a shepherd, and exported o New Zealand as being surplus to requirements in the UK. I don't have anything against Kiwis, but they are about as far away from the UK as you can get without leaving the planet. If/when Herr Muskrat gets his Mars thingy working, he can be exported to Mars.

Fake home invasion vid lands woman in real trouble

Re: So tell me sir...

Goofy's not the problem. Pluto would be the problem.

I'll get me hat.

SpaceX is behind schedule, so NASA will open Artemis III contract to competition

Re: Why are they still working on developing rockets?

Trust me, there are people who are lots worse than he is. There is, for example, the gentleman who insists that there are 678 aliens living in the solar system right how. They're refugees from the Antares system; Antares is a red supergiant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antares Any life on any planet in the Antares system would be... special. Antares is also about 550 light years away. The only way to get here from there would be the Dray Prescot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dray_Prescot_series method. And, in any case, 678 is an awfully precise number. M'man posts on USENET, notably in talk.origins and rec.arts.sf.written, and he's not the kookiest poster in either newsgroup. (And, yes, he's quite serious.)

NASA needs to hire the right people

Starting with Commander Straker, Col. Foster, Col.. Freeman, and, especially, Lt. Ellis. They'd have things working in no time.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063962/?ref_=ttfc_ov_bk

Windows 11 update knocks out USB mice, keyboards in recovery mode

If a machine is old enough to have a PS/2 port

itt's too old for Win11.

Hmm. I wonder if this affects built-in Bluetooth. I no longer have a Win11 machine hat can be deployed to test this. And if I did, I probably wouldn't care enough to try.

Major AWS outage across US-East region breaks half the internet

Wasn't down this morning (08:00 Eastern)

It's down now. (11:00 Eastern.)

I get to be paid to visit El Reg because a certain project can't be accessed. Gee. Did I tell the 'C' bos to NOT set things up in the cloud? Didn't I say so _in writting_? Why, yes I did. I can't wait to see whose fault this is.

Ofcom fines 4chan £20K and counting for pretending UK's Online Safety Act doesn't exist

Re: doesn't matter if it wasn't you that sneezed your still guilty

Well, you bleeding Sassenach deserve it...

Re: Broken

So... turn the VPN on on your laptop, but not on your tablet.

Re: Thanks

And if they did so, then it would be simple to set up a VPN to get around this.

Are the UK authorities going to ban access to VPNs set up from outside the UK (Nord comes to mind pretty much instantly; they're in Panama and the Netherlands, IIRC.)? Because if they aren't, it would be trivial to get a VPN and then just ignore officialdom.

Errr

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it true that 4Chan has no official presence in the UK? If this is so, then how, exactly, is a UK organization planning on collecting even one penny from them? As I understand it, wouldn't HM Boyos have to bring suit in 4Chan's legal residence? I suspect that the odds of a UK org getting legal cover in the US for something like this to be near zero. It's not like Apple, or Google, or Microsoft, all of which actually have UK-based arms which can be hit; I rather suspect that 4Chan isn't even a registered company in the UK.

And, besides... VPNs are your friends.

Texas senators cry foul over Smithsonian's pricey Space Shuttle shuffle

Feh

damn senators are THINKING TOO SMALL. Build the battleship Michael from Niven & Pournelle's book Footfall. Michael was built to carry _four_ shuttles. See https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GQQZwZn55rU/VPqIy3fjrUI/AAAAAAAAAW4/5magVZgUGd4/s1600/michael_by_william_black-d8eudqd.jpg, https://www.reddit.com/r/StarshipPorn/comments/2ujhlw/battleship_michael_climbing_to_orbit_1024x768/, and https://www.reddit.com/r/ImaginaryStarships/comments/14r1sx6/michael_nuclear_pulse_battleship_from_footfall/ for more. And we could use the two senators' fat heads as shielding when we need to launch, and, more important, to land. Gotta love nuke pulse spacecraft. Just don't be behind them.

No account? No Windows 11, Microsoft says as another loophole snaps shut

OK

I had already resolved to go with Ubuntu and Apple for my computing needs, other than a few legacy systems running Win 10, 7, and XP, and a few VMs with Win 10. Win 11 was already banned, even from VMs. I will be moving away from legacy Windows and Windows in VMs ASAP..

Thanks for making the decision so easy, Sad Nad.

London cops unplug iPhone crime ring said to nick 40% of city's mobiles

Dr. Who

uses Win 11? (See pic...)

Alternatively, perhaps the Met and/or the BBC may be able to sue MS. Prior art.

https://youtu.be/75V4ClJZME4

ICE plans to scour Facebook, TikTok, X, and even defunct Google+ for illegal immigration leads

Re: Do the ICE enforcers wear an uniform?

The black with silver looks so much better.

https://presse83.fr/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Les-Uniformes-de-la-Controverse-LHeritage-Nazi-de-Hugo-Boss-1024x614.png

Hmm. Does Hugo Boss design masks?

Hey ICE-ICE fascists

I'm at:

701 Clematis Street

West Palm Beach, FL 33401

Come get me.

And come for m'hermana Altonaga while you're there.

Better come in heavy, some of the hermanos are packing serious heat.

Windows 10 refuses to go gentle into that good night

Re: Buh-bye, MS

I'm sure that I don't care what Sad Nad thinks.