Posts by Jamie Jones

US Army signs up Band of Tech Bros with a suitably nerdy name

Polite request

"Please put down your weapon. You have 20 seconds to comply..."

"10 seconds..."

Google Cloud goes down, takes Cloudflare and its customers with it

Re: Eggs and Baskets

Sods law, eh?

Don't confuse mission-critical for under-utilised. There are some busy things running on there, but I don't really give a shit if they broke for a few hours!

Re: Eggs and Baskets

Totally missing the point there. Maybe this will help: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/put-all-eggs-in-one-basket

The point is, all 6 of them are really just hobbiest machines, appropriate sizes for their task, and no way will one problem take them down at the same time.

Back when I was responsible professionally for hundreds of servers spanning the UK and upwards of tens of thousands of users, we didn't have anything like the budget of these huge cloud providers, and whilst individually these machines couldn't be guaranteed 100% uptime, we could easily guarantee we wouldn't lose the lot at once, and departments that had the budget for proper redundancy setups never lost anything. But then, we weren't using opaque terms like "cloud" and we were real people who could be directly shouted at by our employer. And never did someone who didn't even work for the company manage to take our systems offline.

I'm nothing special - most here would have similar experiences, which is why most would recommend not putting your critical stuff on someone else's computer.

Eggs and Baskets

I can validly claim that my servers have better uptime than Google and Cloudflare, and they aren't even running mission-critical operations.

Meta sues 'nudify' app-maker that it claims ran 87k+ Facebook, Instagram ads

Re: Odd

Well, yeah, but I mean the sort of companies that are proper legal entities, and not some fly-by-night dodgy character with a false name doing a runner after taking your cash.

We tell people to ignore dodgy spam, and unheard of websites, but if a non-techie friend told me that she thought the advert must be safe because it was on YouTube, I couldn't blame her.

Re: Odd

That was my thought too.

If say (ITV) showed such ads, people would be rightly blaming ITV. How do so called reputable websites get a pass?

I don't use Facebook, but I'm fed up with all the scam adverts on YouTube, and how they brazenly get away with broadcasting them.

'Major compromise' at NHS temping arm exposed gaping security holes

It's a security breach ranked 2 below "colonel fuckup"

Trump official warns they're putting the squeeze on CHIPS Act winners

"President Trump, who has previously called for the CHIPS Act to be scrapped and the cash used to settle the national debt."

You mean, used to give tax breaks to his buddies, just like with the "big beautiful bill" (gimme a break)

Meta pauses mobile port tracking tech on Android after researchers cry foul

In a roundabout way, yes: https://incolumitas.com/2021/01/10/browser-based-port-scanning/

Re: One rule for them

... that you know of!

Re: One rule for them

Incidentally, see this page to see all the information JavaScript allows sites to retrieve about your system:

https://amiunique.org/

Battery / charging status, keyboard layout, GL renderer etc. FFS

Unfortunately, it's read/write, and available universally. Though it can theoretically only talk to a willing service, the problem as highlighted in this article is that the Facebook app client is a willing service.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebSocket

Re: Difference between authoritarian governments not a social media companies

YouTube Videos, maybe. Not the comments. Try writing a comment continuing the words murder, gun, or shooting, or even mention Israel and Palestine in the same sentence, and your comment will be not be visible to anyone else but you.

That's just an example. If you write about anything other than your liking of fluffy kittens, there's a good chance of it happening.

One rule for them

If we wrote a program that did that, being bannes by Google is the least of our problems. We'd probably be jailed for trojanised privicy violations.

Yet Meta et al. can just put it down to a "miscommunication" and get away with it. They need to be fined SERIOUS money under GDPR and the people responsible be held personally liable.

And now my browser rant. I'm fed up of all these things added to browsers to do non browsing stuff. If I'm forced to enable javascript, I don't want RTC and all sorts of shite open. I don't want to be fingerprinted by revealing my window and screen resolutions, installed fonts etc.

If any web site "legitimately" wants my window resolution, it's doing it wrong.

I've never used rtc in a browser.

I don't want the browser playing God with my DNS config.

Just render the webpage damnit!

AI kept 15-year-old zombie vuln alive, but its time is drawing near

Progress

Schoolboy coding errors, lowest common denominator cut 'n paste coders, and confidentially incorrect LLM's

What could go wrong?

But it will all be OK, because it's agile!!!!

Tesla FSD ignores school bus lights and hits 'child' dummy in staged demo

Re: Statistics

I keep saying that - it's not just keeping your hands on the wheel, but knowing the road conditions, where everything else is on the road, like you say, all the situational awareness.

Indeed, I would think it's harder to do that if you aren't actually driving, so yeah, you may as well drive.

Some signs of AI model collapse begin to reveal themselves

Re: Spark of creativity

Some authors have published books with the AI prompts accidentally included, so they even forgot to ask the AI to cover it up!

Authors slammed after AI prompts show up in published books: “Opportunist hacks using a theft machine”

Re: "an article I read on Litvenyenko"

Is that Python? I thought he was referring to one of the reg commentards!

AI agents don't care about your pretty website or tempting ads

Re: News to you Andreas..

I remember a time, many years ago, when I often found web adverts useful.

I'd be browsing a web site, and see an ad for something that looked neat, and many times, not only would I click through for more information, I'd actually order the product.

I haven't done this in years - not because I've become poorer or more cynical, but because all the ads are either scams, or something I have no interest in.

Remember the good old days? You'd be reading about some cool gadget, and would see ads for other cool gadgets. Reading a site about off-roading invariably had ads for bike parts, or trails.

THAT was targeted advertising, not the sort of crap that today is called targeted, but just seems to be a perverted excuse to gather as much information on you as possible, and the closest they get to relevance is spamming you with adverts for washing machines after you've just bought one.

Ex-Meta exec: Copyright consent obligation = end of AI biz

"This is despite many of the UK's leading media and arts professionals speaking out against the data access bill, including playwright Tom Stoppard, Dr Who producer Russell T Davies, and a slew of musicians such as Elton John, Paul McCartney, Kate Bush and Robbie Williams."

Far more importantly, most of us are against this bill.

And that is more important because we have no skin in the game.

Re: well it seems

They need to do more than buy your book, seeing as they'll end up regurgitating your content, they should try and negotiate a redistribution licence.

How sticky notes saved 'the single biggest digital program in the world'

Well, apparently, PIP isn't being replaced at all.

But I still can't see the point of moving half of ESA. It's one claim. They are just increasing work. If they are that unsure things aren't going to work, they need to do better testing, and move people more slowly.

Re: "assumptions don't turn out to be what humans look like when you hit them"

Whilst I didn't want the job, I was actually trying my best not to fail, believe it or not!

Re: "assumptions don't turn out to be what humans look like when you hit them"

Actually, that reminds me of something that happened to me when I was signing on after University, about 1991.

I had a letter from the job centre requiring me to interview for an temporary summer admin job in the job centre itself. If I refused, it would affect benefits etc.

The person doing the interview clearly didn't know this, and actually said (paraphrasing) "Why do you want this job? You are clearly overqualified, and will be bored".

How do you answer that?

Well, I did what I thought was best, and said something along the lines: "I have the ability to shut down and go into autopilot when doing mundane work, so I don't get bored".

Needless to say, I didn't get the job... I never wanted it anyway!

Re: "assumptions don't turn out to be what humans look like when you hit them"

I know many people who on querying an incorrect benefit decision, were warned "Well, we *can* reopen the case, but we might decide you are getting too much if we do".

These were all valid claimants with additional social/anxiety issues that the officials knew about, and exploited.

A neighbour of mine is being underpaid. I told him to call them, and when they say that line, to respond with "And if you do that, I'll complain again until you get it right" but he's too scared to go through with it.

Feckers. Do they get bonuses for denying claims?

Re: Yes but

I remember hearing one politician being interviewed about the delays in receiving benefits, and without irony, he cheerfully said "They don't have to worry - it will be backdated".

I bet that was a great relief to those awaiting benefits. All they needed to do was get Jeeves to write them out a cheque for cash from Pater's bank, and they'd be fine.

Apple slams door on Fortnite's stateside iOS comeback

Re: Easy

There are security bugs, granted, and better effort should be made to stop them.

However, the main "problem" with android is people granting permissions without thought (and in your example, WhatsApp can't grab an entire address book unless the user allows it)

Unfortunately, Google are slowly going the apple route and blocking things period, but the fact they haven't gone as far as apple is a good thing.

As a techie, you should be as happy about a stupidly restricted phone as a mechanic would be if his car arrived with the bonnet (hood) welded shut.

If this policy of "protecting the idiots" was applied elsewhere, windows wouldn't allow the opening of any attachments, and banks wouldn't allow the withdrawal/transfer of money.

Trump threatens to add formal Apple Tax on top of the 'Apple tax'

4D Chess

He guts the investment in tech factories (and I mean proper tech, not tech-bro bollocks), guts the school system, and tries to disable the universities.

Then in the next breath, he's calling for companies to build their stuff in America.

To him, a tariff can do everything.

There goes my ability to visit the USA(!)

'Close to impossible' for Europe to escape clutches of US hyperscalers

Re: Bingo

Shush now. You're embarrassing yourself.

Re: "European engineers... optimizing for cost and performance on US architectures."

And bungs... Don't forget the bungs!

Greater Manchester says its NHS analytics stack is years ahead of Palantir wares

Re: "not long before ICL was swallowed whole into Fujitsu."

Well, I (jokingly) tell people ICL only collapsed because I left, so I guess you can blame me for all that ensued!

Re: All too familiar

Oooh, that is indeed a cynical take! .... I must remember that!

However, in this case, the sleep was relevant - I can't remember why now, but my point was about using system to spawn a shell command for it. That was some scary shit!

All too familiar

When I was in ICL, the call-logging-ticketting system (SIAM) ran on the old mainframes. It was old, clunky, had some restrictions, but worked.

It was due for an upgrade, but the suits made a deal for some off-the-shelf-but-never-heard-of replacement that simply didn't do what was required. Actual users of the old service obviously hadn't been contacted about requirements.

After much moaning, and bespoke code changes that didn't help, along with general reliability issues, it was eventually dumped for another off-the-shelf system (and the ICL guy responsible for the contract left to join the board of the company that created the software.)

The replacement, whilst better, was still missing stuff and had to be tweaked for some time (ICL was big enough that they could demand tweaks)

________________________

This one is even worse, and more relevant to the article.

I worked on the team that provided ASPECT - a monitoring system for the Unix servers (and some forms of VME monitoring), and collated messages that could be directed to pagers/call systems/mobile phones etc.

Pretty standard stuff these days, but this stuff had been around for years - long before I joined the team.. Many people from council IT workers to NTL/Virgin/ICL/DOD staff would have been aware of ASPECT.

Near the end of the 90's, corporate announced this "brilliant deal" with CA to rollout their monitoring tools company-wide. Whoever had made that deal had not researched what was currently being used, and didn't realize there was a whole team that wrote customized software to do the very same thing.

It was crud. The Unix modules were pants. They did provide a windows module, which was something we had needed to add, but damn was the overall thing expensive, and not suitable for our requirements (even other teams we had no direct relationship with told us it didn't fit their needs like ASPECT did).

Partly because of this, and partly because ICL had this bloody system in place already, I was tasked with writing stuff that would allow ASPECT backbends to interface with these clients.

Not long into this project, my suspicions were confirmed. I had to go to some internal conference thingie off site, and got talking to one bigwig about the frustrations with all the extra work we had. No surprise, he hadn't heard about ASPECT, and had been told that the CA deal would bring all these cool features we didn't already have. I explained that all the companies UK paging and alerts went through ASPECT, and mentioned some of the other things it did (some of which he was familiar with [like automated paging], but didn't know how it had all worked.)

He said he'd explore ASPECT to make sure it was used to its full potential, and would raise the fact he hadn't been told about it with the people associated with the deal.

His main feelings at the end of the conversation were something like "We have something, written internally, owned by us, that does the same thing, but is not generic, and works well with our specific use case, is run on a comparative shoestring budget... Why didn't I know of this before this deal happened?"

Well exactly.

I left the company a year or so later (2001ish) not long before ICL was swallowed whole into Fujitsu.

P.S. I also admit some of the ASPECT code was cruddy. During an audit I found some software written by someone I'd never met (who had long since left the company) even had this sprinkled through his C source:

system ("sleep 5");

Builder.ai coded itself into a corner – now it's bankrupt

Re: Wasted potential - there was clearly mismanagement but it wasn't all bad

Exactly! I could successfully perform such "financial mismanagement" with far less money than that!

Trump announces $175B for Golden Dome defense shield over America

Re: May not repeat but it rhymes

As you said previously, you definitely have a few downvote-everything-from-codejunky-whatever-it-says fans on here!

You'd even be downvoted for declaring how cute fluffy kittens are!

Even before this, his latest tax-cutting bill will add trillions to the US deficit. As you already knew, "balancing the books" is just an excuse to take from the poorest. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-tax-cut-bill-faces-rare-overnight-stress-test-with-us-house-republicans-2025-05-21/

P.S. I WISH your downvoter would explain what is wrong with your statement, though I suspect even he or she is too embarrassed to write "he's being mean to my orange god"

> "When we say we're going to save everyone's lives in a crazy world it seems to be very easy to get."

Nothing to do with saving lives. It's also easy to get Republicans to vote to lower spending on Medicaid whilst reducing tax for the rich.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-tax-cut-bill-faces-rare-overnight-stress-test-with-us-house-republicans-2025-05-21/

Boffins devise technique that lets users prove location without giving it away

Re: Seemingly I'm in Madrid...

Yeah, I bounce all over the place, too. I'm apparently in Porth at the moment, which is better than usual - it's only about 50 miles from me as the crow flies.

They still don't seem to grasp that the DSL IP addresses used in the UK aren't mapped to a location, though I suspect it's to fool us into thinking they don't know where we are so precisely that if they sent a missile to the location they REALLY have, it would hit us directly on the head!

Re: Here I am, but you don't know where here is?

Precise uses GPS.

Coarse uses things like the id of the cell tower you are connected to, and the location of known wifi hotspots you may be connected to (Though is that still a thing? I remember Google got into some trouble for building a wifi-location database?)

Re: How about no...

You can have the location access enable/disable toggle on the drop-down menu on Android. I use it often. If it isn't there by default (I can't remember) you go to the drop down menu, hit "edit" (the pencil over the bottom left) and then drag the icon into place.

As for battery life, are you saying that disabling GPS doesn't switch off the GPS radio?

Re: How about no...

It is available as a toggle on the drop down menu on android, as is bluetooth, wifi, mobile data, and any other resources.

I also always have it disabled, as with bluetooth, unless I'm specifically using them. It's not paranoia, it's about potential battery life, CPU use, and generally not leaving things on when they aren't being used.

(not my downvote)

Re: How about no...

If you are using Android, open the front screen drop-down, tap 'edit' (a pencil on the bottom left) and drag the "Location" icon into your quick-settings, and into the position you want it.

I also always have location services disabled unless i have a specific use.

Ex-NSA bad-guy hunter listened to Scattered Spider's fake help-desk calls: 'Those guys are good'

"If you are who you say you are, you'd be grateful that I'm protecting your account this way"

As US scientists flee Trump, MP urges Britain to do more to nab them

Re: Hmm

Yeah, you're right. Our influence was much greater back then than the last 20 years of EU membership. Having said that, the country has gotten weaker generally since then, and I see many Brexit votes were for that reason, but in my view, rather than protesting against the cause (successive UK governments) they went after the handy media scapegoat.

I wouldn't be so angry about it if there hadn't been so many uninformed voters. Only yesterday I read an article saying some Brexit voters are now blaming the government for not passing on this "Brexit wealth" they now believe the country has obtained. Sorry, but in my opinion, they still haven't managed to join the dots.

"Money that she believed had been saved by exiting the EU should have been channelled into improving it and other public services, she said."

It feels like we never left’: resentment builds in one of UK’s firmest Brexit-backing areas

> "Now that is a phrase we should 'be a thing'. Code-rage sounds awesome."

I thought of it a few years ago, but could never get it to catch on, so I shamelessly used the opportunity to shoe-horn into this discussion. :-)

> "I look forward to more conversations with you."

You too.. Especially now I'll have a better idea when you're just trolling!

But next time, I think a much more important debate is needed, so I'll kick it off: "Dogs or cats" ? :-)

Re: Hmm

"All countries have influence on us but I dont believe we had as much influence on the EU as we like to believe (mostly due to our politicians selling out or being spineless)."

One thing I've always agreed with you on is your contempt for our politicians.

As for the influence, have you seen this? : https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2018/07/09/british-influence-in-brussels-had-been-far-greater-than-recognised/ (and still within the spirit of 'glasnost', I post this as a "What do you think about this" rather than a "ha ha, you're wrong" link)

"Same here and while I am sure it will happen again in future I do appreciate a good conversation and appreciate the section you wrote about your friends. I can relate and face to face is certainly different and more nuanced."

Thanks. As I've said before, there are some people on here so batshit crazy I've had to block them. However, I've found you to be the one person I disagree with a hell of a lot of times, but you've said things I agree with, and many things I haven't agreed with, but I could see your point, and in hindsight, the times you've been deliberately trolling should have been more obvious to me!

I'll also admit that there are a few times I've written ranting and unpolite replies to you, yet your replies to those have never devolved into insults. That has actually embarrassed me on more than one occasion when I read the posts a day or so later!

I don't like being guilty of "internet road rage" (code-rage?), so I'm trying to improve (Still unashamedly no tolerance for nasty twats though!)

I've decided that every post of yours I read, I'll read as if one of my real life brexit friends is saying it, and if I reply I'll reply as I would to them. (mind you, I've been known to call them effing morons to their faces on more than one occasion! [ and have received similar abuse from them!])

I know it's not important, but again, not my downvote. Indeed, have one the other direction.

Microsoft set to pull the plug on Bing Search APIs in favor of AI alternative

Not sure how getting high can help create the quantum computer breakthrough...

The future of LLMs is open source, Salesforce's Benioff says

music and movies

Just wait until the AI robots start widespread scraping of music and movies.

Then you'll see the heavily lobbied politicians suddenly become interested in copyright law.

Next week's SpaceX Starship test still needs FAA authorization

"The FAA, which is overseeing the investigation, told The Register, "SpaceX may not launch Starship again until one of the two options is completed for the Flight 8 mishap and SpaceX meets all other licensing requirements."

Would that be "a (now former) FAA spokesperson"?