Posts by WatAWorld

Facebook's Zuckerberg in EBOLA VIRUS FIGHT: Billionaire battles bug

indeed it is more than most governments according to the UK government's numbers

"The National Post has determined it's more than the governments Canada, France and China combined."

So let's see:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/defeating-ebola-in-sierra-leone-summary-of-conference-pledges/defeating-ebola-in-sierra-leone-summary-of-conference-pledges#donor-governments

And that was updated October 8.

Canada £18.6 million will be provided.

And I don't see figures for China or France there or anywhere in google, so I assume $0. (Otherwise the PR agents of those governments will be out of a job.)

Other governments:

Australia £7.4 million

Finland £1,394,000

Ireland £784,000 plus some supplies.

Italy £4,386,000

Switzerland £3.25 million pledged.

Doctors Without Borders

Anyone who thinks Zuckerberg isn't doing enough can go here and make their own donation:

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/our-work/medical-issues/ebola

There is no rule you need to be a billionaire, and many of us regular workers in the IT industry have above average incomes for the western countries in which we live.

Good for Zuckerberg and The Giving Pledge Organization

Good for Zuckerberg.

And good for Bill Gates and Warren Buffet for starting the The Giving Pledge which is an organization for as many of the world's wealthiest individuals and families as will join to commitment to dedicate the *majority* of their wealth (over 50%) to philanthropy.

Here's the full list of pledging billionaires and billionaire families participating:

http://givingpledge.org/

Click on their photos to read their pledges.

This is a really big deal: Traditionally wealthy people have passed the wealth on to their immediate descendents, sometimes just their eldest sons. This is billionaires saying we don't want that kind of generational hegemony over the world. An easy thing for the rest of us to tell them to do, but a big break from history and historical practice for them. (Plus they've got to tell their kids.)

(Journalists: It would be interesting to read a list of those on the Forbes Top 100 Wealthiest Individuals who are not also on The Giving Pledge.)

Forbes Top 100 Wealthiest Individuals who are not also on The Giving Pledge.

Journalists: It would be interesting to read a list of those on the Forbes Top 100 Wealthiest Individuals who are not also on The Giving Pledge.

Foxconn exec on iPhone 6: You're BENDING it WRONG

Maybe he doesn't have internet access and hasn't seen the videos

Maybe he doesn't have internet access and hasn't seen the videos

Hey, non-US websites – FBI don't have to show you any stinkin' warrant

Re: Entirely off topic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_can%27t_have_your_cake_and_eat_it

"An early recording of the phrase is in a letter on 14 March 1538 from Thomas, Duke of Norfolk to Thomas Cromwell, as "a man can not have his cake and eate his cake".[8]

The phrase occurs with the clauses reversed in John Heywood's "A dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of All the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue" from 1546, as "wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?".

And it carries on with other examples of continuous use since 1538.

You cannot both eat the cake and have the cake as an uneaten asset.

Re: illegal abroad surely

It is especially odd since the acts of hacking into the foreign server are being committed on US soil.

In essence the FBI is claiming it can ignore US law and ignore international law when in the USA and dealing with foreigners.

The FBI is claiming we aren't human so the protections humans get under US and international law do not apply to us.

existing procedures for dealing with foreign governments and foreign law enforcement

@veti, "... If you want to conduct a search in foreign territory, where do you apply for a warrant? Whom do you serve it to? What if the territory concerned has no concept of a "search warrant"? ..."

There are existing procedures for dealing with foreign governments and foreign law enforcement agencies that the FBI that the FBI is well aware of and uses regularly for non-cyber searches.

Merkel has the right idea, make the non-UK EU internet like a corporate intranet

Merkel has the right idea, make the non-UK part of the EU internet like a corporate internet -- keep internal traffic internal, and put up boundary defenses at the interfaces with the outside internet.

Failure to do that is a failure of governments in job #1, the job of safeguarding their own citizens from hostile foreign powers.

So the FBI's position is that it is legal for governments to hack US servers?

So the FBI's position is that it is legal for the Chinese, Russian Israeli, French and Iranian governments to hack US servers without warrants? Really?

Because that is the logical conclusion from this:

"US government attorneys have argued that the FBI didn't need a warrant to snoop evidence from the Silk Road darknet drugs souk, for a simple reason: its servers were located outside the United States."

If you aren't human you don't get human rights

If you aren't human you don't get human rights.

Clearly the people who run the USA, US voters, don't think of the rest of us as human.

Apple blacklists tech journo following explicit BENDY iPhone vid

Like Apple, Sarah Palin also used to black list journalists and news organization.

Like Apple, Sarah Palin also used to black list journalists and news organization.

The IT kit revolution's OVER, say beancounters - but how do they know?

Has IT spending gone down? Good question.

There is probably been a shift from purchasing things that tax law requires be depreciated over a number of years to buying things that are business simple expenses.

Perhaps there were changes in depreciation laws in some countries too.

But also a lot more is leased or run off-site, or run in a cloud.

Software is more likely to be developed by external vendors rather than in-house.

And some companies may have shifted responsibility for some purchases out of IT departments, for example cell phones, memory sticks, program packages not widely used, etc.

I can't even begin to guess whether over all expenditure on IT type things has gone up or down. I would say it is going to vary company to company, industry to industry, and tax jurisdiction to tax jurisdiction.

Re: The popular "Y2K Myth" idea is based on ignorance.

There is no argument because some of us know the cold hard facts and the facts are available in the written records of many companies.

Y2K projects were vital to prevent widespread disaster in business world-wide.

There is absolutely no debate about that amongst fully informed people.

Sure there was probably some scamming going on:

1. Managers getting legitimate work done (at higher Y2K wages)( now rather than later under the guise of it needing to be done urgently.

2. Sales people falsely telling companies that perfectly good machines would not work after Y2K.

Also prices of programmers went up and the prices consulting firms charged went up hugely during Y2K, but that wasn't a scam, that was simple supply and demand. Supply is constant while demand goes way up, so price goes up.

So sure, some scamming, probably less than 5%, perhaps much less than 5% since there were so many legitimate ways to make money if people only had the time. But the overwhelmingly great majority of the Y2K expenditures were absolutely vital to continued business.

I worked for 4 client companies in Winnipeg and Toronto during Y2K.

My guess is 95% all Y2K projects were necessary for business to continue, 4% was legitimate work done early using Y2K budgets, and at most 1% was actual fraud.

The Register should lead the way to ending the popular lies that IT types invented the Y2K Myth for personal profit.

Miscreants leak banking baddie's secret source

Where are GCHQ, the NSA and CSIS on providing espionage tools to terrorists?

I see CSIS in an article like this I expect it to be the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (annual budget, $513,007,839 (2013–14)) has chocked up a victory for our side.

Instead the CSIS Danish security consultancy probably not even 1% of that size.

The source code to these trojans all represent risks to national security far greater and far more real than any risks claimed for the revelations of Snowden.

The source code to these trojans all represent far greater and far more real gifts to terrorist organizations than anything claimed for what Snowden revealed.

The source code can be used to raise funds for terrorism.

The source code can be used by terrorists to design trojans for gaining secret, top secret and compartmentalized information.

So why, how, when GCHQ, the NSA and CSIS have not completed job #1 their "War on Islam"*, er uh correction, "War on Terrorism", how do they find the time and money to spy on peaceful: trade negotiators, lawyers consulting on trade negotiations, local grass roots politicians, business leaders, academics and regular people's emails and web visits, plus have the additional free time to monitor teenage daughters sexting?

Focus people. Think. Threats to the common person's computer security are national security threats.

Sure you like to hide behind the commercial crooks, use some of the same tools, and hide your malware traffic in with their malware traffic.

GCHQ, NSA and CSIS, with your lax attitude on trojans and spyware for commercial theft you're inadvertently aiding terrorists; you're standing by and watching people give espionage tools to terrorists.

Obviously many of the spyware techies of those agencies read this website. Please lobby your bosses on this issue.

You and us, we're on the same side. I realize this is probably just an oversight on your bosses' part, not seeing the potential these tools, thinking they're only a base criminal threat and not realizing their a gift to terrorists. Please help your bosses see the reality.

FAKE Google web SSL certificates tip-toe out from Indian authorities

Difficult to solve does not equal impossible to solve

Difficult to solve does not equal impossible to solve.

Merkel was on to something with her idea to keep EU internet traffic within the non-Five-Eyes part of the EU -- just like most companies do already. Keep the traffic internal when you can.

Why trust so many? Why not have the option to only trust the part of the web located in countries where you have human rights and the protection of the law?

Sure it isn't fool proof, but nothing is. You own a car. It can be hacked. You still choose to own it, you're just careful where you park it.

must be something they learned form us during the British raj.

India acting like the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and NZ?

Oh yeah, must be something they learned form us during the British raj.

I mean really, its out in the open, probably most countries are doing this sort of thing.

And if criminals are doing it, well, how many criminals kill people using signature based drone attacks?

Let's face it: Our internet is full of security holes because those who run our countries want it full of security holes.

YouTube in shock indie music nuke: We all feel a little less worthy today

Youtube simply doesn't understand how we find music

This reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how people use the web:

"and relatively few recordings are so compelling that consumers would leave YouTube if they were not available."

When I search for a song I go where that song is.

If the song is not on Youtube I never go into Youtube so there is no Youtube to leave.

Independent labels could put their music anywhere, so long as google indexes it we'll find it.

Stopping IT price gouging would risk SOCIALIST DYSTOPIA!

Same thing in Canada -- hidden monopolies and anticompetitive agreements

If they were selling in a free market then there would be no urge by Australian consumers to import directly -- and there would be no foreign commercial contracts bar against foreign retailers selling to Australian consumers by mail order.

We have the same problem in Canada -- hidden monopolies and anti-competitive agreements.

Here it doesn't affect computer gear or video disks, but it affects almost all other consumer electronics, automobiles, cosmetics, household chemicals, etc.

And WE CAN EASILY TELL WHEN THESE THINGS ARE IN EFFECT. All I have to is go to Amazon's US site and try to have the thing shipped to Canada. If neither Amazon no any retailer will be ship it here, then there must be an export prohibition.

And since Canada and the US have NAFTA, that export prohibition is not some law, it is a commercial agreement. A manufacturer has told a US retailer he cannot sell to Canadians -- thus ENDING THE FREE MARKET.

1. Lack of competition because of big retail chains.

2. Commercial agreements giving exclusive import rights to one or two companies.

3. Retailers and importers coordinating prices.

4. Manufacturers preventing wholesalers and retailers selling to Canadians.

"The latter two squirmed uncomfortably as they articulated arguments that they charge what the market will bear, as is their right even if it means local punters inexplicably pay twice as much as customers in comparably-wealthy nations."

Thanks for nothing, OpenSSL, grumbles stonewalled De Raadt

45 days is not much time to audit the code of anything meaningful

A month and a half, 45 days, is not much time to audit the code of anything meaningful, let alone think about designing fixes, coding the fixes, doing system testing, and doing regression testing.

Re: What law/legal requirement

But that is the thing, the aforementioned BSD person had tried to do this but was thwarted by secrecy.

Five-eyed vampire squid must be unhappy

Five-eyed vampire squid must be unhappy.

The possible impending need to subvert updates to OpenSSL and LibreSSL.

And at time when there might actually be a few of those so-called "many eyes" looking at this open source code.

Revealed: GCHQ's beyond top secret Middle Eastern internet spy base

Spying destroys democracy - an act of 'international treason' against democracy.

The people who have most to fear from GCHQ are honest loyal Britons and their loyal allies.

Enemy security agencies and terrorists know they're targets of spying and take precautions, where as our allies do not expect us to spy on them in return for them not spying on us.

That is why the Guardian reports that at G7 conferences GCHQ is successful at spying on everyone but the Russians (and the other 2 five eyes there, US and Canada).

If enemies are encrypting their data who is being spied upon?

To what end are the hundreds and billions of pounds being spent on?

The answer is to fight foreign commercial interests and to fight democratic movements.

Fighting democracy at home and abroad by keeping track of grassroots movements and sabotaging them.

Sabotaging opposition parties.

Why was Tony Blair re-elected so many times? Were the British public that stupid?

Or did the Americans ensure the other parties could not select an effect leader to run against him?

We won't know for 35 years, maybe 100 years.

How does the pond scum at these agencies sleep at night?

Spying on enemy militaries and enemy governments, spying on enemy arms makers, that is their appropriate job -- a good decent job.

But spying on people's political discussions, spying on peaceful political discussion and decent -- that is an act of 'international treason' against democracy.

Re: TRAITORS

The people doing this spying are the traitors.

That is the thing. When those in government and military service put loyalty to unit, division, department or ministry ahead of loyalty to the nation and its people they become the most vile form of traitors.

"these installations cost tens of millions to design and build"

That's tens of millions of dollars spent by the most traitors acting against the interest of the British public.

Good work. Being patriots to your country often involves going against bureaucrats.

Patriots to your country.

The sad thing is that too many in government and military service put loyalty to unit, division, department or ministry ahead of loyalty to the nation and its people.

That makes those officers, soldiers and civil servants traitors against the country and its people.

GCHQ, the NSA, CSEC, in a D-Day scenario they'd be on the side being invaded.

D-Day was launched against our enemies, a bunch of dictatorships that spied on their own civilians and the civilians of their allies.

What GCHQ, NSA, and CSEC are doing is against our own people and against democratic movements.

GCHQ, the NSA, CSEC, in a D-Day scenario they'd be on the side being invaded.

Re: Yawned but found it interesting enough to be the one thing today he commented on

Yawn, old news, but new enough and important enough that it was the article you chose to comment on today.

What gets commented on gets further stories -- even when those comments say "yawn". Kardasians are a prime example.

Re: Why is this a surprise?

<snip>

"AC as I might need a security clearance on my next job!"

Gee, and you posted on websites that publish articles hostile to the bureaucracy.

Your IP address corresponds to an IP address that messaged a forum that was messaged by someone who messaged a forum that Snowden visited.

Your sunk by the very traitors we're all against.

Red Herring Re: Been going on for years....

There is spying on foreign militaries, spying on hostile governments and so on. Yes been going on for years.

But that is a red herring. This is not about that.

This is about the new type of spying we're doing where we capture all traffic, all civilian conversations, it is spying on the process of democracy, spying on peaceful political discussion.

This new type of spying we're doing is incompatible with democracy at home and abroad.

It was new enough news that you took time out of your busy day to comment on it.

It was new enough news that you took time out of your busy day to comment on it.

How many other news articles were that important today?

Re: We have a right to know what is being done, but perhaps a little too much detail?

The people in Oman don't need sophisticated equipment to look out their car windows as they driver past.

This was only secret from us.

Re: Congrats

Jim, this sort of thing is only secret from us taxpayers, our enemies know all about it.

It is kept secret from us because it can be and is used against us, against our democracy, by our own government employees -- government bureaucrats in and out of uniform -- pond scum whose loyalty to their unit trumps any thought of loyalty to the nation and its people.

Re: Now Trident makes sense.

That Saddam had nukes was the excuse given to us.

Blair and Cheney knew Saddam didn't have nukes and the proof is that if he did we wouldn't have invaded without first neutralizing them. And if we'd neutralized them there'd be physical proof they existed.

Why won't you DIE? IBM's S/360 and its legacy at 50

Was IBM ever cheaper?

I've been in IT since the 1970s.

My understanding from the guys who were old timers when I started was the big thing with the 360 was the standardized Op Codes that would remain the same from model to model, with enhancements, but never would an Op Code be withdrawn.

The beauty of IBM s/360 and s/370 was you had model independence. The promise was made, and the promise was kept, that after re-writing your programs in BAL (360's Basic Assembler Language) you'd never have to re-code your assembler programs ever again.

Also the re-locating loader and method of link editing meant you didn't have to re-assemble programs to run them on a different computer. Either they would simply run as it, or they would run after being re-linked. (When I started, linking might take 5 minutes, where re-assembling might take 4 hours, for one program. I seem to recall talk of assemblies taking all day in the 1960s.)

I wasn't there in the 1950s and 60s, but I don't recall any one ever boasting at how 360s or 370s were cheaper than competitors.

IBM products were always the most expensive, easily the most expensive, at least in Canada.

But maybe in the UK it was like that. After all the UK had its own native computer manufacturers that IBM had to squeeze out despite patriotism still being a thing in business at the time.

USA opposes 'Schengen cloud' Eurocentric routing plan

The problem is when you send an EU<>EU email and it goes through a US controlled backbone

The problem is when you send an EU<>EU email and it goes through a US controlled or US monitored backbone or US controlled or US monitored exchange.

Sure there are German and French email companies, but your email has to get to the one you are using and then get to the one the other guy is using.

You could encrypt the entire thing, including headers, but then you'd be "violating the rules" on how separate mail servers are supposed to connect.

Much better to play by the rules and ensure the EU's internet is EU owned, EU controlled and only monitored subject to EU human rights laws -- at least as much as technically possible.

Obama is acting like Putin

Putin breaks the peace and invades Crimea and then acts surprised The West takes actions to defend itself from further invasion by Russia.

Obama spies on the world, denies that non-Americans are humans deserving of human righrts, and then acts surprised when the world takes actions to defend itself from further human rights abuses by the USA.

How Europe routes its traffic is none of the USA's business

I wonder how Bush, er Obama, would react if Europe started insisting that interstate internet traffic pass through Europe.

It is none of the USA's business how Europe connects to the internet provided it follows the standards. And this can be accomplished easily without violating any standards.

Europe isn't advocating anything so drastic, but if Europe wanted to put itself behind an NAT firewall that is none of the USA's business.

Can you tell a man's intelligence simply by looking at him? Yes

Do you like men who are perpetually smiling, the way most white collar women are?

Or do you like men who crack a smile when they talk to you?

In my experience in urban areas in most of Canada and the USA most women go wandering around smiling. They're not smiling at anyone, they're simply smiling pretty much all the time. Generally there is nothing flirtatious about it and being happily married for 20 years with 4 kids doesn't change it.

In rural areas women act more like men, cracking a smile when there is a reason to and straight-faced otherwise.

Women over a certain age, maybe 60, are another exception, usually straight-faced.

And while what I say has probably been true for a couple of decades, I don't pretend that it is some immutable human characteristic that appears at all times for all ages and races and places.

This is the problem with junk science, it extrapolates to an absurd level.

Another reason its junk science

""The subjects were instructed to adopt a neutral, non-smiling expression," the paper details, "and avoid facial cosmetics, jewellery, and other decorations."

Subjects would have had only limited experience seeing women's faces in such a condition, whereas that is the normal condition of men's faces.

In most of urban Canada and the USA, one seldom sees a woman's face. Instead one sees her makeup.

To call the extrapolation invalid is putting it lightly.

More junk "social science" that studies a few dozen undergraduates at one university in one city in one country, over a span of less than 6 months, and makes claims about the characteristics of all of humanity all over the world in perpetuity.

Assange not running in new Australian election

Too many make their first loyalty to a foreign power.

He probably cares more about the interests of Australians than the traitors in Australia's government that aid the NSA in spying on Australian citizens.

A government employee must ask himself one question: Is my first loyalty to my country and its citizens or to some foreign power?

Too many make their first loyalty to a foreign power, which is the definition of a traitor.

Prohibiting eligible people running for election -- a banana republic tactic

Prohibiting eligible people running for election is a banana republic tactic.

And I guess that is sadly what Australia has become, just another banana republic doing what it is told to do by Washington.

China's CERT blames US for a THIRD of all attacks on Middle Kingdom PCs

Re: It's China also counts any PC "compromised" by its own users to get past state control

Whereas here Big Brother lets us surf pretty much as we please, and notes of what we do.

The Chinese are probably right

Let us face it, if you or I were going to illegally hack computers it would be a lot safer to hack computers in a country that our justice system does not cooperate with much.

So China, Russia, Iran, etc.

Their blackhats hack here. Our blackhats hack there. Probably true to a large extent.

Plus the NSA and GCHQ can't simply order workers at ISPs to wire their facilities up for direct or indirect access like they do here.

So there the NSA and GCHQ have to go through all the bother of individually hacking at least key computers and servers in China.

US saves self from Huawei spying by spying on Huawei spying

This explains how Mike Rogers could assure us there would be bugs in Huawei equipment

This explains Mike Rogers, chairman of the US House Intelligence Committee coming to Canada and telling there would be bugs in any Huawei equipment Canada bought, so we should buy from US manufacturers instead.

He knew there'd be bugs alright -- NSA bugs.

Here is what Mike Rogers told Canadians:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-at-risk-from-chinese-firm-u-s-warns-1.1213967

...

"I absolutely would not do it," Rogers said. "The key word there is new secure network; I would not have the faith and confidence."

..

"The Republican congressman from Michigan says ordinary Canadian consumers have every reason to worry about threats to cyber-security.

'This is your personal data. This could be your medical records, your financial records, everything that you hold dear that you think is locked away in a safe place on your computer that goes across these networks and becomes subject to being gathered by the Chinese government.'"

...

"There are bugs, back doors and beaconing going on in Huawei gear," he claims. "We have had lots of reports of that happening.

"I will bet my bottom dollar, as we say in the U.S., that activity is happening in Canada as well."

...

same article:

Ray Boisvert, who until recently was assistant deputy director of intelligence for Canada’s spy agency, told CBC News: "The threat comes down to…can a company that manufactures hardware embed certain codes that would allow them to back-door a lot of information that goes through the network?

"I have seen it hands-on through my own experience. It is true."

He saw it hands on in equipment from US vendors. We now know from Snowden that he and his co-workers at CSEC helped put the bugs there.

Thank you people of Michigan and the USA for giving the world such honest politicians who are dedicated to the public good, NOT.

Women! You too can be 'cool' and 'fun' if you work in tech!

Re: Sexism against men? No way.

"Just as you can not be racist against white people."

Hitler was racist against white people.

Stalin was racist against white people.

People all over the world have racial slurs for white people.

In China the oppressors are Chinese.

In Zimbabwe the oppressors are black.

In a over 50% of Anglo marriages in the USA the oppressor is a woman.

Re: I don't understand

Where will the savings come from.

Women, immigrants, the powers that be want them because the powers that be think they can be paid less. Paying people less, that is where the savings come from.

They think they can drop IT salaries because women don't care about money.

"the lack of women in ICT roles was costing the European Union billions of euros"

Exactly how does that work?

The sexists think they can drop IT salaries because "women don't care about money".

MH370 airliner MYSTERY: The El Reg Pub/Dinner-party Guide

Why are emergency locator beacons so failure prone in water crashes ?

ELT beacons are supposed to work in the event of crashes even if the crash is on water.

So why did they fail in both the AF 422 and the MH 370 case.

And Aviation Herald had a report of another crash on water a month or two ago where it took a few days to find the wreck site, so again an ELT failure with a crash on water.

IBM: We gave nothing to the NSA, stateside or elsewhere

How does data get to IBM?

IBM would not have to turn over data from foreign governments, companies and individuals to the NSA if the NSA intercepted that data on its way from overseas to IBM USA or when it traveled between IBM facilities over US owned or US controlled networks.

So even if IBM issued a broad statement and was truthful, the issue still stands that the data is passing through the USA or US controlled networks, and so IBM cannot assure anyone that that data is not being intercepted during that transmission.

Part of the solution is for foreign governments, companies and individuals to keep their data in their own country (or the EU) so their own country's human rights laws and privacy legislation can protect it.

It is not IBM's sole responsibility that its government does not recognize the ordinary citizens of long-time allies as human beings with human rights, but that is how it is. IBM has to live with that fact until it can convince its government that treating the rest of the world's population as untermenschen is bad for business.