Posts by WatAWorld

IBM CEO Ginni flouts £75 travel crackdown, rides Big Blue chopper

Seriously, the old guard of tech need to quit hiring old-guard CEOs who have little clue on leadership and innovation.

Stop the agism. It isn't that they're old guard. That idea should bite the dust as surely as the idea that the problem was an "old boys club".

It is that top executive management comes from sales and marketing.

Managers, marketing types, they're loners know nothing about technical innovation, nothing about innovation on teams, nothing about the technology, nothing about the physics.

They're detached from the programmer and engineer class, which makes it super easy for them to lay such "technicians" off.

They can drive an entire mega-company into the ground without a moment's guilt over drawing a huge salary while failing to deliver the success shareholders are paying them for.

We're heading back… to the future! Net neutrality rules on chopping block

refusal of creators to patent and charge license fees was the start of the internet revolution

The refusal to regulate the nascent internet like the telephone companies was the start of the internet revolution, he noted.

Was it not the refusal of creators to patent and charge license fees for the technology was the start of the internet revolution.

Otherwise every company would have wanted to save fees by having its own version of TCP, HTML, etc.

Don't gripe if you hand your PC to Geek Squad and they rat you out to the Feds – judge

a prominent California gynecologist

"a prominent California gynecologist"

I know I'd expect to find confidential medical information on a physician's computer.

And what sorts of confidential information and photos would one expect to find on a gynecologist's or plastic surgeon's computer?

Seems to me like there has been more than one perverted criminal act here.

Class Action suit? FBI paying bounty for illegal searches of photos, emails and documents?

The agency has a close relationship with Geek Squads, and offers $500 bounties for successful finds of illegal material.

Rettenmaier's defense team had argued that this was an invalid search, but Judge Carney ruled that is was legitimate since the defendant had signed a contract with the Geek Squad that contains a warning that illegal material will be reported.

Is this correct:

1. So the FBI was either knowingly paying for illegal searches, or turning a blind eye to the fact that $500 is going to cause illegal searches.

2. The searches include any material relating to crime or possible crime, including emails and documents.

3. The FBI is paying Geek Squad, and Geek Squad is accepting, payment for searching and viewing all sorts of emails, documents and pictures on everyone's computer, hoping for a $500 bounty.

4. The illegal material in this was not stumbled across, but discovered after an active search paid for by the potential for the FBI bounty.

I think there is a class action suit possible on behalf of all Geek Squad customers whose confidentially was violated by the existence of this FBI bounty and Geek Squad's acceptance of it.

Proposed PATCH Act forces US snoops to quit hoarding code exploits

Re: "chaired by an Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official"

Good point.

Will government civilian agencies charged with protecting US businesses and investments, like the FTC and FCC, have seats on the board?

It would still be inadequate, because nobody to represent individual Americans, but at least there might be consideration of protecting private trade secrets.

Re: It's a nice thought

But in reality, it doesn't matter if they do, or do not, create this new secret clearing house for zero day vulns, because any serious security researcher, or a nation-state-hacker-team (they always need more than one guy) can collect, examine, reverse engineer, and redeploy any remote hack that anyone can dream up, ever.

That would be like the invention of the time machine in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

If it were so trivially easy to discover all the zero day vulnerabilities, then all the zero day vulnerabilities would be discovered at once, days after the release of the program product concerned.

It generally takes either expertise or random luck plus time to find new zero day vulnerabilities.

That is why it is total BS when some security researcher with either a Phd or no job eventually finds some (specifically) zero day vulnerability and releases it to the world because "all hackers already know about it".

a. If they already knew about it then you don't deserve publicity for finding it?

b. If they already knew about it why do the exploits only follow your information release?

c. Peer reviewed journals, tech journals, and newspapers would not mention the zero day discoveries because trivial things are not newsworthy.

d. We wouldn't have internet connected computers, since nothing substantial can be programmed by humans without it having vulnerabilities.

Is what we might learn about the terrorists worth risking people's lives for?

Obviously GCHQ didn't know about it - otherwise they would have told the NHS

It's not like the British government would risk the lives of 1000s of ordinary people to keep secret a tiny exploit

We don't live in a police state. If you patch the NHS computers, civilian computer types are going to know, including civilian computer types without security clearances.

So the decision would have been something like, "Is it what we might learn about 'the terrorists', Russians and Chinese worth risking the lives of UK citizens needing health care?"

Similar conversation in the USA regarding US civilian lives, except that protecting US health care systems is even harder since few of them are government owned and operated.

safe assumption various intelligence agencies been using these against our businesses for years

I'm still amazed that no-one else had found this vulnerability*

* I assume the Russians hadn't, or there would have been some "suggestions" to Russian organisations to at least block SMB at the firewall. Though maybe the Russian security services liked having their own EternalBlueski that they could use to snoop on their own people?

There was that Adylkuzz private cryptocurrency mining malware that had been quietly churning in the background of people's computers for a few weeks, and was only discovered during the search for WannaCry variants.

You can assume that real intelligence agency spyware would have been as unlikely to be randomly discovered by our side as Adylkuzz was.

The safe assumption would be to assume that the Russians, Chinese, Israelis, British, etc all knew of this vulnerability and had been using it against state, local and industrial targets for years.

Why would the security agencies of other countries not reveal the vulnerability?

a. Some of these countries are police states and would have probably have been able to apply protective patches to their national, state and local government computers without the public knowing.

b. The rest of these countries have fewer industrial secrets than the USA. So less to lose and more to gain from the continued existence of the holes.

Past practice has meant the NSA has been helping the Russians, Chinese and terrorists

Any vulnerability the NSA can find, a foreign intelligence agency can find.

The current situation is that the NSA assume nobody inside the USA has any data useful to the Russians, Chinese, Indians, Iranians, Israelis, Pakistanis, Swiss, Germans, British, or terrorists.

And we know from past disclosures the security agencies of all these countries consider international trade and trade secrets somewhat within the purview of their signals intelligence agencies.

Even if the NSA were to start ensuring all US government computers are patched, that still leaves US local and state government, industry, business, academic, and personal computers open to hacking by foreign powers.

The NSA's assumption that US citizens and US businesses have fewer valuable secrets than the Russians or Chinese is invalid. And those US secrets would be valuable to terrorists too.

The NSA must be made to help safeguard Fortress North America and Fortress USA.

By keeping secret vulnerabilities in US local and state government, industry, business, academic, and personal computers -- by keeping Americans vulnerable -- the NSA has been unwittingly helping the Russians, the Chinese and "the terrorists".

Shadow Brokers resurface, offer to sell fresh 'wine of month' club exploits

the 75% is just marketing hype.

Maybe that's what TheShadowBrokers are hoping for? They only claim to have 75% of the NSA's exploits. Obviously the NSA want to hang on to the remaining 25%, but they probably don't know which exploits they are.

To know you have 75% of the NSA exploits you'd have to know the total number of NSA exploits.

So I imagine the 75% is just marketing hype.

It is countries spying on their own peaceful citizens and future politicians I object to.

"The NSA's EquationGroup has spies inside Microsoft and other U.S. technology companies, the Shadow Brokers allege."

If not actual NSA, FBI or CIA "employee spies", then covert agents and subverted employees, as well as people legitimately tasked by the government of their private industry managers to aid the NSA.

The are probably inside a lot of technology companies from around the world, including those companies based in loyal NATO allies, unaligned countries and 'opposition' countries.

I don't doubt the UK, Russia, China and Israel attempt to the same.

It is countries spying on their own peaceful citizens and future politicians I object to.

Companies in high tech, governments, and government leaders should expect to be spied on by enemies, and by semi-friends. Such entities have the resources to defend themselves.

MP3 'died' and nobody noticed: Key patents expire on golden oldie tech

MP3 didn't die, it became license free

From the article it sounds like MP3 didn't die, but rather it became license free.

Do we need Windows patch legislation?

Let us here from OUTLAW on this. Nothing is sold with a warranty against vandalism

Nothing is sold with a warranty against vandalism.

Do you guys think your cars are warranteed against people being able to smash the windows?

Do you guys think Chrysler Warranteed the M1 Abrams main battle tank against vandalism?

If this went to a court I think the MS lawyers would be quite rightly saying, "We never promised our software would be vandal proof."

There would be no case to be brought.

But I'm not a lawyer. WHY NOT COMMISSION OUTLAW.COM TO DO A FEATURE ON THIS ISSUE?

Is there a case under US law? Under European law?

Re: What

"For example, the factory next door to us bought them selves a spiffy new moulding machine , the price... about 500 000 pounds, now imagine that in 3 years time , m$ go fsck you we're not supporting your OS anymore , upgrade or else, and the machine is rendered useless."

Someone bought a GBP500,000 molding machine that is tied to an obsolete operating system?

And what did the device manager pay for that operating system? If it were Windows, $25?

I think the quarrel is with a device maker ripping the customer off by providing an inappropriate operating system to save money.

Re: A tidbit from the NY times:

"The [medical] machines can (as they should) last for decades; that the software should expire and junk everything every 10 years is not a workable solution."

Can you give us an example of a medical device, CT scanner, MRI, etc. that runs Windows?

I think you'll find that Windows is run on things like PCs used as PCs, not $50,000+ specialist hardware.

Not years after launch, years after sale, and not MS, any electronics any operating system

Not years after launch, years after sale, and not MS, any operating system sold with any consumer electronics.

So Android, Windows, iOS, MacOS, ChromeOS, etc.

And this would include Linux if Linux were sold with a consumer device.

I suggest 10 years in general.

And 15 years for devices costing in excess of US$500 if there is no follow on OS that can be installed.

Months after it ordered a review into allegations of mismanagement, how's that ICANN accountability drive?

FIFA, I mean ICANN

I have no doubt that in the fullness of geological time, ICANN will begin a preliminary analysis process.

If not in the fullness of geological time, then the fullness of cosmological time.

Have faith in the system -- the preliminary analysis will be complete before the heat death of the universe.

Facebook is abusive. It's time to divorce it

Re: A decentralised facebook

"I wonder if it would be possible to "host" sites in a P2P model? (security and privacy issues aside)"

We too often put security and privacy issues aside.

It is one thing to have stuff you intentionally put on FB for sharing shared. (I find it bewildering that some people are surprised at that most people find living a semi-open life acceptable. I wonder how many people refuse to own a car because of the publicly displayed license plate requirement.)

It is quite another to find you're sharing your entire hard drive because of the stupid defaults and coding bugs buried by some coder in the open source.

And it is quite another still that government security agencies are snooping into our peaceful political opinions and gathering info that could eventually be used to blackmail any of us who enter politics.

Re: A decentralised facebook

Won't work.

Each region of the world has its own Facebook equivalent, and only one Facebook equivalent.

Look at the dud that was Google+.

A personal website is not an FB equivalent.

Newspapers and magazines have been emotionally manipulating us for over a century.

"Everyone who uses Facebook is being emotionally monitored. That’s what Facebook does. Anyone who uses Facebook can be emotionally manipulated."

1. Everyone period is emotionally monitored by those around them and we can be emotionally manipulated.

2. Newspapers and magazines have been emotionally manipulating us for over a century.

What's driving people out of tech biz? Unfair treatment, harassment, funnily enough – study

Re: Peter principle

Management is a separate skill from accounting, sales, marketing, banking, news reading, you name it.

That doesn't stop those people getting into management.

Actually engineering is pretty close to management. Project planning. Maintaining professional standards in your design so people aren't killed by your bridge.

Most successful large manufacturing companies have former engineers filling most of their executive positions.

But in IT it is mostly salespeople filling the executive positions.

Is BT a former crown company. In my experience managers with bad people skills seem common in current and privatized crown companies. I think it goes with having to deal with employees you cannot fire, the thick skin needed, calloused thick numb skin needed.

One of my brothers is an accountant, and he says accountants are notorious in management. They have no sympathy and they're looking at the bottom line.

Re: "I'm being treated unfairly... Means..."

This is a bit of a strawman argument isn't it? I mean people are saying why they think they've been treated unfairly and you've ignored that and fabricated an easy to attack image.

"When I was growing up Mum and Dad always said I was wonderful and talented and great and bought me anything I wanted and allowed me to do whatever I wanted. When I went out and got a job, the people who hired me don't treat me like that at all. I am being treated unfairly"

Re: Obligatory XKCD

" team product owner should be a goofball from the sales team. Much misery ensued."

If "team product owner" is anything like a product manager you'll find that is pretty much universal.

Same thing with CIO, usually some person with a strong sales background from somewhere, and just a little technical knowledge.

In Canada, in the finance and services industries, IT people, especially male IT people, are seen as so universally and completely lacking in people skills they're only ever allowed to run small teams of fellow socially handicapped colleagues.

Managing larger groups more requires either a woman or a former salesperson.

In my career I knew 4 women who left IT in Canada for reasons other than being promoted

In my career I knew 4 women who left IT in Canada for reasons other than being promoted out of IT and into general management.

Two left to go into nursing.

- One of those two left because a couple of employers in a row forced her into supervisory roles, when all she wanted was to program.

- The other left because programming was too socially isolating and she didn't get many thanks (and none of us got much thanks, that is how it is in programming).

The third had been a nurse (graduated and worked in nursing) before coming to Canada and starting work in programming. She went back to Australia to work in one of their health ministries as a user analyst.

A fourth left for a position in the USA where she was promised she could just do programming. Her company here in Canada was asking her to go into management so frequently it constituted harassment.

Other than that four, I've know a half dozen other women to leave IT, but they left to go into management.

That is the thing, if you are a woman and you want to work in IT you will not have that opportunity in Canada, because you'll be promoted out of IT. Your only choice if you want to do tech work is to leave IT and do some other kind of tech work.

I hope things are better in other countries.

Re: Twas ever thus

@LGB "Good tech people are hard to find and a small percentage of the population to begin with, to try and mandate requisite genitalia and skin colour seems stupid to me."

The bosses say they hope to get more people into the industry by recruiting women. (Either that or they hope to pay $0.72 (or $0.92) instead of $1.00.)

For every woman they attract they probably push away a man.

Much better to let women who want to enter the industry. And let them take the positions they want.

It isn't always race and sex that cause the ill treatment, but to the extent that author Thomas

It isn't always race and sex that cause the ill treatment, but to the extent that author Thomas Claburn is correct that it is, the reason for the high numbers leaving is that it is majority groups and near-majority groups facing the unfair treatment.

That is certainly how it is in Canada. Once they're up to quota in your sex or race your treatment declines ways made obvious every time a manager opens its (his/her) mouth. And in IT in Canada that means male, but it doesn't only mean white males. At large companies here, Chinese and Asian males often complain privately that they're are treated so much more poorly than other members of their ethnic group.

(Basic arithmetic: Small minority groups leaving for any reason would only only cause statistically small movement. Big movement statistics require large groups leaving.)

This isn't 1980, but you still have to be quite intelligent, and you'll be treated like a labourer. IT contains perhaps half of a typical financial company's top 10% in brain power is in IT, and they're almost entirely excluded from strategic decisions and management development.

I will repeat what I said in response to past articles, I don't regard it as ethical to recommend directly entering an IT career to anyone, male or female.

Much better to do engineering or business administration or fine arts and get into IT via being an expert user.

What number of men and what number of women leave due to unfair treatment and harass

What number of men and what number of women leave due to unfair treatment and harassment?

I can't believe the only male to have left the industry (retired early) due to that reason.

And I didn't quit one job either. One bad company does not make a poisoned industry. I'd encountered a bad company/bad department really, early in my career. They happen. (Any professional reporter should know that, after all there are bad news media organizations for reporters to work in too. Doesn't mean the entirety of the news media industry is bad.)

I tried a few companies for a couple of years each -- fair trial -- leaving each, before I tossed in the towel.

RIP Bob Taylor: Internet, desktop PC pioneer powers down at 85

Sadly, though this guy had more impact on regular people's lives than all current 'celebrities'

Sadly, though this guy had more impact on people's lives than all current 'celebrities' combined, his passing will only be noted by a handful of technical journals.

Apple nabs permit to experiment with self-driving iCars in Cali

Re: Not The Only One

Pretty much if you want to put your guidance software in someone else's car and test it and tweak it, you're going to need a permit to build and test self-driving cars.

The fact is that the software being tested is going to have huge safety implications. It is going to change the safety aspects of the car.

Consider aircraft. You install an untested unapproved piece of electronics that does pretty much anything, let alone autonomous guidance, and you've got to treat and label your aircraft as "Experimental", get approval, and not permit passengers.

Aircraft or car, it is a public safety issue when you're testing safety features in public. Testing guidance control systems is going to require a permit even if the car used is a standard production model from Ford or GM.

Re: Not The Only One

"how much could Apple charge to license a copy of iOS when Google gives Android away for free?"

Maybe more money than MS made with Windows, given that there are more phones than desktops.

Re: Somebody trademark "iCar"

iCar is trademarked in Canada already, it is a training company.

And in France it is a ceramics factory.

In Germany iCar does aeronautics parts.

iVan is too many things to mention in Eastern Europe.l

But iSedan is available.

Frank, same is true no matter who comes up with the car -- or any product or service, any industry, cars, computers, TVs, music.

Company comes up with a good one, people want it, and they make a boatload of cash and it puts them ahead of their competitors.

But a question: What does it mean for a car to 'handle well' when nobody is handling it, when it is being handled by a computer? Do you mean a car that 'rides well'?

Or maybe it is a difference between UK and North American English?

Re: “Collision Avoidance Of Arbitrary Polygonal Obstacles.”

The article did give a link to the actual patent so you can see which means of skinning a cat they claim is new:

http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=2173&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&s1=(1%2F1.CCLS.+AND+20161208.PD.)&p=44&OS=ccl/1/1+and+pd/12/8/2016&RS=(CCL/1/1+AND+PD/20161208)

As you can see it is indeed as @malle-herbert said.

Vectors of where the car is.

Vectors and polyhedrons to describe the obstacle.

Bounding circles to describe what must be avoided.

Vectors to describe where the obstacle is in relation to the car.

Computer systems with memory, display units, memory and one or more processors.

Etc., etc.

I hear they first plan to patent the revolutionary idea of a box with 4 wheels.

I hear they first plan to patent the revolutionary idea of a box with 4 wheels.

In phase two they'll invent and patent windows.

In phase three they'll invent a means to roll down and roll up the windows.

WWW daddy Sir Tim Berners-Lee stands up for end-to-end crypto

Politicians and civil servants will be the biggest losers without unbreakable encryption

Look up the definition of Chekist in Wikipedia. A chekist is a person who supports their country's intelligence agencies and police being able to surveil their fellow citizens.

A Chekist regime is a regime like the old USSR and Putin's Russian Federation where members of the security agencies and police know so much about politicians, business people and academics that they legally have total control via superior knowledge and total control illegally by an unlimited ability to blackmail anyone.

Now with the internet intelligence agencies and police will know so much about people, will have so much dirt from what people posted during their student days, that people posted as adults years ago concerning now lost causes,

Sure, members of parliament, Home Office and MOD officials will grant themselves supposed immunity and exclusions from spying. But the spying will have already been done during their college years, during their early working years, during the recreational time.

No laws will be passed, no plans will be laid, no discussions will occur within political parties or within government offices that would make members of the intelligence agencies or the police unhappy.

Like with Chekist Russia, a Chekist UK, the government, industry and academic of a Chekist USA will be run by, and for the benefit of, alumni of our own security services and police.

Are UK companies, academics and civil servants allowed to have secrets from foreign bodies?

Without end-to-end encryption that foreign security agencies and foreign police cannot break:

- The secrets of UK companies will be open to foreign rivals

- The secrets of UK academics will be open to foreign rivals

- The secrets of UK senior and other civil servants outside of the Home Office and MOD will be open to foreign rivals

Without end-to-end encryption that foreign security agencies and foreign police cannot break, no UK company, no UK citizen, no UK resident, no company, citizen or resident of any place in the world can have business, economic, planning, political, policy, or personal secrets from foreign police and foreign security agencies.

Remember that foreign countries similar to our own are our biggest and most serious competitors in business, economic and academic matters.

The USA, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, China, Russia, Sweden and Denmark are all foreign countries whose industry and academics compete with our own.

Firefox Quantum: BIG browser project, huh? I share your concern

Re: Please don't F up the UI

Yes Unicornpiss, Chrome has speed and supposedly security (although I've read that now Edge is supposedly even more secure). That is what Chrome had and has, speed.

I switched to Chrome 3 times before I finally gave up on FF. I loved the FF UI, the add-ons, the company's and developer's friendly non-arrogant attitudes, their openness, and that they actually often responded to bug reports and feature requests by dwebby outsiders like myself.

But objectively Chrome just had so much more speed, so third time I stuck with it.

Now you've got me thinking sentimentally. I wish Mozilla luck. Maybe they can get me back.

It is more work to regain lost customers than to retain customers

They should have completed Electrolysis and the 64-bit versions several years ago, before so many people abandoned FF.

In the 2009 to 2012 timeframe they had 26% of the browser market share.

But now, due to people losing patience and moving to faster products, they've down to 11.7% market share on desktops & laptops, and only 0.72% on handhelds.

https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=1&qpcustomb=0&qpsp=194&qpnp=24&qptimeframe=M

Now they've got a tough job to attract their disenchanted and disappointed former customers back.

It is a non-zero effort to switch browsers, to get used to the new UI, to get employees used to the new UI -- so they've got to come up with something that is a considerable improvement over Chrome (and Edge).

And then they've got to find a way to get the word out so potential customers will switch before Google and MS copy, and maybe build on, their improvements.

As a shock to absolutely no one, Uber is mostly pasty, male at the top

Re: SOP

Would you have laughed if IBM or HP or Yahoo sent 5 white, middle-aged women from head office?

You see the point then, you see how the danger of becoming the joke you think other people are.

Is it really necessary to troll us with racist clickbait headlines?

Is it really necessary to troll us with racist clickbait headlines?

Is it really so hard for you guys to attract readers that you need to become bottom feeders?

No amateur trolls for the Reg. Like The Guardian and Breibart you only employ the finest most highly educationed professional trolls.

IBM could have made almost all the voluntary redundancies it needed

Re: Never Volunteer

Usually asking people to leave comes with a good severance offer, 6 months, 9 months, 12 months. So there is a reason to express interest.

Offering the statutory minimum 4 weeks in the UK (at best 2 weeks in the USA) is no motivation. As you say, an employer looking at an employee who offers to accept that, that they enjoy the job so little they'd leave it for next to nothing. The employee would be marking themselves off as someone dissatisfied who'd leave at the drop of a hat even if the other company was offering equivalent pay.

So yes, what you say makes sense. Don't show interest in the offer. Instead just quietly start looking for another job.

If you quit once you find another job you're guaranteed no gap in pay cheques.

If you take the 4 week severance package, yes maybe you get 4 weeks of double pay, but much more likely you'll have a several month gap.

That chance of double pay for 4 weeks is not worth the risk of a several month gap. Look around on your own and leave when you've found another job.

This whole topic brings up yesterday's "Could you ethically recommend a female go into IT".

No, I couldn't ethically recommend _anyone go into IT_, unless they live in some country with very low labour costs.

Which of us would recommend a young person go into a field where they are most likely (with a exceptions) to be working for cheap skate abusive employers who treat 'permanent staff' like contractors and lay them off at the first opportunity to shift the work offshore?

In 10 years most of the IT work left here in the first world is going to be administrator work, shifting machines, cabling, swapping boards, and other physical stuff that can't be offshored.

IT was good for me for the first 25 years, now it is rapidly becoming so not worth it. I as badly for the bright young optimistic newbies just getting out of college or university now as I do for those with 10 years experience who are being laid off because their specialty was product we've switched away from.

Re: The good people

"I put my name down several times and was told I was too valuable - not valuable enough for any form of pay rise - but eventually they were left with only a few people like me who kept their hands up and I got my package. Yay."

Yes, it is the best people who aren't afraid to look around, who are versatile enough to adapt to new companies.

I'll add, in my experience many of the 'good people who stay' are generally people who have worked in one environment or with one architecture for so long they are afraid they cannot make a transition. They might have been versatile really good once, but now they are good at what they do and fear the need to learn something new.

Best people often first to accept severance because it is easy for them to find another job &

The best people are often first to accept severance because it is easy for them to find another job and it is glum working in a place where downsizing is a habit. It makes people glum and top performers don't want to work in glum environments.

In IBM's case, you've also got the involuntary relocations -- so super glum, super dismal.

IBM was probably already in a death spiral, and if it wasn't, it is now. Best people leave causing a loss of customers & clients, causing a need to layoff, the further layoff's causing a further loss of customers & clients.

Probably a lot of those who'd offered to resign have already started their job searches, and having started those job searches will be getting job offers now, regardless of what IBM wants.

That is the thing: When your staff start looking around for other employers (because of something management has done or rumors of what management is going to do), once they seriously start looking, many will get good offers, the best will definitely get good offers in the coming several months. And they'll leave regardless of what the employer does to patch things up.

The best advice if you're working at a place that is in a death spiral is to leave now before your outlook on work, attitude towards work, is permanently dragged down.

Can you ethically suggest a woman pursue a career in tech?

Isn't it bigotry and prejudice to see some people in an ethnic group do something,

Isn't it bigotry and prejudice to see some people in an ethnic group do something, or some gangs in an ethnic group, and then to assume (extrapolate) that all members of that ethnic group do that same something?

And isn't that true when somebody does the same thing with manual labourers? With women? With black people? And with programmers?

The only locker room talk I've ever hear or read in IT is here in The Reg by Reg writers. We aren't all like you guys.

Almost none of us here in Canada are like you guys. We're a humourless very cautious and considerate bunch here. Our jokes are about the weather and programming languages. If someone complains about a person, it is the person they're complaining about, not one of that person's groupings.

And if you bully a woman, if it ever happened, and if she ever quit, you'd have all your buddies hating you for chasing away the woman.

It is bigotry to suggest that all IT shops are like Uber. It is pure ignorance to suggest that programmers have anything more in common with rude 12 y/o gamers than do accountants, social workers and liberal arts students.

I'm tired of us in our industry being victimized and generalized over by the media because we're weak, unorganized and don't fight back.

We're a largely soft-spoken introverted group with all the defenses of a bunch of 4 year-olds and we're easy for the eloquent classes to target and bully.

And we'll never ask for an apology.

Re: If Seagates drives didn't fail so frequently they might have been able to hang on

Sorry about the title, my computer changed it as it posted.

"for the next twenty years, men must be on their best behaviour"

Young me will do what young men are doing: Staying away from university in droves.

Those IT companies had darn well better attract female STEM graduates because STEM's male prospects have given up before they've started.

Affirmative action, whether against Jews in the 1930s, or against white men now, pushes people away, makes them leave. And then you're left having to depend on your Aryans or later day Aryans.

I don't know what company Mark Pesce works for, but he should quit.

I don't know what company Mark Pesce works for, but he should quit.

What he is talking about, I've worked as an employee and contractor for just over 30 companies.

And NONE of those companies is on the same planet as Mark Pesce. I'm an extroverted guy, I like to get in on scuttlebutt, and I've never heard anything like what he is talking about.

Mark, quit where you are an immigrate back to earth.

Or do some real research before you write your stories.

Are the people harassing the Uber IT person really other IT people? Or are they liberal arts grads twittering from underneath some rock somewhere? Maybe they are what you call in the UK NEETs. Maybe they aren't even male. After all, on the internet nobody knows if you're a dog, or a provocateur.

Anyway, Mark is probably not talking about Canadian IT shops, and if he is he is spouting false news.

Oh wait, it is an Op-Ed piece, it doesn't have to be factual. Right.

Official: America auto-scanned visitors' social media profiles. Also: It didn't work properly

At least Trump isn't claiming all programmers are sexist bigots

At least Trump isn't claiming all programmers are sexist bigots without examining each individual, unlike some publications I know.

UK Home Office warns tech staff not to tweet negative Donald Trump posts

It is plain common sense

It is plain common sense not to criticise regulators, clients or customers while indicating your employer.

If you mention your employer, if you mention your professional association, you are dragging them into it.

Much better to have a separate personal account for political comment, preferably using a 'pen name' (pseudonym) that doesn't mention any employer or any professional credentials.