Posts by Panicnow

The red color of Mars might have an earlier, wetter origin

Could Comets explain water?

I am wondering if comets hitting Mars would cause the fluvial features on Mars.

The water would have a half life so eventually disappear, but might supply enough to give Mars rain for a while.

Or am I being naive?

Telco security is a dumpster fire and everyone's getting burned

Re: I would fix security, but its against the law!

When some players are secure and others not, then the market sorts it out, faster than politicians.

Look at how Operating Systems are rapidly adapting to threats, no regulation there!

I would fix security, but its against the law!

Regulation kills both innovation and motivation.

If a Telco satisfies the regulation, what incentive is there to innovate.

Worse, Regulation is always way behind the market, and if enforced it can stop needed innovation.

AMD grabs a quarter of x86 market with desktop gains, but server growth slows

Invisible ARMs

In my household we use ARM Raspberry PIs for our home computing use and ARM tablets and ARM mobiles.

Indeed the only x86s in our house are in old computers sitting in the garage!

They are VERY CHEAP! and good enough for our purposes. My guess is there are many more of us.

Working out how many RPi s are used as "Good Enough" PCs will be a challenge

IPv6 may already be irrelevant – but so is moving off IPv4, argues APNIC's chief scientist

An Alternative reason why IPv6 hasn't been deployed

The Internet stopped being an Internet when the first NAT was switched on!

Security services HATE direct messaging. With NAT every connection can be logged at the carrier.

Pat Gelsinger's grand plan to reinvent Intel is in jeopardy

Innovative alternative anywhere?

(Apart from China and Taiwan) where is anyone investing in innovation in uP manufacture?

Maybe someone needs to do a Elon Musk approach to this and ignore every expert in the old optimum in order to find a new optimum.

Germanium? Cryogenic? Direct optics? 3D printed substrate? Perovskite?

(I'd be Interested if you can add more off-the-wall tech for this)

Re: Drastic (& Sarcastic) Solution

The US still have a similar US shipping law.

Anaconda puts the squeeze on data scientists now deemed to be terms-of-service violators

Bait and Switch

It should be outlawed

DNA Copyright

The EU is already proposing to make this happen!

The first corporation to decode and claim a DNA sequence can now patent it.

If YOU have that sequence in your Genome, YOU ARE STEALING THEIR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

CrowdStrike file update bricks Windows machines around the world

Asymetric threats

To be fair, security has to respond fast to newly identified threats. Through testing leaves systems vulnerable.

... On the other hand I don't think this was a response to a new threat.

PostgreSQL pioneer's latest brainchild promises time travel to dodge ransomware

Database pioneer Michael Stonebraker v random Register posters

Hmm I know who I'd follow.

As far as the Linux is concerned, how else will you get it running on current clouds?

Bit like BIOS on a PC

LockBit extorted billions of dollars from victims, fresh leaks suggest

Money Laundering

Money laundering admin cost me hours a year just to keep my bank account active, Yet, Lockbit can launder $Billions.

I'm reminded of "Me thinks they complain too much".

Bitcoin et al are simply a money laundering scams. That SEC and Governments haven't shut them down, confirms to me it is because they are getting their back-handers in Bitcoin!

Zuckerberg hunkers down in Hawaii to wait out apocalypse

Do no Register readers buy Insurance?

I advise anyone and everyone to have a store of food and water purification systems. A few £100 could transform your chances of a better outcome should a major event occur.

The richer you are, the more you have to lose and the more insurance you can afford.

There are plenty of opportunity for a major event due to nature. Though a major event caused by a corporation, government or religion is way more probable.

Google Groups ditches links to Usenet, the OG social network

Embrace, Extend, Extinquish

Yet another example of corporate theft of public spaces.

Please keep (SMTP) Email safe, it's being assaulted on all fronts!

There is nothing the other messaging apps offer, that couldn't have been added to the open, distributed platform.

Veilid: A secure peer-to-peer network for apps that flips off the surveillance economy

Invisible use case

So IF...

This was implemented as a "service" which provided socket and DNS services then EVERY app could use it.

More generally there needs to be "server" implementations on Android and Mobile iOS. ( Good luck getting this past Apple Inc)

And of course the real reason IPv6 isn't deployed in the west, is IPv4 NAT forces routing security compromise. And it is difficult to justify NAT on IPv6

UK telco watchdog Ofcom, Minnesota Dept of Ed named as latest MOVEit victims

Will OFCOM fine OFCOM?

Or will they go after MOVEiT?

There will be a great precedent set, either way.

UK PM Sunak plans to allocate just £1bn to semiconductor industry

Re: Makes sense

I'm wholly with Codejunky on this one.

Bearing in mind Intel have had great difficulty in going under 12nm, The idea that a UK start-up can get close is a joke. (I think our best is over 100nm at the moment)

If the money is to buy a replica foundry (like the US buying from TSMC) it will be dependent on complex international supply chains anyway, let alone the long arm of US control of tech.

With all this new subsidised capacity hitting the market in around 4 years? I don't see a happy end for a marginal fab on a small island.

Now, if you have £Billions to invest in tech ... I've got just the idea... And I can guarantee it will perform better than a UK FAB.

Amazon axes Halo gear as job cuts hit cloud segment

Let the management buy-out the "failures"

Corporates buying them axing seem wasteful. Usually, these businesses are viable, just use too much senior management time in relation to their up-side.

I wonder if these businesses were offered to the original owners?

US Supreme Court snubs that guy who wants AI recognized as patent inventors

Patents and Copyright are privileges, not rights

Governments bestowed the privilege of monopoly for IP on the basis that this encouraged innovation.Just because it is described as a right, by those who want a monopoly, doesn't make it a right.

I'd argue that granting monopoly is something that society should rarely wants to give. The value of an invention is in it being used universally, not restricted to a few licencees. The Internet protocols, RISC-V, Linux and FOSS in general, Youtube and Wikipedia indicate that patents and copyright are not necessary for the production of large bodies of innovation. So why are they granted so freely?

CEO sorry after telling staff to 'leave pity city' over bonuses

Conflation of two memes

1) People need to hear bad news.

2) Senior management are stealing the profits from workers and shareholders

Put the two together and we all suffer

Ask Dominic Raab

The UK's bad encryption law can't withstand global contempt

The solution is MORE encryption not less!

Now if EVERY communication was encrypted AND SIGNED...

Silicon Valley Bank seized by officials after imploding: How this happened and why

Re: Live by the ESG, die by the ESG?

I was an early "investor" in ESG stuff. I withdrew when I saw how many of the companies were scams, (Growing "new" forests in the Amazon, after the loggers have been through)

Then there is "Carbon credits" which are like paying someone else to diet for you

Finally i saw the dozens of "accreditation" businesses, which are indeed simply green-washing virtue signally.

When it comes to ESG, Good humans just do the right thing.

Sadly, most corporate CEOs leave their humanity at the front door!

Re: Assets? What kind of assets?

I've never understood why people call Trump stupid. My guess is he understood exactly what he was doing. He got to be PotUS. I'd challenge anyone with an IQ for less than 110 to get near a nomination, let alone winning an election!

EU plan to make big tech pay 'fair share' of telco fees reportedly weeks away

Telco Entitlement

As the founder of PIPEX the first commercial ISP in Europe, which became by far the largest international ISP. This claim by Telcos is all about them trying to reestablish their cosy monopolies. As usual they are corrupting the political system to enable them to extort money. Rather than do their job of investing and innovating in the services their customers demand. ( Which is far harder work for management, than lobbying politicians.)

While I have no sympathy for large tech, when they also abuse their monopoly, at least they innovate and invest. Telcos, always drag their feet on investment and seek to slow innovation.

I hope(but do not expect) the EU politicians to do the right thing and put kerbs on the abuse of ALL monopolies in the interest of its public. Rather than support one monopoly over another.

First satellite to be launched from European soil leaves Cornwall tonight

Re: Marketing notwithstanding, it's not taking of from "European Soil".

Pedantry v ambiguous language.

It "took-off" from Cornwall. The second "rocket stage" happened over International waters, (like virtually every second stage).

Ah what-ever...

Crypto craziness craps out – and about time too

Get-out-of-jail tokens

Fiat currencies DO have a value. You can pay your taxes with them. And you HAVE to pay your taxes.

OK, Crypto does have a use paying extortionist to get your data out of jail, but eventually the extortionists want to pay their taxes, as Al Capone found out!

Twitter engineer calls out Elon Musk for technical BS in unusual career move

Experts are always Experts of legacy systems

Elon has repeatedly confounded industry "experts" and people embedded in legacy systems. I'm sure he has no idea how to design and build cars or rockets. What he does do is listen to disruptive engineers, who typically come from outside the industry and then give them the authority to tear-up the "rulebook"

I wait with baited breath for the DoJo AI chip, which apparently is the first chip NOT based on von Neuman architecture.

(And I can't conceive how twitter would work without Remote Procedure Calls, my guess is one is talking about a narrow definition and the other a broad one.)

And yes, as the legacy engineer, I'd be worried about Elon throwing out all your code. You'd be better advised to offer a new architecture to Elon.

He's only gone and done it. Ex-Register vulture elected to board of .uk registry

Re: Congratulations

Non-execs, indeed all directors HAVE to execute their responsibility independently. He CAN express dissent.

So called group responsibility is a fiction created by evil chairmen, CEOs etc.

The many derivatives of the CP/M operating system

Was CP/M an operating system?

Surely CP/M was just a code loader with a standardised filesystem library. It didn't manage any other resources. I'd considered MP/M as the first PC operating system.

But all this simply reminds me of the genius of Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson in creating Unix in 1969!!!. The daddy of nearly ALL currently developing operating systems.

Fancy doing a similar family tree of Unix?

Tech world may face huge fines if it doesn't scrub CSAM from encrypted chats

Spyware on your computer

So basically they want to make it LAW to put spyware on to everyone's computer.

I've always assumed that was the case with MS WIndows and Apple iOS, which is why I use Linux.

Time to dust down the old typewriter

Or maybe my Amstrad PCW, Hmm can I source floppy disks?

Actual quantum computers don't exist yet. The cryptography to defeat them may already be here

Re: Obsessed With Mathematics, Randomisation, N-bit Keys......

Yes, I've proposed methods of using and distributing cheap and unbreakable "one-time code books" for sometime. Even I can do the probability maths to demonstrate their strength. But there is the problem, an expert mathematician will never consider a system that doesn't need an expert mathematician to verify it!

Will optics ever replace copper interconnects? We asked this silicon photonics startup

Ignorant innovator

* With states now held with a few electrons, could light be used to discharge the state directly? ( Like a CCD)

* Could these few electrons switch a nano liquid crystal?

* Could one have a 2D optical data plane that allows a single data source to be "seen" by many data sinks?

* Could one have a 2D optical data plane that allows a single data sink see many data sources (More difficult with channel conflict, but useful for sparse channels)?

thus directly processing without any current switching, just a power line to charge the gates.

And a whole new architecture for a computing platform

Why the Linux desktop is the best desktop

What about Windows!

The last time I was put in front of a Windows computer I couldn't even find what to click to start Office!

My experience of Windows has genrally been "Blue screen of death" of similar.

Here is a test...

Ask a Apple user to try to use a Windows desktop and watch them struggle!

Now put then in front of Mint

Ask a Windows user to use a Apple desktop and watch them struggle

Now put them in front of Mint

Debugging source is even harder when you can't stop laughing at it

Re: Been there, done that, tipped the swear jar

.,..and now write it out 100 times Brian!

Chip world's major suppliers of neon gas shut down by Ukraine invasion – report

Purity

The issue is purity, My guess they need 99.999% purity. That isn't easy, even using the same equipment the Ukrainians use!

I bet there are other "Gotchas" in the supply chain we'll only notice later.

Bet the countries that have neon ban the export of neon in the next few hours.

Just to make a bad problem worse!

UK science stuck in 'holding pattern' on EU funding by Brexit, says minister

Rest of World

I for one would like to see our academic institutions focusing on partnering with the best-in-the-world, not an EU political mash-up called Horizon at al!

In MOST important areas, EU institutions are second and third rate. A requirement of Horizon is to partner with some no-hope institution, to spill a few crumbs, in the name of solidarity (Pork Barrels)

Throw away your Ethernet cables* because MediaTek says Wi-Fi 7 will replace them

More bandwidh please

The joke is only <0.1% of usable spectrum now carries >99% of traffic.

Shifting legacy bandwidth hogs such as BBC Radio 1-7 and TV off of dedicated (unbelievably wide) bands would enable sensible use of frequencies.

... and don't get me on reserved military bands....

If only I could become Chair of OFCOM!

Big Tech's private networks and protocols threaten the 'net, say internet registries

QoS is a bad idea!

QoS is totally at odds to the fundamentals of the Internet! As soon as you put one layer's features(transport) into the wrong layer(Netowork), consequences multiply. This is WHY QoS has never been successfully deployed on the Internet.

In addition, as soon as one has QoS, network operators have a reason to UNDERPROVISION network capacity in order to extort premiums for High QoS services.

My hope is QoS NEVER sees the light of day on the Internet!

Netflix shows South Korea a rerun of 'We Won't Pay Your Telcos For Bandwidth'

I designed the ISP business model

In the early days of the Internet there was a wise debate about how to divide the costs and income across a connection.

The answer was that is no single "fair" system! I proposed that every ISP pays for their network and collects from their customers. I.e. no "settlement". This idea won on the basis that it was cheap to implement (no accounting) and meant there were no need for complicated legal agreements to sort out the money.

Neutral interconnects such as MaeEast and LINX meant that the cost of the interconnection was minimal, and sort of fair.

Ever since various parties, especially Telcos have tried to change the rules, in ways that consistently benefit themselves, ( who would guess)

To repeat, There is NO SINGLE FAIR SYSTEM for inter ISP settlement! The NULL system is cheap and easy!

Peter Dawe

Founder Unipalm, PIPEX, LINX, ISPA IWF ...

Reg reader returns Samsung TV after finding giant ads splattered everywhere

Re: Can you opt out of the data collection on smart TVs?

Your iPhone will be listening in to what you're listening to and logging you that way

Google's 'Be Evil' business transformation is complete: Time for the end game

Beware of Geeks bearing GIFS?

(Just drop 2 letters from the old phrase)

The Chinese govt look good here

The Chinese govt have single-mindedly stopped these operators doing this stuff in China, acting totally in the interests of (their vision of ) Chinese society.

Whereas Western governments appear to be "owned" by corporations.

China sets goal of running single-stack IPv6 network by 2030, orders upgrade blitz

Democracy and capitalism fails when it comes to long term planning.

IPv6 has been "ESSENTIAL" for decades. We had some running when I ran PIPEX 25 years ago!

NAT is and always has been a disaster. The loss of direct IP to IP addressing, allows a lot of bad stuff to happen. e.g. NAT facilitates third party snooping.

Using the socket space for address space means we lost well behaved applications. ( Sadly that genie will not get put back)

Profit seeking ISPs want to do as little as possible, while keeping old kit running as long as possible. Thus they have no incentive to deploy IPv6.

If only we had the Chinese meritocracy running things over here. Rather than people stupid enough to want to be a UK politician!

I think our government is against China because it shows just how bad their performance is!

UK's BT starts trials of new hollow-core optical fibre networks

Competition from Starnet et al

Having watched and competed with BT. Their policy is to sweat legacy systems as long a possible, while giving lip service to government policy.

They are only ramping up FTTx because they are worried about competitors.

e.g. The LEO stuff, could be faster than traditional terrestrial, taking the premium market, so beloved of BT.

That they wave the Union Jack to get tax payer money to do what any normal business would have to get investors for is particularly galling, to us innovators.

Hey Ho, Nothing changes in big business and politics

Penguin takeover: We tried running some GUI Linux apps on Windows the official way – and nothing exploded

This is the end of Windows

Why would Microsoft keep spending on developing Windows, when all the money is in hosted services? The smart thing to do is to migrate to Linux, and keep the app and hosted revenues. Revenue from Windows licences don't pay for the maintenance.

Chairman, CEO of Nominet ousted as member rebellion drives .uk registry back to non-commercial roots

Check the bank account

My guess is there will need to be an immediate forensic audit of the company.

The laptop you bought in 2020 may stop you buying a car in 2021: Chips are going short

There is a BIGGER story here, 'cos it smells to me.

Global car production 79m in 2019, 65m cars globally 2020,

Global smart phone production 385m

Global PC sales 275m

What is the one high value product that China hasn't got stitched up?

US gov sets up the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office at the last minute before Trump's presidency ends

Re: Hmmm

... it does now!

Titanium carbide nanotech approach hints at hydrogen storage breakthrough

Other use cases

Transport is only one use case for any energy. And its the only one that has issues of energy density and safety. Adding H2 to piped gas is trivial

I own a farm and we are looking at powering our tractors etc with H2 made on the farm using our solar and wind generation.

On the farm, it is just about feasible to simply float a balloon filled with H2 above the machine. Balloons are not ideal for medium term storage, so this tech would fit for our use. They key is the capital cost rather than other parameters