Posts by Trigun

Of all the analytics firms in the world, why is Palantir getting its claws into UK health data?

This is the trouble about discussing politics via forum - people make an assumption that if you have an issue with X then you're all for Y. I think perhaps the down votes demonstrate that, maybe?

I like none of the political parties - they all have their issues and that includes the conservatives and your point about them not protecting UK companies is one I very much agree with and have said so previously on the reg forums. However, I also have issues with Labour for *their* screw ups as well and given the somewhat left leaning bias that many have on the forums, thought it worth bringing up to counter-balance the kak-on-the-torys rhetoric you sometimes see. If you (that's the royal you, not you in particular) are going to have a go at one party for their failings then be real and do so for the other (major) party as well.

The issue is that the "hippies" cock up the country's finances every time they get into power. If it wasn't for that I might just vote for them.

If HAL did digital signage. I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that...

Cue the monkeys going on a shopping spree

Amazon exec's husband jailed for two years for insider trading. Yes, with Amazon stock

Re: He's an idiot

Oh come on. You think only trump supporters do this kind of thing? It's a human thing and can infect anyone of any idiology.

Apple settles with student after authorized repair workers leaked her naked pics to her Facebook page

Disgusting

Having this done to you has got to be deeply devastating - having your friends, family, work colleagues as well as strangers see you naked or in a sex video. How do you recover from that psychologically? How do you go out and face every person who you had on your facebook and *know* they have seen that material? On top of that, these arseh*les made it look like she posted them herself. What kind of utter sh*t do you have to be to think this is funny? I wouldn't do this to my worst enemy, let alone someone who has caused me no offense.

The victim deserves every penny she gets out of the companies, but I'd love to see her go after the people who actually posted the material.

As for anyone who says you shouldn't take such photos/videos: Yeah, a bit unwise, but sorry (not sorry) but that's not the point. Anyone who has access to private data who is an adult knows not to view or share such information, unless it's criminal in nature (and then with police only).

Will the real IRC please stand up? Freenode’s forest fire leaves ashes – and fresh growth

Re: Kinda the opposite of Cancel Culture, no?

It depends on what you define as being tolerant and not being tolerarant. The past 5 years, but especially the last 2, has tought me that some of the more radicalised/sensitised people in the world think that any questioning of something that they strongly believe in is intolerance - even if someone is just asking a question, trying to understand or having issues with certain bits and would like to discuss.

Not saying intolerance doesn't exist (it does), but the above is definitely something I've seen and experienced.

NHS GP data grab: Royal College of General Practitioners urges health body to communicate better

The trouble is with this kind of thing is that once the data is out of your (and the GPs) hands then it's out and there's no going back. Bit like giving your details to social media sites.

After staff revolt, Freenode management takes over hundreds of IRC channels for 'policy violations'

Re: Entitled douchebag, much?

I disagree with you: There is such a thing as cancel culture, although I don't think it applies here as everyone is voting with their feet from what I see - as you say: Democracy. I think part of the issue is that what you're describing isn't what many think of as cancel culture.

My interpretation of cancel culture is when a group of people actively go out to attack a company, another group or an individual, attempting to deplatform and destroy the target in the digital and real world. You can argue the merits of going after the first two, but that last one is what makes me loathe cancel culture. Trying to ruin someone's life by getting them fired from their job, kicked out of their home or out of college just because you disagree about politics or whatever is malignant beyond words.

Cloudflare stops offering to block LGBTQ webpages

Maybe more to it than bigotry?

Looking at this in as favourable light as possible: I wonder if that category was included as whoever put it there was thinking that as LGBTQ+ involves gender/sexual preferences (and usually some discussion of such things) that people might want to block because of possible content to do with sexual(ised) or naked-body content (not necessarily porn)?

BTW I do a lot of filtering work as part of my job and I've never had a request to block LGBTQ+ and we deal with many establishments, including religious ones.

Japan to start stamping out rubber stamps and tearing up faxes as new digital agency given Sept. 1 start date

My number

Japan's government: "You are number 6"

A Japanese citizen: "I am not a number! I'm a free man!"

Be seeing you.

Basecamp CEO issues apology after 'no political discussions at work' edict blows up in his face

Having less or even no political discussion in the workplace is not a bad approach considering how things can go wrong when people disagree over such things.

However, offering a ton of compensation for people to leave was one mistake, not pursuading (as others have said) rather than possibly being high-handed was another (I say possibly because we don't fully know if he did actually consult people, etc. - we're just seeing the results). Finally, apologising for a legitmate decision was worse because now his leadership has been weakened due to backing down on something reasonable. A bit of a hard learning experience - if he choses to learn from it, of course.

Re: Purely financial

Indeed. The same thought had occured to me.

Re: Politics is a virus.

And you'd (rightly) be in a poIice cell very shortly afterwards. I'm not a fan of Jim Davisons old views/comedy (not sure what those are these days, though), but violence is not the answer unless you're defending yourself or another from physical harm. Otherwise what happens when someone find your own views distasteful? Should they should use the same solution?

Bill to protect UK against harmful foreign investment becomes law

Re: Decades late

I'm not advocating no outside investment or takeovers - I'm saying it needs to be properly regulated to ensure that any aquisition, merger, etc. will long term be good for the country and that we don't allow *all* UK companies to be purchased as soon as they become lucrative, especially via hostile takever.

The impression that I've received over the years is that it's be a *very* hands off type of control and even when conditions have been agreed with companies so such deals can go ahead they sometimes subsequently break those conditions.

Don't get the impression this is UK=good, non-UK=bad. It's not about that; It's about having our politicians and government agencies do their dmaned jobs properly.

Decades late

The aquisition of valuable UK companies and IPs by foreign controlled entities has been going on for decades and has been a known issue for all of that time. I'm glad that someone has eventually started to try and put on the breaks a bit, but I'd love to know why on earth it took this long to do.

First Coinbase, now Basecamp: Should workplaces ban political talk on internal corporate platforms?

Where I work we self moderate for the most part. We're all aware that everyone has different views, so we don't let things get to the unplesant stage. If a discussion is getting people angry then they will just say "look, let's agree to differ and leave it there" or something similar. Not a bad system as no one is having to tell us to shut up and we're also not clawing each others throats out on whether Brexit was a good thing or not.

PCs continue to sell like hot cakes and industry can barely keep up with demand – analyst

Agreed. I've been saying this to my colleagues who don't seem to be acknowledging that there is a finite market. Sure, take advantage of it, but be mindful that it will end and then there will be over availability for some years afterwards.

My old Sandybridge with 1333 DDR3 RAM is doing just fine. Admittedly, it's got a few enterprise grade SSDs and a 1070GTX in it, but it keeps up with everything I throw at it without issue.

When I do upgrade I might give AMD another go as I've been with Intel for quite a while now.

British IT teacher gets three-year ban after boozing with students at strip club during school trip to Costa Rica

I suspect the teacher will probably be needing to find a different career as a 3 year interruption. Perhaps a school IT tech bod instead? No teaching involved there, but the may may be a lot less.

39 Post Office convictions quashed after Fujitsu evidence about Horizon IT platform called into question

Re: About damn time

Exactly. Money doesn't make up for it, but it helps a lot. Apart for those who died with their names blackened.

If you have a QNAP NAS, stop what you're doing right now and install latest updates. Do it before Qlocker gets you

Although I don't have a QNAP (I've got a Synology instead) a short while ago I moved my website and other web related stuff from from my NAS to godaddy (for now). Amongst the reasons for doing this was that directly exposing my NAS to the interwebs on 80/443 made me uncomfortable. I also want to store unrelated web data on the NAS and mixing that and a web server seemed a tad risky for obvious reasons.

I feel bad for people with a QNAP at the moment.

Beloved pixel pusher Paint prepares to join Notepad for updates from Microsoft Store

Re: I'm pissed off...

1000% for notepad++ (although I appreciate the presence of the basic notepad as a built-in option).

Australian ponders requiring multiple IDs to sign up for social media, plus more crypto-busting backdoors

You get the china equivilent of no social points left?

No payrise for Oracle CEO Safra Catz, but at least there's $76.4m from trading company shares to fall back on

$950,000 salary? Does that come with a monacle and top hat everytime she receives her payslip?

Mullet over: Aussie boys' school tells kids 'business in the front, party in the back' hairstyle is 'not acceptable'

Meh it's one school (as far as I know) and one for the upper crust at that. As such, probably not worth getting too excited about.

Red Hat pulls Free Software Foundation funding over Richard Stallman's return

Re: A sad week for open source, I guess.

"Whether M Stallman morally should resign is entirely missing the point. He has become a signficant liability to not just the FSF, but even the wider Open Source movement. I don't know or care what RedHat et. al. think, but they clearly have their image to preserve. Thanks to its association with M Stallman, the FSF is becoming a stinking albatross; and to petulantly insist that you are in the right when all else disagree is not the salient feature of a Greek Myth, the common good is. This is not serving the common good."

It's not missing the point: It's *part* of the the analysis and decision making process that you have to make.

You look at the potential damage caused by the persons continued presence, look at what they did or didn't actually do and if you organisation agrees with it or not (and how strongly).

Lastly, and very importantly these days, you need to look at the intentions of those calling for the sanctions.

If you only go by the cancel/outrage mob alone then you'll end up with a very unpleasant orgnaisation or society where no one has anyone else's back - unless it's to plunge a dagger in to it.

Tired: Linux fans using the Edge browser. Wired: Linux fans using a Microsoft account to sign into the Edge browser

Admittedly, chromium Edge is much better than it's predecessor, but I'd still much rather use Firefox, thanks.

Prince Harry, the Count of Montecito, turns Silicon Valley startup exec with first job based in 21st Century

Re: Optional

The way I see it, keeping the security is probably a reasonable thing to let Harry have as he was born into the royal family, so didn't have a choice, and that makes him a target for some.

Oh I totally agree. It come from them as well as the press which is what makes me want them to just "Get on with it!" (monty python style) and the media just drop it.

Re: They can't really complain about the racist backlash

Sorry, I indeed missed the point. No excuses.

Re: They can't really complain about the racist backlash

I wonder what would happen if you flipped that statement around and made it about the colour of her skin as opposed to the colour of his hair (both immutable characteristics). Hmmm, let me think...

I get the feeling that the article writer is a tad biased against the royal family? Perhaps just my imagination.

Either way, with regard Harry and Megan: They elected to not be "royals" with the responsibilities and duties that went with it, so I think Harry going and getting a job (of whatever type) is a good thing as he should be paying his way. No royal duties means no royal rights & benefits in my book, apart from security which would be potentially disastrous to withdraw.

Beyond that? For heavens sake just leave the couple to do their thing. I'm tired of seeing vaccuous or grubby stories about them and their (what should be) private disagreements with their families in the press.

Staff and students at Victoria University of Wellington learn the most important lesson of all: Keep your files backed up

Sounds like they might have cocked up a user-logon cleanup script. I wonder if the university has some good file recovery software...

As for desktop folders: If you don't folder-redirect/back them up then make them read-only as people always end up trying to save important work to them and warnings not to use the desktop for storage always get forgotten.

Ex-asylum seeker with infosec degree loses discrimination claim against UK cyber range provider after storming out

Re: Allegations without consequences

The main issue with punishing people for reporting is that you might catch those who have been actually been racially disciminated against, but don't have enough evidence and those who legit believe they have been - even if it's not actually true. It would then have the effect of actively discouraging people from challenging their dismisal, especially when they have no employment so no money comng in to pay for litigation.

The ultimate form of this conundrum is the accusation of rape. The crime is so deeply horrible it carries a huge stigma (rightly), but because of this a false accusation is potentially life ruining to the accused, but to punish those who do falsly claim then discourages genuine vulnerable victims who aren't thrilled to go through the ordeal of a trial in the first place.

The only answer I can come up with in these situations to only punish in those (admittedly rare) cases where it's almost certain the person was making a false accusation/claim.

'Incorrect software parameter' sends Formula E's Edoardo Mortara to hospital: Brakes' fail-safe system failed

Re: Fail safe systems...

"Then again, I'm an auditor"

From the Laundry? Scarey! Must make sure my paperclips are in order and accounted for!

Splunk junks 'hanging' processes, suggests you don't 'hit' a key: More peaceful words now preferred in docs

I need to boycott my camera memory card as it's definitely FAT-ist. And as for my USB memory stick: that's the same *and* it's age-ist: FAT64!

Ok, it was a bit of a stretch.

Anyway, glad to see people mocking the pc language nutters.

Happy birthday, Python, you're 30 years old this week: Easy to learn, and the right tool at the right time

I loved the Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition Ske- Oh, I see.

Mine's the coat with Dead Parrot on the shoulder.

Nurserycam horror show: 'Secure' daycare video monitoring product beamed DVR admin creds to all users

I'm a bit surprised you can't seen the issue here. As others have said: privacy. This system is only supposed to allow parents to see that their children are being cared for and are safe. It's not for weirdo peeping toms or just the curious and the nosey to view.

The staff and the children themslves have a right to privacy outside of safety concerns.

Big Tech workers prefer 3 days at home, 2 in the office. We ask Reg readers: What's your home-office balance?

Separate environments

My job is sometimes quite stressful and the cycle ride home allows me to de-stress so that by the time I'm home (usually) I can relax. One of the major downsides about being forced to work from home over the last year is that I end up with : (work = stress) + (home = work) = (home = stress). I much prefer to have a clear divison of work and home environments if I can.

Another issue is just being able to talk to one of my coworkers across a desk (we usually work in the same open plan office) for both social and work reasons.

Speaking with other people (via Teams call) I did find is that the greatest demographic who want to keep working from home in our company are the sales peeps. The IT/support guys are the opposite and want to return to work (their reasons seem to match up with mine).

Virgin Media adds 200% to its new broadband contracts in 2020, slips back in black (just)

I'm paying £45 or there-abouts a month for 200mbps. It won't stay at that as every 6 to 12 months or so they seem to put the price up by £3 to £4. Quite annoying. I'm not sure if they are simply trying to squeeze more cash out of me or force me to ring up to complain, give me money off but then lock me into another 12 month contract.

Recovery time objective missed by four weeks, but Parler is back online

Are they Nazi filth on there? All of them? I ask as I genuinely have no idea and would like to know if they all deserve such a label.

Re: Who's the audience?

Pfft that can describe anyone. Talking about entire generations being this or that is a poor way of looking at things and doesn't help with honest discussion.

Re: Protected minorities

"Isn't it kind of problematic for a democracy if you can't be excluded on lots of sensible reasons, but you *can* be excluded on who you vote (and advocate) for? Doesn't that create problems for democratic expression and formation by allowing the corporate "voice" to significantly impact the public debate?"

This has always concerned me. Why should a left-winger get fired for working for a right-winger boss or vice versa? If they try and peddle their opinions in work time to customers or when it's been made very plain "no political talk" then maybe there's a case, but otherwise it should come under unfair dismisal.

In the UK the law is the same, but can be challenged at a tribunal:

"Political beliefs and groups

It is not automatically unfair to dismiss someone because of their political beliefs or political groups they belong to, but a tribunal might find this unfair."

Source: https://www.gov.uk/dismiss-staff/unfair-dismissals

Supermicro spy chips, the sequel: It really, really happened, and with bad BIOS and more, insists Bloomberg

Well this is a bit annoying. My R&D server at home is a super Micro from 2010-ish. It could be be reporting on my network to the Chineese government!!!! It might also explain why there has been an epidemic of narcolepsy over there :D.

Former NCSC chief says US sanctions made Britain strip Huawei from mobe networks

"and before anyone says funding we have just "found" billions for covid !"

The cost of Covid is going to last for decades and will be paid for in part by those being born today. That burden is something government would have said was too high if it wasn't a life-and-death issue for so many.

We didn't collude with Twitter to throw Parler off our servers, says AWS in court filing

Goodbye Parler

Parler are most probably dead now. Was there collusion about de-platforming them? Most probably. There have been previous examples of this happening. Did they deserve it? Not sure - History will be the judge, I suppose.

One thing which is almost certain: They (as other have said) will not win against Amazon. Not because they are in the right or wrong, but because of who is the richest. Nothing changes.

Pandemic? Check. World in peril? Check. CES is on? Check. So of course Bluetooth Smart Masks are now a thing

Meh. We don't need more (for most people) useless personall electronic tat.

That's it. It's over. It's really over. From today, Adobe Flash Player no longer works. We're free. We can just leave

Glad it's gone

From a security stand point I'm 3000% glad it's gone, but it would be a shame (as others have said) to lose the legitimate flash content created over the last 20-25 years. I can see some converters available, but they look bespoke and cost money (admittedly I only took a cursory glance at various offerings) so I'm not sure anyone is going to bother unless it's business critical.

Loser Trump is no longer useful to Twitter, entire account deleted over fears he'll whip up more mayhem

To be fair Trump not being on twitter might actually be a good thing for him from a mental perspective as the platform has become a toxic cesspit of hate. If you're on it I recommend leaving it as everyone I know who has hasn't regretted it.

As for Trumps twitter remarks: On the face of it they don't seem to directly incite violence from what I can see (maybe I'm being naive) and I think this is more that twitter were just after an excuse to get rid of him.

At this point Trump really needs to just admit he lost and transition to being a private citizen again quietly, but that doesn't seem to be in his nature and he doesn't appear to have the wisdom to perceive that the US needs stability more than anything and not more division.

Parlor-wise: I don't know how good or bad it is on there so it might be as bad as this article indicates, but I also think the somewhat left-leaning silicon valley patforms have been itching to get rid of the competition as well. There is a reason Parlor exists: It's a reaction to the bias that many have been perceiving elsewhere online. Not sure if getting rid of it will reduce tensions or increase them as there will be less opportunity for the disenfranchised to have their say and when that happens things can turn ugly(er).