Posts by msknight

Search the web at least once every two years or risk losing your Google account

Re: They want your phone number

They've probably got it unofficially anyway. They just need to make it that you've officially given it to them, and then they'll abuse it even more than they already are.

Thin end of the wedge.

Once this starts, they'll increase the amount of use you've got to make of google services before they'll nix your account, to the point where you've got to use google search once a week. When that happens you might as well default your search back to google because it'll be too much hassle. They'll force people into a black and white decision in the end, and I'm willing to bet that if they push people that hard, they'll get an unpleasant surprise at just how many people jump ship.

We're already seeing this with the forced adverts on youtube to push people to take up a red subscription. I don't think that's working out quite as well as they'd hoped.

Logitech, iFixit to offer parts to stop folks binning their computer mouse

I agree. As a result of Luke Lafreniere's review of the Hyperion Fury (G402) eight years ago, I bought one, and then bought another, and another... I think I have six now and I don't believe one has died yet. Or possibly one where the cable went (as the braided cables were reserved for the G502) ... I have them on my main system KVM, another on my gaming station and another in my laptop bag. When they started to become hard to get, I got another two or three (checks spares box) ... yes, three. Great mice for the money. Love them to bits. Literally :-) ... if only the software came on Linux... (cough, cough)

YouTube's 'Ad blockers not allowed' pop-up scares the bejesus out of netizens

The easy answer is to download the video using yt-dlp or something like that. Then watch it locally. Problem sorted ... for now.

Capita looking at a bill of £20M over breach clean-up costs

Are they kidding?

"but reputational damage could be 'far greater'" ... what reputation? Who wrote that?

Users complain over UK state-owned bank's services as Atos eyes the exit

Re: Glitch

I had similar. Wrote letters of complaint and their customer service team just haven't got a clue. Even sent to the chief executive saying, "Don't pass this to the customer service team, pass it to the technical department".... and I still got a useless reply from the customer service team. Eventually had to get the Financial Ombudsman involved (don't ask.) and it's currently ongoing. So seeing this headline today is no surprise.

Musk tried to wriggle out of Autopilot grilling by claiming past boasts may be deepfakes

Re: All you need to know about Musk

It's the "legal way" that's in question. Why are things being restricted in this manner in the first place. I mean, I can understand some things due to some licensing and funding considerations, but this Jamie Oliver video (and others like it) beggar belief.

Re: All you need to know about Musk

Agreed. It's utterly bonkers. Even Jamie Oliver just released a video on youtube for Sweet potato & Sweetcorn platter and, guess what, not available in your country. I'm in the UK, he's a UK chef, operating in the UK... so why is it unavailable? Utterly senseless IMHO.

Microsoft goes meteorological in defining cybercrook groups

Totally get where you're coming from, but as the news outlets occasionally report on the big cybercrime stories I can't imagine anyone sanctioning the reporter saying, "Thieving Ruskie Dickheads broke into a school and lifted a lot of children's private... er.. information."

Deplatforming hate forums doesn't work, British boffins warn

Please reconsider the title

The title is that deplatforming doesn't work, when in the article it states that while it works it is not enough on its own.

The title of the piece leads the casual reader to conclude that we should just stop deplatforming because it doesn't work.

Brazil defies US, cozies up to Chinese tech on chip building

Re: Interesting

The problem regarding monopoly is that when China gets involved, (purely based on what I've read) then everything becomes Chinese. Their workers get shipped in, all the profits go their way and contracts with no disclosure clauses then tie up the other country from saying a damn thing about it. Signing with China really does seem to be the modern dance with the devil.

UK's Emergency Services Network unlikely to start operating until 2029

Re: Scandalous!

Otherwise known as being promoted out of harms way.

Twitter blocks Pakistan government account, boosts state-run media from Russia and China

The only policy that means a crap in twitter these days...

...is whatever opinion Musk has woken up with this morning.

The changes that have occurred, including allowing the tabilan to buy ticks and amplification, along with the blue tick destruction of my news feed means I barely go into twatter once or twice a week to check on messages.

Lenovo revs up a rackable Aston Martin … workstation?

I like it

I'd have one. (says the person who recently altered a Mac Pro G4 case to take PC parts.) - http://msknight.com/technilife/?s=mac+to+pc ... although I went with blue rather than red... 'cause I'm like that.

Gartner: Oracle probes orgs for Java compliance after new licensing terms

Re: Oracle is targeting users on Java compliance after new licensing terms

What about XCP-ng ?

Meta to add verification to Facebook and Insta under scheme that should avoid Twitter's Musk-stakes

And if they do a Twitter...

...by allowing the taliban to buy blue verification ticks then I'll abandon them just as I've abandoned Twitter too.

Meta cranks Zuckerberg's personal security budget to $14m while cutting everything else

Nah... they probably need the extra security to protect him from all the staff he just fired.

I thought about putting, "Joke alert," but concluded that it's not that funny.

Microsoft tells people to prepare for AI search engine that goes Bing!

Re: Goes Bing?

Exactly. It's now the most powerful way to get to Google that has ever been imagined.

Surprise! China's top Android phones collect way more info

Re: As an owner of a Xiaomi

Yes, it matters. In the recent protests that Chinese people made against winnie the poo, there was no military crackdown, but after it had all settled chinese authorities started vanishing people. This also included people who lived in the areas of the protests or were just going to the shops in the vicinity. There's a fair amount of noise about what's going on with people vanishing, mobile phones, privacy, tracking, etc. and chinese people are waking up to the realities of all this.

No more free API access, says Twitter: You pay for that data

Re: They just did this in the wrong order

Yeah, except for the fact that it's not him doing the revolutionising. It's just done with his cash and in his name - https://www.tumblr.com/numberonecatwinner/701567544684855296/elon-wyd - and so far, what's happening is bearing this out. The truth will only come with time, but in the time that has elapsed so far, Musk is looking to be a reactionary who doesn't plan or consider fully the consequences of the actions, before he takes them. Any investor seeing this and coming to that conclusion, will run a mile from any enterprise that carries his name, and has him in charge.

Version 5 of the Endless OS enters testing

Missing link

I did a search to find their site... both video links fail (one on youtube and one on vimeo) and the link to the codec licenses ends up with server IP not found. - that is the .com site. I believe there is a .org that might be working. By the time I try, the edit timer on this will likely have expired.

Elon Musk to step down as Twitter CEO: Help us pick his replacement

I nominate...

Zippy and Bungle.

Cloud customers are wasting money by overprovisioning resources

I have wondered about de-dupe

Something that's been on the back of my mind for a while is if customers are being charged for de-duped data. I mean, multiple copies of Windows servers must result in a heck of a lot of common data across instances.

Big tech's discarded techies won't sate the job market, says analyst

Re: If they want to solve the shortage of staff...

Some would say that it's, "catch up," with the private sector; in fact, not even catching up even - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-63400845

If they want to solve the shortage of staff...

...then they should offer a decent wage. In my area infrastructure engineer positions are paying less than the NHS.

Japanese convenience store chain opens outlet staffed by avatars and robots

The day a product tells me that it's delicious and wants me to it something up, is the day I get arrested for assaulting shelving units.

FTX disarray declared 'unprecedented' by exec who cleaned up after Enron

Re: New name for them

Please... don't... I'm already lining up another mug of coffee after reading the headline as.. "cleaned up after Elon."

Somebody close the door. Oh, too late, Elon already did.

Musk sells $3.95 billion in Tesla shares, paid eleven times more for Twitter

Is this going to be a new measurement of expenditure?

$44 billion = 1 Musk

$8 = 1 blue tick

Chipmakers cripple products to dodge US China ban

I do wonder...

...whether those speeds are artificially low and can be unlocked with firmware once they've reached their destination.

Oracle's Larry Ellison shares fears of bankrupting Western civilization with healthcare

Bronzed but wanting to live forever

Unless he's put on fake tan, surely he should be aware of the risk of sun exposure and how it might dent his plans for immortality... or does he have a solution to skin cancer than none of us know about?

UK regulator proposes price cap on Motorola as supplier of Airwave network

There has been a separate project for more than a year now, to identify key black spot areas and boost signal in those areas, but also accounting for power outage scenarios as well; so not just "do we need another tower here" but also, "How long does this new tower need to survive a power outage" etc.

People are coming out of retirement due to cost-of-living crisis

Re: Not great news for youngsters

It's not great news for anyone.

I'm in the south of england and infrastructure engineers with a laundry list of skills are being offered £20k-£30k. (outside London) I don't know where they're getting those figures from, but that's even less than the NHS and local government are paying.

Something is still seriously screwed with the IT jobs market and it's going to take a while to sort itself out, I reckon.

Firefox 105 is here, and it's faster and more memory-frugal

Re: Vertical Tabs

When you give it a run, please do report back on how annoying the forced automatic updates are, and the lack of a button to turn them off.

Firefox devs believe it is their task to ensure everyone is updated, all the time, and ignoring the pop up eventually makes Firefox refuse to load anything in a new tab until you've restarted Firefox (and then had to reload all your tabs) ... and no, there is no option in the config: either, because they've removed that as well.

This is the Firefox devs attitude, because I've been there and had that conversation with them... and switched to Vivaldi.

Document Foundation starts charging €8.99 for 'free' LibreOffice

Re: Windows S store has been charging for some time

Thanks for the information.

When I encountered this, and attempted to change his machine out of S mode a few years ago, it did want to charge. However, I'll speak with him again when I'm next called to give him a hand, and try this. He could do with a local word processor but without the subscription.

It's possible that it might charge for a lower version of windows, like home, so I'll definitely chase this up.

Windows S store has been charging for some time

I was asked to help someone out a while ago, and he'd bought the S version of Windows where everything has to be installed via the store, until you pay like £50 to remove the restrictions. Libre Office was in there at something like, £8. No clue where the cash went, ie. Microsoft or what, but it's not news to me.

Demand for software experts pushes tech salaries higher in UK

Re: Diversity should be a consequence, not a goal.

But the "forced change" required is to force women to enter engineering professions against their personal preference?

That is approaching the argument from the wrong side and placing the onus on the women's choices, rather than when it actually lies... the men's choice to keep them out. That's the change that's being forced.

I'm sorry but trying to deflect the argument to being the women's issue is a classic argument to deflect against the men's attitude, and that kind of argument fails at the first hurdle, every time.

I'm done with this subject, because the outcome is plain, as I've already detailed.

Re: Diversity should be a consequence, not a goal.

Sadly, seeing the posts and the relation of upvotes against downvotes, it looks like there are many in the industry who would rather it stay that way and not change.

It does seem like the majority of the downvotes have been added while the USA has been awake, so it may be possible to read that they are more conservative than Europe on this issue; something which, if true, would not surprise me.

A long way to go... but change is coming. Slowly.

Re: Diversity should be a consequence, not a goal.

If you wish to take that point to Professor Joel, feel free. It would be interesting to hear what she would have to say. I had a very brief e-mail exchange with her. I have no doubt she'd respond to a genuinely worded query.

Re: Diversity should be a consequence, not a goal.

It does start by describing the differences between male brains and female brains, and then ends by saying there aren't any differences.

What is shows is that while there are physical differences, they have no practical meaning; because some of the most critical differences are not even, in themselves, static... they are open to change during the persons life... and that stress applied at various points during gestation, have an effect on the individual brain; so that each of us is a unique person... and that further drives the nail into the argument of brain sex.... sex has nothing to do with the brain.

Re: Diversity should be a consequence, not a goal.

I've seen a number of things in my years. It's not only the individual, it's those around them.

I had a woman from one supplier actually break down on my shoulder because one man at her office was very vocal about how women shouldn't be in I.T. and he made her life a misery; and he did this in full view of every one else in their office. No one stood up for her.

I left my last job because my new colleague (at the same level as me) with only five years basic experience in I.T. wouldn't listen to anything I told him; even down to the fact that the MAC address of the physical interface on a laptop being different to the physical interface on the docking station. (When I offered to prove it to him, he tried to prevent me showing him) He always had to have things explained to him by a man before he'd listen. The leader above us bullied me out of my job; I left a report with the HR department with evidence, but I don't think they've done anything since then. Why he hated me so much, I don't know. But he was also able to change everyone's opinions about me which lead to the manager above him accusing me of, "not getting it." ... you tell me how I'm supposed to make a change when faced with that sort of environment.

You want to see more women in male dominated fields? Then stop driving them out. You can't drive women out of these jobs and then turn around and ask, "Where are they?"

Re: Diversity should be a consequence, not a goal.

I agree that men and women are different.

Men and women may be different, but not in the aspect of mental capability and performance in the field of I.T. I posted a few posts above a video from a respected neuroscientist that there is no such thing as a male or female brain.

I also posted to a piece of writing that I did which, while primarily dealing with the subject of transsexuality, went into the social pressures that we all face.

I could easily start listing the women who made a large contribution to our own field of work and how many were airbrushed out of I.T. history, but that is now easier to search for than ever before; because this is starting to be undone and people's contributions are coming forward.

But as long as people continue to perpetuate biases, such as giving the job to the person who they think is most likely to think as they do (reinforcement) rather than challenge them, (the much harder road) in whatever field it is... then the goal of giving the job to the person most suitable for the job itself, will not be achieved.

Changing people's minds has been difficult; there are people who don't want their minds changed. There is no other way to deal with those people other than to make laws and enforce them... because they don't want change and won't listen to evidence.

Re: Diversity should be a consequence, not a goal.

There is proof, research and evidence.

Professor Daphna Joel..

Since 2003, Joel has served as the head of the psychobiology department at Tel Aviv University, and in 2013 was appointed chair of the PhD committee of the School of Psychological Sciences.

The whole thing does get a little mushy in the middle, but there you go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYpDU040yzc

We are each individuals. Remove the social pressures and then see where people go.

If you want more, then I wrote something here - http://msknight.com/loas/?p=1551 - go down to the point about a third of the way down, "So where did the black/white (or pink/blue) binary come from?"

Re: Diversity should be a consequence, not a goal.

Also, dare I suggest that it's possible that women are often more suited to certain jobs, like nursing or nursery nursing, because they tend to prefer doing that?

That kind of viewpoint is exactly the kind of attitude that must be torn into shreds and consigned to the history books or else we will never achieve the point where any individual, regardless, can achieve their best in the field which they have natural skills and temperament.

Re: Diversity should be a consequence, not a goal.

I don't think it's a bandwagon.

There's a circular pattern of dominated jobs, eg nurses were predominantly female. It's taken time for male nurses to come into the profession in any numbers. It's all about breaking the circle and the only easy place to break that circle is to set a diversity goal (whether sex/race/whatever) and once things level up in the sector, the overall image of the profession should change so that the career seems like an open choice for everyone, and not seen as the purview of a particular sex/race/whatever... at which point the goals become mute.

But this takes time, and along the way there are people who actively try and get in the way of the process because they simply like things the way they are and don't want to see things change.

Cyberattack brings down InterContinental Hotels' booking systems

Re: Can't be bothered to spend money on IT

I'm not even sure there could be disruption from a local council attack. Money flows are automated.

They are automated by systems inside the local councils. Revenues and Benefits systems, RevBen for short. Take those out and little moves. There is a push to cloud, but being resisted because of the cost and with very few suppliers/systems to chose from for RevBen software, things are always being pushed.

State sponsored attacks aren't usually about the money. They're about crippling social ability to function, hitting morale, etc.

Re: Can't be bothered to spend money on IT

I have to admit that I can't fully understand what's going on.

Local government, if targeted by hackers, could create serious disruption. People's housing benefit not getting paid, tax not collected (and thus not forwarded to other bodies) civil services impacted... and yet the rate of councils being attacked seems minimal, apart from one or two high profile over the years. I would have thought they would be much more likely to be the target of state attacks.

And yet here we are, with international companies, with oodles more resources... getting hit. What are small local councils getting right, that international companies are getting wrong?

Where I used to work, around 400 employees only a fraction of which were in I.T., we had a few close calls but didn't get taken out like some of these other companies.

Windows 10 business refresh will revive PC shipments

Win 10 has life left

Personally I believe there is another few years life in Windows 10 before organisations look to upgrade. The last few years I've seen organisations buying SSD drives and more RAM, and upgrading their desktops for faster performance. Some replaced desktops with laptops thanks to the pandemic. They'll want to get more years out of that investment first, before buying new kit, I believe.

With the impact of cost of living having the potential to drive businesses to the wall (the overall trend of business opening/closing is still downward) and advertiser spending slowing to the degree that the likes of Meta are squeaking a little... I think the sales over the next twelve months will be worse than the figures quoted by another 50% on top of what they've already forecast. Unless governments step in to save the day; for which there's still time.

Cloudflare tries to explain why it protects far-right forums that stalk and harass victims

Re: Weaver and Caraballo are wrong, but why let subtlety get in the way of hyperbole

Thank you most kindly for the discussion.

If the hosting company restricted customers needing cloudflare to particular host servers, and those who didn't on others, then I believe that might be a feasible way around the issue.

I see what you're saying about the domain name, but it is possible to use a domain registered in another country and point the records to Cloudflare services... thus making it difficult for law enforcement to act against domain names very easily. Indeed if the victim is in another country again, then that requires different countries law enforcement to talk/act together and that all adds to the time.

I believe that if the hosting companies knew that they would be named by cloudflare, then they wouldn't take on toxic web sites and would be cautious in dealing with people who have history of running similar web sites that were shut down; stopping them from having a second bite of the cherry. Prevention being better than cure, etc.

Re: Weaver and Caraballo are wrong, but why let subtlety get in the way of hyperbole

It's an interesting discussion, and one I think the industry/politicians/police need to have and bottom out.

The equivalent of a secure lock on a gate with no fence either side, is not necessarily the situation. A firewall at the recipients end that ditches all packets except those from Cloudflare should certainly hold against the kind of vigilante band of people that might want to attack... but even then, a notice as to who the end host is would be enough to be able to make progress without having to reveal a precise IP address.

After all, the only people I can see benefiting from this is people who know that they're likely to breach/host breaches of various laws before they even set up their forums. After all, if the people running the forums didn't allow this kind of conversation to happen on the services they run, then we wouldn't be having this discussion now. Open to being corrected on this, of course.

Re: Weaver and Caraballo are wrong, but why let subtlety get in the way of hyperbole

Well not really. If the details of the customer are known, then the DDoS protection is ineffective because the attackers will just bypass Cloudflare and DDoS the customer directly instead.

They'd have to DDoS the whole hosting company with all IP's that they operate, and the hosting company can firewall any incoming traffic that isn't from cloudflare. Not practical, so I don't accept that as defence of not saying who the customer is.