Posts by TDog

Contact-tracer spoofing is already happening – and it's dangerously simple to do

Re: Unhearing government Bank phone security

On occasion I have stated that I have deposited a security number with them and can they please give me the 2nd and 4th digits.

Cruel really.

Clear desk policy - lock all your bombs away in a safe place...

After 30 years of searching, astroboffins finally detect the universe's 'missing matter' – using fast radio bursts

Re: average office

Couldn't you just integrate it, perhaps between i and the great white shark?

BoJo buckles: UK govt to cut Huawei 5G kit use 'to zero by 2023' after pressure from Tory MPs, Uncle Sam

Re: So...

You missed out option 4 which is that it accidentally leaked from the lab where it was being studied. No intent involved.

A real loch mess: Navy larks sunk by a truculent torpedo

In truth

It wouldn't be the first time - the Huascar in 1879 had the latest infernal device - an automotive torpedo. This was powered by compressed air and rather slow. When discharging this the device slewed through 360 degrees and returned to sender...

Not all was lost - the ships doctor jumped overboard, swam to the torpedo and pushed it away from his ship - in the middle of a battle. Of such stuff are hero's made.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aTXKBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA50&lpg=PA50&dq=huascar+torpedo+swam+away#v=onepage&q=huascar%20torpedo%20swam%20away&f=false

As Brit cyber-spies drop 'whitelist' and 'blacklist', tech boss says: If you’re thinking about getting in touch saying this is political correctness gone mad, don’t bother

Depends

Who the customer is - if it is HMG then...

Academics demand answers from NHS over potential data timebomb ticking inside new UK contact-tracing app

RIPA

So what happens if a malicious agency (e.g. pensions or a local council) decides to use RIPA - to quote from the relevant code of practice

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/496064/53659_CoP_Communications_Accessible.pdf

"3.8. Section 2 of RIPA defines “telecommunication service” as any

service that consists in the provision of access to, and of facilities for

making use of, any telecommunication system. Section 2(8A) of RIPA

makes clear that any service which consists in or includes facilitating

the creation, management or storage of communications transmitted,

or that may be transmitted, by means of such a system are included

within the meaning of “telecommunications service”. Internet based

services such as web-based email, messaging applications and cloudbased services are, therefore, covered by this definition. The

definition of “telecommunications service” in RIPA is intentionally

broad so that it remains relevant for new technologies. "

So RIPA does cover this anonymous data. Perhaps the local police will use it to identify alleged breaches of the lock in (sorry, but it's not really that) and prosecute?

Not saying we shouldn't do it, am saying it is neither anonymous nor secure under today's laws and as such theoretical arguments about potential hacks or potential state access are inappropriate - the state already has legal access to the data and with so many different organisations having those powers then private enterprise will probably not ever get a look in.

Contact-tracing or contact sport? Defections and accusations emerge among European COVID-chasing app efforts

Re: Generalised testing

99% accuracy - with a nominal 70 million tests a day means 700 thousand false results. Assuming 1% of the population is actually infected gives 7000 false negatives. Plus 693,000 false positives. Every day.

Sorry but the maths don't make this doable. And if you say well test again the next day - that is no problem. Except that we've now got the results of that days testing added into the mix as well.

3 blue one brown - very simple explanation of Bayes theorem which explains this better than I can:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZGCoVF3YvM

Europe publishes draft rules for coronavirus contact-tracing app development, on a relaxed schedule

Re: The Oxford paper doesn't say 60% is really enough

The lag calculation is theory at it simplest. Suppose Bob is infected by Alice. He manifests with the disease and is identified 10 days later. Now Alice is asymptomatic or else does not register as having the disease.

Along go the tracers to Alice, unaware that she infected Bob. Even if they can access her anonymous data (shome mistake shureley?) immediately they will have lost 10 /16ths of her contacts - over 60% of her contact list. So in order to identify and trace contacts holding data for only 14 - 16 days is ill thought out and ineffective.

BOFH: Will the last one out switch off the printer?

Re: I'd have gone for Risk!!

Guillaume le Bâtard

Questions hang over Gatwick Airport after low level drone near-miss report

Re: Drones

Having checked for another purpose I now find this:

https://www.caa.co.uk/Consumers/Unmanned-aircraft/Model-aircraft/

Which clarifies the situation. Not sure when it changed but apologies for the rant!

Re: Drones

Yep - and members of model aircraft flying societies have just dropped by a quarter. I haven't flown radio controlled model aircrafts for 40 years but they all weighed about 1 - 4 Kg then. Amazing how you can make legal illegal with just the trivial law.

I think I will start flying RCMA's again. But not join a club who are legally obliged to submit appropriate details of membership. Sadly the civil service has yet to determine exactly what those details are. But (HooBloodyHooray) they have managed to decide on the penalties.

Twats & Toe rags seems an insufficient description

Forget toilet roll, bandwidth is the new ration: Amazon, YouTube also degrade video in Europe to keep 'net running amid coronavirus crunch

Kindle

Now takes twice as long to recharge due to an over the air update - this too will protect bandwidth by reducing the number of books I download daily in my enforced boredom.

IBM veep partly blamed Sopra Steria for collapse of £155m Co-Op Insurance Agile project

"something he described as "a significant change in approach that seemed excessive and would have required significant changes to be made."

So IBM's official position is that data does not need to be encrypted in transit. So does that mean they don't lock the filing cabinets in the moving van then?

Brexit Britain changes its mind, says non, nein, no to Europe's unified patent court – potentially sealing its fate

Re: For a contrasting view...

As I understand it the capacity of patent granting agencies to check for prior research or previous public disclosure is severely limited in time and money. So why not turn the system around? If you apply for a patent then you should be required to identify prior research, public disclosure and explain why your patent is not affected by these events. In simple terms the onus is on you to prove originality. This should be easily challengeable.

* If this is something included in the patent it should be the requirement of the challenger to prove why it is not covered by the patent. Use the method below with the presumption that the patent is valid.

* If it is not covered then there should be a simple hearing to establish the likelihood of a successful challenge. No more than 3 hours per side to provide evidence; no more than 2 witnesses per side, no more than 2 advocates per side. If you can't do it in that time it is usually legal sophistry. Some of these will be wrong, but not many and no justice is perfect.

* If the hearing states there may be a case then go to a full hearing, BUT - no more than 3 hours per side, no more than 2 witnesses and no more than 2 advocates. If you or your team can't cope with this, tough shit. Cut the prices, cut the processes. If you can't say it in 3 hours you are bullshitting. Oh and the challenger pays the legal costs under any circumstances. They had an opportunity to fight the patent when it was registered and did not; thus it is only right that that they should pay the re-introduction costs. And these costs to be flat rate at an agreed rate by the hour (no more than 5 days costs per advocate of which a maximum of 2 exist).

I don't think this is either perfect or comfortable to the legal profession. I think it would reduce costs, concentrate minds, and make for quite a lot of fun in reading the transcripts of the law courts.

Scottish biz raided, fined £500k for making 193 million automated calls

I'm not sure I understand all of this

As I understand it in civil law decisions are based on the balance of probabilities.

Well I have no track record of harassing people with multiple calls. They do. And as company directors their protection is solely limited if the company articles of incorporation are clearly and specifically followed. Having checked with companies house there seems to be no exception to UK Law as one of the articles. So if the scheming scumbag shites who woke me up when I had severe mental health issues (I was seriously pissed off with then waking me up in an acute state of depression due to psoriatic arthritis) are not exempt then the limited liability does not protect them.

All that stuff about having to have clean hands etc.

Now of course if they can show there were worst people than them then I would, being a decent sort of chappie merely hire a couple of large Glaswegians (possibly Sikhs as I met some of them as gentlemen who enforced (legally) about 30 years ago and they scared the shit out of me, whilst also being quite inexpensive), to go and remonstrate with them in the nicest possible way.

Otherwise, should they fail to provide an adequate defence then no doubt my small claims court case would be proven and then I would....

See antepenultimate paragraph for enforcement modality.

PS, does anyone have an address to send the summons to?

Iowa has already won the worst IT rollout award of 2020: Rap for crap caucus app chaps in vote zap flap

So why are you so undemocratic?

The study of formally defined electoral methods is called social choice theory or voting theory, and this study can take place within the field of political science, economics, or mathematics, and specifically within the subfields of game theory and mechanism design. Impossibility proofs such as Arrow's impossibility theorem demonstrate that when voters have three or more alternatives, it is not possible to design a ranked voting electoral system that reflects the preferences of individuals in a global preference of the community, present in countries with proportional representation and plurality voting.

Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_system

I mean, I understand it - you'd like to have a fair system. So it seems so reasonable to criticise the unfair ones.

Mote, eye.

Pot, kettle black.

But I am sure that you are sure and that most certainly should be part of being sure enough. Or not.

We’ve had enough of your beach-blocking shenanigans, California tells stubborn Sun co-founder: Kiss our lawsuit

Re: Time and tide ...

Spot the Cnut.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnut_the_Great

Ministry of Justice bod jailed for stealing £1.7m with fake IT consulting contract

With benefits

Does he keep his pension?

Remembering Y2K call-outs and the joy of the hourly contractor rate

Wrote a system to transmit data to US Border Patrol.

Around Y2K the USA got paranoid about people invading from ships. Seemed improbable as there were lots of quicker and more dangerous ways - like the Canadian and Mexican borders but they were paying. Well actually the shipping support company I worked for, sounded a bit like Inchcape cars, was.

Had three months to get it all ok - me and me oppo (Hello Pete) and we bloody well did it. Not helped that the US Coastguard who were administrating it were prioritising US firms first and we came well down the list. Anyway, it were there. Singing and dancing.

And (probably Y2K+1) I got a phone call from the state side scene manager. At 3.45 ish on New Years day. "Panic. Panic. Panic. Oh and definitely Panic". Understandable as demurrage charges could run to tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. (This was just stupid, taking on a risk of $100K plus based on a computer (bog standard PC) running in Essex for a deal worth 50-500$)

And just me and my oppo (Hello Pete) running tier 1-3 support as well as developing the damn thing. I had tried to get it offloaded (no team available), had pointed out we were hired as developers (well doesn't that include support? You wrote it) and told me oppo (Hello Pete) to go off for Christmas and the New Year, and get stotious and I would handle the brown stuff hitting the fan.

Being very soft hearted and actually not blaming the American lass at all, she had been eminently suitable to talk to on the phone, liked Mark Twain, and after we had explained that consistency in her requirements was perhaps the deal breaker (Only three months, shedloads of work, …) I explained I was pissed, very pissed and would deal with it some time later today - only to be told "I don't care how angry you are - we need to fix this!)

After the 2 people separated by a common language misunderstanding I managed to point out that

* the office was closed

* I wasn't a key holder

* I didn't have remote access

* I had been whinging (repeatedly pointing out these issues) for the last 2 months

…

And when I looked at it the next day it was a simple Y2k+1 issue.

That solved all the first three points above.

Not even a conspiracy. Just an unfortunate set of circumstances.

Non-unicorn $700 e-scooter shop Unicorn folds with no refunds – after blowing all its cash on online ads

Re: Odd Excuse

Well that will be jolly useful, no need for Greta and we could sort of solve a few other problems at the same time. (P.S. Should anyone find the plans for the real BMD (and it is apparently available here

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=ballistic+missile+defense&hvadid=79920783529168&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvqmt=e&tag=mh0a9-21&ref=pd_sl_3wo1k4a0b_e)

if you can find the right one, that would also be useful.

When I recollect the past, the other star of "Bedtime for Bonzo" might have made a good president, compared to the current incumbent. That is, if you didn't object to him not having a tail.

Doogee Wowser: The S40's a terrible smartphone, but a passable projectile

Re: There was a time....

And nitric acid isn't? Nor sulphuric acid? Presumably the kitchen because that is where the fume extractor is and a ready supply of ice. Plus of course it would have been easier to redecorate than the living room.

The .amazon argy-bargy is STILL going on – and Uncle Sam has had enough with ICANN

sounds great

Now can I have sue.amazon - I've got a shit shovel of lawyers wanting to register. And some Chinese firm is offering a fortune for fuck.amazon (although there is serious competition from the pron industry for that one).

A stranger's TV went on spending spree with my Amazon account – and web giant did nothing about it for months

Re: There seems to be something wrong here

Actually, if her password is ************ (redacted), I think she does.

You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals, so let's watch for tech sales VAT weirdness through the channel

CFU

Hey, I ordered a new hardback book from Amazon and was charged VAT on it. They are exempt from VAT. I was told that it was one of their associate suppliers who did it. But Amazon allowed the charge to be made.

If they can't even be bothered to check that VAT rules are being applied correctly, what chance is there of them collecting the VAT I was fraudulently charged?

Welsh police use of facial recog tech – it's so 'lawful', rules High Court

Re: Keeping pace?

There is an argument which may be slightly different.

Taking the image may well be lawful. It is no more than photographing a crowd or a snapshot of an individual. Police and other systems do this all of the time. But associating a name with a particular image may well be unlawful. Particularly if it has less than 50% probability of being that person.

So in civil law it is necessary to prove that on the balance of probabilities that there is a causal relationship, which is quite obviously not the case it the probability of the accuracy is less than 5%.

And for criminal law with its beyond all reasonable doubt requirement this is much more difficult.

So if this information is associated with your image then presumably this could be described as libelous if published or otherwise slanderous.

And anyone who claimed "we have reason to believe" would be knowingly propagating a libel or a slander.

Mysterious 'glitch' in neutron stars may be down to an itch under the body's surface

Surely

They discovered that the star's rotational frequency increased by about 16 microhertz, a tiny amount, over 30 seconds or so, according to a paper published in Nature Astronomy on Monday.

That amounts to "about one part in a million," Gregory Ashton, first author of the paper and an assistant astrophysics lecturer at Monash University,

It's about one and a half parts in a hundred thousand. Too many tinnies sport!

For heaven's sake: Japan boffins fail to release paper planes in space after rice wine added to rocket fuel

Re: A suggestion

So that's America then?

Good luck deleting someone's private info from a trained neural network – it's likely to bork the whole thing

Re: An interesting problem.

How can you even be sure that there is or is not information in the AI which is relevant to an individual? And even more worryingly how can you be certain that you fake data does not create relationships which seem to identify individuals. After all, if the data is realistic then it must mimic reality.

On another note, some 20 years ago when I was writing HMRC's personal review system they were using real data for test purposes. I thought this was a no no and so used some name generators I and a colleague had written for some simulations.

Being a bit fed up at the time I didn't use the English language names.

Some samples follow:

Brictius filius Æson

Galenus filius Artemidorus

Rogatus filius Luciferus

Antipater filius Alcinder

Isocrates filius Clophas

Bratislav Radovladov

Budig Gostomyslov

Rogovlad Vyshemirov

Chestimir Ostromirov

Perei Velislavov

Gradimir Izjaslavov

Volodimer Radimirov

Vladimir Miodragov

Samovlad Yarovidov

Sobeslav Svyatoslavov

Lyutomir Naislavov

Gorica Yasnomyslov

Sveinbiǫrn Þorvarðrsson

Gunnarr Þorfinnrsson

Ásbiǫrn Óleifrsson

Ásbiǫrn Ǫnundrsson

Hólmsteinn Oddrsson

Finnr Hrólfrsson

Ǫrnólfr Álfrsson

Oddr Geirmundrsson

Eysteinn Þorvaldrsson

Arnórr Eilífrsson

Ingialdr Steinólfrsson

Bárðr Kárisson

Watching the attempts at pronunciation was fun.

Chinese government has got it 'spot on' when it comes to face-recog tech says, er, London's Met cops' top rep

So tell me officer

You have detained me on the basis that you have identified me with an alleged offender, such justification being on a purely computerised system with no human evaluation at all. What happens next? I am going to leave right now as you have no particular justification for stopping me. After all, you can always find me again should you need to.

You have no valid justification to arrest me, and should you so try then I will attempt to depart. Should you attempt to stop me you will have to explain and justify your actions to the legal system of the UK.

Now that is what should happen. It becomes more difficult day by day (Think of the Children / Victims)!

I have arrested a police officer for "impersonating a police officer", but that was about 25 years ago. He wasn't playing by the rules and attempted to bully me. These days it is much more difficult to resolve this sort of nonsense. When you can be arrested for obscuring your face against a trial of facial recognition software we live in a world of deep fake; we have faked the perception of justice and replaced it with the processes perception of what the law should be.

Bonkers British MPs rant: 5G signals cause cancer

New way of dealing with thieves who tell you your internet isn't right (tenuous connection)

Just play along with them, ask if it is anything to do with Tonia Antoniazzi, the MP for Wales' Gower peninsula and the surrounding area (c.f. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/06/27/mps_5g_electrosensitivity_5g_cancer_doom_apocalyse_etc/) and 5G radiation signals. They tell you they don’t understand and they then say that your router is sending messages to their system.

At this stage get very concerned and ask if the messages are criminal?

Ask if the police will arrest you?

Bit more wind up, then

Ask which messages have they received?

Was it the one that called them lying scum?

Or maybe the one that called them thieving shitheads. Or was it the one that asked if their mother knew they were a thief?

If you can get the last one out before they put the phone down give yourself 5 brownie points.

UK taxman spent six times more with AWS last year than cloud firm paid in corporation tax

Re: Ethics

The rules should be very simple. Whenever a company is challenged (threatened) with a Tax Process (I'll use that because there are lots of things it could have been) then the government should be required by law to prove that this is not part of any process that is accepted from any other organisation.

And that is fine. Because then you have to apply it to everybody. Many years ago the Inland Revenue claimed that if you gave them your info then they would do your tax return. I asked them if they would give me every tax advantage available or merely give me whatever they thought I should get? Well they changed the wording afterwards which was a casual admission that they would rather stuff you than be hones.

And only if they can show that exactly the same rules have been applied to the players who didn't pay the taxes, then they should be required to state exactly how it would have been impossible (other than accountancy, for every one knows that accountants are honest. Or simply incompetent, so as an after thought lets allow accountancy and their clever games to be copied too) for that company to have failed to have the benefit of those rules.

Of course some companies will have better accountancy teams or lawyers than other companies. So what? The law should be equal to all, and it should be one of the primary duties of any government to ensure that that is the case.

I'm not a socialist, nor am I a capitalist. If anything I am an egalitarian, which simply means there are no acceptable circumstances for money (capitalism), group fascism (often trades unions), or any other power group claiming special exemptions of circumstances. And the easiest way to do that is to simply extend any particular view or exemption to everybody. And it seems to me that that should be a duty of government.

'Cynical and bullying' TalkTalk hackerhacker getsgets 4 yearsyears behindbehind barsbars

Talk Talk Account

I had one of these, from a legacy with Tiscali. I didn't use it other than for potential exploratory reasons. I was not surprised when it was hacked - I was well aware of the soft and strong access routes. But what I wanted to see was the reaction of TT.

In simple terms, there is no universal guarantee that you shall not be hacked. Anyone who claims otherwise is marketing their bullshit. Teams I have worked with have assured me that any hack will simply fall into one of many traps which will both adsorb the hack; identify the hacker (through various quasi legal processes) and deal with the problem. BTW see the comment about QLP.

And they were always right - they told me so themselves. But usually there were fewer than 50 of them. Which leads me to think that marketing may be less accurate than reality. Cos even assuming they were as good as the hackers I have been told about, well maths suggests there are a lot of holes - maybe 10 ^ 3 per hundred thousand lines of code (1%) and so with guy's trying to plug the hole in the dike, well 4 fingers and a dick ain't going to work.

But they always assured me they were in control.

Yep, believed that

Digressions but a realistic understanding of risk is probably useful. There are always more people looking to hack than making it in the first place.

Oh, and about TT, incompetent, stupid, multiple times used inappropriate scripts, which had the users known would have been lying, and soft targets if you were to spend sufficient time.

Sad to see my expectations gratified

NASA goes commercial, publishes price for trips to the ISS – and it'll be multi-millionaires only for this noAirBNB

Dump Fee

"regenerative life support and toilet facilities ($11,250 per person per day)"

So assuming a fifty fifty split I could save about 5 1/2 thousand dollars a day by not having a shit. No curries the night before then...

Russian Jesus gives up food to meditate on how he can improve crypto messenger Telegram

Ignorant bastard

What a stupid cunt. Hopefully a future Darwin award recipient. And could we please have an icon that is labelled prat. Or something similar.

HPC processor project tosses architectural designs on desk of the European Commission

Lots of women there then!

Well, one in front on my left and the bearded one in the second row. Truly a case of jobs for for the boys!

Truth, Justice, and the American Huawei: Chinese tech giant tries to convince US court ban is unconstitutional

Re: They put a tariff on Canadian steel as a security threat

If you need steel for tanks then you are making a hell of a lot of them, at about 50-60 tons each. and you are using the wrong defensive armour model as well. (no more than 5000 and only 60 tons each).

US Air Force probes targeted malware attack, blames... er, the US Navy? What?

Re: Well...

The sub pens were, in general, bombed after completion. Up to 10m. of re-enforced concrete then made the bombing ineffective; and hitting the subs in the brief time of entering or leaving the pens, which they rapidly learned to do underwater was not a trivial task.

I have seen pictures purporting to be the remnants of a tallboy (or grand slam) which penetrated the pens at Brest, I think, but that was some 2 1/2 years later.

So bombing the pens in the construction phase was viable; although many French would have been killed a little earlier than otherwise, after construction useless. Although many French were killed.

Bomber Command, whom in general I support, did put the kybosh on Liberators which they claimed were imperative, so that Coastal Command did not get replacements for their VLR (Very Long Range) ones of which they had about 24. This was silly.

BTW converting a Liberator into a VLR Liberator took several months, not a simple task.

It's 50 years to the day since Apollo 10 blasted off: America's lunar landing 'dress rehearsal'

Agree, nominally.

We regret to inform you the massive asteroid NASA's all excited about probably won't hit Earth

Re: Do you think...

But was it a Chinese hammer?

Microsoft debuts Bosque – a new programming language with no loops, inspired by TypeScript

Re: Ah, the loop

It is well known that iterate has none of the letters of loop in it.

You were warned and you didn't do enough: UK preps Big Internet content laws

Re: OK, Zuck...

This actually partially answers the previous question.

No - I do not think that the UK (8th largest trading country in the world) will inherently be able to enforce it's laws on the USA. Or the FRS. Or China. But I do think that if you start killing our people with nerve gases there will probably be a reciprocal sanction somewhere, at some time that is to our convenience. That doesn't mean that we will necessarily kill or otherwise use violence to "send a message".

Messages can and have been sent in many ways. It is particularly noticeable that as the cold war grew, the casualties from direct military action between the primary actors reduced. Don't shoot down that spy plane, it is in the Baltic sea and is keeping both sides happy.

That is for mutual convenience. At the very least the UK could certainly inconvenience Facebook, Google, et al by making individuals liable. This is what the Americans have done when they claim jurisprudence over any bankers who deal with the USA; even if they are apparently not immediately constrained by their laws. (e.g. Autonomy, Barclays etc.)

A risk of personal sanction will make travel abroad much more difficult. Just as the USA have found that Canada is amenable to arresting Huwaiu (No idea how to spell that) CFO's the USA may well find that it is a bad idea for those of dubious intent to go anywhere we can reach.

That should include the USA but having agreed a reciprocal extradition treaty the US decided it was unilateral. But such actions only last as long as you have sufficient power to be arrogant bastards. I can't quite recollect when we last sent a gunship to deal with "Jenkins Ear" or its last equivalent but I doubt if we do it as often as we used to do.

Plus ca change, plus la meme chose. But the actors change

Go on, feast your eyes on... HMRC's backend: 4,000 IT staff, its hookup with AWS and more

Re: I'd like to say that none of our server images are older than seven days,

I still don't really understand it. As I see it there are 2 obvious possibilities with regard to the server:

1 - This is mission critical; and yet you are allowing it to run unfixed (on average) for 3 1/2 days.

2 - It is not mission critical, but you still use an arbitrary date system for "OK" which apparently could be met by simply rebooting the server.

And, not to make too fine a point of it, if you spin up another version of the same thing, then it is the same thing. (Unless you claim it isn't to meet your bullshit targets).

I'd like to say that none of our server images are older than seven days,

Why? The rules don't change that frequently. Is this a tacit admission that they keep getting it wrong or simply change for changes sake? I'm not sure I understand this; I am bloody well sure that they don't.

Hapless engineers leave UK cable landing station gate open, couple of journos waltz right in

Re: Do we need that security?

And then the government would have to take the blame - we've already enough reasons for ministers (not) to resign already, thank you.

HPE wants British ex-CFO to testify in UK Autonomy lawsuit before Uncle Sam sentences him

Re: Ponzi Scheme

Fiat lux seems to be sort of falling apart in the old countries (Europe etc) and gaining in the stranger parts of the rest of the world.

Court sees Morissette Meter flip out as Oracle assumes anti-arbitration stance in pay dispute

I went to court against an NHS trust.

I had been sacked and at the tribunal rather than fight it they settled for the maximum legal amount (in those days about £24000) which of course was reduced by the salary that they paid to me in the mandatory "gardening leave".

No particular surprise there. But as the new chief executive had arbitrarily sacked me when re - applying for what was my old job I had a bit of fun.

At the time it was merely sufficient to prove that they had broken the HR rules and should have given me the job automatically.

But two years later when she was coming up to be re-appointed I sued again - in the small claims court of the county court. And claimed that since it had already been agreed that I had been unfairly dismissed then my compensation should have been based on the salary I should have had, not my previous salary.

This lead to the solicitor (poor sod) on their side claiming that you couldn't have two bites at the same cherry. When the judge for the 3rd time explained that he understood and decided the law I felt it was not going well for the poor sod. They settled for a rather larger fee than the original compensation not to set the precedent. And they sacked the chief executive who sacked me. (That was my only non negotiable point (Oh, and giving her a bottle of gin to help her on the way to the gutter)). But to be fair, I paid for the gin myself.

And the point of this, who would have expected English law to be easier to manipulate that that of the US. And having comprehensively fucked on the NHS, it is just a small pity that I never got to do the same to Oracle; nor that is as simple and effective in high cost high pressure law in the land of the free and the slave.

Azure Pipelines go Slack while Microsoft frees data breakpoints from the shackles of C++

Re: whoopee, ".Not" got something that C++ already had for, like, EVAR

So you've .not been holding the grudge for long then?

The dingo... er, Google stole my patent! Biz boss tells how Choc Factory staff tried to rip off idea from interview

There is a serious problem here, other than the apparent stealing of IP. The clear issue is whether or not the patent issuers are aware of previous work. Most authorities haven't got a (fucking) clue where to look, and even if they did, are not paid to do it and haven't the time. So they functionally can't look for it.

Thus if you discuss your work, and someone appropriates it (after all, it is neither in the public domain(s) that the issuers check) then challenging it is much more difficult than the trivial process of claiming it.

So YOU ARE FUCKED.

But it is so tempting to deal with a huge firm like google. (sort of claiming "first do no harm"). And not all of them have to be lying. Simply a few and the inertia of lawyers and "well it's ours" is sufficient.

(TLDR even if you can trust some of the cunts, there are still cunts there.)

Don't let the Shites happen.

This doesn't answer the question of how to solve the problem; nor am I convinced there is a trivial solution. But the ownership of the problem by the big companies might just help. But that would require the concept of maximalising shareholder return to be constrained by ethical considerations. And we have seen no clear examples of that working. (Failures include Greenhouse gas emission, Asbestos, Slavery, Tobacco, Insurance fraud and all sorts of bullshit.)

I guess you can neither trust companies nor people. And in the long term that is catastrophic for people.

Facebook spooked after MPs seize documents for privacy breach probe

Re: Off to the tower with Zuck

And a bunch of commoners. And German spies. (Executed there in both world wars).