Posts by Missing Semicolon

Tech support chap told angry customer to think inside the box – and solved the problem

Re: Have some sympathy for the user

The twisty-pull with the charge base is a trick I keep forgetting, and trashing Braun toothbrushes as a result.

Re: Read things myself? Never!

Everybody knows that what goes into a plug socket is a plugtop.

Indeed.

AI researchers let models off the leash – then watched as they tried to add malware to a FOSS project

Not just glorified autocomplete

I keep hearing AI agents described as that. But, leaving aside whether they actually have consciousness, they certainly provide a good-enough simulation of one. Things like Claude will pass the Turing test, - especially for humans less adept at this inter-personal relationship thing (we know who we are :-) ). Can I discuss Aristotle? Probably not. Can a have a sustained conversation about a coding task? Oh, yes. So it is to be expected that the processing of deductive steps, with no moral brake, is possible.

Anthropic’s Claude escaped test sandbox to attack three organizations

Re: On the other hand...

It's entirely possible that their copy of Claude hallucinated the same bogus package names.

Three becomes one as Vodafone buys out merger partner

Lebara

Is a Voda MVNO. The deals are very good. I presume they will go too.

Techie lured out of retirement to support software only he remembered

Charity care homes.

Yes there are, as it happens.

The Star Wars cantina scene shows we need a new hope for the agentic web

Re: humans vs bots

Google have arranged things so that the Gemini slurper is also the search spider. Block bots, you have no Google index entry and become invisible.

Google breaks Alibaba’s record for Europe’s largest DMA fine

Sideload

How does this square with Google's proposal to ban side-loading, effectively locking another app marketplace (F-Droid) out of Android?

Anyone with a shed, an extension cord, a couple of GPUs and an overdraft is building datacenters. Fujitsu just offloaded five

There's people use cryptominer boxes as shed heaters.

Intel working to ‘leapfrog’ ARM and AMD designs, says CEO Lip-Bu Tan

Legacy

So Mr Tan looks good as he benefits from the Gelsinger legacy.

Europe slaps AliExpress with €550 million fine for selling dodgy goods

Why AliExpress?

Surely Temu is way worse?

EU 'Chat Control' snoopfest returns after vote to kill it falls short

so much for democracy

I keep being told that the EU is democratic, as decisions by the unelected Commission are subject to review by the Parliament. Looks like you need a supermajority to overturn a Commission edict.

New humanoid robots from China look like creepy pop star action figures – complete with slightly dodgy lip-synch

Re: Did anyone actually say sexbot?

Cherry 2000

Tech divorce from Walmart cost Brit retail giant Asda £1.22B

Maximally lousy

For the staff. TUPEd out to an outsoucer who will zero the pay rises and fire everyone as soon as contractually possible.

Europe's new import rules are coming for your bargains

Re: Seems like nothing more than a money grab

It's the subsidy that nukes local sellers. When you can buy a little bag with a gizmo in it for less than the cost of posting that parcel next door, something is up. China Post has a special ebay rate for outbound parcels, and Royal mail have to forward them. Post to China? About £7, last time I looked.

Even the Secret Service won't use company-issued phones

Re: Par for the course

Why not do it via the disciplinary route? Don't block any sites, but make it very clear that all access is monitored.

Germany went off the rails as wireless outage saw all trains cancelled

Re: Working tirelessly

The Manchester Metro doesn't have a damping layer in the wheel - it's all along the track! The rail is set in a compliant compound, that cuts down the thundering as the trams move. Make repairing the track an expensive embuggerance though.

KDE Plasma 6.7 brings the X11 era to a close

Re: Freedom of choice

You can futz about with editing themes. But there's no "border width" slider, and questions on the interweebs asking how to fix this are met with responses involving various keyboard shortcuts.

Please tell me if I'm missing something.

Re: Freedom of choice

I'm with you, but new stuff gets increasingly flakey. I think it's fixed now, but there was a time when Chrome would just die on it.

Re: Freedom of choice

Yeah, but. The list of modern, widely supported desktops is not long.

I discount Gnome, since you were installing KDE, presumably to get a sane desktop.

Mate is sadly neglected.

Cinnamon is ok.

Xfce is sorta ok, if you have the super-fine motor coordination to be able to click on window borders.

The rest? Just a bit too nerdy for day-to-day use.

EU won't force publishers to grant dead video games an afterlife

Re: Shame

"one product has been discontinued, is no longer supported?"

Because I bought it! There seems to be a deliberate fudging of the whole "own vs rent" thing. If businesses are daft enough to back a one-time-purchase with a continuous liability, they should not be shielded from the consequences of their poor decision.

Why Amazon hates 'human-in-the-loop' AI governance

Re: E2E accountability is lazy human in the loop

Exactly. Human review of LLM actions is all about liability shifting. If AIs are to be allowed unreviewed access to do things, when the outcome does not match the expectation the liability should lie with the supplier. That will, of course, never happen.

Users claimed they'd never seen a spell checker and panicked at the sight of red squiggles

sos

Committed skeptic finds himself warming to new Amazon AI products that actually don't suck

Amazon and privacy?

The same Amazon that has been caught using audio captured from Echo whilst it is ostensibly idle to drive Amazon shopping recommendations? They don't sell your data, they can monetize it all by themselves.

Firefox 152 understands 'Sssh!'

Re: Android

The android version still rinses your battery if you leave many tabs open. Even when the app is not visible, and even if you go into the app settings on the device and disable background running for Firefox. WTF?

Surface tension rises as Microsoft's latest kit starts at a pricey $1,499

Pricey...

... but a similar Framework (of the new Hotblack Desiato anodized back variety) are north of two grand.

Feds freaked over Fable 5 after simple 'fix this code' prompt, not jailbreak, says researcher

Re: Stunt

You've obviously never sat down to an afternoon's pair-programming with a coding agent. I don't let Claude run free - I do the top-level architecture, and let it do the boring typing. But whilst I'm doing this, I'm experiencing a session which feels like I'm with a very fast, unexperienced dev who has read all the documentation. It forgets things, I remind it, it apologises and then takes my thought and runs with it, spotting things I missed. It may not be "consciousness", but it pretty-well slam-dunks the Turing Test. And to get the best, you do need to chat - just demanding stuff gives poor results.

Every employee’s password was stored in a single Excel file

Re: Insta-Logins

Ouch! Those are lousy cards. Surely there should be a challenge/response in the protocol, not just an electronic magstripe?

Signal says UK plan to scan devices for nude images 'endangers us all'

Re: STASI

Yes they will. Google are already planning to install a mandatory update that disables side-loading, no blocks, no opt-out.We had Covid-trackers force-installed, remember? So, irrespective of the settings in your phone, you will get the update.

Tech support chap hauled out to help SWAT team saw his life flash before his eyes

Re: Somewhere in Africa

Almost certainly either waiting for the right bribe, or somebody fid not want a stock-exchange setting up.

GOV.UK goes Dutch on payments as it dumps Stripe

A coherent and sensible reply. Which LLM wrote it? It sounds quite "Claude-y" to me.

Benevolent dictator Zuck will give Meta staff 30-minute breaks from keylogging privacy assault

People replacement

A very LLM-way of using AI to replace people. Train it on the inputs people provide, and then see how well it can do the jobs of the people. Anybody in some kind of pen-pushing or admin job will then get replaced.

Satellite phone dreams orbit reality as direct-to-cell usage set to underwhelm

OTP

Is there not a market in the poor sods who have to run up the nearest hill to get the "security" sms to access their bsnk account?

Palo Alto VPN bug graduates from advisory to active exploitation

Openvpn

Are you really any worse off with a second-hand 1U server running *BSD and OpenVPN?

Troops’ phones gave away location data to foreign adversaries

Switching off location tracking.

Best of luck with that. Google's products are full of "off" switches that aren't .

OpenBSD 7.9 arrives, a diamond in the rough proud of every sharp edge

Re: Flashbacks

ugh. "Serial" means asynchronous RS-232 serial of course for those of us who have soldered a D-25 Modem cable.

For a long time, USB RS-232 serial adapters did not work for consoles as the USB driver and tty mapping layer did not load until later.

Re: Flashbacks

... And the utter lack of on-board serial for modern motherboards.

(No parallel, no serial, no floppy? modern kit is incomplete)

HP investigating BIOS updates that leave premium laptop users in boot loop limbo

Expensive repairs?

How can a manufacturer remotely break your computer, and not be responsible for the repair bill?

Gemini accused of 30,000-line code purge and fake recovery report

Before you start.

git add .

git commit

Then when it screws up, you can revert. Isn't this obvious?

Linux kernel flaw opens root-only files to unprivileged users

Re: Dubious

Maybe we could have a UI component that lets the user approve extra module loads. We could call it Unix Addmodule Confirm.

Yes, you can serve a website from a $1 microcontroller

I ran one on an ESP-8266 module. It had one page, with a button on it. It switched the outside Christmas lights on and off.

It was LAN-only, but I could then control the lights from my phone.

Microsoft puts stability in the driver's seat with new initiative

The hardware manufacturers will love it

Even more excuses to delete drivers for old kit, so you have to buy a new one! Kerching!

Nobody believes the 'criminals and scumbags' who hacked Canvas really deleted stolen student data

Responsibility

The problem is that the execs in these companies have no personal liability for the decisions they make that directly harm others. If there was the possibility of real jail time for not doing security right, you bet they would pay attention.

Google users fight for refunds as unauthorized API usage bills soar

Re: Feels like deception to me.

... Aaaand the AI services won't accept prepay cards. I wonder if Google block them too.

Rodent-obsessed developer creates Ratty to bring 3D graphics to the command line

Graphics?

No Tek4010 emulation? Incomplete.

The latest innovation in UK public transport: Schrödinger's trains

Re: "the board was of the Solari split-flap type"

At MAN (Manchester Piccadilly for non-train-users) the announcements are with a female voice. It does seem to remain intelligible even in poor conditions.

Even if you can hear the templating. "The train to {destination} will be delayed by {optimistic_delay} minutes. {operator_short_name} apologises for any inconvenience this may cause"

Hashicorp co-founder Mitchell Hashimoto says GitHub ‘no longer a place for serious work’

Re: Redmond-centric

If Azure devops is better than GitHub's, then that must be really bad.

Age checks could turn internet into an ID checkpoint, complains Proton CEO

Re: DON'T PANIC !

Expect such workarounds to be as illegal as hacked PlayStations.

Re: Not the internet

No technical means are needed. Only detection, not blocking, is required. You better have an approved reason for that unauthorized protocol. D'Ya feel lucky, punk?

OpenAI now lets you screenshot your privacy in the foot

Surely you just enable a local handoff file, and get it to keep it up to date. Then it has all of the context it needs on restarting.