Posts by Probie

Cutting kids off from the dark web – the solution can only ever be social

Re: Root causes?

FIFY,

The fundamental question we need to answer is "why are torture and murder sites interesting to anyone ?"

Re: The law is not everything

Mine do, but I feel I am in a minority. Its not that easy though, because I suspect like me one of your parents had enough time to devote to you a day or a week that it made a noticable impact, my wife and I make sure there is enough time, but I am lucky because I have a job good enough that we do not struggle to find that time between us.

Its not always that easy for parents whom are having ot work 50 hrs per week each to have that time and provide for the family, this is one of the ways I think government lets parents down.

Australia passes Right To Disconnect law, including (for now) jail time for bosses who email after-hours

Re: Peter “Potato Head” Dutton is morphing...

UK politics decieded to do a remake of Dumb and Dumber

Fujitsu wins flood contract extension despite starring in TV drama about its failures

Re: Historical effects.

I am not saying Fujisti did not screw up or that they did, but how did Fujitsu STEAL anything? Its the DWP that pay the money, and the DWP that would benefit from not paying the money surely?

X says it's only worth $19B after year of Muskmanagement

Re: Still the World's richest

In a world crying out for some good news this would be #1.

Unity closes offices, cancels town hall after threat in wake of runtime fee restructure

I am fairly sure if you replaced “Unity” with “His Majesties Tory majority Government” and “developer” with “voter”, you would have written the seminal prophecy on the next election.

Broadcom asserts VMware's strategy isn't working and it basically needs rescuing

Re: VMware is Legacy Tech

I struggle with N/utanix a lot, it looks good at a cursory glance, but actually trying to fit it to what you want and you start making compromises. That's without realizing its model is actually slightly worse than VMware, repackage open-source stuff with a bit of "proprietary" tweak age so you have to pay, at least I can say VMware developed something core and critical to the product.

But paying so you can transfer risk and blame to a third party is a strong IT tradition and on that Nutanix flies high.

NYPD blues: Cops ignored 93 percent of surveillance law rules

No you would not

Texas mulls law forcing ISPs to block access to abortion websites

Just sayin’ be careful of the reason you use

If you are going to limit the freedoms of a Texan (no access to an abortion and legislate its illegal) for the fear of loss of life that has no voice ( abortion), then follow through the whole way don’t half ass it, and get rid of the guns, do not sell them, do not have gun fair, do not provide ammunition, block them from the interwebs. Because I am sure that at least as a minimum 1% of the people shot did not get a say either. Suck it up you hypocritical butter cups.

I used to live in San Antonio, and been living around the world, I do not recognise this Texas, it’s nothing like I remember from 14 years ago, and its a shame my daughter was made in Texas, she ain’t coming back to that horror show you call a state democracy.

Apple complains UK watchdog wants to make iOS a 'clone' of Android

Re: Clone of Android

Boo fucking hoo. As an ex long time Android user I switched to Apple because I want less shit to worry about. If that means you cannot code with apple tools, I don’t get the app I want, you don’t get the sales you want, so you either f***-off, or you learn, as it stands you are adding no value to me as a consumer.

Your difficulties (and frankly everyone else saying the choice needs to be like Google) are not mine (the consumers) worry, and you should not be destroying my perceived value, and before you take the pejorative of “my” as personal, If the Android eco system (with choice and button twiddling and settings galore) is so great why is it less than 50% of the UK user base?

All I see in the Android ecosystem is crap apps like facebook built their own browser into an app to take data without disclosing it, or having to honor the OS. In the face of that Apple’s stance is perfectly f****ng reasonable considering its product is “Safe, ease of use”.

Perhaps the CMA should really be looking why it’s so hard for a new Phone OS to flourish if it is worried about competition and duopolies.

Do not try this at home: Man spends $5,000 on a 48TB Raspberry Pi storage server

Re: Coincidence

Depends on the ssd’s you buy. The ones below take just under 6 watt (and are enterprise grade)

https://www.kingston.com/unitedkingdom/en/ssd/dc450-data-center-solid-state-drive?capacity=1.92tb

It’s important you get that right. One works with a raspberry pi on a usb slot, the other does not, as I know the hard way. :(

HP's solution to running GPU-accelerated Linux apps on high-end Z workstations: Rely on Microsoft's WSL2

Re: Hardly only their high-end kit

FIFY

HP consumer kit is also notorious for crap.

Uber drivers take ride biz to European court over 'Kafkaesque' algorithmic firings by Mastermind code

How did they know ?

How on earth do they know this ?

"Uber claims Driver two, also in London, used "the installation of and use of software which has the intention and effect of manipulating the Driver App"

Technically I can understand how that is done, but using that in a court of law - a different proposition entirely.

Macs, iPhones, iPads to get encrypted DNS – how'd you like them Apples?

Re: Better late than bleeding edge?

I use(d) blockerNG to kill of facebook and youtube, unfortunately its virtually impossible to do, unless you have a complete list of every ASN they use, and in the case of youtube etc ,,, you are likely to kill off the google search engine as well. I don't do this because I am worried about anyone knowing my internet habits, I do it to stop the tories screaming about the kids exposure to unsuitable content, like you tube tory adds!!

Baby, I swear it's déjà vu: TalkTalk customers unable to opt out of ISP's ad-jacking DNS – just like six years ago

Not if its dnssec, you will know. That said I would think that if Talk Talk decided on intercepting and then hijacking plain UDP port 53 dns, the remidy would come under section three of the 1990 computer misuse act.

"Unauthorised acts with intent to impair, or with recklessness as to impairing, operation of computer, etc."

Firm fat-fingered G Suite and deleted its data, so it escalated its support ticket to a lawsuit

Re: Place files in cloud - surprise - can't reach'em anymore

For that very reason you should have at least two subscriptions, one for use one for backup/bc

Mark Zuckerberg did everything in his power to avoid Facebook becoming the next MySpace – but forgot one crucial detail…

No Sir-eee, not Texan, I lived there long enough to work that out.

Sticking with one mobile provider gets you... Oh. Price rises, big exit fees, and lovely, lovely lock-in

Re: Hmm...

I had the same experience, but I was in store. In the end the manager of the store put in a complaint on my behalf.

What perhaps galled me the most was that I was still taking out a new but reduced contract with 3 at the time. !!!

Privacy, security fears about ID cards? UK.gov's digital bod has one simple solution: 'Get over it'

Re: "you got his full name and DoB"

umm that is what an address is for. The statistical likely hood that you have the same address, somone with the same name and someone with the same DOB is very very low, unless of course you are a twins and your parents were sadists.

Erase 2017 from your brain. Face ID never happened. The Notch is an illusion

Re: What's so bad about bezels?

Nothing, they are a god send.

When doing ANYTHING in landscape mode, bezels mean I can hold the phone and not have my subjective app doing all sort of weird, because I am holding the phone.

Regards

James

Big Tech slams Trump on plan to deport kids

The bi partisan diatribe

You know I have heard this argument in the UK in the USA and likely it will be rehashed in every county under gods yellow ball of fusion.

"People are abusing our charity" - seems to be what it boils down too. Well here's the answer, you (yes you Mr/Mrs/Ms bi-partisan commentator) stand in front of the effected and deliver the god damn message. It takes some conviction to do that, with fear, panic, loathing and downright horror coming out every single facial expression back to you.

If you can do that, at least you have the courage of your own thoughts and convictions (however miss guided they may be). Then look inside your soul and see if you are a better person, have you lived up to your ideals?

Then you have a right to put a life changing view forward, but until then, until you are prepared to step of the cliff of rhetoric to the land of action (AKA wearing the big boy pants), think long an hard, because it is far to easy to do it from the comfort of a arm chair.

Rackspace finds its $4.3bn sugar daddy

Wonder who will get the boot?

Title says it all really, but becoming private you have to wonder how many of the upper management will last.

I am waiting for the "......wants to focus on family life and ......." coming out in the news.

Cyber-security pro? Forget GCHQ, BT wants to hire 900 of you

Re: If I had time ...

Did I laugh - "Start around 50-60K". Well that would not be enough to get anyone half way decent with their head screwed on in a business way. Info Sec consultants get what £600 per day? Why oh why would they volunteer for a pay decrease?

Volkswagen blames emissions cheating on 'chain of errors'

Re: Buy American!

I tried to find a non-diesel car in the class that I have in the UK. A "sensible" petrol engined 4x4. No hope, so if I have to have a diesel then It will be American.

Sorry but VW have really screwed the German Image. They have then systematically compounded error after error with the PR handling. I had the local Audi dealer "after incentives and reductions and good will" (although never hearing about this!!!) still quote me a deposit that was more than the cost of a Ford Kuga in total. Its left a very sour taste. Christ when a Fiat Panda looks a good as a voluntary option you know something has gone drastically sideways.

I really hope that the USA boot them out of the USA car market.

The gear I use in my test lab: A look at three Trident+ switches

Re: Open Ethernet

From what I remember of the early spins of cumulus the Layer functionality was very good, the layer 2 through tended to drag behind most of the other vendors. that may have changed with what you have now, my experience with cumulus is about 2 years old and a lot can happen in that time.

Open Ethernet

I do not trust power connect switches any more after some bad experiences with them a while back. For cheap I would look as you have said at supermicro, but you could look at Accton (edge-core) or Quanta switches. But if you want to extend functionality I would take a peak into the open-ethernet community, Mellanox may be a good place to start.

Fujitsu CTO: Analysts might think we're 'crazy', but OpenStack here we come

Its hard

OpenStack is not easy, not by a long shot, my favourite saying is:

"I can tell you 500 hundred ways NOT to install and configure OpenStack, and maybe 5 on how to successfully install and configure OpenStack" the community documentation seems detailed, but it is woefully inadequate. The AIO distributions will get you up an running very well, but you get no idea how things are plumbed together and they compromise the value of OpenStack and "do it yourself". Canonical "may" be an exception to this but I suspect not.

Its darn'd hard so I think Fujitsu, HP, Mirantis, are all on the right trajectory, but... until it gets "Vmware" piss simple to install and configure AND maintain then the adoption is only for those with deep deep pockets. Then again honestly who actually NEEDS a private cloud opposed to visualization with a level of automation?

Obama calls out encryption in terror strategy speech

Due process

So my move to bring the "privacy" things that I care about "in house", literally in this case. Where does that leave me.

Of course they are all encrypted as images, they are all using TLS 1.2, do I now need to throw away the encryption keys so that I do not have "reasonable access to them". E.G. make them from random entropy and NOT record the key? Turning the VM's into a little "black box". Would that be enough protection for something that is a) not worth reading or spending the effort on decrypting forcefully and b) only done to stop corporate data profiling/mining, This is just really the family life, I just do not want the corporate world strip mining it.

Its worth remembering that whilst the governments desire to want to strip mine meta data for intelligence has been well reported the capitalist companies were DOING this well before the government. Do I find a government as trustworthy as a corporation - no, but that does not mean i have to trust the corporation either.

Why am I suddenly becoming the marginalised outlaw?

Amazon now renting physical servers you can cuddle and love

Re: Perhaps the future of the private cloud

Seems to me the "Snake that perpetually eats itself", apart from a billing model what has really changed?

If we put our minds to it we could have had physical servers provisioned in 10-20 minutes in the "old days".

Superfish 2.0 worsens: Dell's dodgy security certificate is an unkillable zombie

Never trusted a Factory installed image in my lifetime...

Seems I have good reason not to start now ....

BT reveals vanishingly small detail about its fibre broadband network

Re: Seems to concur with my use

Yes,

A light day in my household incurs about 11GB of traffic, a heavy day (ie Saturday and Sunday) is between 25-33GB.

A month we consume damn near 467GB a month, of which 90% is Netflix or CBBC IPlayer, 8% is Facepunch and the last 2% is likely me doing ISO's or patch files. Its either that or a LOT of porn.

Licence to snoop: Ipso facto, crypto embargo? Draft Investigatory Powers bill lands

Anger over the wrong thing.

Look at the bill in perspective and then calm down. Yes its your privacy, yes it sucks and yes its open to abuse by the powers that be. But its already been happening for years, the horse bolted, left the stable and has now been rendered into glue.

Get some big pants on and look for a technical work around if it fucks you off that much. You know, GRE+IPSEC, TOR, VPN.... the experts are right, the villans will find a way around and you will paint a bullseye on your back, but you will still get to sleep with the smug privacy smile on your face. Or an here is a novel thought, DO NOT VOTE FOR THE FUCKERS next time around. Start the PRIVACY PARTY for government or some such movement, but whatever you do do not assume someone else will fix the mess for you, that is how we arrived here. At least in the UK you have the right to protest, unlike China (Tiananmen square for those too young to pick up on the reference).

For me I know they have done this shit for ages anyway and have had far easier ways of getting incriminating data (like credit card, bank card, telephone usage or 4K 360 degree CCTV and facial recognition). So if making it public shines a light on it, makes things a bit more proportional AND makes the UK a bit safer for my kids for later on in life then that is a price "I" am happy to pay, you might feel differently, if so then say "thank fuck for a democracy".

Then again this could all degenerate into animal farm.

TalkTalk attack: 'No legal obligation to encrypt customer bank details', says chief

Insurance may not pay out.

I wonder if the Company Insurance will pay out to Talk Talk? I know (and using the analogies of cars and houses already provided) failure to secure the property by "locking it" and by adding extra security measures is enough for the insurance company to avoid paying out.

Perhaps the best way to enforce good behavior is to have the terms and conditions of Insurance changed, rather than legislate.

BBC shuts off iPlayer to UK VPNs, cutting access to overseas fans

Re: Copyright Licensing

Yawn .... again the copyright wheel goes around ......

It should be this though, if I am paying for a "digital" service (and I have paid for the license fee whilst flying around the world, my residence and domicile is the UK ) then I should have access to it. Arguably the license fee funds the IPlayer, therefore I should have access to it around the world.

It does not seem rocket science, but what will happen is that the BBC becomes less relevant, ( god knows it is trying really hard to sprint down that slope already) and the likes of Amazon Instance Video and Netflix become the de facto replacement for the BBC.

Smartmobe brain maker Qualcomm teases 64-bit ARM server chip secrets

Run Windows servers on ARM lately?

Australian Prime Minister runs private email server

Re: No MX Records?

I believe in the absence of an MX record it delivers to a A (RR) entry. Something like "aussiepmwithashortterm.au"

Dell seeking $40bn to buy EMC next week say reports

oh brother

Assuming this is true, and that is a big if, Dell have a crap track record with bringing storage companies under the Dell umbrella.

Compellent, Equalogic, who was it they sold to LSI to make DAS's?

I mean the track record sucks, and as for innovation - opposed to "reformulation" they are not much better. "If" they merge with EMC then the IT world will be poorer because of it. Personally though I think this will not happen, Dell has to show good on its return to being private, I am not sure that has happened to justify a risk to the tune of $40 Billion.

By the numbers: The virtualisation options for private cloud hopefuls

Re: These days.....

I agree, but for me the question is can you save money by cutting license costs vs the cost of skills, time and toolsets?

There are enough tools out there that cater for multiple providers. Hyper-V and KVM or Xen for example. Vmware are naturally enough difficult pains in the arse.

These days.....

These days, I fail to see why you need to run just one the afore mentioned hypervisors. They are not hard, they are not rocket science.

NOxious Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal: Chief falls on sword

Re: Not all need to be recalled.

I feel that if I loose performance in the car, VW should refund my purchase, in whole preferably, but at a minimum the close to current used car sale price at a registered dealer forecourt, and the price would be set JUST before the scandal broke. I say this because the car after adaptation would no longer be the same car with the same specifications that I bought.

Revealed: Why Amazon, Netflix, Tinder, Airbnb and co plunged offline

Bollocks

I will give you the marketing material spaffed every where leads to that assumption, but if you actually read the best practice guides etc... there is mention of Multiple AZ's and then Multiple regions if you want to "stay up no matter what". The reality is people want to see the "cost reduction" of the cloud - at the incessant moaning and bitching of cheap tight fisted tossing finance dicks, yet the truth is that in the cloud multiple regions ain't cheap. It still the same caveat "you get what you pay for".

Things you should know about the hard work of home working

Re: Agreed but you forgot loneliness.

I worked from home for 3 years 5 days a week, my trips to the office were international flights to either Hong Kong, China or the States. I really do get the whole, removed from your colleagues aspect and also the strict regime you have to hold yourself to. Once you start to slip it is really hard to pull yourself back into a good regime, you have to be very self disciplined, not just in how you work at home, but the fact your home is your home and not an extension of the office, (hours worked, telephone, Internet connectivity etc...) because of what I did for a job I ended up itemizing my power, connectivity and phone and claiming them back, it was nearly £200 per month.

It's also really hard on the family, remember they generally get a break when you are not there. It really did cost us quite a few sanity points or arguments.

One thing I have noticed once I moved to London, office job. I know the value of being home with my kids and wife, so I do my hours, not more and not less, I am lucky I get to work from home one day a week I could do two days a week from home, but any more would be detrimental I think.

German data retention law prompts Euro Commission backlash

Re: Does it work the other way?

There is nothing stopping the German's re-drafting the legislation to state that the "contested" data is stored within the EU, just no Germany, after all there is a over-arching EU data privacy law to protect the German populace which are a subset of the EU.

No I think the EU (and certainly me) are hoping that the Germans will abide by the laws they have approved via the EU. Or to put it another way, the EU (and member countries) are very happy to start bashing the "Free Trade" baton in the iron fist when it is advantageous, to true test of "rule of law" is when you have to apply the law when it is disadvantageous to the applicant.

Facebook profiles? They're not 'personal data' Mr Putin

How is it not personal data

So if the Russian Law states "any information relating directly or indirectly to an identified or identifiable natural person" is in effect "personal data" I would love be to a fly on the wall when FB meet the government. If FB manage to convince the Russians that FB hold no "personal data", they need to quit the tech game and go and sell sand to Saudi Arabia.

I will give them a slight tip of the hat for the brazen bollocks to argue it though.

The Raspberry Pi is succeeding in ways its makers almost imagined

Re: Made My Day

I can relate to that, it breaks my heart that my kids seem to be ruled by technology (play, play , play stupid bloody game apps) rather than ruling technology by making it do what they dream up. God knows I have enough "stuff" for them to use, Pis, Gallileo, Dash and Dot (by wondermaker) and all it does is gather dust. As for the kids who prototype stuff, really, really, well done, I hope you end up being the Linus Torvalds of the future.

Cisco and friends chase WiFi's searing speeds with new cable standard

Sceptical

Seems like a way for Cisco to gouge its current customer base.

a) Either put more copper in to the building with potentially more APs

b) APs with LAGG/LACP

c) Upgrade to a nifty 5GBs switch.

Even with 50 people connected to an AP I think it is reasonably hard to saturated the 1Gb link for more than a short peak time.

So unfair! Teachers know what’s happening on students' fondleslabs

I believe there are no rashers of bacon at 30,000 ft = flying pigs

The Internet of Things becomes the Game of Thrones in standards war

I used Z-Wave - never again. It did NOT go through walls well, it did NOT make an ideal Mesh topology.

In fact Z-Wave left a nasty taste in the mouth. Oh and for power consumption FFS do not get me started, way below manufactures specs. It was about as inter-operable as a horses' dick. At the time there were not a lot of Zigbee devices around, so I chose not use that, but I would have likely had the same issues.

Next time I automate a home, its a drill, chisel some wire and an open source controller, it seems the only reliable path. Probably X11 or KNX. Get the job done right.

Enjoy vaping while you still can, warns Public Health England

Re: "Almost certainly"

Well by your GP's standards there would not be enough evidence or time to state that vaping is unsafe.

Conference Wi-Fi biz fined $750k for jamming personal hotspots

Re: Openzone/Fon

Home Hub is residential - or at least as far as I can tell, (I have a infinity line), removing that "mandatory" set of hot spots out of the POS router was painless, but why does a company have a "Home Hub" as a router.

Buy something else that has a "guest" portal and then charge for the access using something like paypal, such a setup is what 200-300 pounds initially. That would pay for itself pretty quickly. Probably avoid BT T 'and C's as well as you would be sharing out your Wi-Fi not your broadband.