Posts by Doctor Syntax

Dorset Council ditching customized SAP for £14M Oracle overhaul

Re: Relax.

Optimist!

Or are you thinking Oracle will limit them to that on the basis that on the basis that that's all they have? Councils have property that they can sell off when squeezed hard enough.

"Experience is a dear teacher but there are those who will learn by no other"

Landlord quirks leave thousands of flats stuck in the broadband slow lane

"It's possible that some people will be stuck with slower connections for years whilst their neighbours* enjoy gigabit-capable, ultra-reliable broadband – which research suggests will boost productivity and prosperity. There's a real risk of harming the UK's growth potential, which is why we think the government needs to act."

If I don't consume gigabit services what enjoyment would gigabit-capable broadband bring? How would it boost my productivity? How would a higher monthly fee boost my prosperity?

As to ultra-reliable - another power cut over the weekend, internet down without a UPS for the router but POTS just keeps working. I do not look forward to having POTS withdrawn.

Meanwhile a friend stuck on an excessively long line to the same FTTC cabinet while FTTP was made available to those with shorter links has finally ended up having to go 5G to get a connection. Should HMG/Offcom/OpenReach/Whoever really have gone gung-ho on FTTP to more easily reached premises whilst continuing to resist providing a decent FTTC service first? What happened o universal provision requirements?

* A dangerous word to throw about if you're not prepared to back it up by providing a universal service as it risks provoking the same question as did the same word in the Sermon on the Mount: "Who is my neighbour?"

Swiss government says give M365, and all SaaS, a miss as it lacks end-to-end encryption

Re: SOothat's Strava's "fix"?

If the watch is fancy enough then it's the stopping sending data that's too complicated. It's also going to be too complicated buying a non-connected watch - not so much a complication of doing the actual buying as in working out that that's what they should be doing.

Soup king Campbell’s parts ways with IT VP after ‘3D-printed chicken’ remarks

Re: The "3D printed chicken"

Not too many udders on a chicken.

Re: I have one question

Why should that be a problem for any execs other, perhaps, than those employed by Apple?

seems to me likely that the employee engineered the encounter (which is why he was recording it)

The original Reg report a few days earlier is a little more detailed and says that the recording was started partway into the meeting in reaction to what was going on: "Garza claimed that, after he sensed something was off during a September 2024 restaurant meeting to discuss his salary, he began recording Bally's alleged remarks."

Why the meeting to discus salary took place in a restaurant seems a little strange to me but maybe this is normal in US business. Or perhaps it was what I'd call the staff canteen.

The boss is entitled to have an opinion on the product behind closed doors.

This was being expressed in a restaurant which, irrespective of the state of its doors doesn't fit the usual meaning of "behind closed doors" especially if it was a public restaurant. His views seem to have ranged well beyond the product.

SK hynix wants you to bond with HBM, so it coated corn in banana chocolate

Re: honey-banana-flavored chocolate layered over savory, square-cut corn chips… edible?

It's marketing. lack of taste and being daft can be taken as read.

Wouldn't billionaire's shortbread have been more appropriate?

Cabling survived dungeons and fish factories, until a lazy user took the network down

Re: SCO Unix...

AT&T had little option - it was a regulatory issue. Killing SCO? Imagine somebody with two competitors. Offer to hold the coat for one of them while they slug it out.

Obligatory Dilbert: https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4CIb4Gw7WtQ/Wvb2HbKBdtI/AAAAAAAA1LU/hUiOInPurPIQtj5nsI41c9sInOz27LiBwCLcBGAs/s1600/TR1.gif

Re: Ah, the joys (?) of 10Base2

The first Unix system I used, back in the 1980s was all RS232 terminals but there was also a TV coax-based network to connect the terminals into the cupboard next to the lift with predictable results machine room. I can't remember how they were all broken out into D connectors at that end but the network was a collection of little boxes, each with a Z90 inside (allegedly, I didn't open one), a D connector, a TV coax socket and a short length of TV coak with a plug on it. I can#t remember a power supply for them - perhaps they were powered through the coax.

Re: What is it with managers and training costs?

AFAICR EDS also forbade discussion of pay rates. I suppose the way to leave without repaying training was to discus your pay and get fired.

Re: What is it with managers and training costs?

"Never forget, HR represents the company, not you."

And one of the things they need to do on behalf of the company is keep it out of tribunals.

Re: Not quite terminal

Just been clacking at my keyboard reading this thread when we had an hour long power cut. I think there's some spooky quantum entanglement going on here.

You learn something every day. I'd always thought it must be a contraction of bayonet connector.

I thought it was more like a metre. You'd probably need a pipe bending jig to get it tighter than that.

Re: Ah, the joys (?) of 10Base2

"All are in use"

Apart from anything else, they'll hold the house together.

The trick is not to throw all of them away. Retain just enough to ensure you'll never need them again.

"Seems incredibly fragile way to operate through modern eyes."

Well, nobody ever accused the previous generation of Ethernet of being fragile. It was about the size of a garden hose but less flexible. It was accesses with vampire taps which had to be at least 1.5 metres apart and the cable was marked with suitable points. There was, IIRC a 15 core ribbon between the receiver clamped at the tap and the card in the computer that handled the rest of the interface.

Fortunately it wasn't my team that handled the thicknet connected stuff.

Re: Ah, the joys (?) of 10Base2

It was a lot more manageable than the previous generation of cable.

Re: What is it with managers and training costs?

"HR was in the meeting and looked embarrassed."

They should have done more than that.

Re: What is it with managers and training costs?

One of the advantages of being freelance: you invest in your skills and expect to profit (doesn't always work out that way) while being able to make decisions very quickly. I've been in a position where I was getting to the end of the contract and my client got a new contract calling for XML (which was new at the time), a skill which nobody in the company had, no more did I. "OK, if you give me a contract for that I'll take myself on a training course." They got more contracts with the same requirement and naturally so did I.

BOFH: Forward-facing AI brand experience meets forward-facing combustion risk management

Darwin gets there eventually.

"he'll make a massive impression on the surface of the car park two floors below our office window."

Are two floors really enough for a massive impression? Some experimentation is required.

Canadian data order risks blowing a hole in EU sovereignty

"This whole attempt seems to be as much against the long term interests of Canadian sovereignty as it is for French sovereignty."

Nailed it. We don't even know what the Canadian govt. thinks of the actions of it.

Re: Be careful what you wish for indeed...

"So why are people instinctively siding with a multinational money grubber over and against a limited popular government?"

Because it's about due process of law. There is a process whereby the RCMP can try and get the information. They haven't done. They've tried to take a short cut.* They're trying coercion.

I do not believe short cuts and coercion in law enforcement are a good thing.

It's also about data and trust in suppliers to safeguard customers' data that they're paid to look after.

Put those two things together and they're trying to crate a precedent that could, in the end, be harmful to any one of us if the protection of due process of law is weakened. They're trying to put what remains of Magna Carta in the shredder.

* I suspect this is because they don't have a case that meets the criteria for access. There will be safeguards built in.

"Canada can get what they want by putting pressure on OVHC, which they will do on whichever way is most effective."

No amount of pressure gets blood out of a stone. If it more valuable to OVH to write off the Canadian venture than give in then they'll do that.

Re: A clear case of not doing your homework

"a franchise is legally tied to the franchisee and therefore can be compelled."

The tie is defined by contract. In what way would a contract drawn up and signed in, say Germany, subject to German law for and limited to the use of Yankcorp IP in return for fees require the franchisee to do something not in the contract but demanded by someone outside of Germany?

Re: Hang on

It depends what legal folk you're looking at. That might apply to you local solicitor. OTOH you'll find counsel and judges handling extremely complex matters.

Re: A clear case of not doing your homework

I follow your point about the asymmetry.

However, by having subsidiaries which are close enough to be affected by the CLOUD Act the US corporations are in a situation where their customers, particularly at Govt. level, are starting to get worried. This is the risk.

I've long thought that a better arrangement would have been to have used a franchise arrangement whereby an EU owned and operated company provides the service under licence and subject to a contract under EU law enforcing EU privacy legislation. Given where Microsoft and Amazon are based I'd have thought there would be a few local lawyers familiar with setting up franchise arrangements which would be well able to to extract good returns for the IP being licences.

"Ah, but that's what they're demanding, isnt' it."

It depends on who "they" are. An RCMP officer will have a narrow view of the issues and the court to whom they apply is unlikely to have a much wider view. If anyone starts thinking about the national security issues of setting a precedent it might not be something they want to demand.

It's a case of being careful fo what you wish for.

If the legally-Canadian business doesn't legally have access to data where it's held in a legally-French business it's not so simple.

Re: Who can the Canadian courts make do things ?

"This is likely to spark an international incident."

Whether this particular case is the one that does it this needs to happen. Governments have allowed the whole issue to fester for far too long with privacy fig-leaves and the like. It needs to be sorted out by international agreements which bind national courts as to what they can and can't do.

Re: A clear case of not doing your homework

"Surely OVH's legal department should be aware of the risks of having subsidiaries in countries outside the EU?"

You could say the same about all the big US companies and the EU or anywhere else that has reasonable privacy laws.

Re: Treaties

"Seems like time Politicians got off their arse and spoke to each other to ensure these requests go via the agreed route?"

My guess is that it's probably rather like the case that brought about the US CLOUD Act, a fishing expedition which wouldn't be allowed under the treaties.

"But nobody wants it to go that far."

I'm not sure about this. There's considerable danger of setting a precedent, even if it's a precedent for the sort of fudges you suggest. At some point countries - and that includes Canada - need to defend their electronic borders or just accept that such borders don't exist. I doubt they - and again, that includes Canada - want the latter.

KDE Plasma sets date to dump X11 as Wayland push accelerates

Re: Man o man

"Those same voices are remarkably quiet when it happens in Linuxland."

It's not surprising. In Windowsland there's no option but to use whatever bugs Microsoft provide.

In Linuxland if I don't want to use X11 I don't have to, at least not at present, which is why I'm typing this on an X11 plasma session with a UI that has crisp boundaries to everything, no wondering where one on-screen entity stops and another starts.

If I waned something bleeding edge I could easily find it but it's my choice. Those last two words make a world of difference.

GrapheneOS bails on OVHcloud over France's privacy stance

"If the Canadian position is upheld, it will force the industry to rethink how sovereignty is protected in practice."

It will require a rethink at governmental level, not just industry level. While every government wants an opportunity to pry into data held out of its territory no government will want others to pry into data it holds. They can't have both, however much they want it. How long until the penny drops? And when it does, how long will it take them to realise which choice gives them most to lose?

Settling these issues is becoming urgent.

UK digital ID plan gets a price tag at last – £1.8B

Re: "not everyone has a passport or wants a passport."

My children both chose Irish passports to which they are entitled on the basis of having been born in Belfast. It enables them to retain EU citizenship and, as my son says. being half Yorkshire, it's cheaper then the UK passport.

"A simple physical card that works with a card reader, like a bank card, would be far simpler and cheaper to roll out."

It's going to be installed on your smartphone. If you don't have one you'll have to buy one and then have HMG compulsorily install on it some with unknown limits of functionality.

Re: I voted for him

Employers are already supposed to check eligibility. Giving those who don't do that another way to check isn't going to help. Spending a fraction of the cost on enforcing the existing checks would actually achieve something.

"days after the minister responsible refused to name a figure."

Is this another one the OBR let escape?

OBR drags in cyber bigwig after Budget leak blunder

It doesn't really need much investigation: "quietly uploaded to a publicly accessible server in advance of publication". The only other thing to find out is whodunnit.

Tiny tweak for Pi OS, big makeover for the Imager

But what is the barrier preventing? Maybe it needs to be there, especially for beginners.

Sudo, by removing the need to know a second, root, password is already a design pattern that breaks this principle:

Separation of privilege: Where feasible, a protection mechanism that requires two keys to unlock it is more robust and flexible than one that allows access to the presenter of only a single key. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protection_of_Information_in_Computer_Systems )

The original paper was dated 1975. Surely this stuff should have been taken on board by now.

Re: Imager

If I'm setting up a server of some sort on a Pi I just mount an external USB drive on /srv. If, the standard server installation puts the data somewhere in /var I move it onto the mounted drive and symlink it back. If it were a situation with significant data in /home that would also be on an external drive but I don't really use a Pi like that. If the SD card dies it doesn't really matter, the important stuff is safe.

Sods law: In the middle of syncing the data back from NextCloud onto my reserve laptop the 9-year old hard drive died - SD card fine. Time lost rather than data, fortunately and the replacement is Pi 5 with with 2 drives mirrored with LVM.

OpenAI cuts off Mixpanel after analytics leak exposes API users

"The Register also asked Mixpanel for its take on the breach and OpenAI's decision to terminate its agreement, but it only directed us back to OpenAI's statement."

Perhaps you could have asked them why it took over 2 weeks to notify their client - or ask OpenAI what they thought of the delay.

Asahi admits ransomware gang may have spilled almost 2M people's data

Did a brewery really need to hold personal data on 2million people?

FCC sounds alarm after emergency tones turned into potty-mouthed radio takeover

"Broadcasters are also urged to alert the FCC etc"

Only urged rather than required?