Posts by Doctor Syntax

Starlink offers 'unusually hostile environment' to TCP

Re: What's his definition of hostile

"at any point in time, 2/3rds is over the ocean and not earning revenue."

You don't think shipping and aircraft which have no access to terrestrial networks are potential sources of revenue?

NYC Comptroller and hedge funds urge Tesla shareholders to deny Musk $50B windfall

Why not just go for a motion of no confidence in the entire board? Clear out and start again, assuming enough shareholders agree.

Prepare your audits: EU Commission approves first-of-its-kind AI Act

Re: Turing Test

"

The risk here is that first you have to prove something is an AI."

Take the vendor's word for it. Having made a big fuss about their wonderful AI they'll be in no place to claim the legislation doesn't apply. Conversely the need to make the big fuss will ensure they do just that.

So you've built the best tablet, Apple. Show us why it matters

MS only ever really wanted desktop. And now Cloud money.

FTFY

Re: Nuclear

You think that spending the last six or seven decades shoving fossil fuels up power station chimneys (and distributing mildly radioactive ash) was a good idea?

Pew: Quarter of web pages vanished in past decade

OTOH I, like many others, maintain a web page which is a programme of planned events, in this case a local Civic Society's talks programme. If we're lucky* we start off each September with a full programme up to May. Every month the list gets a bit shorter and the poster image changes. There's no point in keeping that page unchanged in perpetuity; if you want check up on last month's talk it's too late already.

Some stuff really is ephemeral.

" Since Covid finding suitable speakers has become a bit more fraught than it used to be.

ASML could brick Taiwan's chipmaking machines in case of uninvited guests

"it would be difficult to run it for long without ASML support on site "

If the on-site support requires a permanent presence then the support would fall into the hands of an invader as well as the kit.

Hm! Boeing union just ran whistleblower rights training

This is what happens when what management wants to know isn't what they need to know.

BT delays deadline for digital landline switch off date

It's also up to Virgin to ensure a UPS powering their end of the line. Or do they rely on OpenReach to do that?

Your 2 isn't going to work unless the phone masts also have a UPS/tested backup generator able to outlast a power cut.

So who is to blame for that fact that locally the said telco is putting its finances into rolling out FTTP to the premises well served by FTTC but customers on the further reaches of the same cabinets are struggling with poor quality service?

Even accepting the reliability of limitations of locally powered digital over POTS this should not have been considered in advance of getting an adequate digital service to every location. Not just the easy ones, all of them.

Agreed. But try to convince the "I only use mobile anyway and it works for me" crowd about that.

Of course I have cordless phones. I also have a corded phone. The number of times I've used that in the past few years to call Northen Powergr.... carrier lost.

Our longest power cut in the last few years was 17 hours. Does the UPS in the cabinet last that long? Since 3G shutdown the local phone signal is a bit iffy? So if you're going to have a heart attack, stroke, or whatever you'd be best to have it in, say the forst hour of the power cut.

Having not thought through the consequences they've given themselves a bit more time to not think through the consequences. BY manglement at its finest.

Alleged $100M dark-web drug kingpin, 23, arrested

OK, let's pursue that idea a little.

You're going to require a jury for the trial. These days potential jury members are going to be drawn from a wider spread of the population and attitudes than when death sentences were normal, at least in societies like the UK. The prosecution then has the problem of risking one member of the jury who, whether from principle, awareness of the possibility of miscarriage of justice* or squeamishness, is not prepared to vote for killing someone and getting a not-guilty verdict against even the strongest possible evidence.

So how are you going to deal with that? Allow for majority verdicts? Given the risk of miscarriage of justice for a capital offence public opinion might not allow for that. But if majority verdicts are to be banned for one category of offence perhaps they should be banned altogether? You'll open up a can of worms going down that route.

* On a personal note I found it stressful enough doing my job investigating crime whilst being aware of the possible consequences of an error. Doing it under the shadow of a possible capital offence would have been impossible.

Big Tech is not much help when fighting a junta, and FOSS doesn't ride to the rescue

Re: Don't use the Internet

"The hidden messages have to be communicated using another means"

If you have "another means" then you don't need the videos.

Really? A sarcasm detector? Wow. You shouldn't have

And o course it will deal with Poe's law.

First LockBit, now BreachForums: Are cops winning the war or just a few battles?

"The fact that online fraud in the UK doubled year on year in 2023 to a value of £2.3bn shows that there's more cyber crims and they're mostly getting away with it."

This is not surprising.

Take, for instance dodgy phone calls. There is no single reporting mechanism. The subscriber is supposed to triage the call themselves and then decide which of the reporting sites is appropriate. Receive and attempted fraudulent call? AFAICS there is no site for reporting this. If you have actually been defrauded there's a site to report it. Not collecting details of attempted frauds tells me there is no attempt to collect intelligence that might enable fraud operations to be detected and closed down sooner.

Take, as another instance, clickable links in spam. Are the public being discouraged from clicking them? No some financial institutions are routinely sending unsolicited emails with valuable marketing information spam to customers, training them to believe that a link in an unsolicited and unexpected email that appears to be from that institution can be safely clicked.

Are TPTB discouraging this? No, they're at it as well. IME a visit to any NHS service will be followed up by a text* with a link for feedback. And let's not forget sending texts to a landline where the text can be picked up by whoever's nearest the phone but their interpretation of GDPR prevents them, when queried, from saying who it was intended for.

* There's a great deal else wrong with this. The text doesn't say who it's intended for and just says "your recent visit" so anyone wanting to fake it can just spam them out blindly. Even for its intended purpose this fails if there have been a few appointments in quick succession before the first text arrives. Also any hospital appointment will ask for next of kin contact details and my local trust would (I think I have now dissuaded them) treat this as the contact information for the patient.

"Would you give up some hacker you knew to Xi Ping ?"

You're thinking as a law-abiding person, not as a criminal to whom the $10m is very likely aimed.

Several possibilities.

First, just considering Russian criminals: Criminals don't really stick together and some would easily be tempted by $10m if he could be kidnapped and transported across the border. There might even be the possibility of eliminating a rival or getting their own back if they've been cheated.

Secondly the $10m might be enough for a non-Russian gang to attempt the same.

Thirdly, there's the possibility of a sting operation, say somebody in a neighbouring country looking for help to st up a new operation and offering to cut him in. There are one or two countries where he might feel safe to visit.

Arrest, trial and lengthy sentences would be what I'd term a "more aggressive" method of takedown.

20 years of supervised release doesn't seem as much of a deterrent as 20 years imprisonment although I suspect there might have been quite a bit of trading to get there.

And with a $10m reward I wouldn't rule out someone ordinarily resident in Russian suddenly turning up somewhere more accessible to arrest.

Gentoo and NetBSD ban 'AI' code, but Debian doesn't – yet

Do you have legal precedents for this, preferably in multiple jurisdictions? Otherwise it's an unknown area.

Apple says if you want to ship your own iOS browser engine in EU, you need to be there

What is your "this"?

If it's the EU's rules they're legal by difinition. If it's Apple's work-around we won't know until there's a ruling on it.

"All it requires is common sense - as is expected of you if you have a bank account, drive a car, or generally live as an adult."

I see you're an optimist.

"Apple doesn't sell my data"

How do you know? Or how would you know if they did?

Aussie cops probe MediSecure's 'large-scale ransomware data breach'

The technical term for this is "getting rid of the tricky bit in the title". Yes Minister Series 1, Episode 1.

Three cuffed for 'helping North Koreans' secure remote IT jobs in America

Re: Laptop Farms?

Very little IT skills needed to buy a bunch of laptops and set them up for remote access. Setting up VMs needs a bit more knowledge.

Microsoft's carbon emissions up nearly 30% thanks to AI

Re: Cunning plans.

I'd insert REPURPOSE as no 3. Not the same as REUSE, requires less energy then RECYCLE.

Microsoft PC Manager app bizarrely suggests Bing as a Windows fix-all

Re: Why are apps like this needed?

"8 years uptime on one of my servers"

A server unpatched in 8 years? I take it it's not exposed to the internet. If it isn't I suppose it's a good way to stop it getting broken.

"protection of your default settings from unauthorized change."

Change by Microsoft unauthorised by user or change by user unauthorised by Microsoft?

AWS to pump billions into sovereign cloud for Germany

Without a complete firebreak to put the entire operation out of Amazon's control having a EU location and employees is just a whitewash.

Toshiba to shed 4,000 jobs as part of revitalization plan

"According to Shimada, the early retirement plan targets those aged 50"

That's Tario Shimada, currently aged 57 according to a Toshiba press release. Is he fixing himself an early retirement plan or doesn't it apply to him?

Lords of May-hem: Seven signs it is Oracle's year end

"Yes, I'd like to talk to you but it'll have to be in a couple of month's time. I'm a bit tied up with this Postgress migration project at the moment."

HR expert says biz leaders scared RTO mandates lead to staff attrition

We need a new word: mieddling - middling and meddling.

From an investors' PoV I note that some commercial property in London is being converted to trendy new biotech labs. As this is one area where working at home isn't practical it seems a good idea although I don't see why this should be a technically easier option than converting them to residential. However as a sometime biological laboratory worker I see no reason why such labs should be in central London.

Re: Boy, is it biting

"Writ large, that's one of the limits to productivity this useless government aren't doing anything about."

Unless you're employer is a government department exactly what do you think a government should be doing about it?

You need to read your contract to find out but you might have to take legal advice on how to interpret it.

OTOH you could review the employment market for those with your skills. If it's good it puts you in a strong position. It's surprising how quickly things can change with your current employers once you hnbd in your notice although you'd probably be a fool to regard that as anything but temporary.

Re: Cost of living crisis?

"Why use your own electric and heating in the winter while you do your employer's bidding?"

Why pay your own fares to travel into work on your own time. Back when I worked in London the time door-to-door amounted to the equivalent two full-time days unpaid work per week.

Also micro-managing middle managers. We don't have many here but we do have a few. But how did they find their way here in the first place?

she "didn't like the socks he was wearing"

No problem. For tech roles socks might be optional.

Checking my ISA and pension investments - the funds do have a commercial property component. This, I think is not unusual so most of us with any sort of pension arrangement are, to some extent, commercial property owners. The sooner the idiot managements get their heads working and realise the property needs to be repourposed the better.

Let me guess - you're a micro-managing middle manager - although you may be unaware of the first part of that description.

"Perhaps some researchers should look to see if those businesses are retaining more staff."

Also,whether they are gaining some of the senior staff their competitors are losing.

AT&T formalizes deal for space-based cellular service on unmodified mobiles

Re: Technically Curious

It'll do away with all those base stations next to schools frying the children's brains. All the kids have to do is put a mobile transmitting at full power next to their ear.

Crims abusing Microsoft Quick Assist to deploy Black Basta ransomware

"Quick Assist is a software tool installed by default in Windows 11 that allows someone to share their PC or macOS device with a remote user"

What could possibly go wrong?

FBI takes down BreachForums ransomware website and Telegram channel

Once it's down it would be a good time to pop up another as a honeypot operation.

Brexit border system outage puts perishable goods transport in peril

Re: A power outage

We're really dealing with the Home Office here. One that John Reid, Labour Home Sec many years ago, declared unfit for purpose. No government of any colour has succeeded in fixing that. One problem seems to be that their core competence is house training incoming Home Secs. Admittedly not all of them need to be house trained.

Re: "dozens of lorries were being held at the government's control post... for up to 20 hours"

Given the finely balanced decision in the first place there's no such thing as a Brit's view on the matter.

Re: Laurel & Hardy in "Nothing but Brexit "

Immediately it's down to HO incompetence but if it were not for Brexit the systems wouldn't be needed so it wouldn't be there to fail.

Tesla nearing shareholder vote to grant Musk $46B

"As for why Musk needs tens of billions of dollars, the reasoning is that Musk, the second richest man in the world, may consider leaving Tesla should he not be compensated for his work during his time as CEO."

That's not why he needs them. It might be why the shareholders need to give them to him, always assuming they think he's worth that to them as CEO.

He may, of course, need them to make payments on something although that seems unlikely given his past record.