Posts by Doctor Syntax

Top 10 billionaires make nearly $64B in post-Trump election stock surge

New recruits for his staff? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4gd8xx93yo

I suppose they've got a few months to cash in before Trump actually gets into office, starts with the tariffs and tanks the economy - theirs and ours alike.

Don't open that 'copyright infringement' email attachment – it's an infostealer

Re: FFS

You know that, I know that, the majority of elRag readers know that. But manglement and especially the marketroids think the exact opposite.

Microsoft rolls out AI-enabled Notepad to Windows Insiders

I think I'll just stick with Kate and/or KWrite.

Oh dear, they've done the FOSS thing of giving you a choice while being very largely the same thing under the hood.

"criteria that reflect Microsoft's values and standards"

As bad as that?

Sysadmin shock as Windows Server 2025 installs itself after update labeling error

Re: Wot? No testing?

OTOH this doesn't seem to be a small business. I wonder if these were test servers.

It's not so much QA as release process but the bean counters strike there as well.

Not that anyone over there cares any more.

Re: Acrobat

Just?

Re: Wait...

Guardrails?

Re: Wait...

Given that the existing software on the server may not work with the new server I'd start with this being an offence under the Computer Misuse Act and ask for damages.

Cisco scores a perfect CVSS 10 with critical flaw in its wireless system

Re: Separate networks

Ask for written confirmation that they have read and understood the proposal and accept the risks on behalf of the business. Signatures in their own blood preferred but not essential.

Arecibo telescope might have failed because of weak sockets

Re: Zinc

Finding a solution to a newly discovered problem is irrelevant? There are jobs for you in QA at Boeing, Microsoft and numerous other large corporations.

Officials warn of Russia's tech-for-troops deal with North Korea amid Ukraine conflict

Re: Ukraine has enlisted the assistance of S.Korea for a psychological offensive

"on top of the usual (only 100xfold) brain-washing, there's a a practice in N. Korea of your family members being held hostage and then facing punishment if you fail to perform what's expected of you (scope ranges from labour camp for life to terminal). So the hope of North Koreans surrendering in any numbers MIGHT be premature."

Offer them the deal of being reported as killed in action to those who defect. As that's the likely fate of those who don't defect it would become impossible for the Norks to work out who'd deserted and, if the family were to be punished for failing by being killed it wouldn't make any difference anyway.

Operation Synergia II sees Interpol swoop on global cyber crims

I was surprised to see China included in the list of raids then realised that this is just Communism disapproving of private enterprise.

Want advice from UK government website about tax 'n' stuff? Talk to the chatbot

Chatbot, draft me a contract that's guaranteed to be outside IR35.

"Used to work with humans"

Only if there were sufficiently senior humans left in the business.

Your air fryer might be snitching on you to China

Re: It won't be "China", its some parasitic data broker

Those well known brand names have largely either been bought up by Chinese manufacturers or outsourced their manufacturing there.

"The laws need to catch up, but then again with the desire for authorities to track citizens will the right thing be done?"

To quite a large extent they have, it's the enforcement that hasn't and tracking by authorities may well be part of it. One of the provisions of GDPR is that provision of a service shouldn't be conditional to waiving your rights but how is this enforced other than by suing the service provider? What's really needed is a pro-active ICO but if anyone were to propose that there's be cries of "red tape". Unless there's a greater public understanding of the issues those cores are going to be the loudest voices and will get a sympathetic hearing from governments' security advisors.

"this is often done with little or no transparency"

Calling it smart should be all the transparency you need.

Bitwarden switches password manager and SDK to GPL3 after FOSS-iness drama

The alternative to asking a lawer seems to be "walk", hence Rocky, Alma etc.

Users struggle with recipe when moving enterprise apps to the cloud

Re: Funny that......the word "control" is not mentioned once......

If it had been an article about control would you have complained it didn't mention migration costs?

" people think, 'Oh, I'm moving from capex to opex.'"

When people think that do they also think 'What happens if, for any reason, I can't make a payment?' and look at the T&Cs to find out? If they're not careful they might find that that's an outgoing which has to take precedence over everything else, including payroll.

Classic Outlook explodes when opening more than 60 emails

Re: Users...

"they then close it and leave it in the inbox"

The inbox should be for unread messages. The S/W should deal with this by (a) not being able to leave a message there once opened and (b) providing some other means of storing those the user doesn't choose to bin.

Such an application might need a little getting used to but then for some people, so does looking each way before corssing the road.

Re: works OK on thunderbird

"one of the greatest sins that Microsoft has committed"

And there's a lot of candidates.

It's just nature's way of telling you that reading 60 emails all at once is silly.

A Kansas pig butchering: CEO who defrauded bank, church, friends gets 24 years

The real scammer is still at large, it seems.

Schneider Electric ransomware crew demands $125k paid in baguettes

Re: Errr...

It's possible they mean diamonds.

Judge decides not to block Musk's $1M election giveaway

Providing his boss doesn't get the gig today there'll be plenty time to take him to the cleaners in the future.

Former Facebook lobbyist joins UK comms regulator as non-exec director

I was sort of expecting Nick. But I suppose he'll agree with him.

Social [sic] media come under OFCOM's wing.

Re: "This appointment was made following an open process in line with the Governance Code"

"a shop that makes its money selling bras and jumpers"

AFAICS M&S avoids selling clothing as much as it can. These days it just wants to be another grocery business.

Windows 11 continues to creep up behind Windows 10

Re: And...

Yup. Buying a car is so difficult.

Re: needs a dose of Gov

You make it sound more like brow-beating than assisting.

Re: Win11 is still awful

"or extend support for Win10 again"

Where's the money for them in that?

Here's a thought. What if they did a paid-for version which would ignore H/W requirements to upgrade your W10 for the cost of a new W11 licence?

It's not likely because they'd upset the H/W vendors.

"If enough people hold out, MS might just feel pushed relax their hardware requirements."

Why? What's in it for them?

The whole H/W requirement is to get you to go out and buy a nice, shiny W11 capable PC which will come with a new W11 licence for which you will, indirectly, pay MS money.

The only concession here is to let machines that already meet the criteria upgrade for free.

If you're not going to buy a new computer W11 licence then you can buy $30's worth of extra updates. If you do neither than as far as MS are concerned you can get stuffed. If you're not giving them money they don't care.

It's there, in plain sight, right in front of you.

Microsoft's only interest is in the money you give them.

Re: I'm not going to be upgrading my mom's PC

"keep their important stuff on their phone and not their PC"

Given the phone is easily lost or stolen unless it's welded to your hand (which often seems to be the case), the PC running W7 or W10 is probably safer.

Re: Old machines

We live in a world where my SiL still runs W7. Those W10 boxes aren't going to be given to developing countries. They're just going o stay in use.

Re: needs a dose of Gov

The most likely solution is that they'll just be kept running as is. They're not being used by the likes of elReg inhabitants. They're being used by people who think they're just PCs and will stay just PCs until the day they don't boot any more.

Their users don't care.

Re: Old machines

They won't, for the most part, be going anywhere.

Of those that are capable of being upgraded and are in the hands of businesses which care, some will have been upgraded and some will be being held off until the last minute because their users don't want W11 sooner than they have to have it.

The rest, which aren't capable of being upgraded, and which you see as landfill will be being used by those for whom the existing updates are a monthly nuisance and will be quite glad to see that stop. Their users are not going to spend good money to climb back onboard that bus once they've got off.

Unless Microsoft were to send out a bricking update - which I don't think even they would expect they could get away with - they will continue working. The only difference in their users' view is that they'll stop getting upgrades. Nothing else. Zilch. Nada. They continue to be PCs running W10 until their PSU caps bulge.

I take it that the $30 extended upgrade offer is a realisation by Microsoft that that's the situation but they can try to screw extra money out of some of the irreconcilables.

Millions of PCs won't become landfill. They'll just stop receiving updates along with, no doubt, somewhat fewer millions of PCs still running W7 also without receiving updates.

Microsoft has reached $1M giveaway levels of desperation to attract users to Bing

Re: They've all become shit.

Today's internet winner!

Re: At least...

If there is nothing the correct response is simply to tell you that. The corporations have a morbid fear of reporting nothing which is why they've filled search results with garbage for years and why they're now so keen on AI to create bigger and better garbage.

This might be a radical suggestion but how about making it not try to double guess what the user is searching for? Honour phrases in quotes. Honour logical operators "and", "or" and "not". KISS.

Re: Recently I tried Bing as an alternative

Just access Bing via DDG.

Re: Doesn’t have the Edge

Possibly the other way around but you don't need Edge to use Bing.

CHIPS Act funding in question as House Speaker waffles on plan to repeal bill

With all this flip-flopping about they'll be lucky to find an investor even for a plant to build simple flip-flops.

The hunt is on for the scum who stole Britain's largest inflatable planetarium

We didn't have a feast in the church hall in this part of England either. In fact, the idea of a harvest was a bit strange because we're not in arable country, the sheep were sheared months earlier and the cows were milked all year.

That doesn't matter. I think the legal term is "joint enterprise".

Why the long name? Okta discloses auth bypass bug affecting 52-character usernames

Re: I wonder...

File it instead under "Reasons why email addresses are crap user IDs". Two other reasons are:

1. Email addresses are likely to be widely known. If I email people as [e-mail] then anyone who I've emailed, or has seen a forwarded email with that address can guess that that's my login on example.com's systems and possibly at other online sites then part of their work is done for them.

2. If I use fred@example com because example.com is an email provider, or even worse, an ISP, I'm stuck with them however I might wish to migrate because it's going to be a nightmare trying to change user IDs with every service where I've used that; it's even going to be a nightmare trying to remember all the places where I might have to change it.