Posts by Doctor Syntax

QR-code based contact-tracing app brings 'defining moment' for UK’s 'world beating' test and trace system

"or are out of data on their phone"

AFAIK the mode of operation being claimed is that it simply stores the scanned codes on the phone so being out of data wouldn't make a difference. Where things go from there is a bit less clear.

Re: Pity

"I'm beginning to think that the practical test during the interview for a senior government position"

I think you're over-estimating the rigour of the appointment process. Not in supposing the existence of a practical test but in supposing the existence of an interview.

The appointment procedure was probably no more than:

"She's married to one of us."

"We gave her a seat in the HoL"*

"She ran an internet business so she must know about these things."

The fact that the internet business was persistently at or near the bottom of the heap on measures other than cheapness and not safeguarding its customers' PII obviously wasn't taken into consideration.

It's showing up in aspects such as the allocation of testing appointments seems to be based on a very old, cheapest and misleading satnav.

* NB I don't think being in the HoL per se should be a contra-indication. On the contrary, I think the HoL should be strengthened by an ex officio process for appointing people from the top of appropriate professions - science, engineering & medicine - to it so that Parliament gains rather more people who know what they're talking about and would be available for positions of public responsibility.

Re: Basket Cases

OTOH the genuine statisticians are agreed that R is now greater than 1 and that infections (is that sufficiently unambiguous for you?) are doubling about once a week.

Re: Absolutely NO lies necessary!!!!

My local Chinese takeaway only takes cash over the counter.

And exactly what does the app do with the QR code once it's read it?

Most reports are a bit light in detail/ According to the only privacy statement (for the trial, not the launch) I could find it's supposed to store the locations on the phone so I have a list to tell me where I've been. Somehow I think I might have worked out where I've been for myself. What use am I going to make of that? Does the app phone home to find a list of premises to which an outbreak has been traced? If so, at what point is the privacy statement quietly changed so the app can upload the list so the list can be checked centrally - so much more efficient?

Wouldn't it be nice to have someone in charge who had an impeccable a track-record of trustworthiness in sageguarding PII?

Something to look forward to: Being told your child or parent was radicalized by an AI bot into believing a bonkers antisemitic conspiracy theory

Perhaps we need a reverse Turing test. Anyone indistinguishable from an AI bot should be disbarred from public office. And from social media.

Three middle-aged Dutch hackers slipped into Donald Trump's Twitter account days before 2016 US election

"once they realised their digital trail was not particularly well covered"

Should have tried emailing the breach report from Trump's email account.

Adtech's bogeymen are tracking everything - even your web visits to mental health charities, claim campaigners

Re: British charities are sharing information about people visiting their websites

I assume from the .com in their domain name Pro Privacy aren't actually a charity so I'm sure those strictures couldn't possibly be aimed at them. But I do wonder why they want to add Javascript from, for instance, tableau.com.

Ireland unfriends Facebook: Oh Zucky Boy, the pipes, the pipes are closing…from glen to US, and through the EU-side

Re: NSLs

"Nope. Nothing to do with NSLs, because they are an individualised legal warrant."

Can EU data subjects challenge NSLs in US courts (a low enough bar IMV; they ought to be able to challenge in the data subject's jurisdiction)? That's the test.

Re: SCCs

It's a valid warrant in the US. That makes it impossible for US-based FB to be able to perform the SCCs. That makes the SCCs worthless in the EU. If they want to comply with GDPR they need to ensure any PII is held securely outside the grasp or the USl. If they don't want to do that then it's time to start fining them. Actions speak louder than words; no amount of waffle about how much they want to makes any difference at al

Re: SCCs for some transfers

Banks would still be subject to National Security Letters. That makes SCCs unenforceable of the bank is within the US's legal grasp. It's not the type of business that matters, it's the overall legal system.

Re: SCCs

Which is exactly why the SCCs do not meet the Privacy Figleaf's requirements. Despite the Irish ICO's foot-dragging they're reluctantly being obliged, as the article tells us, to make some initial moves to enforcing GDPR.

Re: "Facebook has been working hard"

"The only thing FaceBook works hard at is hoovering every snippet of data it can"

And money. Don't forget the money.

Re: SCCs

"I don't see how SCCs have a leg to stand on"

Neither did the EU. Somebody really needs to tell Nick. Actually I'm sure he knows, it's just that his livelihood depends on his not understanding it.

"I really want rid of the thing, but it's almost the only way a large number of people I know chose to communicate for some reason."

Just do it. Tell your "friends" our phone number and/or email address as you prefer. That way you find out who your friends rally are and those who aren't can be dumped along with FB.

"I will carry on happily being a miserable bastard"

So will I. I'm happier that way.

Re: Contract Clauses.

There's the problem. EU and US law both want to override them.

Re: About time too

It may be is time

FTFY

Back in the day my preference was for my own company rather than a brolly. A brolly is somebody else's company. Does that remind me of anything?

What an IDORable Giggle: AI-powered 'female only' app gets in Twitter kerfuffle over breach notification

"had I known then what I know now, I would have handled the situation differently."

That speaks volumes. If you want to collect PII there are things you need to know before you start, not discover as you go along.

The power of Bill compels you: A server room possessed by a Microsoft-hating, Linux-loving Demon

"I have only seen this sort of thing twice and if I hadn't seen the first one, I would probably be calling the exorcist myself."

What did he do when he saw the first one?

Re: No FreeBSD daemon?

"Where do the years go"

Dunno but if you find a few send some my way. I could do with a few.

Shine on you crazy diamond: We don't know who needs to hear it but NASA's explained the weird shape of the Bennu asteroid

Re: Not fat, just gravity

Shouldn't your title read "just gravy"?

But how fast do you spin?

DPL: Debian project has plenty of money but not enough developers

No.

I use Debian - well, Devuan - as a desktop user. Not Ubuntu. That is a choice I don't want to see go away. I would expect every Debian or Devuan desktop user has made that same explicit choice.

Re: Window of Opportunity?

I thought people wanted Windows to go back and stagnate somewhere prior to W8.

Re: Oh dear

It might help if they threatened to. The systemd supporters would arrive to vote against doing so.

Open access journals are vanishing from the web, Internet Archive stands ready to fill in the gaps

Re: OA publishing

"the odium is on them to provide a superior alternative."

The odium is definitely on the profiteers.

The National Museum of Computing flings opens its non-virtual doors

I took a brief look at the virtual tour. Just on the LHS of the first corridor there's a board about pioneers It has a portrait of Grace Hopper next o one of Chalres Babbage. Were they the same person? I think we should be told.

Don’t lump us in with Facebook, internet infrastructure companies warn European Union

Re: A rock and a hard place

Is ICANN genuinely multistakeholder? The reports here suggest that it's outside the control of the stakeholders. In fact, it seems to consider itself outside the control of anybody else either.

Re: Is the problem simply that politicians don't have a clue?

It's more general than politics. The one talent you can be sure people high up in hierarchies have is the ability to climb hierarchies. Any competence to fill their role is a very optional extra.

I won't be ignored: Google to banish caller roulette with Verified Calls

Do Google also assure you that there really is a Santa Claus?

I can 'proceed without you', judge tells Julian Assange after courtroom outburst

Re: Blackmailed

There needs to be a prima facie case for extradition for each charge. If the case for some of those charges depends on tainted evidence than should extradition for those particular charges be approved?

Tech ambitions said to lie at heart of Britain’s bonkers crash-and-burn Brexit plan

"The media demand a loud, aggressive, unthinking jingoism for political parties. They're too stupid and greedy to consider anything more nuanced."

Ultimately what the media demand is a bad guide, I agree with you there.

But someone being put forward as a potential head of government for several years needs to demonstrate the ability to actually make rational decisions.

Rational decisions. Two words. We were offered a choice of zero or one.

"At least Corbyn had compassion, honesty, integrity & a whole set of other attributes lacking in Johnson."

And an even greater detachment from the real world. Difficult but he managed it.

Re: Typing error in the article

Do Martians have balls? Curious biologist would like to know.

Re: Sigh

The frothing loons are probably those of us who've seen it all before. Many times

HMG of the day pours lots of funds into whatever. Next HMG cans it because

(a) NIH and/or

(b) realised we've poured lots of funds in and all we've got is this one lousy proto-type and we can't afford to build more at that price each, failing to grasp that now you've done the development the build costs each will be much lower and/or

(c) serial reorganisations of government depts broke up the funding structure and/or

(d) political campaign against it because it's complicated and a lot of media/arts types don't understand it and/or

(e) meddling form on high smothered it and/or

(f) sacrificed so govt. could suck up to US by buying whatever it was from them - or because US didn't have one to sell and were upset by that and/or

(g) any other form of incompetence and ignorance you cn think of.

Some of the victims were started by people who looked a good deal more competent than the current crew.

Those who don't remember their history are condemned to repeat it.

Re: What's the idea that the rest of the world...

You missed TSR2. Killed by Harold Wilson shortly after the "white heat of technology" speech - exactly the same jingoistic hubris we get from Johnson (and, to be fair, most PMs and wannabes).

"The biggest reveal of 2020 has been that maybe Corbyn wasn't the worse option after all."

He was. It's just that what we've got wasn't shows what a bind we've been in this last few years.

Re: ARM?

Come Jan 1st they'll be made to give it back because WTBC.

Re: Typing error in the article

It's easy to tell the difference. In response to Covid19 one goes to hospital and the other goes to Durham and Barnard Castle.

"with no track record in the tech industry. "

They have a track record. It's a track record acquired in a very short time. It's a track record of promising "world beating", "UK will be the best place in the world for" etc. for things which promptly fall flat on their face. It's not a track record that inspires confidence.

Zero. Zilch. Nada. That's how many signs of intelligent life astroboffins found in probe of TEN MILLION stars

Life is an extremely improbable* arrangement for preserving the improbable. It's not really surprising that they've found nothing.

* We have several quite different chemical systems linked together. Some of these are made out of polymers of amino acids**: systems capable of handling energy by manipulating electrons and protons, chains of specific catalysts to synthesise other molecules including assembling amino acid polymers, structural elements including membranes made from combinations of lipids. The "other molecules" include those which are necessary for the energy handling such as chlorophyll, heam and adenosine and its phosphates and, of course, the amino acids themselves. Then there's the nucleic acid system, DNA or, in some cases, RNA genes, mRNA transcripts of the genes, tRNA to specifically bring the correct amino acid to add to the amino acid polymer and rRNA in the ribosomes. Individual monomers and other molecules may be readily enough found but assembling them together at random into a combination that is capable of bootstrapping itself into what we know today is extremely improbably, even taking into account that some mineral surfaces could have stood in for what proteins do now.

** Not just random chains but chains of specific sequences which lead to folding into specific shapes to provide the other functions.

US ponders tech export ban on SMIC, China's biggest chipmaker

Re: in the most expensive Trump Hotel reservations

"It would set a terrible precedent where administrations would want to jail their predecessor for lesser and lesser crimes"

The answer to that is that administrations shouldn't have that power It would require an independent body that starts work* the moment a head of government ends their period of office, looking at any illegalities that might have taken place during the period of office and possibly during the elections that preceded it and prosecuting accordingly. Such a body would have to be right outside politics and, give or take the normal retirements and recruitments - which clearly would have to be outside the influence of the administration - would be the same one to eventually deal with the new administration as dealt with the previous one. It wouldn't be an exceptional process to conduct such an investigation, just business as usual.

In reality the role of such a body would be to deter administrations from wrong-doing rather than to punish afterwards although it would obviously be obliged to take action from time to time; at least that would strengthen the deterrent for the next few administrations.

* In terms of being able to demand and evaluate evidence. There's nothing to stop them taking notes of what's out there in public before then.

Re: Trumpanoia

One doesn't hope for such things but should they happen one's capacity for regret might be minimal.

Vivaldi offers users a 'break' from browsing. No, don't switch to Chrome... don't sw..

"But they've changed the application icon no less than FOUR TIMES since they started Vivaldi, each time listing it in the changelog like it's some marvellous advancement."

A sure sign marketing is in charge.

If you want a combined browser/mail (and more) client, try SeaMonkey. Add in Lightning and Lightbird if you want to include a calendar function.

Classy move: C++ 20 wins final approval in ISO technical ballot, formal publication expected by end of year

Re: "Competent, core language"

"A systems language should only be used for systems, not for applications. Where a systems language is used for applications, it means the systems programmers have failed to do their job."

I think there's a couple of non sequiturs there.

Re: "Competent, core language"

"it is such a good first approximation that nobody has bothered with a second"

If you count BCPL & B then it's the 3rd. But it looks like that's it.

"'Best approximation of C++ ideals so far,' ... but is it too big and complex?"

I thought too big and complex were the ideals.

Digital pregnancy testing sticks turn out to have very analogue internals when it comes to getting results

Re: This device is far less unreasonable than it seems.

"My ex brother in law had a craving for pancake rolls every night, every time the EMOS sister was pregnant."

But did he also have a craving for pancake rolls every night when she wasn't?

The Wrath of Amazon: JEDI wars rage on after US Department of Defense affirms Microsoft contract

Re: A Worrying Trend Is Starting...

Clearly AWS are going to try to keep appeals going until January hoping for a change in the business environment.