Posts by Doctor Syntax

Rivian bricks infotainment systems in 'fat finger' fiasco

Simple solution - a phased rollout system that hits the CEO's device, whatever sort of device that may be, a couple of days before those of paying customers.

UK telcos didn't collude to put Phones 4u out of business – judge

It seems I got away lightly. Just a short DBA contract for holiday cover with the parent company.

Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean AI's not after you

Re: horses can talk.

Well played, sir.

Re: you think that horses can talk.

"horses can communicate to some degree"

Throwing the rider off is the second most effective way exceeded only by throwing rider off and rolling on them.

BT staff would be able to get more sensible answers more quickly if the upper management were replaced by chatbots. They wouldn't get their intelligence insulted regularly by [de]motivational training events. And there'd be less faffing about with disruptive reorganisations every few months.

Yes, there are lots of opportunities for AI at BT.

I see BT didn't let their standards slip when appointing senior staff. He fits right in.

NCSC says cyber-readiness of UK’s critical infrastructure isn’t up to scratch

"They may have to prioritize profits and shareholder value rather than spending on cybersecurity resilience."

The relevant regulators should ensure that shareholder value depends on all aspects of resilience.

Passive SSH server private key compromise is real ... for some vulnerable gear

"OpenSSL and LibreSSL, and thus OpenSSH, are not known to be vulnerable to the aforementioned key deduction method"

Not the most reassuring form of words. I'd have preferred "not" and "known" to have been the other way about. The paper implies this is the case for the last couple of decades but given that old kit may still be around...

Google Photos' AI Magic Editor won't change pictures of IDs, receipts, faces, or bodies

"removing unwanted objects, like people in the background"

That's nothing, soviet photographers could remove people from the foreground.

48-nation bloc to crack down on using crypto assets to avoid tax

Re: Avoid or evade?

It's what the judge decides.

Re: Wild Goose

No problem. You just go back as member of the House of Lords.

That's going to wind up Nadine - she got turned down & Cameron just goes straight in.

AWS staffer shows off the workplace that used to be a prison

I'll order a cellphone.

Bright spark techie knew the drill and used it to install a power line, but couldn't outsmart an odd electrician

Re: Ouch! don't trust anything.

Matching fibres involves matching colours in transmitted light and in various fluorescence conditions. Yes other factors such as cross-section shape, indeed texture and, where relevant, polarising properties are elements of fibre matching but I doubt anyone claiming fibre expertise would survive telling the court that they had a colour deficiency.

Re: Ouch! don't trust anything.

Although part of the work involved making comparisons of textile fibres there was no testing when I joined the forensic lab. One of our older colleagues was, in fact red/green colour blind so that was one aspect of the work he couldn't tackle. When we were recruiting several new staff a few years later we decided we'd better borrow a set of cards.

EU lawmakers scolded for concealing identities of privacy-busting content-scanning 'experts'

Maybe you are being a little too cynical - or maybe not enough. I'd see it as self-selection by the experts; there's an opportunity so why not take it. The fact remains, of course, that whatever the selection mechanism none of them has put forward a proof of concept implementation.

There's a very simple answer to this. Their experts should provide a proof of concept implementation and then let everyone else pick it apart.

The criteria for success would be:

- It should not present a risk to that vast majority of internet users who are going about their lawful business

- It should not present a risk to those living under a repressive regime

- It should not present a risk to those, including but not limited t, children, living in abusive relationships seeking help

- It should not present a risk to whistleblowers seeking to draw attention to some illegal activity

- It should not present a risk to journalists working in hostile environments, including those working undercover

- It should not be open to abuse by unauthorised use or access by authorised users, including, but not limited to, Cheshire police intelligence (sic) analysts

If these experts can provide a robust practice demonstration of this they will have made their point, otherwise they, like the rest of us, should think of the children public at large.

UK signals legal changes to self-driving vehicle liabilities

Re: Why?

"Less people dying."

Where are the self-driving cars that achieve this?

Re: Why?

And back in the world of real devices?

"Or give them a reward for saving so many lives compared to the bad old days when humans used to drive?"

Spot the evidence-free assumption.

Re: @hoola

However well it works it works on specific routes. If your journey simply that route or a part of it it's fine. If it involves parts of two or more routs, even if there are interchange points between the routes, there's likely to be time wasted changing and the journey is likely to be far from direct.

Nevertheless, even when the journey consumed excessive amounts of time, when I used to commute into central London from Wycombe by train I didn't envy the drivers on the crowded roads we passed.

Re: only the driver – be it the vehicle or person – is accountable

Human drivers are all different. That's why they're tested individually. The automated drivers for the same model of car should be all alike. If they're not there's an even bigger problem - how to certify the model.

Re: 38,000 new skilled jobs

"Where do they get these arbitrary numbers from?"

Sitting round a table shouting out numbers until someone says "That sounds about right.".

Re: 1985

Technical illiteracy is no block on her intentions. Quite the opposite, I think.

"They'll be a personal transport unit that you hire or rent."

So on Monday morning you'll rent or hire the unit that took last night's party of drunks home? I doubt it.

Re: only the driver – be it the vehicle or person – is accountable

"is it then forbidden to move"

If the software is common to all the vehicles of that type then presumably the ban should apply to all of them.

Re: £42 billion and 38,000 skilled jobs

I was thinking more about the 2035 target date. Safely in the future - nobody in government today will be there to be held to it, even if anyone remembers.

BOFH: Monitor mount moans end in Beancounter beatdown

Re: I am lucky

A freelance has a far faster, in fact friction free, decision making process. It can be a USP - it's easier for a client to just roll the next project into a contract extension than have to decide all the details for themselves.

"urgent"? Fingers are becoming increasingly detached from the brain. Need ->

Specifically written for the target audience.

Re: Excellent!

"This is so that metrics can be gathered accurately for future forecasting, and so I don't mind too much."

Is this really accuracy or empty precision? The two are frequently confused.

Is it time to reanimate the probable urgent legend about DEC being asked for a copy of VMS back in the 1980s, the big bang, etc? DEC asked why someone wanted to buy a copy of VMS without buying hardware. The answer - they had found a MicroVax in a skip.

Re: Sounds vaguely familiar...

Nice one, but how do ceiling panels and trunking go EOL? I can envisage trunking having had its contents stripped out but I'd just regard it as being in wait for its next occupant.

Re: Excellent!

My boss at the time who, despite being an accountant, was quite reasonable, was having a dispute with one of the unreasonable accountants*. His exasperation surfaced as "This business has a surplus of accountants!". Ever since I've regarded that as the correct collective noun.

* I sometimes described this one as going into cannon mode. His first reaction to any problem was to want to fire someone.

Want a well-paid job in tech? You just need to become a cloud-native god

Re: Someone Else's Computer certification

"However, investors are unlikely to back such a setup"

But is the OP even looking for external investors?

Suits ignored IT's warnings, so the tech team went for the neck

What part of that story leads you to think the C suite knew they were being gamed?

Mac daddy Woz hospitalized in Mexico over mystery malady

From the NHS website:

"Vertigo feels like you or everything around you is spinning – enough to affect your balance. It's more than just feeling dizzy.

A vertigo attack can last from a few seconds to hours. If you have severe vertigo, it can last for many days or months.

...

What causes vertigo

Inner ear problems, which affect balance, are the most common causes of vertigo."

Nothing to do with a reaction heights.

Let's hope it's just vertigo.

Get well, Woz.

Microsoft hits Alt+F4 on internal ChatGPT access over security jitters, irony ensues

Microsoft to customers: Do as I say, not as how I do.

NASA's Lucy probe scores a threefer as it flies by first target in 12-year mission

All sorts of strange things out there - but no diamonds?

Strangely enough, no one wants to buy a ransomware group that has cops' attention

He deserves to be arrested, convicted and sentenced for that statement alone.

Apple exec defends 8GB $1,599 MacBook Pro, claims it's like 16GB in a PC

Re: 8GB? No thanks!

"it’s not unusual to see managerial types with forty to fifty browser tabs open"

There's the problem. Their attention span is well exceeded so they can't work out which to close down.

"And that external drives are a great option for storing data if you don't want to entrust it all to cloudy services."

That sounds reasonable, at least as a backup.

Re: I was gonna say...

What would raise eyebrows would be comparing the spec of the laptop with that of servers one which we used in the past to support the database and the applications served over terminals to multiple users. A Pi will have more memory than those old boxes did. These days it's not the basic task that's the problem, it's the bloat.

Re: *Placed*

Hmm how do you *place* that memory? Hmm blue-tac? tape? superglue?

1. Find a dictionary.

2. Look up the many definitions of "place.

Re: Insult to injury

I don't know what's happening to the el Reg commentariat these days.

All he has to do is put in an appropriately sized expense claim for secure disposal of redundant IT equipment.

It all depends on what OS the laptop is running.

Re: 8GB is plenty if your walled garden is small enough

"My personal server"

I'm not sure what sort of form factor your personal server is running on but most people don't chose a laptop for that purpose. And for a many people's requirements a personal server may well be NextCloud on a Pi.

China's top bank ICBC hit by ransomware, derailing global trades

Given that Russia needs China to help bypass sanctions I wonder if the price they have to pay might go up. Such as the Lockbit crew finding themselves conscripted into the sharp end of the Russian army.

CEOs of crashed tech upstart Bitwise accused of swindling $100M from investors

Shocked that they didn't realise reality was bound to catch up with them.

FTC interrupts Copyright Office probe to flip out over potential AI fraud, abuse

Re: Free pass

If the conditions of buying the book include that it should not be stored in an electronic retrieval system then copying it into such a system is actionable by definition - unless the condition is, for some reasonable, unenforceable.