* Posts by Doctor Syntax

32759 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014

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White House mulls just banning strong end-to-end crypto. Plus: More bad stuff in infosec land

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

"deploy only encryption, particular only end-to-end cryptography, that can be cracked by American law enforcement"

This, of course, means they'll need to list encryption that they can break. By implication anything else woud be stuff they can't break. I'm sure a lot of people will be interested in that list.

Former UK PM Tony Blair urges governments to sort out online ID

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The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change?

Still too big for his boots all these years on.

A Register reader turns the computer room into a socialist paradise

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I wish I could remember exactly how this worked but it was over 40 years ago back in the days of CP/M.

I'd built a microspectrophotometer. The computer consisted of a Z80 in a B I G S-100 box with MicroSoft FORTRAN (in those days MS had camel capitalisation). The printer, IIRC, was some sort of thermal teletype device.

Having acquired a spectrum I wanted to be able to print it whilst getting on with the lengthy task of acquiring the next one. There were a few spare K in high memory above the BIOS which started at 48K. Somewhere the video board had another small slice and either above or between them was some spare memory. AFAICR I shoved the data into this memory but I can't remember whether the code to sling it to the printer was also up there or whether it was part of the main executable. Whatever it was, once the user started the print option the printer would start plotting the spectrum with full stops and the console would be ready for the next command.

MicroSoft FORTRAN for CP/M had some handy borrowings from BASIC, PUT, GET, PEEK and POKE which made interfacing with H/W easy. I could make the spectrometer motor step and read the photomultiplier via the ADC without having to drop down into assembler.

Delphi RAD tool (remember that?) gets support for Linux desktop apps – again

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Re: Have you ever worked in a software business?

"I suggest you are disgruntled"

Far from it. I did very nicely from that experience. I'd been body-shopped in there but then left, largely to go to another system-integrator with in theory, less of a commute (that was a whole other tale). However by the time the first client had learned the error of there ways I happened to bump into one of their guys in the tube station (so much for having escaped the commute into London) who promptly asked if I'd be interested in coming back as an employee which worked out very well in several respects.

"and have no experience in working in a software engineering business."

One of those irregular verbs:

I am a software engineer, you are a programmer, he/she is a script kiddie.

"Move on and find a better work place."

Indeed. It's called retirement even if the first decade was combined with freelancing.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: A good indication of the market ...

"Ah; so your work experience is with script-kiddie businesses"

I suppose you're right. I always considered VMS to be script-kiddie stuff. And those mainframes...

It's astonishing how one of the biggest UK plcs managed to survive with that stuff.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: next gen dialect

IFAICR Kylix failed to make it past the days of Linux 2.4 - certainly the version I had wouldn't run on 2.6.

Subsequently there was a free cross-compiler and a commercial one. The free one was limited; I tried it on a library and it complained about syntax errors which was odd because it would compile in Delphi. I can't remember what the commercial one was called but maybe this is it.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: old Delphi graybeards

"I'm just saying that now Embarcadero business model is not getting more developers on board, it's now exploiting people that for many reasons don't want, or can't move"

This is the old CA model, isn't it.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: old Delphi graybeards

There's a lot of snobbery involved in attitudes to Delphi.

My last client had used it a lot. When I left they seemed to be recruiting an ever-growing team rewriting the application for their flagship contract in C++. They eventually lost the contract and no longer exist.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: A good indication of the market ...

"Have you ever worked in a software business?"

Yes. I find it difficult to recognise your halcyon state of affairs.

I've had the experience of being forced by a dedicated VAX/VMS & mainframe oriented manglement to migrate to a new version of the target RDBMS engine on VMS - none of this strange Unix nonsense, thank you. It didn't go well, corrupting indexes several times a day when it met real life. We ended back on a bigger and better Unix box.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: A good indication of the market ...

... if a vendor can package and charge license fees for Linux Desktop tooling.

But can they get customers for it?

I suspect the only ones who'll bite are mugginses in manglement who have a long history of overseeing development on Windows and have finally decided that Linux might be mportant but don't actually know anything about it and would never in a month of Sundays think of asking their staff.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Lazarus and FreePascal have owned that niche on Linux for so long that they'd struggle to give Delphi away there, even if it were native (which, AFAICR Kylix actually was). But charge those amounts for it?

This weekend you better read those ebooks you bought from Microsoft – because they'll be dead come early July

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"the short-sighted greed of the big media companies still stuck in the past."

Part of the past was the reinvention of physical media. Vinyl replaced shellac. Cassette replaced vinyl to some extent (with the slight problem that you could re-record your own copies of the vinyl). CD replaced vinyl and cassette. Each time they counted on being able to sell you another copy of what you'd already bought. The lack of a new physical distribution medium to replace CD together with the arrival of the means for users to rip the CD and transfer it to whatever digital store they want has hit them badly.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Why stop there?

"20 years ago, adobe would have tanked, not on technology, but on customer-perception"

For some of us all that stuff has already tanked, at least as far as we can avoid it. With FOSS we can avoid a very great deal of it and take a view on what of the rest we actually need.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: DRM should be banned

"calibre itself works on Mac and Windows"

As well as on Linux? Live and learn.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: That's not only DRM, it's the whole subscription model...

"BTW, Idera/Embacardero, the company actually owner of Delphi/C++ Builder, no longer bumps the installation counters for old versions you actually bought (perpetual licenses), unless you buy one of their very expensive maintenance plans that became compulsory with the recent versions."

Free Pascal & Lazarus. Bye bye Windows, bye by Embacardero

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Par for the course

"Okay it might just be my interest in poetry but the point is you don't have to pay."

There's a certain - shall we say poetic justice? - given that Burns was Scottish.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

"None of these consumer businesses are keen on clearly explaining the reality of digital goods because, well, it may stop you from buying them in the first place."

Buying?

Sneaky fingerprinting script in Microsoft ad slips onto StackOverflow, against site policy

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

"you can take a single ad and see exactly how many people saw it, how many clicked on it, how many converted through it etc."

Can it also tell you how many were pissed off by seeing that ad yet again? How many were so pissed off they decided there and then that they'd never buy anything more from that advertiser?

Look again at what you wrote. Look carefully. Think about it. The only "data" in what you listed is the data the advertising industry uses to flog advertising services to the clients. What's more they're probably charging the clients to be provided with that "data".

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

"although it looks like a static banner advertising Microsoft Azure with a link, the fingerprinting code is running in the background."

And what do Microsoft have to say about it?

Let me guess:

Rogue 3rd party advertising agency.

A former member of staff.

We take your/cusotmers'/the Universe's privacy seriously.

Only a few people affected.

Lessons learned.

Steps taken to prevent a repeat.

Next time it'll be better obfuscated - oops, that's what we really meant but it slipped out accidentally.

Stop using that MacBook Pro RIGHT NOW, says Uncle Sam: Loyalists suffer burns, smoke inhalation and worse – those crappy keyboards

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Re: Hot Pies

"Then the more senior girls were given Marchants (which could multiply) but had a huge moving register,"

They could also divide which, with the moving register, was even more fun. We used those for statistics when I was a student (yes,it was a long time ago). They shuffled themselves along the bench doing division.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Don't go back to Windows!

"due to seller somehow missing the Win10 upgrade time period and not wanting to be stuck with Windows 8"

AKA dodging the bullet.

But Linux is, of course, the right way to go.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: A crazy idea

"Cook has decided it's more profitable to have them unrepairable and unupgradable, so that's what he does."

But is it more profitable in the long run? These recalls must be eating into the margin that was made on the original sales.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: A crazy idea

"Jony Ives is gone."

Coincidence?

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

"when you buy a computer from them, it stops being their property and starts being the property of the buyer"

Any tech vendor will tell you this view is a hangover from a primitive economy. In Industrial Economy 2.0 what's yours is theirs. Come to that, you are also theirs.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: Customer service?

"some designers need serious reeducation."

And have for some time. It was just possible to change a headlight bulb on my '90s Legacy but the clearance between the back of the headlight and the windscreen washer bottle - or was it the coolant bottle? - made it very awkward. Designers of any piece of machinery should be required to do a strip and rebuild of the prototypes of their products.

Google's reCAPTCHA favors – you guessed it – Google: Duh, only a bot would refuse to sign into the Chocolate Factory

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"To me, it feels like Google's entire strategy behind reCAPTCHA anything is to make it harder to protect your privacy,"

FTFY

Suspected dark-web meth dealers caught by, er, 'using real address' when buying stamps

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It takes time to investigate. The dumb ones will leave themselves open and eventually get caught. They're the ones you hear about. The brighter (or maybe just more lucky ones) cover their tracks more effectively, don't get caught and make more money.

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But..but..but...Think of the cost!

How do you know it's finally the weekend? Clock hits 5pm? No, Slack goes down on a Friday afternoon in June

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Do Mattermost ( https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/06/19/mattermost_50m/ ) still think Slack validates chat S/W?

UK.gov pledges probe into tourists' 'motivations'

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The most feared sentence in business: "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."

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Re: I have no idea how the UK intends to do this

Alternative version.

Perhaps it's best to learn how to walk before learning how to run tripping over your own feet.

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Maybe she feels a need to try to over-correct on the hostile environment bit.

OTOH what I've read about the US would persuade me never to go there for any reason whatsoever.

Could an AI android live forever? What, like your other IT devices?

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Snap. I think it was the context of the previous comment that did it. It also reminded me that SWMBO was supposed to feed the grand-children's rabbits this morning. Quick check to see if she'd remembered; thank goodness she had.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: At BenDwire, re: the CD of the month club.

"Book clubs, music clubs and all manner of mail-order companies were a total nightmare to deal with."

My solution with someone who, despite several "not at this address" returns was to ring them and tell them that my handling charge for future returns would be £10 a time, I would invoice and would go to the small claims court. They stopped.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

My experience with house moves has been that stuff has disappeared when you get to unpack in the new house but stuff from the house before or even before that reappears for the first time in years. My theory is that they were in the last house in a parallel universe but have now crossed back.

Packing cases are portals between the said parallel universes.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

"defective micro-USB connectors"

Is there any other kind? Apart, of course, from the wrong one.

One teeensy little 13-minute power cut, and WD you look at the size of that chip supply cut!

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Re: What?

You mean like the bit in the article that says "Micron is cutting its flash chip production, reducing wafer starts by 10 per cent"?

I too wonder if Micron will cut its cuts.

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Re: Maybe I am cynical...

If there's a current oversupply then presumably there is stuff in warehouses to sell.

Philips kills dependence on its Hue hub, pointing to a Bluetooth world

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Why not do without Zigbee, Bluetooth, Hub and the lot? Just switch it on and off at the wall.

But what we really want to know is whether they've outdone GE in the reset competition.

In Rust we trust: Brave smashes speed limit after rewriting ad-block engine in super-lang

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Re: Lost cause

"You can't force people to look at something they don't want to look at."

Maybe, maybe not, but succeeding in at least shoving it in front of them is going to be counter-productive. But, as I keep saying, the advertising industry is only interested in selling advertising, not its clients' products.

BOFH: What's Near Field Implementation? Oh, you'll see. Turn left here

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That's a lot of well-informed questions for someone in the coloured pencil department. No wonder he had to go.

UK's MoD is helping itself to cops' fingerprint database 'unlawfully', rules biometrics chief

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Re: Different Rules

That would be a police matter so if the fingerprints are on the police database they would be found by the police who are entitled to have access. It's what the system is there for.

Sorry, you failed your straw man construction test.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: You are never going to rein this in, so a different approach is needed.

"Let them do their worst with the data. But ensure that courts only accept legally obtained and processed evidence."

Does that mean that if your neighbour who happens to have access decides to check up you and your friends that's OK because it's just for private consumption and not going to go near the courts?

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

It's no use just sitting there saying this or that was done illegally. It's also of dubious use saying it was this or that public body. If something was being done illegally there should be prosecutions of the individuals responsible. A charge of misfeasance in public office could be used if there is no specific charge available.

The Eldritch Horror of Date Formatting is visited upon Tesco

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"Throw all modern medicine and other benefits away"

Especially when they reach their "Use by" date.

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Re: Call me a snob, but...

1988. Wasn't that about the time when Perrier had benzene in it?

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Re: Dates? Don't talk to me about dates...

Suite, dammit!

Bonkers British MPs rant: 5G signals cause cancer

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There's a good argument to be made for requiring a fitness to govern test for anyone aspiring to public office at any level from local govt. upwards.

There used to be an exam for candidates for the Civil Service but any fool could, and often did, get into Parliament. Perhaps it's time to bring that back, at least for positions of administrative responsibility and require candidates for public office to pass it. Maybe retest periodically at age 70 & above.

PPE graduates should, of course, undergo substantial retraining before being allowed to even take the test.

Doctor Syntax Silver badge

Re: every new cellular technology has been accompanied by cancer claims,

A suspicious looking skin lesion is just a suspicious looking skin lesion. It lacks the ability to claim anything.

Decoding America's spies: What does the NSA's cryptic memo really mean? Citizens illegally spied on again

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Re: Fill in the blanks

Some of these redactions seem to be aimed solely at covering the identity of the provider who the NSA are blaming for the excess. Name and shame. Or would the provider be liable to defend themselves with facts the NSA doesn't want to be released?

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