Posts by Doctor Syntax

Google: Linux kernel and its toolchains are underinvested by at least 100 engineers

How many times do we have to say this? By far the greatest part of the Linux kernel comes from the contributions of these companies. Intel, Red Hat/IBM, Google etc.

The practicalities are not tricky. For Intel, for instance, they're helping to create a market for cores. For others they're able to help create something better then they could if they worked independently. It's collaborative development that benefits everyone. They can see the benefits even if you can't. If it didn't work like that it wouldn't exist.

The Android kernel is Linux. A good chunk of Linux kernel contributions are from Google.

Re: Google will take control over Linux

"Ultimately, they will introduce security features that fit their requirements."

And everyone else's, therefore. That's the point of collaborative development.

"projects that are exterior to Google"

Given that they're contributors to Linux this doesn't really make sense. It's like saying Linux is exterior to Intel, Red Hat and all the others. There seems to be a mind-set that doesn't grasp that the Linux kernel is to a large extent a shared project between a number of large corporations who compete at one level and yet gain by collaborative development.

It may help that the gatekeepers such a Linus and Greg K-H aren't employees of any of them and can thus be even-handed about what goes in.

Re: Fork It

Given that they're substantial contributors to the kernel why should they do that?

Re: Fool

I've re-read FIA's post again. I still can't see where he says he expects "the community to identify and fix the bugs in [his] code". Perhaps you could point that out.

Leeds City Council swallows the Gartner glossary and orders up 'post-modern' ERP in £44m SAP replacement

On the good side, they're not my local council.. On the down side, mine are probably as bad. And who knows what this new West Yorks body with its elected mayor will be like?

Nuisance call-blocking firm fined £170,000 for making almost 200,000 nuisance calls

AFAIK there are powers in the UK to deal with a banned director operating through through proxies like that. Assuming those whose names are on the notepaper know about it they'd be in trouble as well.

Yes, they're obviously a load of motions.

Undebug my heart: Using Cisco's IOS to take down capitalism – accidentally

"Mort" Nice one given that he killed the network.

Re: "he had clearly accidentally fired off every possible debug command at once"

Terminal text sent a packet at a time plus packet loss - which was the problem he was trying to debug.

Australian court rules an AI can be considered an inventor on patent filings

Re: Scam

WHy bother with a script? Just send in an application for the set of everything that hasn't yet been patented.

Re: Do machines have rights now?

And how does it open a bank account to collect the royalties or, alternatively assign the patent to a human or corporation that can?

Re: AI can be an inventor

"Surely one of the tests of artificial intelligence is that we *can’t* say how it comes to its decisions."

Does that mean a random number generator is AI?

We can't believe people use browsers to manage their passwords, says maker of password management tools

I certainly agree with A. B is a bit of a problem because it ensures that if the authentication is breached then it opens up too much. It also means that it might mean, as a previous post suggested, that you can't get through to get access restored if authentication fails.

Re: In the year of our lord?

That's one that's always struck me as trying to duck the issue, pretending to ignore what it doesn't want to say but not really doing so.

In fact Dionysius seems to have been somewhat arbitrary in his designation. It's also a pity he was using Roman numerals, one reason why he couldn't incorporate a year zero which is apt to introduce either off-by one errors or make the results look odd when expressing C14 dates in both years BP [before Present] and BC. C14 dating, BTW, takes 1950 as its reference year.

"A tool should integrated into the system conventions as well as possible... so you don't need insecure dirty clipboard tricks to enter passwords into forms."

Clipboards aren't integrated into the OS?

Re: Please explain

For a start the one in Firefox wouldn't be much use when I'm using Palemoon (which is, BTW, set up to forget all its history when closed) and the one in Palemoon wouldn't be much use when I'm using Seamonkey and none of them on this laptop would be much use when I'm using one of the others. The separate keepassxc database can be synced as and when needed between systems.

Re: I can

What is this keepaswc of which you ramble? It doesn't sound anything like the one running here.

Re: In the year of our lord?

So what's your reference year?

Re: password managers

You can memorise something like ^>~\)z%c+L3",4S' ?

Re: password managers

It depends on where the password manager is. In my case it's not on somebody else's computer.

Re: Mixed model

From my PoV finance passwords can't be kept in my head - they look more like line noise.

Here's 30 servers Russian intelligence uses to fling malware at the West, beams RiskIQ

Re: if you know the suspect addresses

If the addresses hosting the VMs are blocked then either the operators stop hosting them (probably not an easy decision to make) or the other commercial customers go elsewhere. Maybe they'll turn out to not be very commercial hosting businesses after all.

HP Inc slurps Teradici to get better at delivering remote PCs

"The company's approach means that no data moves over networks – just bitmaps."

What about keyboard input? Does it send bitmaps of the keys?

Euro watchdog will try to extract $900m from Amazon for breaking data privacy laws

Given the ever decreasing signal to noise ratio of search results it would be pretty hard going to prove that Amazon made use of any information of any sort.

BOFH: They say you either love it or you hate it. We can confirm you're going to hate it

Re: offline backups on the recovery laptop?

You're asking the wrong question. How big was the laptop?

Re: Deja vu!

I don't think the PC/network guys actually let anything run - they were complaining about what was coming at them. From my PoV HP-UX mail was strictly ASCII.

Re: Spatter shields deployed.

"Now to continue with the rest of the reading, safely not drinking anything."

It's BOFH. You should know better than to eat or drink whilst reading.

Re: Deja vu!

My experience was somewhat the converse of that. Also in a telecoms company in Leeds. There was another building with some consultants working on something or other that, AFAIK, never happened but they were using Notes. According to those in our building who had dealings with them the emails coming from the Notes users were regularly infected.

Re: Incredibly sloppy BOFH's

I see we share the same suspicions.

Re: So he was "visiting" during working hours

Not being allowed doesn't mean it can't happen, just that it shouldn't. Not being able to is a different matter.

Re: Who said anything…

Or having the charger disconnected?

London class-action sueball against Google is a lot like Epic's case except fandroids might win enough for a pint

I suppose that having someone front for them Vannin are protected against being declared vexatious litigants.

On this most auspicious of days, we ask: How many sysadmins does it take to change a lightbulb?

This is all very well providing it doesn't conflict with a task that is more important and/or urgent, especially if the latter is something properly in your remit and the former isn't. The underlying problem usually arises from someone unable to distinguish from the importance of your proper work and their own self-importance.

Re: "It has a cord attached so it's YOUR problem."

"It's breathing"

That's the problem but it can be dealt with.

Re: First and only thought

"I presented a costed analysis on the waste of our time, which fell on deaf ears."

There's a lot to be set for internal invoicing. It might have happened once. After the charge hit the facilities account it wouldn't happen again.

You MUST present your official ID (but only the one that's really easy to fake)

I thought it was somebody not taking his pills. Again.

Re: but there is logic

It probably helps with having a professional reputation established before a change of marital status. My daughter's publications were in her married name which she kept on divorce whereas my cousin's daughter has reverted to her maiden name.

At least my daughter hasn't, at least as yet, remarried. Years ago one archaeologist, having become established in her married name (to another archaeologist) kept using it on remarriage. A journalist for the Irish Times who didn't see eye-to-eye with her on some matters referred to her in print on at least one occasion as "Mrs $CurrentMarriedName writing as $FormerMarriedName".

Compare this with the NHS system for recording a negative lateral flow test which doesn't actually require that the test was negative nor, indeed, taken. All that's required is the serial number of a test strip.

As regards personal ID I read in another place that the much vaunted Estonian electronic ID system has been reamed out to the extend of about quarter of a million ID photos.

Giant Tesla battery providing explosion in renewable energy – not as intended

Re: Entropy says no.

And a fire in a hydrogen storage battery is likely to be over before the fire-crews get there. Good luck stopping it spreading to the adjacent units - and beyond.

International Space Station stabilizes after just-docked Russian module suddenly fires thrusters

Re: System Integration is Hard. In Space it is Harder.

" A 'great' landing is one after which they can use the plane again."

But what about one where you don't want to use it again but accidentally do?

Great reset? More like Fake Reset: Leaders need a reality check if they think their best staff will give up hybrid work

Re: Going on-site has certainly been made redundant in IT

"Likewise, we had a dodgy SIP router that needed regular rebooting, how are you going to do that, from the outside? "

Do what you should have done already - get it fixed or get it replaced.

Re: Going on-site has certainly been made redundant in IT

"there are a few issues with outsourced workers which companies know about"

Which some companies know about. There seem to be some who don't, or perhaps just don't care.

NFT or not to NFT: Steve Jobs' first job application auction shows physically unique beats cryptographically unique

Perhaps NFTs are an idea whose time has gone.

NoSQL Couchbase launches schema-like features to take on the transactional databases of the relational world

In the Couchbase world, a database is a "bucket," a schema is a "scope," a table is a "collection," a row is a "document," and the column is a "feed."

Oh, wonderful. Marathon/Informix went through three lots of vocabulary for the same concepts over a very few years about 4 decades ago. Will Couchbase also end up using the industry standard?

Ex-health secretary said 'vast majority' were 'onside' with GP data grab. Consumer champion Which? reckons 20 million don't even know what it is

I keep getting pinged by SMS spam, allegedly by my GP, to go to a site to enter ethnicity data. A phone call to the GP confirms that this if kosher within a very restricted sense - it's the NHS that requires it and I suspect it's they rather than the GP who are doing the pinging. There are a lot of issues with it, not the least is that the URL goes to a site (of which I'd never heard) and includes a code that goes straight to a page which greets me by name.

Yes, that old, crusty, noob security hole. I've no idea how sparse the code space might be but it looks likely that a bit of experimentation with variations would pull up someone else's details - what details there might be I don't know because I haven't pursued beyond the greeting page for my own code let alone trying anyone else's.

I'd have hoped that these days the work experience child responsible - surely nobody more experienced would have done this - would have been quietly advised by an intern to have another go and do better, but no, it's released for use. Perhaps there's scope for a bit of investigative journalism here. Hint.

Re: Dentistry?

"No problems, since you ask"

I'm more likely to ask "How?" as the local dentists are almost entirely just dealing with emergencies, allegedly because NHS is limiting the numbers of inspections they're doing.

Over 100 Taiwanese political figures' messages leaked outta LINE app

That'll be a few politicians who can see the consequences of unencrypted communications. Will they see the solution as one that should apply only to themselves?

eBay ex-security boss sent down for 18 months for cyber-stalking, witness tampering

Re: "As a result of being drunk, Mr Cooke did not fully comprehend"

It would have been an excuse he'd heard many times in his police career. It's surprising he didn't come up with something better - although that might have been difficult.