Posts by Doctor Syntax

University duo thought it would be cool to sneak bad code into Linux as an experiment. Of course, it absolutely backfired

Re: Time for an Audit?

The University should have immediately and voluntarily offered to pay for it. I would, at the very least, have given the appearnce of having some ethical sense.

Re: It touched the IRB - which is an alternate name for an ethics review board

So where's the ethics review board that deserves the name?

Re: A punitive sanction against the Uni for approving it

Perhaps the board should look on it as an attempt to QA the board's processes.

Re: Place your bets...

"If their careers are destroyed, no one did that but them!"

I have a sneaking suspicion that it will have enhanced their careers in a fairly restricted field. But in the wider industry it isn't going to enhance the University's reputation.

Re: Place your bets...

"and THEN banned the Uni, as the ethics committee refused to intervene."

When the department finally issued a statement it was the most anodyne they could have got away with. An apology at this stage would have been appropriate pending the results of an investigation.

Re: Place your bets...

First, remember that Linux gets used in a lot of places these days. It's critical infrastructure.

Second, if the sanity check I suggested test is too complicated for you here's a simpler one. What would your reaction be if you were the guinea pig in this research?

Re: Phew, glad they caught them.

But too much like hard work, maybe.

Re: This All Falls Under The Category Of...

One Streisand effect will happen when recruiters see "University of Minnesota" on candidate CVs.

Re: TITSUP

I think "Inclination" fits better than "Inability".

Re: If these things never became commits, then whats being reverted ?

And should that double checking be necessary?

Re: If these things never became commits, then whats being reverted ?

Bragging about this in their prospectus wouldn't look too good anyway. Admitting it would be ethical - it would tell the candidates to look elsewhere if they don't want the University's reputation hung around their necks when they graduate. But it seems their motto is "Any way but Ethics".

Re: Serves the UMn ethics committee right

Did it even touch an ethics committee? Assuming there is one that deserves the name.

Re: Touchy, aren't they?

They're probably doing prank hold-ups to post on YouTube.

Re: A punitive sanction against the Uni for approving it

"Yes, I know some open source coders do get financial support - but not many."

Don't confuse number of contributors with number of contributions, at least as far as the Linux kernel is concerned. There are regular reports on who writes the Linux kernel. The top contributors in terms of actual material contributed are corporate.

Re: Place your bets...

"It is clear that these guys are not bad guys."

It's far from clear that these guys are not bad guys. It's very clear that anything they've contributed is not to be trusted which is why Greg K-H has been put to the trouble of stripping it all out.

And what, now, is going to be the value of a University of Minnesota CS degree after the department has trashed its reputation?

Re: Place your bets...

Consider the medical science equivalent. Replace "Linux community" with "ppTRA" and "buggy updates" with "pathogen". Now do you see the ethical problem?

Microsoft loves Linux – as in, it loves Linux users running Linux desktop apps on Windows PCs

Re: Want more integration

OK, let me give a more considered answer which yes and no.

The skills you have as a Windows admin or whatever are in wide demand but a lot of people have them. They're a commodity to be traded, at least that's the way agencies and HR will look at them and at the people who have them. Wages will stagnate because there's always somebody who hasn't got a job will take your job at a low wage.

So, yes, your response should be to teach yourself new stuff but no, not so you can stay in the low wage trap. You do it to get out of that trap. What you need is to know stuff that's just coming into demand but that relatively few people have.

You also have to remember that the new stuff you learn will become a commodity skill in due course by which time you need to be somewhere else.

Re: Yes, of course

"and i replied no (obviously)"

Not at all obviously. The correct answer is that there's no need.

Re: Want more integration

"Or we could just provide the bear minimum, much like the salary offering"

It sounds like a grizzly fate.

Re: Want more integration

"Next up I dream of Git integration in Windows"

Remember who owns GitHub and be careful of what you wish for.

Re: Yes, of course

"Yes it has, but if KDE suited people's needs then they wouldn't be running Windows."

Which is exactly why I run it on Linux and have also run it on Free BSD.

"Linux users running Linux desktop apps on Windows PCs"

Linux users know it's best to cut out the middle man.

Huawei wins big intellectual property case in Europe – against fashion house Chanel

" a tub of moisturiser that inexplicably costs around $100."

Nothing inexplicable. The target market wouldn't buy anything at a price anywhere near cost of production plus reasonable mark-up. It would would damage their self-image. The value is based on the price, not the other way around.

Signal app's Moxie says it's possible to sabotage Cellebrite's phone-probing tools with booby-trapped file

Re: On a more serious note...

That's clearly implied in the story.

However, if Signal start providing booby-trapped files as part of the installation all Celebrite have to do to find out what the exploits are is to install Signal on a phone and that gives them a test-bed.

Re: "We have strict licensing policies that govern how customers are permitted to use etc"

It's always best to remember that people who write statements like that aren't always lying - they just know how to write English so that it has to be carefully construed to get its true meaning. The strictness doesn't need to be applied to the policy, not even to the licence. It needs to be applied to the enforcement.

And another instance of el Reg allowing the length of a title, extending it automatically when it's quoted and then declaring their ow extended title too long.

Ah, you know what? Keep your crappy space station, we're gonna try to make our own, Russia tells world

"And the only launch pad for it is Plesetsk, which is high-latitude. Until they build a pad for it at Baikonur or Vostochniy, it's basically useless for most commercial launches."

TFA mentions monitoring Arctic waters. High latitude is no problem for polar orbits.

Re: Keep your crappy space station, we're gonna try to make our own

Just be careful where you drill the holes. OK?

US Army develops natural-language voice-command AI for robots, tanks, etc. For search'n'rescue. For now

Will the naval version understand "Left hand down a bit"?

Would be so cool if everyone normalized these pesky data leaks, says data-leaking Facebook in leaked memo

Re: Genuinely curious....

Facebook are arguing to legitimise this use of personal data. In the EU and even in the post-EU UK GDPR illegitimatises it. Bring on the 4% - in each jurisdiction.

a spokesperson said: "It shouldn’t surprise anyone that our internal documents reflect what we’ve said publicly."

And then said it publicly so as to validate the statement.

Microsoft revokes MVP status of developer who tweeted complaint about request to promote SQL-on-Azure

"Your humble vulture"

Vultures humble? Surely not.

Re: Go get 'em, Lawyers!

I was thinking more in terms of go get 'em Streisand.

China has a satellite with an arm – and America worries it could be used to snatch other spacecraft

Re: Beat that!

"Thus leading to an arms race in space."

Arm wrestling in spaaace!

Brit authorities could legally do an FBI and scrub malware from compromised boxen without your knowledge

"you still haven't done anything that addresses the problem which is that it is 1) a profitable and low risk form of crime and 2) leaving servers unpatched is cost effective. Change that balance and the problem goes away."

I haven't done anything to stop it? You are the one that's complaining about a mechanism to stop it. If you go back, look what I suggested and have a little think about it you'll realise that it makes patching servers cost effective. Keep the server patched and you don't have a problem, leave it unpatched and you do.

Where's your suggestion to change the balance? Something slightly more severe than a slap on the wrist? Probably still cheaper that paying a good admin to keep an eye on things.

The suggestion that "next week it will be something else" is pure fantasy on your part. What was suggested would need legislation. Legislation does not get changed to "something else" in a week nor does it get changed easily.

And you still haven't said whether you prefer the authorities to break into the system to remediate which was what the article was about.

"A company wants to publish information embarrassing to the government de jour"

The issue is malware. I think you're stretching the definition of malware a little more than warranted to include publishing information embarrassing to the government.

The alternative being posited was for the authorities to step in invasively to fix servers. Do you prefer that?

A better option would be the power to instruct the operators (the business owners, not the techies) to take it off-line forthwith until it's rectified. Add a backup power to tell the operator's ISP to remove internet connection if a response isn't forthcoming. Such a power would cover DDOS botnet members and the like. The downside is that it would give ammo to the "This is Microsoft" outfits but they need to be dealt with in any case.

Brit Salesforce exec Gavin Patterson becomes transfer target for controversial European Super League

"being paid millions for doing very little"

What do you mean "doing very little"? Have you never thought how much busy work goes into constant reorganisation of the company?

'There was no one driving that vehicle': Texas cops suspect Autopilot involved after two men killed in Tesla crash

Perhaps Tesla should name its cars after famous biologists. Darwin would be a good starting point.

UK digital secretary Oliver Dowden starts national security probe into proposed Arm-Nvidia merger

Better late than never but better never five years late.

Truth and consequences for enterprise AI as EU know who goes legal: GDPR of everything from chatbots to machine learning

"That’ll make marketing think twice."

Once would be a good start.

Adobe co-founder and PostScript co-creator Charles Geschke dies, aged 81

"Geschke was just continuing the family business: his father and grandfather were letterpress photo engravers."

Love it!

You want a reboot? I'll give you a reboot! Happy now?

The person who deserved the real bollocking was the mico-managing manager. Very likely, however, she didn't even recognise it as a learning opportunity, at least, not for her.

Re: Hands up, intentional mixup

I've always thought a good response to bean counters wanting to put a figure on the value of some system would be "Shall we switch it off and find out?"

Re: Background

It works in user territory as well. Several systems, all running similar backgrounds but against different databases. They were set up with different background images.

How not to apply for a new job: Apply for it on a job site

Re: How not to find anything on the web : look for it with a search engine

What's needed is a search engine that scrapes Google but binning anything on the top 5 pages or so.

Pigeon fanciers in a flap over Brexit quarantine flock-up, seek exemption from EU laws

Re: "This will kill the sport"

"In some parts of the word the betting syndicates around pigeon racing turn over as much as horse racing in the UK."

It's called having a flutter.

The absence of evidence might be a practical problem.

Re: Brexit.

"I'd argue it's back to the 1950s"

Specifically pre-Suez.

Re: Seriously?

"The paramilitaries in NI will use any situation to justify violence and boost their criminal activities."

For a long time they've been denied that opportunity but BoJo has handed them that one.

To some extent PSNI seem to have been handed the dirty end of the stick. it's a variation on the owing the bank money situation: you break COVID restrictions; you have a problem, 2000 people break COVID restrictions, the police have a problem. However, you're right in that the politicians who went to the funeral have to shoulder some of the blame.

Re: Seriously?

"You may have realised that the British government has put potential future trade with the US which is thousands of miles away above real actual trade and social stability with one of its own countries in its own union."

And failed because Biden is pro-peace process so isn't likely to be impressed by the mess that's developing.