Posts by Doctor Syntax

England's COVID-tracking app finally goes live after 6 months of work – including backpedal on how to handle data

Re: Is the QR code check part of the app in a legal requirement for venues?

"Any data gathered via the QR coding cannot be pinpointed to an individual (supposedly)"

The way it works is that the device retains the QR code and the system periodically broadcasts a list of QR codes for tainted (in absence of a better word) premises. The app then matches this list against the codes it's gathered and warns the user so the data gathered from the QR codes never leaves the device. Allegedly. And by now I think HMG is well aware that it would never weather the consequences if it proved to be otherwise.

In fact I think they're missing a trick here. The app registers the user's home postcode and the system broadcasts lists of postcodes which are considered to be hotspots so it can warn the user if and when their own postcode is put on the list. There's no mention of the QR codes including the premises postcodes; if they did it could alert the user tot he fact thet they're now in a hotspot even if the particular premises aren't tainted.

Re: United? Kingdom

"Have you tried programming C# in welsh?"

I thought it was.

"I believe that humanity has never previously developed immunity to a coronavirus previously"

That's not a testable hypothesis. If it has the virus will now be extinct and we'd be none the wiser.

We do, however, have several coronaviruses that cause mild diseases*. What's the nature of this interaction? Did they start off as equally lethal and evolve to respond to some sort of control from the host so as not to kill off the latter?

* And the current coronavirus, like others, is not lethal in its original host.

Re: (thanks to Cummings)

Point taken. Nevertheless I think the Cummings incident and failure to deal with it was a turning point. Call it authority, respect, credibility or whatever; up to that point public opinion was supportive. Now Covidiots have a certain degree of licence. It will take a massive increase in death toll to get that support back.

Re: (thanks to Cummings)

Failing to sack Cummings on the spot once it emerged what he'd been up to was a gross error. HMG has lost a good deal of credibility.

Re: Never mind

So it's just a coincidence that figures show that when lockdown started earlier in the year R fell abruptly and started to climb gradually as it was eased in steps? What was that about "fuck facts"?

Re: UK

a significant number of older people "who don't like being told what to do".

That could become a self-limiting problem.

"Based on every I read and hear from the UK, there is no second wave, it is still in the ups and downs of the first wave."

I think this is a reasonable interpretation. Apply various mitigation measures, R goes down, disapply them R goes up. In this context "waves" seem to be more PR than anything else. AFAICS what's happening is that the govt. is trying to apply such measures and work out which have least adverse economic and political effects. The feedback from any change is sufficiently delayed that the level of infections will go up and down.

Braking point: Tesla has had quite enough of Trump's 'unlawful' tariffs on Chinese-made parts, sues Uncle Sam

Re: The Falling Out of Faithful Friends...

But was the advice taken?

TikTok seeks injunction to halt Trump ban, claims it would break America's own First and Fifth Amendments

Just sell them all the rights to TikTok in the US. Then just launch a new product called, say TickTock. Who remembers "The Empty Store" (Phil Silvers)?

Uncle Sam's legal eagles finally make up their mind on internet giants' Get Out Of Jail Free card – and it's not as bad as you may fear

Re: "anything unlawful"

There are other places? [exit US mode]

Frames per second? Windows Terminal brings back text animation with the VT100 blink

Re: VT100?

Sole purpose of Windows at one client: to maintain multiple terminal sessions on the Unix box.

Re: Ah... the good old VT220

"was once SOP but these days is regarded as a black art"

The two were not mutually exclusive. I take it you still have your RS-232 breakout box?

Re: I'll take a pass

We had Plessey (IIRC) look-alikes. They definitely had a |. And were amber.

Very nostalgic video. Some of the tests also reminded me of the UCSD p-System terminal set-up.

Re: I'll take a pass

"control and data acquisition with some very expensive analytical kit"

Yup. MicroNOVA running data-acquisition on the XRF attachment to a SEM. Definitely an expensive piece of kit.

Your latest security headache? Ed from accounting using his kid as an unpaid helpdesk

To reverse the situation, it's a long time since I had to do support for my daughter who arrived home with her dissertation on a Zip drive disk but no Zip drive.

Re: This One Time

If you bought watches in the plural you could have had her set one (or more) for standard time and one (or more) for daylight saving time. Just remember to switch watches as required.

Nice title, BYW.

Re: This whole working from home thing is an accident waiting to happen

Its only a matter of time before someone starts looking at working from home as "transferring a part of the business to a residential address".

Just acting on government instructions. They can be referred to Michael Gove if they want to argue.

Support might be construed to include giving some slightly more useful hints as to how to use it.

"it appears the consultancy wanted to demonstrate to youngsters how much money they could be making if they went for a career in IT (and, conveniently enough, consulting.)"

Hmmm.

If by "in consulting" you mean "working for a consultancy company" than that amount is going to be what the consultancy company makes whilst youngster gets paid minimal wage.

If you mean as freelance then things are better but don't forget that until the youngster's well enough established to get repeat business and new business by word of mouth there'll be a pimp agency taking a cut, general costs of running a business, such as an accountant and insurance, and HMRC trying to rip them off by pretending it's not actually a business they're running.

Microsoft's OS joins macOS and Linux at the Flutter party, but guess which one performs best? Hint: It's not Windows

"Google will drop Dart "

Why break the habit of a lifetime?

FBI boasts of dark-web drug bust: 179 collared around the world, $6.5m in cash and 500kg of narcotics seized

Re: Not even a drop in the ocean

That's because Panorama got the gig which fact got splashed all over bbc.co.uk/news. The Beeb is enough to be its own competition.

Microsoft leaks 6.5TB in Bing search data via unsecured Elastic server. *Insert 'Wow... that much?' joke here*

"simplified privacy controls"

None.

What could be simpler?

.uk registry operator Nominet responds to renewed criticism – by silencing its critics

Re: ICO

Be very careful what you wish for. You might get it.

Do you really want a BoJo, a Cummings, a Corbyn*, a Gove, a Rees-Mogg or any of the rest of the rogues gallery running the internet in the UK?

Various governments have wanted to get their hands on the net, usually via the ITU. Fortunately the ITU has managed to fend them off. Read about it by searching for el Reg's articles on it.

The existing governance might bot be ideal but there seem to be commentards here who want something worse. A lot worse.

* Under your idea it could have come to that.

Re: "legally, a member-based non-profit organisation"

Private companies are owned by their members. They must have an AGM at which members can vote. If a majority of the holders of membership voting rights choose to vote the old board out of office and vote in a replacement that's the end of the old board and all its policies. The board can dismiss company management including the CEO if they wish.

Unless one member controls most of the votes that's a long way away from being a dictatorship.

But don't let facts get in the way of an internet post.

That would be a pyrrhic victory.

"even then they would probably just nationalize it and put Baroness Harding in charge."

One reason for keeping it away from government.

As you say, it's answerable to its members and the members have an opportunity to vote on the board at the next AGM. They also have the right to propose their own candidates as replacements for the board. Of all the companies in the UK it's harder to think of any that have a better ability to get together online behind the managements back to do just that.

But should this really be a government function? On the whole I think that the less governments have their hands on the net the better.

China sets out world domination plan for its digital currency

Re: And so begins the middle game

How much US debt does China hold now? In terms of US GDP?

We're not getting back with Galileo, UK govt tells The Reg, as question marks sprout above its BS*

Re: Two chocolate teapots

"It's surprising that Trump hasn't already turned GPS accuracy down to hundreds of metres over Europe"

I think you attribute too much technical knowledge to him.

She was praised by the CEO and promoted. After her brother and mom died, she returned from compassionate leave. IBM laid her off

Re: Old~ish joke

Can't See Shit is more likely to mean Youngish.

The first ageism I encountered was at an interview at Dell. First question: "You're 32. The average age here is 27 - do you really think you could fit in?"

Correct response: "Plus or minus what?"

Re: Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM

Except for choosing to work there.

Re: Double-edged sword - A few years later

"In general the older employees cost more and tended to be harder to control."

Certainly after a few trips round the (de)motivation course most people with a working brain recognise the BS for what it is. They also are experienced in whatever it is they do and don't really need control. The only people to whom this is a problem are those whose salaries and/or self-esteem depending on controlling them.

"Younger employees lack inexperience"

Oops"

"but they tend to have more energy and lower wages."

Energy is a trade-off with the efficiency that knowing the job brings and wages for them are a trade-off with the payments for the manglers whose sole role is to tell those who already know what they're doing what to do.

"If I were running a business with an aging workforce, I'd probably be tempted to swap them out too."

I wonder.....

Re: BTDT.

"employer had decided at the last minute to *phone in* rather than show in person as required by the judge"

One judge I remember would probably have sent an officer of the court, accompanied by sufficient police as would have been needed, to bring him in to face a charge of contempt of court.

UK govt urged to bolt tough legal protections onto Arm and protect jobs – or simply veto Nvidia's £31bn acquisition

Re: Like you think this government has an *actual* "Industrial Policy"

"The market, the whole market and nothing" but the market has been UK Govt mantra since the Adoration of the Blessed Maggie in 1979.

It might have escaped your notice but your favourite hate figure is the only UK prime minister we've ever had (one one of only a few ministers overall) with a STEM background.

Re: Little leverage left

"Well, Donald Trump seems to be able to force the sale of a Chinese company to an American one"

Actually, no. All he had was the ability to make it difficult for a Chinese company to operate its US arm in certain circumstances.

Re: "Afterwards we whine because Europe has no tech industry "

"You voted to leave "Europe" in 2016."

Oh no I didn't.

Re: Why sell Arm anyway ?

OK. You're paranoid.

Microsoft will release a web browser for Linux next month. Repeat, Microsoft will release a browser for Linux – and it uses Google's technology

From a user's point of view:

Why?

Before you buy that managed Netgear switch, be aware you may need to create a cloud account to use its full UI

Re: Vote with your wallet

And in the UK mention Trade Descriptions Act whilst returning it.

Re: So.o.o.o.o.o.o 2014..............

"Why would ANYONE (never mind an enterprise customer) put up with network management via a third party cloud?"

Non-technical management. And as Cloud is the new shiny they may possibly believe this is a Good Thing. Maybe Netgear aren't as stupid as we think.

If it's a corporate purchase no PII would be needed.

If it's a new purchase was that term mentioned in the original specification? If so, buy somewhere else or if you've already bought learn to read specs more closely. If not it gets bundled straight back as not meeting specification.

If it's something that appears in a S/W upgrade to existing kit then read the licence terms very carefully and vote with your feet for future purposes, making sure your salesdroid knows that's what will happen.

GNOME alone: FOSS desktop folk to start counting in whole numbers again

Re: Point releases are obsolete.

"With everything moving to continuous integration and continuous delivery, point releases no longer make sense"

Point releases show that the grown-ups are still in charge. Nobody on the user side asked for continuous delivery.

"Come on people ... it is the current year."

Yes, but what current year? The year number only advances when there's a full year's worth of updates. ATM it's 2020.09.22. We didn't advance to 2021 on Jan 2nd, 2022 on Jan 3rd etc.

Re: "especially from an engagement and marketing perspective"

"the desktop has become a more iterative experience, a continuously developing thing which isn't necessarily bound by maintaining backwards compatibility."

Too true. Some of us like backwards compatibility in things like continuing to be usable, not chucking out functionality, not slurping data to a mother ship somewhere and not suddenly starting to show advertising. We also like backwards compatibility for the under-pinnings, the libraries which applications rely on to display on the desktop.

Re: "especially from an engagement and marketing perspective"

"the entire premise of the article is that sub numbers get confusing"

And that's the problem. They aren't. A major release should indicate a change sufficient as to not be backwards compatible and minor numbers should reflect minor changes. We've lived with 3-part numbers - 3.8.2 and the like - for a long time. We've come to understand what the increments are likely to mean.

It's throwing all that away that is confusing. Will a change from 137 to 138 be equivalent to 4.11.2 to 4.11.3 or 4.11.2 to 5.0 in old money? Will it signal a change of underlying GTK version?

I think Jake's put his finger on it - marketing's in charge.

Adidas now stands for All Day I'm Disconnecting All Servers as owners of 'smart' Libra scales furious over bricked kit

"The problem with most IoT products isn't necessarily that they rely on back-end servers to run. It's that, for the most part, it's impossible to perceive the trajectory of a given company."

It's possible to make a reasonable estimate:

Does the operation of the server rely on continuing subscriptions?

If so then if the subscription operation is profitable it's likely to continue.

If not does it rely on the user as product?

If so then is that profitable? There are relatively few businesses that have succeeded. Even the past master at that model, Google, has a habit of discontinuing services. If it isn't profitable expect it to be shut down.

If it doesn't rely on a subscription or on user as product does it have some other income model?

If so, examine it carefully for credibility.

If not does it rely on burning through investors' money to run it?

If so expect it to be shut down once that's all burned.

If not it's dependent on sales of devices to keep it going. Once those fall off expect it to be shut down.

Contractor convicted of pinching supercomputer cycles to mine cryptocurrency

Re: Economics 101

You don't think it possible that they asked CSIRO?

'I don’t want to see another computer for the rest of my life'... Brit Dark Overlord cyber-extortionist thrown in an American clink for five years

Re: Five years - Not Enough

It seems light until you read that that's what the prosecution asked for. Maybe he's been co-operative in putting the finger on the rest of them.

Have no idea WTF is going on with the Oracle-Walmart TikTok deal? Don’t sweat it, here’s our latest rundown

What checks and balances exist on executive orders? What limits?