Posts by Doctor Syntax

There are already Chinese components in your pocket – so why fret about 5G gear?

Re: “UK is now a sea of calm"

I was never a fan of British Snail, especially back in the days when I used to commute on the Chiltern Line but right back when privatisation happened it was obvious that separating the infra-structure from the service provider was a bad mistake. Not having control of the rails it runs on has certainly been one of Northern Rail's problems. None of its underlying problems are going to go away in March and the new operator is going to inherit them although eventually the new rolling stock is going to get delivered.

Re: "It is perfectly possible for the West [..] to decide on a coherent policy"

"he is a somewhat authoritarian president, but far from a rabid dictator."

Should we settle on "kleptocrat"?

Re: those concerns might also edge towards paranoia

Actually that's a good use of the Oxford comma. By preceding the "and" which introduces the last item of the list it distinguishes it from the "and" ("politicians and their advisors") which forms part of that last item.

Re: Standards?

From the article: Things like software updates and security patches can be mandated as auditable, with source code disclosure and local recompilation made part of the cost of doing business. "No binary blobs" shall be, if not the whole of the law, certainly one of its commandments.

Re: "It is perfectly possible for the West [..] to decide on a coherent policy"

And on a smaller scale our lot are also about divisiveness. Yes a coherent policy could be put together but not in current circumstances.

So you locked your backups away for years, huh? Allow me to introduce my colleagues, Brute, Force and Ignorance

Re: Alas

There's so much left unsaid here.

Gin and gone-ic: Rometty out as IBM CEO, cloud supremo Arvind Krishna takes over, Red Hat boss is president

Re: It's hard to believe that...

Ah, but with the PC they also put themselves in charge of the next big thing in computing and that went very ... oh, they bungled that one too.

Investors got the message a long time ago: "share price declined about 26 per cent while the S&P 500 surged 160 per cent and the NASDAQ Composite Index rose 257 per cent".

It seems to have been the board that wasn't getting messages.

Will Asimov fix my doorbell? There should be a law about this

Re: Infographics

"the most sophisticated domestic appliance was a saddle quern"

The loom?

Attempts to define international infosec rules of the road bogged down by endless talkshops, warn diplomats

It sounds as if it will take in incident that simultaneously ties up significant chunks of infrastructure in the US, Russia & China. Where's Blofeld when you need him? And where's the white cat icon?

Need 32-bit Linux to run past 2038? When version 5.6 of the kernel pops, you're in for a treat

Re: Again...

"Those CASIO wristwatches built in the 70's with permanent calendars are likely candidates, for example."

Permanent calendars are most likely to fail in 2120 when if they have a simple divisible by four rule for determining leap years. You should have kept your receipt.

Can we replace time_t with t_time?

At beer o'clock obviously.

Not call, dude: UK govt says guaranteed surcharge-free EU roaming will end after Brexit transition period. Brits left at the mercy of networks

Re: Transition Period?

"After tomorrow, we can sign what we like with anyone."

We can only sign what we agree with others. Reaching agreement depends on things like what the other side wants and doesn't want and the relative strengths of the two sides' negotiating position. And the capabilities of the negotiators. And the speed at which you want to sign it.

If you think we can automatically get what we like from anyone you've been seriously mislead. And it sounds as if you have.

Re: The Hidden Benefits of BREXIT

"Laws of unindended consequences and all that."

Only unintended by the voters.

Re: Transition Period?

"I am still at a loss to understand how a trade agreement negotiated up to the 11th hour can then be magically implemented as a new customs system in few minutes ready for the first of January."

That's no problem, HMG has cornered the market in unicorns and pixie-dust. But just think of all the businesses who'll have to cope with magicked-up customers system with no warning. Think especially of those in NI when Boris's reality distortion field finally breaks down.

Thunderbird is go: Mozilla's email client lands in a new nest

There's one area of UI that really needs work.

Hands up all those with users (of any client) storing their read mail in Trash/Deleted.

Hands up those with users - or themselves - storing read mail in the Inbox thumbs up icon is the nearest for myself).

Inbox should be for incoming, unread mail only. Trash is for stuff that's going to be deleted (end of day, over a certain age, over a certain byte limit - whatever). If you want to keep something about while you mull over it a Pending tray would be appropriate. For everything else we need a filing system that's a good deal better than the existing archive/filter system.

For instance instead of just using threading for display of linked emails in the same folder, make a folder for them.

- Automatically link sent and received emails that belong together instead of leaving sent in their own folder where they don't even get threaded with received emails for display.

- Automatically put mails to/from particular individuals, domains or addresses grouped in the address book into appropriate folders.

- Do that when the user moves onto a new mail in the Inbox if they didn't delete or pend the old one and do it with sent emails.

The papered office has known about manual filing for decades if not centuries; the paperless office (sic) should be able to automate it. Done well it might even be able to organise me.

The next step might be to extend that filing system for emails into a fully-fledged document management system covering emails and other documents.* If not done within the email client provide hooks for an external manager.

Yes, it might come as a shock so, as with any UI change, make it optional, at least for a long time, and don't default to it in the first releases.

* Remember that at least some of the documents relating to a topic will arrive as attachments, others won't but they need to be managed together.

Re: Thanks for the clarification, Smooth Newt

"Any email client that doesn't block remote images by default is not your friend."

Unless you're the sort of control-freak designer who thinks they should be able to control to the last detail what the recipient should see. I've even had the text of the email sent as an image - wrote back and pointed out that that wasn't friendly to those with poor eye-sight and depended on a screen reader and that, in turn, was contrary to their policies.

Re: I've stopped using it

"I'll take Thunderbird's 15-year old design over Outlook's current one any day of the week"

I'll take Seamonkey's even older design over TBird's.

Re: "Around 0.5% of emails opened in the 'bird today, apparently"

"I also like using Mutt."

I used to use Elm.

Re: flexibility and agility

"but we can easily move off it"

Or fork it.

Nevertheless management-speak like that does tend to suggest the worst.

Re: "Around 0.5% of emails opened in the 'bird today, apparently"

"% share is more important than the absolute number."

The total of those quoted is less than 18%. That leads to the suspicion that the great majority are opened in browsers with lots of links followed up blindly. Hello malware.

If only 3 in 100,000 cyber-crimes are prosecuted, why not train cops to bring these crooks to justice once and for all, suggests think-tank veep

"When a breach becomes public the response all too often is to blame the victim company."

Thinking like this makes you wonder why the banks bother to lock the doors at night.

Vendor-bender LibreOffice kicks out 6.4: Community project feel, though now with added auto-█████ tool

The non-overlap will be useful and oddly enough I was discussing QR codes in posters just the other day. However for now it'll just be a step up from 6.2 to 6.3

Re: Understatement

I don't remember even thinking "let's design a launcher".

It's been one day since Blighty OK'd Huawei for parts of 5G – and US politicians haven't overreacted at all. Wait, what? Surveillance state commies?

I see. That would be the US that totally didn't slip spyware into Cisco boxes being shipped abroad.

Let's be clear about this:

1. The US has form for shipping spyware.

2. Huawei have been obliged to have their code audited by GCHQ with a secure site being set up specifically for this purpose.

3. The audit complained about code quality but didn't find any evidence of what the US is claiming.

4. This is a trade dispute dressed up as security issue by a particularly aggressive POTUS.

5. Our rhetoric towards the US is dependent on its actions towards the rest of the world. If you think this is currently anti-US you should reflect on why and on the extent of making good his successor will be faced with.

Apparently Pompeo is coming over here. Why not take him to the HCSEC and get him to point out these back doors in the code. He obviously understands this stuff so much better than the guys doing the code audit.

Surely if it were that simple the whole thing could be done with your Dell boxes. Surely the whole point of this is that these systems are software defined. So once you've wiped your Huawei box what are you going to load it up with?

Re: Academics

Any big subject has lots of aspects. We need articles on all of them.

"The electorate decide what sort of country we will become, not foreign governments."

ROFLMAO.

The sort of country we become depends on reality. What the electorate decides merely affects what bit of reality we bump into and how hard.

Yes that'll work well.

Re: It isn't like

"and before the Chinese it was the Japanese, or Hong Kong, or wherever."

The wherever included the US. Only when they'd got their industries firmly established did they become interested in protecting IP.

Canadian insurer paid for ransomware decryptor. Now it's hunting the scum down

Re: Danegeld

The Domesday survey was essentially a survey for tax purposes. The term used was "geld" but no longer paying off Danes. e.g., from Scafe's translation of Yorkshire Domesday: " In Tatecastre (Tadcaster), Dunstan and Turchil had eight carucates of land for geld, where four ploughs may be."

Yes it was a poetic expression of an idea. But historically collection of geld by government long outlasted the original purpose.

Re: Danegeld

Unfortunately Kipling was wrong. We no longer have the Danes but we still have the geld (taxation). It's the tax collectors you never get rid of.

"unless they want to fall foul of the authorities where they operate."

Depending on where they operate falling foul might require no more than a brown envelope.

El Reg tries – and fails – to get its talons on a Brexit tea towel

Re: this towel

" Seems governments are making people miserable for their own good?"

Please disambiguate "their".

Re: A perfect demonstration of eccentric British understatement

As one of the old crusties with children and grandchildren to think about I hope to live to see that rejoining. However, as an alternative they all have their Irish passports and hence EU citizenship on account of said children having been born in NI.

In the meantime, stuff your ageism where the sun don't shine.

Re: RE: Haven't got time to check the details

It's worth remembering the Daily Wail fuss about our passports being made by the Germans. It was actually a privatised arm of the the old HMSO in the foreign land that is Oldham.

UN didn't patch SharePoint, got mega-hacked, covered it up, kept most staff in the dark, finally forced to admit it

What's 4% of the UN's annual turnover?

Only 6 ransomware attacks on the UK's NHS since WannaCry worm hit in 2017 – report

"That said, Comparitech's statistics are less valuable than they might be because the incidents are not weighted by their severity and scope."

Quite. What's a day's downtime? A day down on a PC with a single user isn't the same as a day down on a server with 100 users.

EU outlines 5G rules: You don't have to keep 'risky' vendors completely Huawei

Re: HCSEC is auditing Huawei code

I assume Europe is prepared to trust its own manufacturers but other stuff, and that most certainly includes that from US vendors, should be audited in the same way. Why should they object if they've nothing to hide?

Re: It is all trade war.

"You decide whether encryption is sufficient if you have something to hide."

Anyone using a phone for on-line shopping, banking or whatever is likely to have stuff that they're contractually obliged to hide.

Brave, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla gather together to talk web privacy... and why we all shouldn't get too much of it

Re: Targeted ads are great and we need them to keep the internet great

"without ads, over half of the internet would die"

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Re: In this, as in most matters, society self-stratifies

"In both instances the rejoinder must be that those complaining ought engage in a spot of introspection"

I think they're incapable of introspection. They wouldn't be in the business if they were.

Re: Alright lads...

I've got a better one. An indicator that in making purchasing decisions you discriminate against those who pester you.

Re: bah

Then why do they persist in trying to fling ads at people who clearly don't want them? The only way it will influence the targets' behaviour is to prejudice them against the product.

Re: Why it's absolutely necessary...targeted to individuals?

"Presumably both parties make/save more money this way or the practice would have died out by now."

No, it only requires the party of the 2nd part, the analytics people, i.e. people in the advertising industry, to persuade the party of the first part, the advertisers, that they're saving money. In fact, of course, they're paying for the analytics instead.

Re: "Microsoft Loves the Web"

"Does this actually work on anyone?"

Of course. It acts on the muggins who's paying for it. Remember the advertising industry is only selling advertising.

Re: Besides

"The people who make money off them all claim that everybody does."

These, of course, are the people in the advertising industry, not their mugs, the advertisers.

Re: "Microsoft Loves the Web"

On the assumption that this is on the level and not ironic, let's look at a situation which is a little more clear cut, in the physical world.

The other day, along with the usual payload of bills the post included unaddressed leaflets for some junk or other I'll never want. Yesterday it included the Radio Times for SWMBO and out of that fell several leaflets for junk we'd never want.

There's only one way to describe this: litter.

And litter is a form of pollution.

What possible justification is there for an economic system that depends, or claims to depend on producing pollution? That's pollution as a deliberate product, not as a by-product of something else.

Star wreck: There's a 1 in 20 chance a NASA telescope and US military satellite will smash into each other today

Maybe add the proviso that you have to grab hold of one of the bits of junk and bring that down at the same time.