Posts by Doctor Syntax

Flying taxis? That'll be AFTER you've launched light sabres and anti-gravity skateboards

Re: "Lightsaber"

Emmer.

BOFH: You brought nothing to the party but a six-pack of regret

"I'll need a glass of water"

Water? Is this some January detox thing?

H0LiCOW: Cosmoboffins still have no idea why universe seems to be expanding more rapidly than expected

Re: Differences

"Constant's aren't" is one of the basic rules of software development. Maybe it applies to universes too.

Google scolded for depriving the poor of privacy as Chinese malware bundled on phones for hard-up Americans

Re: A lesson for chinese data grabbers

"It seems to me that we in the west are perfectly happy if our data is being slurped by our own guys."

Speak for yourself.

Personally I'm fed up with being told I'm happy with this, approve that, demand something else when they're all things with which I disagree.

"Surely Virgin, Unimax (who?) and the US gov are more responsible for these phones since they actually make and distribute them."

The US gov makes or distributes phones? Since when?

OTOH I'd agree that the obvious line of attack would be those selling them, at least under European customer protection legislation. It's then up to the vendor to twist the arms of the makers.

Re: Isn't Android open source?

There is a big difference between Google using its monopoly power to favour its own products and using it for customer protection.

Why is a 22GB database containing 56 million US folks' personal details sitting on the open internet using a Chinese IP address? Seriously, why?

Re: ... but it's all publically available anyway ?

If you published their integrated version of it their lawyers would be very quick to explain to you the difference between what's in that and the separate publicly available data bases - and complain you were infringing their copyright.

Re: Ted Codd

Too much like hard work.

Re: And closer to home?

To be fair why should they expect UK police forces to be any more scrupulous in handling somebody else's database when they persistently fail to delete data they've been told to delete by UK courts.

Re: CheckMate

"Here they'd be fined an astronomical amount, then close the business to avoid paying the fine."

In which case their failure to read the fine print of the DPA would come as a nasty surprise to them. Yes, officials can be held responsible.

Re: late capitalists

'Even if the individual components were tested individually it still doesn't mean that their particular combination is safe - a wetting agent may, for instance, increase skin penetration of some other component.

It's amazing how much fuss they can make over putting gloop in bottles whilst saving the costs of safety checks.

Re: late capitalists

"Would that be the same late capitalists that used to think routine testing of cosmetics etc on animals was a legitimate part of their business operations?"

On the other hand: It's Christmas Winterval. Here's a very expensive mixture we're selling you to give to your nearest and dearest to smear over themselves. It's so dangerous we haven't tested it on animals.

Dixons fined £500,000 by ICO for crap security that exposed 5.6 million customers' payment cards

Alternative address - for any such tricks:

Post code: SK9 5AF

No number but a name: Wycliffe House

Post code W3 6RS

"House" number 1.

Ask them to tell you that in writing. Then copy their letter and your reply to the ICO.

What if everyone just said 'Nah' to tracking?

"The mere fact that the selection of adverts you are presented with in your social feeds, search engine searches and banner advertising changes over time is proof of this ongoing optimisation."

You just don't get it, do you?

To go all Bob: I BLOCK ADS.

And I HAVE NO SOCIAL FEEDS. Zilch.

Don't let this stop you telling your clients you can send me advertising. If you could your selection would undoubtedly be for those things I've already bought or stuff I don't want.

An example of the latter. If, for geographical reasons, I search for a place name, the results will be swamped with estate agents sites for that area despite the fact that I have no intention whatsoever of even going there let alone buying a house there. It's not a phrase I'd use often but I feel sorry for those estate agents who are being bilked for fees to put that crap in front of me.

Re: I just don't care.

" If they are any good their research will tell them they are wasting their time."

The people who are building that profile aren't wasting their time. They're using it to sell services to advertisers. The advertisers are, however, wasting their money.

"Advertisers need eyeballs, and they'll buy them"

It's the intermediaries, the advertising industry, who are the problem. The more snake oil they can sell the more money they make but that snake-oil is their "service" and the people they're selling it to are the advertisers.

John Wanamaker is reputed to have said "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." If he'd been alive now he'd have loved ad-blockers because they would have solved his problem. It's no surprise the ad-industry hates them - they want their customers to keep on wasting that money.

Re: We see that you're using an ad blocker

"Every time that happens I just ban the site from running javascript as well."

You're doing it wrong. Default to not running Javascript and use the ad-blocker warning as an indication not to unblock the script.

The soap opera continues. HP again tells Xerox: Show us more money!

Good old Beeb! They had this article a few days ago https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50609165 that appears to be treating Icahn as something out of the past.

Windows 7 and Server 2008 end of support: What will change on 14 January?

"Users who spend most of their time in, say, Google Chrome, Microsoft Office, and some custom internal applications, may find the benefits of upgrading to Windows 10 hard to see"

These are the ones which would be easiest to migrate to 10. There are suitable applications waiting for them. Those who find the benefits really hard to see are those dependant on applications which weren't ported to 10, maybe using H/W for which there are no drivers later than 7.

Google and IBM square off in Schrodinger’s catfight over quantum supremacy

It's Google. How long before they close it down and move onto something else? That supercooling stuff will make a great internet-connected fridge.

Astroboffins discover Sun is surfing on 9,000-light-year gas wave that acts as Milky Way's stellar nursery

It's one of those things that raises more questions than it answers. Is it a static wave or does it undulate? If the latter, what's its period? How long did it take to form? How did it form? Lots of number crunching to come....

Ring of fired: Amazon axes multiple workers who secretly snooped on netizens' surveillance camera footage

Re: Punishment seems too extreme

Redeployed was Harold Wilson-speak for unemployed back in the '60s.

GSMA report: Sorry, handset makers, 5G is not going to save the smartphone market

Re: "It just so happens that there's something better."

"But the companies want to sell to everybody"

And if they don't regulators might make them.

"Last year, Gartner warned that the global smartphone market was actively shrinking"

I doubt it. A more appropriate phrase would be "getting saturated".

I can only image that business schools across the world are churning out MBAs who have been told that if you see sales doubling for three successive quarters it means your market is expanding exponentially and will always continue to do that.

'Buyer's remorse' drove HP's legal crusade to go after Lynch, High Court told

And think of the precedent it would set. "None of us would ever be safe again."

I suppose if you want to derive an adjective from "pretext" then "pretextual" is as good as any. And Miles comes from a profession which uses the word "tort" for something you can't even eat so he shouldn't be complaining.

Cogent cut off from ARIN Whois after scraping net engineers' contact details and sliding them to sales staff

But why limit it to just cutting them off from whois. Just shut them off from the net completely and see how much good their sales calls o them then.

Eggheads have crunched the numbers and the results are in: It's not just your dignity you lose with e-scooters, life and limb are in peril, too

Most of those with limited mobility would find them particularly difficult to use.

If at first you don't succeed, pry, pry again: Feds once again demand Apple unlock encrypted iPhones in yet another terrorism case

How about an arrangement like this:

Assuming that it's technically possible to unlock the phone then for each phone an agency wants unlocking the agency has to provide the phone of one of its senior staff or one of its political masters - a public interest third party gets to choose which. Both phones are unlocked and the complete contents of the agency phone get published. What's the problem with that? If they have nothing to hide they have nothing to fear.

Samsung’s aspirational Galaxy Chromebook: Shell out $1k for a fast beaut (and remember to try Linux if you're into that)

Re: Get a Lappy With Free OS SpyWare? What a Deal!!!

The essence of Chrome-OS is that it's a thin client to work with Google's services. It makes no difference how secure the comms or the OS if that's what you're doing.

There must be a number of use cases for deploying a thin-client solution but any worthwhile ones must start with finding a remote service you trust.

Re: arguably the most aspirational Chrome OS device

...and shiny.

Re: "which is designed to reduce eye-strain"

Although in the distant past I used a Compaq luggable these days I wouldn't call anything with a 13.3" screen "designed to reduce eye-strain".

The Six Million Dollar Scam: London cops probe Travelex cyber-ransacking amid reports of £m ransomware demand, wide-open VPN server holes

Re: Outsourced and out of sight?

From the link: “We would need to employ people on a 24x7 rostered basis to monitor our network at this level since we can’t afford to have the network offline.”

So they understood the problem, but not the solution.

Re: Banks and building societies are, in my experience, the worst offenders ..."

I think phoning up costs too much money these days so they don't do it.

Re: The Lie

Assuming this threat is based on reality what were they doing holding stuff like DoB & NI number? Being asked for that if I wanted to change money would be a red flag.

"It is 2020, what was the customer data and critical systems doing on Windows boxes, rather than Linux with a snapshotted file system underpinning the storage?"

In a lot of cases I'd agree with you. That would be the consequence of running a monoculture and getting phished.

However it looks as if this was the consequence of a failure to protect their VPN against intrusion and the intruders have been able to take their time. By now they'd probably have acquired admin credentials on the Linux boxes. I doubt there's anything beyond a dumb printer in there that could be trusted by now.

Re: Patching +

I can't imagine why you got two down-votes for that. Banks and building societies are, in my experience, the worst offenders for training their customers to be phished.

Re: ICO hints that GDPR appears to be optional

That's normal behaviour for using the Beeb's own search to search for their own stories. You were looking for something from yesterday? Here's something vaguely related from 5 years ago.

We won't CU later: New Ofcom broadband proposals mull killing off old copper network

"It proposes to allow OpenReach to tack on these costs before a single road is dug up"

Tack them onto what? I have a nasty feeling that those of us who live in rural areas with perfectly good FTTC services are going to get stiffed in order to subsidise FTTP for other customers whilst having an unwanted and disruptive "upgrade" forced on ourselves.

Reusing software 'interfaces' is fine, Google tells Supreme Court, pleads: Think of the devs

Just form an orderly queue.

Re: Its late stage capitalism at its very finest

True, but if it's the latter they're burning money to do it and even if they're buying them up to replace the innovation they can't do themselves they'll smother the companies with their procedures and policies and end up still burning money but more slowly.

Re: "when no one can actually use it"

How do you use it without copying it?

Re: Its late stage capitalism at its very finest

Is it a sign of a moribund system or simply of a moribund corporation? I'd expect the latter. At some point its products, including the IP it tries to collect rent on, become obsolete and businesses which can innovate will displace it. Behaviour like this should be a warning to shareholders to look to their exit strategy.

Microsoft engineer caught up in sudden spate of entirely coincidental grilling of Iranian-Americans at US borders

Re: silly parents

"It's almost like your logic is faulty or something."

I think the something you're looking for is "non-existent".

Yeah, says Google Project Zero, when you think about it, going public with exploit deets immediately after a patch is emitted isn't such a great idea

I wonder if this is a consequence of Google having been caught out before they could get all their stuff patched.

I spy, with my little satellite AI, something beginning with 'North American image-analysis code embargo'

Re: RISC-V

AIUI the actual technical contributions to RISC V come from all over the world, just as in this case. Putting it outside the US means that (a) the US doesn't actually have its hands on the |RISC V throat to choke it and (b) everybody outside the US can still contribute assuming their govts. don't try the same trick. The worst case for the foundation is that contributions stop coming from the US. The worst case for the US is the same. The worst case for non-US competitors is "meh".

Repeat that for anything else the US wants to choke.

Apropos this particular case, does it supposedly cover QGIS? The registrant for qgis.org is in SA.

That Pulse Secure VPN you're using to protect your data? Better get it patched – or it's going to be ransomware time

Re: Yeah but...

If the users don't patch when they're informed then such a term would be essential. After all those users are responsible. Even the one in the twitter thread, assuming they're still with the same MSP.

The Pulse Secure response can be summarised as "You can lead a horse to whater but some of them are mules." That's the problem.

Tragedy: CES squeeze forces frequent flier hotshots into economy hell

Re: While they sit in their seats

"humble BOFHs"

Humble? Humble? No such thing.