Posts by Doctor Syntax

Rejecting Sonos' private data slurp basically bricks bloke's boombox

Re: Connected?

"Good luck with your unconnected light bulb."

Great idea. It never burns out.

Re: Crap like this...

"Which, I thought was the coolest party trick ever, and then I found out how much B&O systems cost!"

The coolest party trick ever was getting people to pay their prices.

Gartner says back-to-school PC sales failed. IDC says they worked

Re: Plus

"I would quite like a small size laptop"

You're the 10th person to ask for that today. We don't stock it. No demand.

Mine's the one with the old joke book in the pocket. Or is it the old excuse book?

Re: Plus

"your desire is extremely niche, and the laptop market is very much mass marketed. ... The laptop and consumer desktop market is designed around price points, not features."

Designed by whom? By marketing of course. Tell me again how marketing, with their deep understanding of customers' desires, have created these soar-away sales figures.

Look! Over there! Intel's cooked a 17-qubit chip quantum package

"Ah, but it'll shuffle the cards better."

It doesn't need to. All the orderings are already in there. You can play all the possible games at once but it'll only tell you the result of one of them when you ask it if you won.

Dear America, best not share that password with your pals. Lots of love, the US Supremes

Re: Sadly, a decision which needs more clarity

"I think people are missing some of the details in my original post here."

And you are missing the point: company rules provide for disciplinary action within the company with the ultimate sanction of a quick journey to the outside of the front door but no further.

Re: Sadly, a decision which needs more clarity

"For a long time similar rules applied in 'normal' businesses,"

The rules might well apply. The sanctions available to a 'normal' business would not include recourse to the Official Secrets Act unless the business were carrying out work for HMG in which case, depending on the work, the Act could apply.

Re: Sadly, a decision which needs more clarity

"No, the PAs would."

Only if the PA then uses the access to commit a criminal act. Corporate rules do not have the sanctions available under criminal law.

Re: Sadly, a decision which needs more clarity

"Since each of those companies very clearly stated that such activity was forbidden and a disciplinary offence, I presume those managers/Execs in the US offices will now go to jail?"

It depends. Clearly they could be disciplined by the company but that isn't a criminal offence. If, however, the PA used the password to commit fraud then the PA could go to jail and possibly the manager as an accessory.

There's a very simply difference here: company rules are not the subject of criminal law, fraud is.

Re: Interesting opinion to have...

"otherwise the person would be liable to prosecution back in the EU."

Didn't you get the memo? US law overrules everyone else's

Re: What happens if...

"Seems to me the individual has been sent down because of the intent not just the action."

Just this. Intent can be an important factor in criminal cases.

Dumb bug of the week: Outlook staples your encrypted emails to, er, plaintext copies when sending messages

"Bring back the testers"

The new system seems to be working fine.

MS ships alpha code. Users and security researchers test it. Bugs get reported back to Microsoft.

What are you complaining about?

Judge says US govt has 'no right to rummage' through anti-Trump protest website logs

"Not that it will be of course. Sane results like this directly undermine their attempts to wage economic espionage on a cowed and fearful populace."

The way case law works suggests that this will be cited in the future, at least in the US. The great pity is that it's less likely to be useful in the UK.

Re: Ministry of Truth

" Every once in awhile one of sleeping non-entities in the courts wakes up enough to veto the latest grab but goes back to sleep soon after."

Have you spent much or, indeed, any time actually watching real judges at work in courts?

Disclaimer - my experience of this excludes US courts.

El Reg was invited to the House of Lords to burst the AI-pocalypse bubble

"He thought the problem today was that software was clever and hardware was slow."

The problem - or at least part of the problem - for AI is that the hardware RI runs on is massively parallel. Whatever counts as massively parallel in silicon is nothing compared to what the brain runs on.

Sniffing substations will solve 'leccy car charging woes, reckons upstart

Re: In around 1907 it took 3 minutes to turn around an electric bus with a new battery

If you swap the battery do you swap in single use alkaline cells and chuck out the old one or do you recharge it? If you recharge it how do you do that without imposing the same load on the supply network as recharging in-vehicle?

Simply swapping batteries only solves part of the problem and quite possibly introduces new ones.

Re: Tesla is not typical

"a Nissan Leaf with a 40KWh battery (made in Sunderland)"

At present. Is replacing the entire UK IC fleet with electric their plan for keeping car mass-manufacture in the UK post-Brexit?

" That is free leccy for any EV/PHEV."

That's the rest of us subsidising you. HMG is very good at handing out other people's money to get something they have been lobbied to want get going. Don't think that will continue.

Re: Tesla is not typical

"Plans are in hand (Mercedes, VW, BMW at least) to build a 350kw public charge point network in Europe. That keeps us in the 20 minute to 80% range."

Based on Pen-y-gors' example above that'll allow 3 cars to be charged at once. Even on the basis of taking a break every 300 miles of motorway travel it's not enough. How often, at least during the working day, do you see a motorway service station car park with only 3 cars in it?

Re: Tesla is not typical

"We're in the process of getting an ultra-fast charger for our community shop, which will do a typical battery in 15-20 mins (have a coffee while you wait)"

Whist having your coffee you can also chat to all those queuing up to wait their turn for a charge.

"Canadian petrol/diesel prices tells us that in Canada diesel is 0.75 EUR per litre, compared to the UK's 1.34 per litre, which means their cost comparison isn't really valid for the UK."

UK costs are heavily influenced by taxation. Expect that to be applied to any fuel except as a temporary measure which the government of the day has been lead by the nose lobbied to support.

"One extra aspect of hydrogen, along with helium, is that it is a pain to store - it's extremely good at leaking out of places."

And, unlike helium, very good at producing fireballs when it does.

Re: And normal consumers won't value those points too?

"Ok, so Hydrogen isn't great on the efficiency front. At least it isn't now, but who knows about the future."

It doesn't get round the containment problem. And if your hydrogen powered vehicle catches fire there'll be no point calling the fire brigade - it'll be scattered over a wide area before they can arrive.

"Sufficient fuel for a 500 mile journey in a car can be transferred into a tank in 5 to 6 minutes and the existing distribution network can be used to deliver it with very little modification with the costs of modification on the current providers (fuel companies) which are able to afford it now."

So very little modification is needed between handling a liquid and a compressed gas which is particularly good at finding its way out of almost any joint.

Re: Local Generation and Storage FTW

"As such parked EVs are ideal for storing intermittent solar and wind energy"

That assumes they're parked somewhere where they can be connected to the grid. And if they're so parked when there's a demand for power you'll find you can't get home. Any chance of walking to the filling station to get a Jerry can of leccy?

Re: EV GSM and metering?

"Government have already looked at and (in effect) chosen road pricing as their future model"

That'll be an additional charge. Remember that temporary provision of income tax is still with us.

Re: Brave New World

"Some more realistic charging times for city commuting without rewiring or damaging your leccy bill:...https://www.brompton.com/brompton-gbr/uk-store/bikes/Brompton-Electric-Reservation-Deposit/c-24/c-77/p-2897

Which city? Some of them have more hills than others.

Re: EV GSM and metering?

"The problem of reducing income from flogging Petrol/Diesel will need to be solved how but I'm not a politician"

But don't expect those who are to wring it out of you one way or another.

Re: Brave New World

"My bet is the introduction of a mileage tax once electric cars are firmly ensconced."

And that will probably be in addition to duty and VAT on electricity and VED (once called the Road Fund but damn-all of that gets spent on roads these days). Don't expect the Treasury to just take once.

When Irish data's leaking: Supermarket shoppers urged to check bank statements

"If their system was pwned, then it could be capturing this information even if it wasn't supposed to be stored."

In which case one would expect CVV and/or PINs to be captured as well.

Q: How do you test future driverless car tech? A: Slurp a ton of real-world driving data

Re: Self driving car

"We don't need to wait until every corner case across the planet is solved before deploying them."

Corner cases are the accident opportunities. What you're saying is that we don't need to wait until they can avoid accidents.

A data collection exercise like this won't learn much about accident avoidance most of the time. On the rare occasions when the driver avoids or fails to avoid an accident there is an opportunity to learn but how general will the learning be? Unless it occurs at an accident black-spot it'll probably be a unique set of circumstances - and if it is at a black-spot it would be better fed back into a redesign of the relevant bit of road.

Concerns raised about privacy, GDPR as Lords peer over Data Protection Bill

"I still think the offence should be not properly de-identifying the data rather than taking advantage of that fact or atleast there should be an intent to cause harm requirement"

Let's say I have a record of things bought from me. I have a record that you bought a yellow-spotted whatsit, your address and paid from an account at Grip and Holdfast Bank. I delete all the names and addresses except for the post codes. I've deidentified the record of your purchase. By having the post code and bank details I can still verify a warranty claim you may make. If I don't retain sufficient for that I might reject any such claim. Short of such a claim I've no longer any idea of who bought what.

Someone else makes a list of people seen in possession of yellow-spotted whatsits and where they were seen. If they then come into possession of my records they could reidentify them by matching up with their own and deduce that you have an account at Grip and Holdfast.

Their reidentifications may not be 100% correct but those which are could be enough to cause trouble.

I've deidentified the record to the best of my ability, bearing in mind any future need I may have. The reidentification is entirely down to the person who matched up two sets of records. What, in your view, have I done wrong?

Re: Confusing and unworkable

"So I can't delete the data I'm no longer using in case the subject in the future wants to raise a Subject Access Request to see the data that was being held on them."

It's not particularly difficult:

- You only collect what you need.

- You delete it when it becomes irrelevant.

- If someone demands to see what you hold about them you don't then delete it so you can say you don't have anything but if it was deleted as routine prior to the request then you're no longer holding it.

- If there's a demand to delete anything data you have to hold by law or still relevant to an ongoing transaction is exempt.

- You only delete what's feasible: you don't have to delete what's on the backup tapes but on a practical level you'll have to think about keep a copy of the deletion requests since the backup was taken so that you can re-delete it if the backup has to be restored.

'Israel hacked Kaspersky and caught Russian spies using AV tool to harvest NSA exploits'

"Linux, long lauded for it's security, is the OS of choice for IoT... and is suddenly a horrifying securing apocalypse waiting to happen."

Let's try and construct a physical world analogue of this.

You have a strongroom with reinforced concrete walls, triple locked steel doors - and the keys hanging on a hook beside the door.

The basic IoT problem is one of deployment - allowing the user to start the device functioning on the net without setting a strong password.

'There has never been a right to absolute privacy' – US Deputy AG slams 'warrant-proof' crypto

Re: Pick One

"We want you to break encryption because it stops crimes, terrorists etc."

Turn it round "We want you to break encryption so criminals will be able to read private data". Then ask "Why are you wanting to help criminals?".

Equifax: About those 400,000 UK records we lost? It's now 15.2M. Yes, M for MEELLLION

"If you have been told by Equifax that security details from your Equifax.co.uk membership account"

This involves about a quarter of the UK population. Are you telling me that one in 4 of us has set up such an account? And if not what other data is involved?

"After all, we're not customers of Equifax who can refuse to provide data for its servers – it just collects it all, one way or another, and sell it on to others."

The way in which it collects it needs to be looked at. If you as a data subject pass data to some company who then passes it on to Equifax then that company needs to be held liable. Either that or Equifax needs to be held liable in a UK court. I'd like to know what the ICO is doing about this. A quarter of the UK population is affected. Perhaps if everyone who gets one of these letters were to write to their MP to raise the matter in Parliament it might actually be borne on the Home Secs - both of them - that this privacy thing needs to be taken a bit more seriously.

BAE confirms it is slashing 2,000 jobs

Re: Calling Mr Kim!

"Airbus simply can't make them quick enough."

Maybe they should subcontract some work out to Bombardier in Belfast.

Re: Calling Mr Kim!

"China who used N.Korea as a pawn but now fears the flood of refugees as people take the opportunity to run."

I'm surprised they haven't invited him for a state visit during which he'll suffer a sudden and fatal heart attack. That's the way it would have been tackled in the old days.

Brit bank fined £75k over 1.5 million text and email spamhammer

Re: Pathetic

"If the ICO/HM Gov really want to stamp this out then fines should be in the order of £2 per message sent (text or email makes no difference) "

Not fines, or at least not just fines. It should be personal compensation to the recipients.

Leaky-by-design location services show outsourced security won't ever work

Re: It's a matter of incentives

"The problem, of course, if how to write such legislation that gives clarity to both companies and end-users what privacy and security is expected."

It's been written and it's on its way to becoming law in the EU. It's the GDPR.

"All the average user chooses is the make and model of the smartphone/tablet they get."

All too many of then will only choose something that will let them spill just about everything they see, do or runs through their minds onto the Interwebz. That's the root of it all.

Three words: Synthetic gene circuit. Self-assembling bacteria build pressure sensor

Re: Perhaps...

"A kind fellow Kiwi colleague"

Was he related to the chick?

"a synthetic biologist"

Call me old-fashioned but I prefer the genuine article.

Footie ballsup: Petition kicks off to fix 'geometrically impossible' street signs

But but but...

... if they used hexagons and pentagons wouldn't the sign curl up?

Re: You know you have too much time on your hands when . . .

"overpaid tosspots chasing a pigskin round a field."

The perpetrators of the petition want a word. They want to tell you the field isn't round.

Personally I think the sign should be changed to an image of an inflated porcine bladder in the interests of historical accuracy.

Before you head into Office 365, pull on this cosy Cloud Archive

It's safe because Cloud. The only thing worse than this nonsense is that manglement will fall for it.

Et tu Accenture? Then fall S3er: Consultancy giant leaks private keys, emails and more online

Re: Oooohhh Nooooo

"Someones P45 is on the way I think."

Several one would hope. The whole chain of command that allows someone to set up sensitive stuff like this without someone else performing a sanity check.

It's all very well to make reassuring sounds about multiple layers of security waffle waffle. Having multiple layers isn't very useful if you hang up a set of keys on the front of the building. I think I'd like reassurance at a greater level of responsibility and understanding than a PR mouthpiece. These bankers handle my pension.

Calm down, Elon. Deep learning won't make AI generally intelligent

"You yourself are surely a better driver now than when you first got your license, and even more so than when you started to learn to drive. Self-driving cars will take much longer to learn than human drivers, and in the end might not be as good as the best human drivers, but all that is needed is that they are at least as good as the average human driver."

No. They need to be better than an experienced human driver. Why should such a driver hand over to the equivalent of a less experienced version of himself?

"Sell sandwiches of dubious freshness!"

And drinks of dubious mixtures of tea, coffee and soup.

Cortana, please finish my sentences in Skype texts for me

Re: Another good excuse

" it's the 3rd Millennium - how's about you make location data an option and let people add it when they feel like getting restaurant suggestions ?"

Second millennium thinking. In the third millennium you're lucky to find it's not compulsory. At least, not yet.