Posts by Doctor Syntax 40413 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
I suspect it isn't merely ignorance that drives the scepticism, but many years of experience of other "secure" systems.
And rather fewer, but still too many, years of other experience of other slurping systems which leads to the conviction that at the innocuous end of things it will lead to marketing. But that's just the innocuous aspect.
Eldest thus took it upon himself to load up his phone with all sorts of "worthy" choonz (everything from Fleetwood Mac and Abba right on to Thomas the Tank Engine) and hijack the BT speaker as often as possible
Do it right. The complete Ring cycle. That should cover a good few school trips. Or 4'33" for shorter trips.
"good documentary"
Documentary? Yes. Good? It depends on whether you can speak Finnish as a lot of it's in that language, including the contribution of the lawyer who was recruited because she was a fluent English speaker. The problem is the subtitles which are all too often unreadable. Should have either taken more care with that or dubbed it.
"What is this fascination with having to print everything?"
So that it can be kept where it's needed, such as on the patient's notes in this instance, and not on the doctor's computer at the other end of the corridor two floors down, or on the doctor's mobile when he's scrolled through a hundred other emails to find it, or on the doctor's mobile except it's a nurse who needs to see it, or....
"Especially the generally fit and healthy ones who are still active, driving and looking after themselves quite nicely thank you."
And, let's add, also looking after grandchildren so their own children can hold down a job. Although I suppose if the grandparents weren't there to look after the kids the kids could be sent into the factories to clean the fud out from under the spinning frames or down the mines to open the doors for the tubs to be pushed through.
A costly, but life-saving treatment could be considered "worth it" for a thirty-something, but not for a sixty-something, based on tax contributions they are likely to make.
The sixty-something will point out that they've made enough tax contributions to cover it already. False logic, it's true, but if the sixty-something lives until the next election they still have a vote and hence a say in how things are done.
"It doesn't half seem ironic though that an office that is handling patents for cutting edge technology relies on fax."
Wait! Are you saying patents something has to be cutting edge technology to get a patent? Or is it that "with a computer" makes it cutting edge?
"Print document first, as these should be on the PC already."
If the document starts life as a written note on ward rounds are you saying that the Dr should type it up so it can be emailed? Or wait until a secretary should type them up?
Different situations give rise to different use cases. Different use cases have different optimal solutions.
"In fact I don't believe the English judiciary is significantly corrupt though there is still far too much old boy network and one particular university and one Public School feature far too often."
If you mean Eton & Oxford & doubt they contribute a high proportion of lawyers. Proximity to the Strand and the Inns of Court is more helpful than being out in the sticks on the wrong side of the Chilterns.
"Conventional POTS telephone communication was never secure and it's monitoring by authorities to prosecute criminals was always legal "when it was carried out under warrant
There's a big difference between targeted surveillance carried out under the rule of law and surveillance, targeted or not, by anyone who fancies doing saw. The difference is "rule of law" which is an essential component of a free society under the rule of law. And is there any way in which that freedom can be maintained?
"There is no reason to believe digital or other communications should not be monitored to convict crims or for security reasons."
No there isn't provided there are legal safeguards such as requiring a warrant obtained from a competent authority who has been provided with a sound basis for granting it. For avoidance of doubt a competent authority does not include other members of the investigating body or a politician. Independence of the judiciary is an important factor in a free society (which, BTW, is a reason that some of us look askance at the political shenanigans involved in the appointment of US judiciary).
"the intruder used the compromised account to send an email to the chief financial officer asking for funds to be shifted"
This should also have needed pre-arranged 2FA, a written instruction and a spoken instruction, either in person or by phone. For transfers above a given limit the phone instruction should require the CFO to call back for confirmation.
Yes, it requires a few minutes of CxO time but even CxO time isn't really priced at that level is it? The board should really have asked questions about that. Questions such as "How can you justify your continued employment?" and "How are you going to pay back what your carelessness lost?"
"Trump's tariffs will raise the prices of almost everything, especially that of things from China and of technology. Buy now to beat the rise."
That sounds like a plausible explanation when combined with the what's been said upthread; that there are a lot of ageing PCs out there that are approaching TITSUP time.
A neat feature would be to have the system decide when the day is filling up with meetings and refuse to let someone schedule a new meeting unless they can persuade someone else to drop one of theirs. The upgrade in 6 months time would add a trading system for meetings; a meeting holder could post a price to cancel their meeting.
I don't think delighting the customer is a waste of time. It's just that that's done by getting it right first time, not the added insult of an attempt to upsell. If I wanted to buy something I'd have bought it at the time, and certainly not when I'm having a problem with the whatever else it was that I did buy.
That's not something that cheapskate salespestering-oriented management understands. They think that they can do skimp on providing whatever they sell, skimp on support and try to turn support into sales more pestering.
"The real question is, 'is the "trusted" site trustworthy?'"
I tend to regard sites that need to load javascript from a lot of other sites as untrustworthy anyway. Apart from the fact that it's a pain to have to tick go through NoScript's list and work out which minimal set needs to be ticked and then to remember to cancel immediately I've finished with the site.
"I've never understood i) why a site would trust other sites to host code for them"
Because they're cheap and lazy and don't care.
"and ii) why browsers allow one site to run scripts from another."
Because if they did they'd get a reputation for breaking all the sites that were cheap, lazy and didn't care and everybody and their Facebook friends would dump them in favour of browsers who didn't care either.
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