Posts by Doctor Syntax

Singapore fingers deported fraudster for leak of list of thousands of HIV+ people

There can't be many people who are both deported and extradited like that. Maybe he should try the Guinness Book of Records.

SAP to spend €950m on restructure: The thing is, 'loyal workforce', we want the 'best' minds

"we're obviously going to come to a nice agreement with our employees to treat them very fairly... and hire the best minds in the world."

What if the best minds in the world are good enough to come to the conclusion that SAP's idea of "fairly" might not coincide with their own in a few years' time?

And it's go, go, go for class-action lawsuits against Equifax after 148m personal records spilled in that mega-hack

How big a judgement does Equifax have to have against it before it has to mark itself down as a bad credit risk?

Worried about Brexit food shortages? North Korean haute couture has just the thing

The US cavalry are here to save us: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47036119

lAll we have to do is accept hormone & antibiotic-laden meat & glyphosate etc in agricultural produce. Bleached chicken isn't specifcally mentioned but that's probably in there as well.

Wool is, of course, rich in protein. It's just a bit tricky to digest.

I think we'll get the greenhouse in operation a bit early this year. With any luck we can get a crop of lettuce and radishes ready fairly quickly.

Re: Import could be tricky

"Hmmm, food and textiles tend to be the most difficult items when negotiating trade treaties - and these items come under both categories."

OTOH you are allowed to wear clothes when you pass through a border so frequent fliers should know where their next meal came from.

Irish data watchdog to Facebook: Hang about, what's all this about a WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger merger now?

"Would it outweigh the relatively small fines (a few tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, not actually small but anything is small relative to the Zuck wallet) that the EU are currently dolling out for non compliance with GDPR?"

First, let's remember that GDPR has been in place for less than a year. Given that a big case is gong to take a long time to work through it's not surprising that there have been no maximum fines yet. That doesn't mean that Zuck isn't doing his best to get into the top category.

As to appeals etc putting off payment, accumulating a nice collection of potential liabilities with interest - whist they're being argued isn't going to do the share price much good.

Frankly I'd lke to see 4% of turnover fines (I'm sure they'll manage to get themselves in the top tier) for each direction of transfer between platforms so that's 24% for that lot if they transfer both ways between each pair. And it's 48% if Facebook counts as a separate platform. Nice.

Post-Brexit plan for .EU tweaked: No dot-EU web domains for Europeans in UK, no appeals, etc

"there are likely to be more pressing matters than internet addresses."

Taking away the registration might not be. Allowing an address to be reassigned to someone else is quite another because of the potential for fraud. It might come to be seen as quite a pressing matter but only when it's too late.

FTC gets back to work: Now, where were we? Break up Facebook and fine it $2bn, you say?

Re: He Speaks!

"I can tell you firstly we're going to look at this from top to bottom, change everything we're doing if necessary, to get it right,"

I doubt that really means changes at the top however much it sounds like it.

Re: Three companies that need to be broken up...

"when they do screw up ... then they quickly rectify it."

Not my experience.

My chemical romance drowns tomorrow's money, warns TSMC: Chip maker's yields rocked by bad batch

Re: Duff batch spotted

It's not quite clear from the wording whether they discovered it before it was used or after. JIT manufacturing doesn't give much lee-way even if it's discovered in advance.

Data flows in a no-deal Brexit are a 'significant' concern – MPs

I'm wondering about those little gaps between the current DPA and GDPR. The little gaps that give HMG wriggle room to do as it likes. Those could become something that the Home Sec of number 10 might have to forgo. But would she?

"If the May deal were were a little plastic square for one of those 'shape fits hole' tests, the examiner would have given the examinee a slap round the back of the head by now for repeatedly trying to fit the square through the triangle hole."

Actually it's more like her repeatedly trying to fit the round bit of plastic into the square hole because half of those round her are telling her to go for the triangle, half for the pentagon so four sides would be half way in between.

Re: What's with it with you guys commenting????

I get that you didn't read TFA but didn't you glance at the title to find out what it was about?

Re: Scaremongering

"yet in nine months it can renegotiate all these trade deals that have a) been done over a 40 year period and b) were done by people who work for other countries or the EU now, not for the UK."

Don't worry. Liam Fox is right on it. He's got lots of time - several minutes each day - between issuing warnings that not leaving the EU would cause civil unrest by the majority (he seems to be assuming its about 95% who voted to leave). Just look at the stack of agreements he's already got in place.

Re: We will still have electricity right? [citation welcome?]

"in the Rees-Mogg view of the world"

Just a thought. As he's moved his business over to Ireland to stay in the EU is there any chance of him getting caught making illegal data transfers as a result? I assume the Irish regulators are going to be very vigilant and not very forgiving, what with what all the trouble he's causing in relation to the border.

"cannot seriously constitute the policy of any responsible government"

That's going to cut no ice. We haven't had a responsible government for years despite having had governments that have been responsible for all sorts of problems.

Apple: You can't sue us for slowing down your iPhones because you, er, invited us into, uh, your home... we can explain

"When the battery wears which parameter do you make effort to preserve?"

Neither. You replace the battery. At least, that's what you do in any other version of reality because batteries are items with a shorter life than the rest of the components and should be treated as consumables..

'Numpty new boy' lets the boss take fall for mailbox obliteration

Re: "He knew the VP's password..."

Obviously a true BOFH. Was he called Simon?

Gripe to UK, Ireland, Poland: Ad tech industry inhales, then 'leaks' sensitive info on our health, politics, religion

"we would take immediate action...."

... by charging more for the data.

UK-EU infosec data sharing may not be KO'd by Brexit, reckons ENISA bod

Re: Remember the vote!

"We voted to leave EU control, and return to a model based upon agreed co-operation"

There's your problem right there. The EU is a complete package - "control", co-operation and everything. Did you vote to leave control or did you vote to take part in co-operation - the two are alternatives.

Once we're out - and fully out which seems increasingly likely - you're going to find out just how much "control" we exert out in the big wide world. It's going to be less than we exerted within the EU and less than the EU exerts in the rest of the world.

Re: Remember the vote!

"Hell, all the PM has to do at this point is mollify a small group of loonies from a marginal part of non-mainland U.K. that probably won't be part of the country in forty to sixty years."

Do NOT minimise the difficulties. here. You may think "loonies" and you may well be right but nevertheless the divisions run deep. Rather deeper than, say, the divisions between the ERG and the EU. We can well do without the consequences of stirring that up again. And as to "forty to sixty years" - they were thinking in terms of fewer than that number a undred years ago.

Let's be clear about this. The UK entered into an international agreement about this and the Brexiteers seem quite prepared to break that in order to get their way. One of the things that they claim to want to do is set up individual trade agreements outside the EU. If they start off by breaking an agreement like the Goof Friday Agreement who's going to trust them with new agreements?

Re: Remember the vote!

You all voted to "leave" all this co-operation behind.

No we didn't "all" vote as you well recognise. You shouldn't be baffled - there are too many people going round spouting the this sort of rubbish and you've just added to their number. Don't do that.

Open sourcerers drop sick Fedora Remix to get Windows Subsystem for Linux pumping

"It is funny how they call it Linux subsystem"

They don't they call it Windows subsystem for Linux which is exactly arse about face to what it is. Very strange people there in Redmond.

Re: Seriously ...

"You get all the security, integration, perfomance and management advantages of Windows"

Re: Seriously ...

As I read it, folk in Indonesia. Which is a populous country. And maybe by extension, folk in other 3rd world countries. Who again account for a large slice of the world's population.

Yes, I can see how that goes - who cares, they're shit poor.

And if they adopt low cost, ARM-based computing running Linux to make themselves sufficiently not shit-poor then maybe we'll find that a new dominant mode of computing has crept in under the MS radar.

Six Flags fingerprinted my son without consent, says mom. Y'know, this biometric case has teeth, say state supremes...

Re: fingerprinting children

"Such a weak response from the parents"

I don't suppose many parents can afford to start a lawsuit against a large corporation. At least not until someone who can has tested the water.

Re: Thank you!

"So going forward, companies will need to perform that much more paperwork to be in compliance, but only in the State of Illinois."

Yup. It's a shame other states don't value citizen's privacy over intrusive corporations. At least not yet.

Re: Companies will always push the privacy barriers because money is to be made from it.

This is why we need legislation such as GDPR and this Illinois Act. If selling on data or holding it in excess of immediate functional needs becomes toxic eventually companies will stop doing it. Some will work it out for themselves when the legislation is passed or when first challenged. Some will learn by seeing the mistakes of others. Some will learn the hard way. Six Flags should be applauded for selflessly volunteering to be held up as an example from which others can learn.

Re: So I gather

"But then they have your photo, which is private biometric data and right there on the pass is proof they saved that data."

As you say, "right there on the pass". The pass which is under the control of the customer not the vendor. The pass which the customer can destroy when it expires.

Re: So I gather

"It isn't clear what the risk of that would be, since you can't reconstruct the actual fingerprint from that data, but the type who will sue over this would not find that reassuring."

The obvious risk is that the hash can be passed or sold on. It then becomes identifying information if the recipient acquires, surreptitiously or otherwise, a fingerprint.

Re: Wrong end of telescope

"Or, businesses in Illinois will be trusted more as they subject to higher regulatory standards regarding people's biometric data."

Only if they follow the law. Making determined attempts not to are counter-productive. The fetish of acquiring as much data as possible seems to override mere self-interest.

Facebook didn't care if your kids ran up gigantic credit card bills – lawsuit

I suppose this is yet another issue he's not going to come and explain to the Commons Select Committee amongst others.

Re: Is there a scammier corporation

"but thanks to my family I can't avoid WhatsApp."

Yes you can. You just dump it and tell them they have to find another way to communicate with you. I have a family. I don't have WhatsApp. I have POTS, mobile and email; even snail mail . They're more than sufficient.

Whats(goes)App must come down... World in shock as Zuck decides to intertwine Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp

Here's an alternative

For a modest cost of £2.17 per month I subscribe to a service which lets me set up multiple identities for myself and SWMBO, multiple so that I can use different IDs for different people with whom I communicate. The service allows for some online storage of messages but I prefer not to use it as anything more than a buffer because I store the messages locally once I've received them. I have a choice of client software and devices.

Friends and family don't need to subscribe to the same service to communicate with me as the folks who run the server will look after all that providing friends and family use a similar service - and if they don't want to pay extra they'll probably find it bundled in with services they already pay for. They can even use a free service if they don't mind being slurped. The reason I pay is that I have a bit more flexibility and I can move my set of IDs to another provider if I become dissatisfied which I can't with a bundled service. In fact, I've done that in the past.

OK, you've all recognised it. It's plain old email. But just what additional steps would be needed to make it easily usable as end-to-end encrypted messaging? Not, I suggest, very much. Add a public key server to the existing smtp server. Add PGP functionality into the mail client that will upload the user's public keys, download those for received messages and locally share private keys if a user wants to use multiple devices for running clients.

Re: Let's see here...

"unless you block its script that is"

Standard operating practice.

"everyone has WhatsApp"

No they don't. Even the bragging statistics in other posts were less than 100% so quite clearly it's not everyone. It might be everyone you know but that doesn't make you a group to be emulated.

Re: Strange

"It's annoying as hell to include them in organising something with a group of people."

I'd find it as annoying as hell to be included in something organised by a group of people on what I regard as anti-social media.

Re: Damn

"I can't however imagine you would do that"

I can't imagine why he would either. Why should he as, like myself, he manages perfectly well without. Perceptions of the indispensability of such things are entirely an artefact of their use. There are alternatives. The alternatives need cash payment but the, of course so do FB and the rest in addition to the cost in slurpage - you pay for the communications platform itself don't you?

Re: Damn

"84% of 24 – 35 year old Britons use WhatsApp dropping to 78% for 35 – 44 year olds."

Sez who?

Re: Damn

"Everyone has Wattsapp"

I don't so not everyone has it. What's more "everyone" could replace it with something else if they chose, then no one would have it. Free will is a wonderful thing.

Re: Signal

"network effects"

Presumably these friends communicated with each other before Facebook even existed. If networks effects are so powerful how did Facebook replace those? If a sufficient subset replace FB with something they feel comfortable with and agree on then if the rest want to remain in touch they will have to add that something to their own repertoire in exactly the same way as they joined FB in the first place.

Apple: Trust us, we've patented parts of Swift, and thus chunks of other programming languages, for your own good

Re: SUN once said the the same positive things about Java Patents and licensing structure

"Even if they are currently stowed in the basemant of a presumably well-meaning company. Once they get out of that basement, for whatever reason, they are ready to kill."

To say nothing of what can happen if the well-meaning company gets taken over. True, Apple might be too big for that to be feasible now but the future is terra incognita.

Straight outta Blighty: Readers, if you were a tech billionaire, what would you do?

Re: Let's have another go

"Well, immediately post-Brexit-vote, he'd immediately move everything offshore."

He'd moved manufacturing off-shore pre-Brexit-vote so the stuff he flogs here is already imported from outside the EU. At least to a first approximation Brexit doesn't affect his UK business at all so it's no skin off his nose if all the businesses still manufacturing in the UK for EU customers start facing tariff walls. Of course when their former employees stop buying his products it might make a difference.

Re: Dyson

"So if the UK doesn't provide the best environment to grow businesses then move the business to somewhere that does.

And at the moment, UK seems to be determined to be as hostile as possible to enterprise."

The issue with Dyson is moving the manufacturing part of his business out of the UK; then advocating a change which, as you way, makes the UK as hostile as possible to enterprise, shafting those overseas investors who set up enterprises in the UK because it was part of the EU*. Only now do we see the pretence of being a Great British Business being dropped.

* Along with those of his customers employed in the UK by those enterprises.

Is your kid looking at GCSE in computer science? It's exam-only from 2022 – Ofqual

"I am the only teacher at the school to have the license to make gunpowder and demo in the lab."

License? How times have changed.

"So students are going to be taught how to pass the exam."

Inevitable given that schools have contrived to foul the nest in the past. I suppose it's a consequence of league tables.

Just keep slurping: HMRC adds two million taxpayers' voices to biometric database

"thousands of people are reclaiming their rights by getting their Voice IDs deleted,"

Maybe.

We did Nazi see this coming... Internet will welcome Earth's newest nation with, sigh, a brand new .SS TLD

Re: terminology

Julius Caesar arriving in "Great Britain"?

I wouldn't think so either. He arrived in Britannia - a Latin name because Caesar, being Jonny Foreigner, didn't speak English. There are a couple of versions of why the island is called Great Britain.

One is that is was a coinage to include Scotland after the Act of Union.

The other is that it distinguished the original island from Little or Lesser Britain, Brittany which Caesar didn't call Brittany, either, he called it Armorica. It got its later name because it was settled by refugees from Britannia after the Anglo/Saxon[/Jutish/Frisian] settlement.

Sprint subscribers: What do your updated iPhone and Tonga have in common? Both are cut off from the world

Re: Break?

How does one "break" an undersea cable?

Police are looking for a ship with a large back hoe attachment.

Or a trawler.