Posts by Doctor Syntax

Fix this faxing hell! NHS told to stop hanging onto archaic tech

Re: @ wolfetone

"I understand he is ridiculously toxic and an embarrassment to the country"

And to the Labour party which is why the OP was so anxious to call him a Tory. Actually I don't think he was either, he was a Blair through and through.

Re: @ wolfetone

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.

Re: @ wolfetone

"However, to give them to some old gaffer in a wheelchair who won't walk or use the limb is ridiculous in the least."

However, helping the old gaffer get out of the wheelchair isn't in the least ridiculous.

Re: @ wolfetone

"Fixing peoples cosmetic surgery screw-ups should come with a bill."

And preferably delivered to the "surgeon" who screwed up, not their victim.

Re: UK Intellectual Property Office - Sorry can you FAX that

"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?

change all the occurrences of "centre" to "center"

It sounds like a more effective solution might have been the application of CHCl3 to the appropriate jobsworth.

Re: User story

"FAX machines either need to catch up and go digital or be shoved aside."

Are you saying they should use a digital format such as TIFF?

Re: User story

"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.

US drug cops snared crooks with pre-cracked BlackBerry mobes – and that's just the start

Re: Well maybe

"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.

Re: Well maybe

"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).

So the solution is journalists & activists everyone should wipe every device first before using.

FTFY

Two-factor auth totally locks down Office 365? You may want to check all your services...

Re: There's an easier way

"Our CEO just does not do this"

That's the way to deal with the problem.

"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?"

Hope for Hutchins, Navy sinks contractor, there's another Russian hacking scandal, and more

"A former electrical engineer ...Jared Sparks"

Nominative determinism strikes again.

On which subject - should Paul Pester have stuck to sales and marketing?

PC shipments just rose, thanks to Windows 10

Re: Gartner

They don't provide "analysis" for our entertainment.

They do, even if they don't intend that.

Re: PC Shipments just rose, thanks to Trump

"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.

Re: I purchased a New PC this year...

Very confusing for a 76 year old.

Nobody needs that sort of crap happening at the whim of the OS vendor.

"wiped for Windows 7 (or even XP.)"

Would they have drivers for modern H/W? With Linux there can be a problem with that gets resolved pretty quickly. Not so easy when the OS vendor has washed their hands of it.

What can $10 stretch to these days? Lunch... or access to international airport security systems

Re: Agreed

"Unfortunately there are only so many pet rabbits one can hunt and eat in Surbiton."

You might need to move out a little and develop a taste for horse meat.

UK taxman outlines its CHIEF concerns for customs IT systems

Re: A new golden era of prosperity

"The 27 would more likely be interested in the financial services"

They certainly will. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44805565

Re: Hmm

"When less money is being taken by the tax man I expect a few minds will get focused."

True, but by then it will be too late and we'll be facing huge negotiations to get back in.

Heatwave shmeatwave: Brit IT departments cool their racks – explicit pics

Re: I've done this too

"Back in the day of the really big hard drives without all these fine tolerances"

I've seen a similar thing but back in the day of massive optical disk library which did have fine tolerances. I think the robot had to be recalibrated.

Re: Temperature ratings

"Which meant buying a new one"

Maybe the new one would have been equally sick.

No, seriously, why are you holding your phone like that?

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.

Re: Monkey see, monkey do

"FWIW I think they look like idiots."

But being idiots they don't know that.

That's the trouble with us, we're too reserved. A bit of pointing and laughing would do them a power of good.

Re: "get"

twat: I'm good.

Alternative:

Twat: Are you good?

Person: How can I possibly answer that?

Re: ...why are you holding your phone like that?

"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.

Re: Slight variation

" In this hot weather with windows open - it is driving their neighbours mad."

A bucket of water - or something - would help.

Re: What was that quote allegedly from Cardinal Richelieu again?

your "smart" TV

There's your problem.

Solution, old but dumb TV or just a plain monitor with the smarts provided by Raspberry Pi bolted on the back.

Re: Linky = Come home to a real fire

"the Linkys also have an unfortunate habit of catching fire"

With or without assistant.

"The other day the caller was a utility company wanting my meter reading"

I just hang up on those.

"the French are anarchists who love to have an authoritarian Establishment. Occasionally they have a popular uprising"

I suppose if you don't have an authoritarian regime life as an anarchist must seem a bit pointless.

Microsoft: For God's sake, people, cut down on the meetings!

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.

Tech support chap given no training or briefing before jobs, which is why he was arrested

Re: Back in my day

"Penknife? Luxury!"

But soldering iron? Or at least a box of matches. Or dried grass and a couple of flints. Essential.

"Look at me typing on an imaginary laptop."

Or a virtual one?

"what we all have nowadays is the web"

Until you try to work out why you can't connect to the net.

UK.gov is ready to talk data safeguards with the EU – but still wants it all

"the current UK administration aren't good at playing the game by any rules than their own."

Current UK administration's rules are like standards: there are so many sets of them to choose from.

"Trump's free trade agreement"

Trump doesn't believe in free trade. He might go along with a trade agreement but it wouldn't be free. If the Brexiteers are really the free-traders they profess to be they'd baulk at it.

Re: Dear club we just stormed out off in a fit of rage

"The four principles?"

Principles. That's the problem. It's a word that confuses a lot of UK politicians.

Microsoft adds subscriptions for SQL and Windows Servers

"But The Register has managed to get its claws"

Shouldn't that be talons?

Salesforce ‘Einstein’ now smart enough for customer service

Re: "Delighting" customers is a counter-productive waste of time

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.

One of the metrics customer experience wonks use to measure their success is “first time resolution ratetime to close call”,

And because every customer interaction is an upsell opportunity to piss off the customer even further, customer service folk want their people to know what to suggest to delight you add insult to injury.

FTFY

Ticketmaster breach 'part of massive bank card slurping campaign'

Re: Why do browsers allows JS from other domains to run

"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.

Re: Why do browsers allows JS from other domains to run

"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.

"I wouldn't start a business that put all its money into security. How do I get paid"

The OP didn't say all the money. He said surcharges - the skimming over and above the commission it gets for selling the ticket in the first place.

Tim? Larry? We need to talk about smartphones and privacy

"Tim Cook will have an easier time dealing at least with questions arising from the Quartz story, "

He'll have a good opportunity to explain that they take care not to let data get away, not even to the FBI - did you make a note of the Mr Congressman, I'll spell it: F B I.

Perhaps it was Apple who edited the report to make sure they got an invite to the party.

$100m sueball smacks Huawei over Facebook HQ infiltration claims

a sum of money "less than his accrued bonus which would have been payable the following month"

Big hint: being cheap when buying off employees who have the dirt on you doesn't work.

Timehop admits to more data leakage, details GDPR danger

"The steps that followed suggest swift escalation to the C-suite, but by the time incident response processes kicked in the data was gone."

This implies that incident response had to be invoked by the C-suite and that the time involved was crucial. In that case there needs to be standing permission for sysadmins to respond immediately. It's an area the relevant regulator will need to check on in deciding what action to take.

Like my new wheels? All I did was squash a bug, and they gave me $72k

Re: Good on them!

"it must be coming more remunerative for blackhats to report the exploits they find."

Or just becoming remunerative, easier and with less risk than going for the bigger rewards of exploiting it. It doesn't mean there aren't any taking the latter route.

Governments are leading the way in adopting crowdsourced security testing not bothering with security until one of the people who found an error reports it.

FTFY