Posts by Doctor Syntax 42408 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
"Just curious as to why the NCSC in the UK spoke up so rapidly in support of US corporates rather than simply denying knowledge about what had, until that point, been a Chinese/US issue?"
Splitting that into two -
Why they spoke up so rapidly? Maybe someone in the media asked them for a response.
Why they gave the answer whey did? Because it smelled as wrong to them as it seems to have done to most others with a clue.
"What would a country gain by hurting Bloomberg ? Maybe one that wants to make it harder for us to distinguish between fact and fiction, one that generates fake news that it does not like reputable journalism from showing that the news is fake. "
The usual suspects.
It'd take a lot of work to narrow down that list.
"You'd be surprised how unwilling some of the instrument vendors are to moving this DB onto a proper server in the datacentre!"
And I can see why.
The instrument sits on the bench here. As the instrument user I control it. What datacentre? Where? What extra cabling is needed to connect it? Who runs the data centre? Who has access?
Unless there's a specific need for an instrument to be connected to a network it should be capable of being used locally; the alternative is to introduce it into the IoT where, as we all know, the S stands for Security.
So many birds with one off the record briefing stone. Draw attention from whatever exploits you're making with Intel ME. Prepare the way for "Nice little motherboard business you've got there. Pity if something happened to due to manufacturing off-shore/not co-operating with us. Remember the Super Micro incident".
"The Reg asked Sendgrid yesterday why it hadn't focused on making sure nobody could access the pages without proper credentials, instead of just asking crawlers to please not show the information in their search results. We'll update when it responds."
Don't hold your breath. They probably don't understand the question. They're in marketing.
"I always wince when I hear we have a poor hand to play."
So do I for the simple reason we have no hand. On the most minuscule of majorities on an advisory referendum HMG has decided unconditionally that we leave. No feasibility study. No planning (you may remember that a citizen had to go to court* to even get them to realise that they needed Parliamentary consent). That, as far as I can see, amounts not no hand.
*Sadly mistimed. If she'd held her hand until now it could have thrown a real spanner in the works to discover that the invocation of Article 50 didn't meet the constitutional requirement.
"And May is a poor negotiator letting them get away with it."
Did you not understand what Mooseman wrote? That it was the UK - us - who insisted that non-EU countries should not have access to the encrypted data. Or do you not understand that Brexit means that the UK becomes a nonEU country?
Please enlighten us as to how you would negotiate us out of that one?
"the owner doesn't care as the bulbs continue to work"
The owner will care if the law obliges the ISP to cut them off from the net. Next time they'll buy better light bulbs. Even if, by that time, the original vendor is making better light bulbs they'll find they have lost reputation.
"They will need someone to program a password into each device"
There is an option to force the user to secure the device with its own password before it will become operational.
"I don't need Big Brother telling me what I need to do to improve the security of my devices."
Frankly I don't give a toss whether you take any steps to secure your devices at all. What I do care about is you exposing an insecure device on the network where it can be weaponised to attack me or anyone else. If it takes legislation to force you to do that, then so be it.
"the person who manufactures, or contracts with another person to manufacture on the person’s behalf"
It still doesn't apply to devices on sale from non-Californian manufacturers even where manufacturer is defined as above. Selling or offering for sale would be a better target. The killer blow would be forbidding the connection of an insecure device to the internet with liability on both the owner and the ISP. If a customer is found with an insecure device facing the net the ISP would be obligated to disconnect them until the device is removed. That kills the market for such devices.
"NZ doesn't have a number of crop pests."
What it does have is a particularly nasty flatworm that eats earthworms and it's exported them here. That's not only GB but also N Ireland - I don't know if they've got south yet but I had the bastards in my garden in Lisburn. It's a great pity they didn't pay as much attention to not letting stuff out as they do to not letting stuff in.
ISTM that's what's needed here is something akin to a Chromebook in that it contains no data but where, in place of a conventional login, you VPN to a server of your choice which could be a Google account as per Chromebook but could equally well be a Nextcloud server or anything else. No default, previous login etc would be kept on the device. The user could then present an innocuous server account for customs and log into a confidential server for work.
"I remember thinking that in Belfast in 1991"
I assume that that was in reply to "the terrorists have won". A lot of us thought that a good deal earlier. Given that the largest parties in Stormont are essentially the political wings of the main terrorist movements you could be right.
"Providing entertainment without a monetary price tag."
Without a monetary price tag maybe. But I refer you back to your previous comment about not being stolen from. How about users having their privacy stolen. And even if the users accept this, how about those who are non-account holders having their privacy stolen by way of shadow profiles?
"See also the proposed death by cycling laws."
Your comment ignores the fact that there are already laws dealing with death caused by motorised vehicles but when a cyclist caused a death the only legislation that could be found to apply was that drawn up to deal with management of horses. Are you arguing that because cyclists cause few deaths there shouldn't be a means to prosecute those few?
In my view as soon as I leave my gate* I become part of the traffic irrespective of whether I'm on foot (human or horse!) or on wheels (and irrespective of the number of wheels or te power source). As such I have equal responsibility with all other road users to ensure my safety and that of the rest of the traffic. Is that unreasonable?
*Like a good many rural lanes there is no separate footway; it's all road surface. I use the word surface in its most general sense.
Don't just plan it: do it. GDPR/current DPA (and, I think , the previous DPA) already has this facility so if the prosecution could be brought under DPA rather than any other act this should be done.
Another power which would be useful would be to freeze a company bank account and company registration as soon as the company is first contacted.
"If lost in a forest go always down. You will reach a stream or gully and leave the forest along it. Going up will inevitably end on a hilltop."
It depends on the local terrain. In some places if you follow a stream you'll end up stuck in some form of mire. If it's not mountainous stick to the ridge and follow that down*. A lot of pre-historic tracks were ridgeways for good reason.
*Unless the ridge ends in a sharp drop.
