Posts by Doctor Syntax

Registry to ban Cyrillic .eu addresses even if you've paid for them

Re: Here's a thought...

"Well, Firefox translates your fully Cyrillic 'аррӏе.com' to the quite different 'https://xn--80ak6aa92e.com/' URL when you click on the link"

It doesn't do that here.

Re: Here's a thought...

"Perhaps a temporary fix might be a browser plugin that does the bells, whistles, and flashing lights thing if it finds something potentially suspicious: a url with two different scripts, or indeed a url not in a language that the browser is currently set to?"

I was thinking along the same lines except to make it core browser functionality to highlight any mixed scripts in URLs.

"Does anyone run any serious sites on these extended character domains, though?"

Having read the article I'd expect there would be Bulgarian sites or sites aimed at Bulgarian speakers who do. Expansion of the acronym WWW should be a clue as to why there are sites aimed at countries, languages and scripts other.

Another staffer at mega-hacked Equifax slapped with insider trading rap

"eight US states’ banking departments have opted to make a deal with the credit reporting biz – and stops short of imposing a fine on the firm."

The figleaf shrivels up a little more.

NHS systems fell offline for 1,300+ hours over 36 months, cyber-nasties fingered – FoI study

It's difficult to make any sense* of these figures unless we know how many PCs were in use in those trusts. Not the number of PC affected although that would also be interesting, but the total number in use.

* As demonstrated up-thread.

No more slurping of kids' nationalities, Brit schools told

Re: Fair enough, but as a matter of balance

"No offence to your niece, but no, she's not reliable.

I hear an AWFUL lot of bad stuff about refugees in the Netherlands. "

I'm not sure how your facts about refugees in the Netherlands make the Nazz's niece unreliable wrt teaching in what I take to be a UK school.

"The department intends to use this for research purposes, but has pointed to periodic reviews it will carry out to demonstrate that it won't be retained for longer than necessary."

Thank you for attending the annual review. Conclusion: still needed. That OK with everyone? Thanks. Please serve the tea and biscuits.

IBM memo to staff: Our CEO Ginni is visiting so please 'act normally!'

"This means you should wear what you always wear – jeans, sport coat, polo, whatever floats your boat."

If there weren't any T-shirts with ...interesting...slogans it must have been an opportunity wasted: IBM Meant Business or How Have The Mighty Fallen would have been suitable examples.

Re: Banned from using the fifth floor?

Back when BT occupied half of that tower block at the corner of Euston Rd and Hampstead Rd (assuming it's still there, haven't been to London for a few years now) it was rumoured that there was one more floor than accounted for by the number of buttons in the lift.

"We had the queen visit the little town I stayed in a few years ago. She would only have driven up the road I live on not even got out the car. Even so we still got new lamp posts ahead of schedule, all the road markings repainted and the verges manicured."

We found that having the Tour de France come through had a similar effect on road surfacing a few years ago. It's all going to pot(holes) again now.

Re: Desks should be clear anyway,...

"A clean desk is the sign of a sick mind"

An empty desk is the sign of an empty head.

Two different definitions of Edge Computing arrive in one week

"Isn't Fog what happens when a cloud rolls in over you, leaving everything unclear and a bit spooky?"

And you quickly get lost in it.

"The other definition came from a new group of vendors who hope to do business on the edge, but feel it’s hard to have a cogent conversation about edge computing because nobody uses the same definition."

This has been standard practice with any aspect of computing ever since vendors started to employ PR and marketing.

Amazon’s Snowball snowballs as Google's clone gets real and IBM's comes to Europe

Re: Why?

You've more or less answered your own question. It's to move data to the cloud someone else's computer en masse.

"I don't know too many companies doing that kind of work."

I think PT Barnum had something to say about that.

UK taxman warned it's running out of time to deliver working customs IT system by Brexit

"Actually I think she is a closet remainer"

I always thought she was a closet leaver and her remain credentials pre-referendum were just enough to keep her job on the assumption that remain would win. She's been brainwashed by the Home Office into fear of the ECJ. Right now I think she's still a closet Home Sec.

" didn't someone somewhere in government not say we've voted leave but the timetable needs to be extended because we won't be ready therefore don't submit the leave letter to the EU just yet"

I wouldn't be surprised. There's enough difference of opinion to cover all possibilities.

"bambi"

I don't think he counts any longer even if he does seem sound on Brexit.

Re: Don't be cretinous

"Is it that I am a bear of very little brain"

I doubt it. You've never seemed that way here.

Re: Don't be cretinous

"Luckily we are all (in my family) dual British/Irish citizenship."

SWMBO, children and grandchildren are entitled to claim Irish citizenship. Even my cockney BiL is. I'm not.

Not OK Google: Massive outage turns smart home kit utterly dumb

Re: Hahahaha

"IoT simply means that you might not even be able to lock your front door on the way out to work in the morning."

Or unlock it.

Uncle Sam is shocked, SHOCKED to find dark-web bazaars trading drugs, weapons, etc

Re: Refund please...

"using CBD at an unknown cost margin"

After all clinical trials don't cost much to do.

"#rootandbranch"

A hashtag. Is that you, Amber?

Infosec bod wagers web bookie BetVictor is lax on password protection

"Liverpool-connected bookies, who now will never walk unpwned."

Nice one, Shaun.

Icon: no CO2, no beer.

Hipster horror! Slack has gone TITSUP: Total inability to support user procrastination

Re: Slack is down! OMG

"Its the equivalent of that pile of junk mail at my front door.!"

Change the email address, or at least set up a second one. We all went through that phase. Some of us worked out how to deal with it.

Re: I never even noticed

"Besides, my email is flooded with vendor spam and other useless correspondence"

Use a different email address for the teams. And if you can, close the spammed address and think of the howls of pain from the marketing jerks when their valuable marketing messages spam bounces.

Re: Slack is down! OMG

"Slack is the main communication channel with our offsite team. And this is hampering our normal discussion. With them being 12hrs offset from our timezone IM is the best way to discuss."

12 hours isn't instant which is what the I in IM stands for. As someone said higher up the thread, have you tried email?

In the meantime the eponymous Linux distro runs on regardless.

A year after devastating NotPetya outbreak, what have we learnt? Er, not a lot, says BlackBerry bod

Re: Bollocks

"They needed to get a reseller to provide new standard builds as their outsourcer was unable to assist."

But think of all the bonuses management got because of all the money they saved by outsourcing.

Re: Bollocks

"said the attack cost it £100m"

When hacked companies say things like this you have to wonder how much of that was spend putting in place the defences they should have had all along. In other words, some of it's deferred spending and some of it is what that deferring has cost them in the long run.

Re: Patching is the most important thing, and it's really hard.

"Patching is hard... really monstrously hard."

And harder still if the patch interferes with the operation of the overall system or with regulatory requirements. In the latter case the system which actually needs to be examined and modified if required includes the regulatory process.

"outdated systems"

Where do you draw the system boundaries? A stand-alone PC running a particular version of a particular OS might be out-dated. An expensive piece of kit, of which a similar PC is a component, still performing the function for which it was bought and within its budgeted lifetime is a different matter.

Ticketmaster gatecrash: Gig revelers' personal, payment info glimpsed by support site malware

Let's see how the ICO deals with this under GDPR - although there may be a complication that the hack was in progress before. But it gives us chance to see what sort of levels of fines they're going to impose.

And given that the hack was on a US 3rd party supplier it's good to see the Privacy Shield is really doing its stuff.

Galileo, here we go again. My my, the Brits are gonna miss EU

Re: @ Doctor Syntax

"Really? Why?"

I think the rest of your post answers that question quite well.

Re: Nose, face, bite ...

"There are many agreements which do not depend on membership of the EU, and this feels like a spiteful baby/bathtub response with no benefit to the EU"

That might be true of a lot of agreements. In this particular agreement it is, however, a condition of the Galileo project that the UK particularly wanted so spite doesn't come into it. Beware of what you wish for; you might get it.

Re: HS2 and the Galileo replacement

"The Euro is the Euro which is of course over all those countries. That is why the Euro is undervalued and overvalued all at the same time depending where you are."

On that we can agree. We were wise to stay out. After all we seem to find it hard to set interest rates that work properly for the whole of the UK. For the whole of England, in fact. That's not a great reason to cut off a large part of out home market, however, and hope that some surge of export trade will magically replace it.

Re: HS2 and the Galileo replacement

"The UK wants a good trading relationship with the EU."

I've seen nothing of that in the govt's Brexiteers. They seem to want a no customs union Brexit and I don't quite see how that gets categorised as a good trading relationship.

Re: we don't know.how.things will play out when.outside the EU, but.I'll take my chances on that.

No doubt all Leave voters will proudly state "Yes, I did my bit"

I doubt it. You'll more likely find that nobody actually voted leave and the referendum outcome is explained away as a strange statistical anomaly.

Re: Fgs

" Johnny Foreigner builds stuff here for, yes, a large internal market but also to export to Europe."

Close but not close enough. For stuff built in the UK as a member of the EU, the EU is the internal market.

Re: Fgs

"So much like the Great British Patriotic Flying Brexit Pork Barrel will if it's catapulted into orbit then."

It would have to be even smaller, otherwise those nasty EU nations might be able to use it. No problem, a Brexit navigational system will go round in very small circles.

Re: Fgs

"I do find it saddening that so many people refuse to even consider that there could be a better future, and are happy to leave everything in the hands of someone else."

Isn't that exactly what you're doing where "someone else" is ToTW?

The really saddening thing that so many people refuse to consider that as long as we're a member of the EU the EU isn't actually "someone else", it's something of which we're a part.

We shouldn't really be looking at the EU as a trading partner but, for any large and many specialist small businesses, as the home market. The disruption of losing such a great proportion of their home market is such that many businesses are likely to go down the tubes or relocate before they can benefit from any great bonanza the RoTW could provide.

Re: Fgs

"Are you expecting us to be at war with the USA any time soon?"

With an increasingly isolationist USA it's not unreasonable to consider that we (or the EU) could be at war without them.

Re: HS2 and the Galileo replacement

"I expect no one using this site has been affected by the EU."

This isn't a US site. The UK has been part of the EU for a long time, longer than many el Reg readers have been pushing air in and out. It's simply part of the way the UK relates to the world, the way it conducts trade, the way it earns money to pay wages and pensions. How on Earth can that not affect every one of the UK population?

Re: HS2 and the Galileo replacement

"On the 52% and the warnings - how many of the warnings have actually come true?"

Please read the following very carefully and try very hard to understand it.

The warnings apply to what will happen when we leave the EU and EU trade arrangements no longer apply.

We have not yet left the EU.

Until we do the EU trade arrangements still apply.

Re: Fgs

"Trump is of this ilk, if more rational than some US politicians."

What a terrifying thought.

Re: Lets just get on with it . . . .

"I really didn't think I needed the sarcasm indicator."

There seems to be a line of thought that Remainers actually want Brexit to fail. That needs to be made clear to them. Thank you for providing an opportunity.

"It's too hot and my brain is frying."

You're not alone.

Re: @ Doctor Syntax

"Probably because the EU sets the bar so low that any objective criteria would almost certainly lead us out of the EU."

Just the attitude I worry about. If the UK GDP had dropped by 50% of pre-referendum level you'd still point to this or that and proclaim a success.

How about we can agree it's a success if UK GDP rises by 5% and a failure if it falls by 5% in 5 years, relative to pre-referendum level and adjusted for any overall change in world GDP? Or maybe a 5% increase or decrease in balance of trade? Or some measure of living standards or employment? Personally I'd be delighted if, by some such measure, Brexit were to be proclaimed a success. Delighted but astonished.

Remember the Yes Prime Minister episode where any proposal was to be accompanied by failure standards? Somehow that never caught on in real life government or political circles. What a pity.

Re: Lets just get on with it . . . .

"With confidence like that I'm surprised the Remainers aren't dancing in the streets."

Why? It's no cause for jubilation.

Has anyone come up with any objective criteria which could be agreed by both sides by which we could say, within a reasonable number of years, whether Brexit has succeeded or failed economically?

Re: HS2 and the Galileo replacement

"Is the EU being awkward ?. Yes it is - just see it for what the EU is."

Oddly enough, if you ask the EU they'd almost certainly say the same about the UK. What's more, they'd be able to point out that Brexit was the UK's idea.

Creep travels half the world to harass online teen gamer… and gets shot by her mom – cops

Re: Psycho creeps will always be with us.

"People defending their families in their own homes should not be subject to arrest."

Until sufficient facts have been established by investigation the reason for the shooting is unknown. So are you saying that someone who has shot a person for reasons not yet established should be allowed to go free and possibly take themselves off from the scene on the basis that subsequent investigation might establish a self defence motive?

Re: Now he can get a tattoo, "Shot by the Mom!"

"The Battle of Agincourt, which was notable for the mass use of the longbow as a decisive weapon, wasn't until 1415, (15th century)"

Petite tranchet arrowheads go back to the Mesolithic which was a few thousand years beyond the C15th.