Posts by Doctor Syntax

Culture comes first in cybersecurity. That puts cybersecurity on the front line in the culture wars

Re: Cloud Act?

To what extent would we want alternatives to major cloud providers? As things stand there must be few clients who are not rounding errors in the bottom line of their US service providers.

As far as stuff like OneBox or whatever it's called is concerned, NextC|loud with the desktop client installed does the job fine, is based on open standards and provides for calendar sync and a number of collaboration tools. There are plenty of EU & UK suppliers who will run it for you if you don't want to run it in-house.

Likewise there are EU and UK suppliers who will host email.

For "major" read "many".

The bits needed to make up Microsoft <365 of the Google equivalent are there.but there is scope for some integration work, the sort of thing that the Microsoft ID handles. There's also scope for a ChromeOS equivalent which will integrate with the users' choice of service provider including an in-house server if preferred. It's those areas where I would see the efforts of a "Collective" being best applied.

Re: "Cost and Consequence"

"Gramps, why did they let Robert Kennedy kill all those little children with measles?"

Robert Kennedy is a believer in eugenics. If the kids aren't strong enough to survive a bout of measles than that's just nature's way of improving the species would be his view. Unfortunately, in practice the selection filter is parents stupid enough to believe him. He also puts out that vitamin A is a good cure so now there are kids turning up for treatment with vitamin A poisoning from over-enthusiastic "treatment".

"Let's hope they choose wisely."

It would make a nice change.

"US companies can voluntarily abide by EU norms through contractual agreement, so the EU is happy – no, that's the wrong word"

It certainly is. Gullible? Credulous? Cowed. maybe? Schizophrenic is probably the best description. One part of the EU wants to protect users, the other doesn't want to rock the boat with US trade. Now the boat has been rocked perhaps it's time for the user protection to come to the fore. In post-Brexit Britain I'm not sure there's anyone in HMG who cares about user protection so it'll be readily ditched in order to kiss Trump's arse.

Signal chat app clone used by Signalgate's Waltz was apparently an insecure mess

Re: A quote from Forrest Gump comes to mind.

He's obviously worked out that there was something a bit wrong with his use of Signal but just not what it was so insteado fthat he's used something a bit different.

British govt agents step in as Harrods becomes third mega retailer under cyberattack

Re: We all know why it keeps happening

We need two things. One is a directors' responsibility added in company law. The other is an arrangement similar to aircraft reporting where the incident is analysed: what happened, how it was recovered, how the system could have been better arranged to minimise the attackers' access and what could have been done to prevent access in the first place with the results circulated to CISOs so that the lessons could be applied widely.

Re: screw M&S

No doubt it worked with the developer's browser & that was good enough.

Re: We can't continue to regard these simply as "IT Problems"

Damn autocorrect - misogyny.

Re: M&S Store shopping - no stock at the best of times

"my first job some 30 years ago"

So you're still young.

Re: M&S Store shopping - no stock at the best of times

Shortened, if need be. These days there's probably not enough hem left to lengthen them.

Re: We can't continue to regard these simply as "IT Problems"

It was your second sentence which was the problem. Following up a reasonable complaint about misandry with monogeny isn't good, even if it was an attempt at irony.

Re: We can't continue to regard these simply as "IT Problems"

"he's"

Maybe I'm jumping to a conclusion here but the poster's handle was JulieM.

Re: It's OK, they are taking proactive steps

Copy and paste.

If Greggs gets hit it will be copy and pastie.

Re: We can't continue to regard these simply as "IT Problems"

Avoid soup. For good measure, avoid ketchup.

Re: screw M&S

This weaselling should not be allowed. If you have to give any data to any business for the purposes of a transaction it should not be used beyond those purposes and the business should be solely responsible to you for the actions of any of its agents as well as its own actions. And let's have criminal liability for directors.

Re: The threashold has been crossed

Government agencies only recognise the trend when a luxury goods retailer with a large international customer base ministers and/or their wives as customers is affected.

FTFY

Foyles

Charing Cross Road. That was the road for books. TCR was the road for electronics, mostly branches of Stern-Clyne.

There was a poster on the bus shelter outside with the slogan "Foyled again? Got to Dillons."

Re: security , no it's in the way

It's a question of "what happens if we do get hacked"

Make that "when" and ask it of manglement. "If" gives wriggle room.

Re: M&S Store shopping - no stock at the best of times

Those of us with long memories remember a Burton's and/or John Colliers on every High Street, not far from the M&S. The "wherever they make the suits" was Leeds.

Re: M&S Store shopping - no stock at the best of times

"better for the environment"

Looking at the fields behind me - this is the time of year for lambs. If the local farmer wasn't raising sheep and beef cattle (the regulations for milk production made dairying infeasible for a farm that size years ago) what would he do with it? Historically the area produced oats almost exclusively, so much so that fields supporting other crops were given names such as Ryeclose of Wheatcroft. I don't see cereals being a thing. In any case ploughing up grassland is going to release stored carbon over a few years. Without rearranging, or more likely removing, all the walls, ploughing would likely lead to soil erosion. It's a south-facing slope so maybe a vineyard....

It's also worth realising that grazed chalk grassland is one of the UK's most significant environments in terms of both botanical and invertebrate diversity. Ploughing so much of it up to plant crops was an environmental disaster.

Re: M&S Store shopping - no stock at the best of times

"I'd recommend John Lewis for a suit."

The nearest John Lewis store must be even further away from me than the nearest M&S that sells clothing. It's just as well I don't need a suit.

Re: We can't continue to regard these simply as "IT Problems"

Thus for cyber security it is going to need some very high profile business failures and eye watering recovery costs for business leaders (and “investors”) to take matters seriously.

Preferably followed by directors being prosecuted for not discharging their fiduciary duty.

Teens maintained a mainframe and it went about as well as you'd imagine

Re: Good, but don't do that again

"Don't do that again" I was told, very clearly.

It's things like that that tell you that you need a better employer.

There's only one answer to the boss like that: "OK, in future I'll call you first".

The only one I regret is the one who didn't make it.

Re: Feeding the Beast

You cannot imagine how sad it makes me having a 33ASR explains. But I suppose we have a younger generation to educate.

It was an unbelievable feeling sitting at one of those and realising I had the whole of a 1904 at my command (I don't think it was supposed to be the whole of it but when it proved possible to crash it it really was). How I sit with this laptop on my knee with equally unbelievable times more power, memory and storage. Particularly storage bearing in mind that the fixed disk needed a building of its own and had to be properly aligned with the Earth's axis to prevent precession ruining it and individual allocations were 100k words.

Re: You lucky, lucky

Yes, I'll put mine on too, if I have to go out. It's a bit brass monkeys here.

Open Document Format turns 20, but Microsoft Office still reigns supreme

Re: That UK Gov Manadate thing

Mine, Kirklees, are pretty precarious financially. Reform taking that over could be .... interesting.

Re: MS the compay that gave us "Enfold extend, extinguish"

It is a reason to be suspicious of anything that emanates from Microsoft. If it brings non-USians to realise this Trump may yet be doing us a favour, however unintentionally.

Re: That UK Gov Manadate thing

"Something there just doesn't ring true."

It rings true when you consider the deep ignorance of many policy makers. The policy may be based on a false premise but that doesn't mean it isn't a policy.

Re: That UK Gov Manadate thing

I wouldn't put it past them to try. At least my council didn't have its elections this year so they've not got any worse. I dread to think what happens next time round.

And might turn round and hold you to ransom.

ODF also defines a graphics file format although I've never seen anything that implements it. (No, it isn't the drawing format used by LO Draw.) As far as I can make out from the XML schema it's for multiple layers and accepts both PNG and SVG.

Re: That UK Gov Manadate thing

"Maybe Reform UK could take up the challenge in their threats to implement a DOGE like approach to the recent wins in the UK local council referendums."

Soon your local council can make Birmingham look good.

Re: Succes

"Yes I've heard that in theory Office can read the things, but in practice all that happens is complaints about unreadable documents."

Obviously they need a more capable office suite. They should try LO.

Altman's eyeball-scanning biometric blockchain orbs officially come to America

One man, a visitor to the RSA Conference happening just down the road, said he'd heard about it at the show and "free money is free money."

He may have known enough to give a genuine scan and completely false information to go with it - preferably Sam Alman as his name.

Trump promises protection for TikTok, for which he has a ‘warm spot in my heart’

Re: Ignorant estate agent made president, result for everything is what you'd expect

A conversation with the late John Prescott could have been amusing. Not interesting, but amusing.

“I think his people have done an incredible job...They’re unbelievable at computers."

Literally.

"flubbed some tech investment figures"

s/lu/i/

India’s chipmaking ambitions hurt by Zoho’s no-go and Adani unease

"The regulator also ordered Meta to start obeying the law within 180 days."

180 days? How about now, given that they should have been obeying it all along?

Example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c30q54l9dneo

Microsoft tries to knife passwords once and for all – at least for consumers

Very simple. My password is not on my computer, just its hash. My password manager is on my computer, it's encrypted, needs a password (strictly speaking a passphrase) to open and is synched to a NextCloud server on my own hardware. That's two passwords which I keep in my head. I will not use those elsewhere. There are no other dependencies, especially no third parties. I am not beholden to Microsoft or Apple for access to my PC.

Re: Maintaining passkeys

'Twas not I but repeat after me:

It's somebody else's computer that you do not control.

It's somebody else's computer that you do not control.

It's somebody else's computer that you do not control.

It's somebody else's computer that you do not control.

It's somebody else's computer that you do not control.

It's somebody else's computer that you do not control.

A password manager is fine. But keep it where you can lay your hands on it.

UK's smaller broadband operators face tough road ahead, consolidation possible

Re: choose between three or even four providers.

"But most customers (ie consumers) ... just look at bandwidth & price"

And how many of them bother to check real bandwidth? If the do,for most people who don't know how to connect to a router with an RJ45 cable that means they'll be measuring the speed of their WiFi.

Re: skipping streets

"Openretch are an archaic shower that long ago should have been broken up / made a non profit "

If they were a non-profit where would they get the capital to build anything, even a cable past the end of your street?

Oh, right. The taxpayer. Good luck with that.

Meta blames Trump tariffs for ballooning AI infra bills

Maybe not Musk, but the rest of them will be looking at their rising costs, shrinking sales market and falling stock market.

Re: why not just build a foundry in the USA and sell chips?

"avoid tariffs by building the stuff in the USA"

And, as Nvidia found, face export bans instead.

20% discount offer on Windows 365 expires around same time as Windows 10 support

Re: We users may hate Windows 365

It makes sense until you realise that your entire business is leased from Microsoft on a computer they control and you are only given the illusion of controlling.

Trump wants to fire quarter of NASA budget into black hole – and not in a good way

Re: What was .... *ponder* ...

From that:

"Johnson: In September of ’85 Ortho Pharmaceutical had backed out of the CFES because they could do it cheaper without the space travel."

It does rather look like a conclusion that could have been reached without actually going there. There's a lot of scientific work that can be done by NASA but the costs of getting materials up there and the product back down is going to make processing in space difficult to impossible for economical manufacturing.

Re: Whither MSR

Is Musk planning an a round trip? And can he be on the first flight , round trip or not?

Re: What was .... *ponder* ...

"Look up Charles Walker and his electrophoresis experiments on Shuttle."

A quick search produces nothing more informative than I'd see on a glossy marketing brochure. What was the actual outcome?