Posts by Doctor Syntax

Transport pundit Christian Wolmar on why the driverless car is on a 'road to nowhere'

Re: It appears from the article that Mr. Wolmar is a railway enthusiast...

"After dropping you at home the car works the taxi night shift"

And your next day starts with cleaning out the various organic remains last night's passengers left in it. Or do you wait up to do that as soon as it returns from its night shift?

"I don't think The Holborn Effect will stand in the way of that."

Why not? If the Holborn Effect is operational it might be waiting miles away when you want to pick you up from work.

Re: It's too Black and White

"I find the worst part of motorway driving - and the most potentially lethal - is getting bored driving long straight roads with little or no interest to stop you from nodding off"

This is a solved problem. All those "smart" motorways with their close spaced speed cameras and changeable, arbitrary speed limits are guaranteed to impose sufficient stress to keep you awake.

Re: It's too Black and White

"Surely that's called a taxi (black, mini or uber flavoured) or one of the gang doesn't drink."

The one time we resorted to booking a cab for that purpose after a company do I had the experience of being fully alert and watching our driver T-bone a car that had slowly pulled out of a side road, initially some hundreds ahead, most of which we travelled before said driver though it might be an idea to brake.

To give the driver his due he was very efficient after the crash. He got on the blower and got a colleague to come and remove all witnesses his passengers from the scene of the accident PDQ.

Re: It's too Black and White

" Lets have roadways (motorways) that are fully automated"

And when the automation goes TITSUP?

Re: They will never work in an urban environment.

" just yesterday, a Audi twat mobile... actually stopped when faced with a large puddle and waited for me to pass, so they could go round it"

Well it's a big lump, it would take ages to wash if it got splashed with a bit of mud.

Re: They will never work in an urban environment.

"And I bet you're paying for the privilege and it costs the taxpayer more"

Who's "you" and what's the privilege?

"Three trucks are almost the length of a football field"

Comparisons such as this would be useful if my curiosity extended to wanting to know how long a football field is. It doesn't.

Leaky credit report biz face massive fines if US senators get their way

So they've finally begin to notice.

I wonder how long it will take before they start to think in wider terms than credit reference agencies. I suppose there's a factor limiting that. Given the number of breaches with US Gov't agencies if they made it a blanket law they might have to build in exemptions for gov't and that mightn't look too good. It might even start the plebs thinking about all the data gov't collects and that could be a really scary outcome for them.

"Sure it will, it will make companies more willing to invest in covering up breaches and obfuscating the number of affected individuals."

No change there, then.

Re: No chance

"give the C-suiters a personal multiyear, all-expense paid, vacation courtesy of Club Fed with a personal massive 'donation' to the feral treasury."

You're talking about job titles. Job titles are what the company chooses to make them. They're just strings of letters. Unless you actually define the roles in your legislation then you have a massive loophole in it. Much easier to go for the directors. Those are already defined in company legislation.

Swiss cheesed off after Apple store iPhone does Samsung Galaxy Note 7 impersonation

Re: No one else picked up on this?

"So they just happened to have some quartz sand in a bucket"

It's the easiest sort of sand to buy. I'd guess the Swiss have regulations about having fire-fighting equipment in business premisses.

Tata for now: Marks & Spencer transfers 250 tech jobs to outsourcer

Re: Bankruptcy Soon?

"1) Real success is about fashion sense (for their target market), quality, value and store service.

2) IT is an evil necessity, and a cost. Being mediocre or worse is not going to harm them, whereas failing to manage purchasing, style, logistics, supply chains, and store stock levels will."

To the extent that IT supports store service, logistics, supply chains and store level it would be best just to regard it as a necessity rather than an evil one. Let it drift and all the things it supports also drift a bit.

The Beeb's report pointed out that M&S are having problems competing with other online retainers. Outsourcing your operation seems a really, really good idea in the circumstances.

Beer hall putz: Regulator slaps northern pub over Nazi-themed ad

Trivialising?

Heaven forbid the ASA should encounter any genuine wartime (I or II) cartoons.

Re: Parmo

"chips and scraps."

You mean wi'bits?

Re: Don't mention the war

Being of such low intelligence, he fails to realise that that episode is actually a hilarious demolition job from start to finish of just the sort of Fawltyish ignorance he himself is displaying. But no, all he remembers is the "silly walk" bit.

Have you dismissed out of hand the possibility that you're not the only one who realises that, that the landlord himself realises it, that his customers also realise it and that something hilarious is a good way to promote a pub event?

Cabinet reshuffle leaves UK digital policy and GDS rudderless. And now the news...

Re: re: PPE Grads

"unless they have done a real job for at least 10 years"

Agreed. And banking doesn't count as a real job.

Re: Digital what?

"aren't these people meant to be smart?"

It's optional. The only skill actually required is self-advancement. It's been like that for years.

his first task was "solving" the Y2K bug using "Cobalt".

It's a pity he didn't extend this into a learning about character sets.

In the meantime, let's consider the new Minister for Universities and Science. Sam Gyimah who, according to the Beeb, is ex Goldman Sachs and read - you've guessed it - PPE. So really well qualified for the job.

Adrift on a sea of data: Architecting for GDPR

Re: Does anyone know what GDPR compliance looks like yet?

Yes. It's doing things the way you should have been doing them all along.

"By defining rigid data retention policies and destroying data when the policy says you should."

Even before you get to data retention you should only collect the data you actually require. This may be rather less than manglement, particularly marketing, insist they want.

In fact, a good place to start would be by taking away all marketing's toys: their PCs, mobiles, network shares or whatever and only give them back after auditing for PII that shouldn't be there. Also, take away their budget and only give it back to them as required for projects signed off by your data protection compliance officer. Because marketing's culture is almost certainly antithetical to that you're trying to build.

Taiwanese cops give malware-laden USB sticks as prizes for security quiz

"Almost as bad as winning a speedboat on Bullseye when you live in the middle of Yorkshire."

Not a problem, just take it to Brid. I suppose a quick burn-up on Scammonden would be a tad unpopular.

UK Data Protection Bill tweaked to protect security researchers

Re: Crucial point here, it doesn't become public knowledge. Hush, hush now.

"Does the ICO react to anything in 3 days?" It's up to you to inform within 3 days. After that it's up to them and nothing to do with you.

"Or ever?" Shall we have a check to find out? Oh, look https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/10/carphone_warehouse_slapped_with_400k_fine_after_hack_exposed_3_meeellion_customers_data/

Re: So essentially..

"Best not do any of that sort of research just before a bank holiday weekend then!"

Write yourself a memo coming to the conclusion that re-identification is possible and date it. Include your suspicions that it might be possible plus your explanation of why you've just come to that finalconclusion. Send the ICO a message - email or letter, of the same date. If you're worried about the effects of non-working days do it on a date that gives the message sufficient time to be delivered. With documentation it becomes difficult to claim you were definitely aware earlier.

Carphone Warehouse cops £400k fine after hack exposed 3 MEEELLION folks’ data

“very sorry for any distress or inconvenience”

Clear they can't get away with the ritual "only a few" so we get the second line of defence in weasel words: "any"(implying there may be none) and avoidance of the word "damage".

Will journalists please learn to follow up this crap with searching questions?

Mine all the data, they said. It will be worth your while, they said

Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom

How far along that path does any of this stuff get?

Max Schrems: The privacy bubble needs to start 'getting sh*t done'

"The lady behind the counter asked me for a postcode, I gave her the first 3 letters of it!

Why give that much? It wasn't needed information.

When GDPR comes into operation I wonder how long it will take for businesses to discover that their marketing departments are their biggest risk.

Example: a few days ago I received a letter addressed:

$ME

Address removed

at customers request

MARKETED AT

$POSTCODE

Marketing just behave like four year-olds who won't be told 'no'.

Indian data leak looks to have been an inside job

The risks in a system such as this are similar to those in any other centralised system holding sensitive data. Explain to me again why it's a good idea to have a government key escrow system for encryption.

MPs sceptical of plan for IT to save the day after UK quits customs union

Re: IT sceptical of plan for MPs to save the day after UK quits customs union

In fact, "IT sceptical of MPs" covers more or less everything to do with government..

Re: You forgot...

"You missed Agile."

We're saved! That'll fix it with a 5-day sprint.

Re: There are no specs because the UK's trade agreement hasn't been negotiated with the EU yet

"The northbound lanes will be delightfully clear."

Maybe not. They'll probably be solid with parked incoming HGVs waiting for customs clearance of imports.

Re: Problem solved

"Or opening a container door to check that what's in it matches the bill of lading."

Or who's in it.

Devs see red after not seeing Big Red on Stack Overflow database poll

Really?

Do these people take such surveys so seriously they worry about not being able to tick some box?

"Because they are prisoners of history. Pretty much everyone uses MS SQL in enterprise greenfield sites these days"

Just an alternative prison.

SAP customers won't touch the fluffy stuff... so here's another on-prem HR data tool

@Yank. You clearly never met my old colleague from whom I got the phrase so maybe don't quite grasp what he meant by it.

"SAP has revealed it is working on a new on-premises human capital management system, admitting that many of its customers are still not ready for the cloud."

A more likely explanation is that the cloud isn't ready for GDPR, nor will it be. In the meantime, can whoever coined the phrase "human capital" be taken outside and quietly chloroformed?

FBI says it can't unlock 8,000 encrypted devices, demands backdoors for America's 'public safety'

Re: Money Talks...

The money argument is firmly on the side of "you can't have that". At least not if the US wants to keep a tech industry.

Teach citizens IoT dangers, engineering students cybersecurity, Uncle Sam suggests

The 38-page report [PDF] titled "Enhancing the Resilience of the Internet and Communications Ecosystem Against Botnets and Other Automated, Distributed Threats" is the first of many that are heading to the president's desk following an executive order signed in May, following a number of abortive attempts.

Do they really expect him to read 38 pages?

Mystery surrounds fate of secret satellite slung by SpaceX

Re: There is an extraterrestrial explanation for all this

That's the question. Is it still extraterrestrial or has it gone back to being terrestrial?

Re: ... the threat of a nuclear exchange between the US and North Korea

"I'd expect the Chinese to be very upset"

But with whom? Maybe with Kim.

How are the shares, Bry? Intel chief cops to CPU fix slowdowns

"Meltdown and Spectre have shaken the IT industry to its core"

Mostly to its Intel core.

Japanese giant NEC gobbles Brit IT firm Northgate for £475m

Re: Getting sovereignty back

"But foreign ownership is neither hear nor there"

It depends on who's listening.

Supremes asked to mull legality of Silicon Valley privacy 'slush funds'

A nice outcome from the supremes would be a retrospective judgement that the class member should also get a payout - hands back in the pocket to find a bit more change.

If the prospect of a reasonable payout isn't that good why join the class action instead of just going to the small claims court?

Take notebooks: About those new Thinkpads...

Re: Battery life of two years?

"Since it is hard to replace Lenovo has learned from Apple and is hoping you buy a new laptop to replace the worn-out battery."

Slight difference. Unless you choose to jump platform you have to replace an Apple with an Apple however pissed off you might be with their tricks. If Lenovo piss you off with theirs you can go elsewhere unless everyone else goes down the same route.

"How they gonna make a fixed battery last the 10-20 years we all expect a Thinkpad to last ?"

Maybe they're trying to tell you something.

FCA 'gold-plates' EU rule, hits BYOD across entire UK finance sector

"does BigBank have to be able to monitor the facilities manager arguing with the catering company about sandwiches ?"

From TFA:

A firm must take all reasonable steps to prevent an employee or contractor from making, sending, or receiving relevant telephone conversations and electronic communications on privately owned equipment which the firm is unable to record or copy.

Re: Self employed and BYOD

"Set up a ltd so that YouTheCompany and YouThePerson are legally separate entities."

Always a good idea. Case in point: a local bookshop owner died suddenly back in October. The shop is still closed and looks likely to be so for some time. He was a sole trader so all the stock was his personal property (unless on sale or return if that applied to any of it) and he died intestate. Nothing can be done until probate is sorted out and that's complicated.

Re: Rights conflict?

"Having said that, we all managed to function perfectly well in the days before mobile phones."

By using the employer's phone which might be being recorded.

WD My Cloud NAS devices have hard-wired backdoor

Re: it's the 21st century and they're still...

"The only way it can be fixed is if the seller (the one who stuck the brand sticker on it) will be made responsible at a FTC/Eu level to supply fixes for a reasonable amount of time."

It can be fixed PDQ. Security checking becomes a part of UL and CE (and the equivalent for other quality regimes) checking. That goes a long way to keeping unchecked products out of major markets, sufficient to make doing it right the more profitable option.

Smartphones' security enhancements just make them more dangerous

"Over the holidays I bought Apple’s newest, shiniest face scanner."

Boasting, confessing or complaining? My usual reaction to "Posted from my iPhone".