Posts by Doctor Syntax

Strike day struck off as Fujitsu and Unite negotiate job cuts

It's good to talk... with Acas

Providing you know your ACAS from your NALGO.

Mr Angry pays taxman with five wheelbarrows worth of loose change

"5Whbs shall equal $3,000"

You can do better than that. The obvious unit, from the article, is a mature cow. As the article states that it was actually more than a mature cow rounding has to be taken into account so it's a spherical cow.

EU policy makers consider FRAND licensing of machine-generated data

Fair's fair.

It seems reasonable to me. If my data has been anonymised (allegedly) and is then part of what's being licensed I should be entitled to my share of the license fee.

MongoDB hackers now sacking ElasticSearch

"Send to this email your service IP after sending the bitcoins"

So they don't have any way of connecting the ransom payment with the service? The obvious first step for an admin would be to send the email and hope to profit from someone else's payment.

Now that's a Blue Screen of Death: Windows 10 told me to jump off a cliff

Re: Am I the only one

"If you click on the location it will then open a Bing search in Edge when you log in."

Very useful for someone trying to find out where to jump from.

Re: Methinks MSFT (and some here) are taking this too seriously.

"It's an inspiring quote."

It's the sort of quote that lots of employers put on posters around the building thinking it'll inspire their employees. The employees simply regard them as insults to their intelligence.

Re: If you're running Windows 10...

Why would the above be a problem in an operating system that is a "viable alternative to Windows"?

Because there's always some smartarse H/W maker that decides to do things their own way, needs a special driver and only provides a Windows version.

Everything wrong with IoT (and how to fix it) – according to Uncle Sam

It sounds like an exceptionally bad committee document. Everybody wanted to say something different, they couldn't agree so everybody gets what they wanted to say in there, even if they contradict each other. e.g. get your act together vs multistakeholder let everyone stick their oar in.

Trump's cyber-guru Giuliani runs ancient 'easily hackable website'

Re: "Do the Ruskies have footage of Giuliani also paying prostitutes to piddle on each other?"

"But is it real, or is it just written just to sound real?"

Does it make a difference?

Re: Awhhhhhh, how sweet

"It simply matters who you know, what you have done for them in the past and most importantly what you can do for them in the future."

It's the American Way.

Re: Big Brother Security to the rescue

"another person who clearly knows nothing about his remit."

Given those reports about his own website I think he's about to learn something PDQ, even if only how little he knows. The skiddies won't be able to resist. The downside is that once he's paid someone to sort it out he'll think he's an expert.

The top doc, the FBI, the Geek Squad informant – and the child porn pic that technically wasn't

Re: For the sake of argument...

"but isn't it also possible the pictures were in fact of a legitimate medical nature and the feds, perhaps colored by that one deleted image are looking at it all wrong?"

This is a point which seems to have escaped a few commentards who seem so sure of his guilt.

" If I had to send a laptop for repair now I would remove the hdd, I have nothing to hide but it's my data and ONLY I control it."

The problem in this case was that the laptop wouldn't start. The problem may well have been on the drive so removing it wouldn't help. And whilst you and I might be happy to remove a drive before sending it in for repair the average punter wouldn't. So the point is that although the tech can see what's on the disk they've no business looking at anything that isn't strictly appropriate to the task so in practice they shouldn't see other stuff.

"The term you're looking for is a strict liability offence. They were adored by the pre-2010 Labour government, because they are so cheap to enforce and look so good on the crime clearance statistics - no need to worry about mitigating circumstances, if it's there, you've got a conviction."

Let's hope someone takes one of these to the ECHR whilst there's still a chance.

Re: Re. slack space

"Ah, but so rarely find."

Not in my experience. And two of my acquaintance were murdered.

Re: $500 enough to put it there yourself?

"If the evidence is found to be planted you'd be guilty of possession of child porn yourself."

But the article clearly states that it wasn't.

Re: @Sonny Jim "To be clear, our agents unintentionally find child pornography"

"You do bring up a question... what was the reason for the tech to look at the hard drive? That would go back to the reason why he was called."

We're told that: the computer wouldn't start. Looking at unallocated blocks seems an odd way to sort that out.

Re: @Sampler ... Chain of custody

"If the image was planted... you would know "

Who's "you" in this sentence?

The owner of the computer would know but it's then one person's word against another.

I spent years examining evidence in criminal cases. Quite often there were conflicting statements about a case. I could look at evidence and form opinions about how what I saw fitted one statement or another (or both or neither!) and about how it might have happened. But I was very often aware that whatever I thought could have happened, was likely to have happened etc only the people involved actually knew and at least one of them, possibly the complainant, might have cause to lie.

So the weakness of your argument is clear to me. Maybe you lack that experience.

There are also a number of details missing here to decide whether you could actually establish a chain of custody the way you suggest. Was the computer handed direct to the tech? If not, to whom was it handed? Did they hand it direct to the tech? Was it placed in storage between being handed in and being examined? Was the storage secure? Who had access? Was it in sealed packaging whilst being stored?

Re: Lock them all up

Arnaud Amalric seems to agree with you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_at_B%C3%A9ziers

Re: Sometimes I dislike law

Actual child pornography was allegedly found in his home

After an alert by someone who appears to have been paid a fee for finding a not actually pornographic image in unallocated space. Don't you get even a little suspicious about the whole business?

Paying techs to perform unsupervised searches which they can't legally perform themselves is getting onto a slippery slope. Once on there how far have they continued to slip? This is the whole trouble with this casual approach to the legal niceties surrounding collecting evidence, whether it be this approach or mass-surveillance; you get to a point where you can't be trusted to uphold the law. The saying about justice not only needs to be done, it needs to be seen to be done cuts both ways.

Re: Re. slack space

"The kind of policeman we need, in fact."

I knew a good many like that.

Re: "To be clear, our agents unintentionally find child pornography"

"I'd have a guess from the details given that in this case the doctor had a problem with his computer and realising that it would have to go in for repairs deleted his kiddy porn stash, probably by dragging it to the trash and emptying the trash bin."

Given that the problem seems to have been that it wouldn't start that seems an unlikely scenario.

Re: Re. slack space

"Personally I think this is exactly why we need random searches in the first place."

And you'd be happy to be randomly searched by someone with no authority to do so but who's being paid $500 per "find"?

Many years ago I met an acquaintance, the local police station sergeant, in the supermarket. He'd become suspicious of the store detective and was keeping her under observation. I heard later that he'd caught her planting goods in a customer's shopping bag.

Re: My 2p worth

"BTW, as per an earlier post, I have found disturbing images on my PC after a virus attack in 2009, 1/2 one of my HDDs was full of what I would call "Nasty" porn, when I managed to regain control."

So if you'd taken your PC in for repair you'd have been in exactly the same position as this doctor is allegedly in. But you're confident that while you were an innocent victim he was guilty so that's OK.

"Caught an animal, good job,"

Did he? You know that for sure? You were standing over his shoulder watching? Or did he "find" something that would score him $500?

Re: Chain of custody

Given that the FBI are paying $500 a time for techs to find evidence I'd be very suspicious of any evidence turned up by this route.

Whatever the outcome of this case it should be a sobering thought for anyone sending this lot a PC for repair. What do you have on there? On a private PC stuff for that would be valuable for identity fraud. If it's a business PC, probably some commercially valuable stuff or client-related data.

One of the first professional principles for a tech to adopt should be that the data on a device is not your business.

Brother-and-sister duo arrested over hacking campaign targeting Italy's bigwigs

Re: Excuse me?

"They also understand how the law works."

That comes in handy when they're trying to circumvent it.

Re: Excuse me?

"Don't they understand how computers work?"

I'm sure they understand how to make copies before they pass them over.

Oi, Mint 18.1! KEEP UP! Ubuntu LTS love breeds a laggard

Re: Why the negative title?

"I'd opt for stability over cutting edge, especially for those new to Mint or Linux in general."

I'd opt for it in pretty well any production circumstances.

IBM: Hm, medical record security... security... Got it – we need blockchains

What improvement would this provide over PGP? Other than selling more IBM boxes, of course.

FBI takes gag out of Cloudflare's mouth after three-year legal battle

Re: Frightening

"Truth, Justice and the American Way"

Shouldn't that be "or"?

Maps and alarm clocks best thing about mobes, say normies

Re: Maps and alarm clocks best thing about mobes, say normies

"Nowadays it's pot-luck if it notifies you at the right time after daylight savings time changes."

Or if the battery lasts that long.

"To the point that there are devices that are sold that are exactly like smartphones, minus the ability to make phone calls."

One of those & an ancient Nokia & you're good to go.

Now for a really cool micro-drum solo: Boffins chill gizmo below quantum limit

So light (laser) isn't as effective as microwaves. Maybe to get to absolute zero they need to get down to 0Hz which brings us the problem of achieving that because of quantum fluctuations in the current.

Can anyone spell asymptotic?

Microsoft sued by staff traumatized by child sex abuse vids stashed on OneDrive accounts

Re: @palpy: Yup. Quite bullshitty.

"Some people who had their kids bath pictures processed at the local drugstore were arrested and prosecuted."

I can remember one instance of this - I'm not sure it went as far as arrest and prosecution. The person concerned was a well-known and respected newsreader and the whole thing backfired. The photo-processor got some bad publicity out of it.

Personally I can't really see the point of taking pictures of your kids in the bath unless you're planning to embarrass them when they get older but some people seem to do it.

New Windows 10 privacy controls: Just a little snooping – or the max

Re: Rule number 0

to get to know the operating system in case I get any "how do I do this in W10?" questions from family and friends.

I think for many of us the standard answer to that is "Sorry, can't help you there".

GCHQ feeds first crop of infosec startups to Cyber Accelerator

Crypto accelerator

I imagine them being whirled round faster and faster and then flung into something to see if anything useful breaks off.

EU wants power to fine behavioural data bad boys and the ad men aren't happy

Re: But...

"they have the cosy feeling the whole internet is tailored for them, the search results and ads skewed in the favour of their hobbies and interests."

But do they? Or do they think it's a bit weird having ads for whatever one-off purchase they just made repeatedly stuck in front of them?

Black horse blacks out: Lloyds Bank website goes down

Re: TSB and Halfix too

"Although TSB was spun out as a separate entity, it still shares a lot of the same systems."

And probably still keeps some of the same attitudes to customers.

US Navy runs into snags with aircraft carrier's electric plane-slingshot

Re: We all need less stress...

"Once these are all available EMALS should generate lower stresses than current steam catapults."

But best to make sure they get the plane up to take-off speed.

EMALS could not "readily" be electrically isolated for maintenance

Have you tried tur...Oh, you can't?

How to secure MongoDB – because it isn't by default and thousands of DBs are being hacked

Re: Commitstrip

"Obligatory commitstrip."

I'd upvote if it was comedy rather than tragedy.

Crumbs. Exceedingly good cakes, meat dressing price hike in wake of the Brexit

Re: stir and stoke

"England may or may not do alright"

Do you have similar predictions for Wales, Scotland & N. Ireland? - although we might be able to leave Scotland out of it after Indyref 2.

"Same applies to Walkers Crisps. ... Surely they don't import spuds!"

No, but they and the farmers producing the spuds buy the energy to fertilise, harvest and transport the spuds, fry them, make the packaging and distribute them at dollar denominated prices. They're realistic costs although there might be an excuse to increase margins there, which will probably be taken up in the longer run with wage rises when the employees get hit with all the other price rises consequent on more expensive imports.

Re: Clickbait

"The chances that the UK Government will roll back 30 years worth of policies promoting London and the South East as the be all and end all of world are rather remote I feel."

I think you're confusing two issues. Increasing concentration of employment in large cities is unsustainable - far too much time and energy is wasted on commuting ever-increasing distances.

On the other hand "the city", be it in one place or many, accounts for a large proportion of the national income and we'll be very much worse off without it. Especially if May wants to use some of that income as state aid to keep motor manufacturing from migrating to a bigger home market.

Re: Oh dear

"I live in a country who got fed up with the ten-yearly devaluation and joined the Euro hoping for a less easy and more intelligent solution to dealing with the reality."

I suspect one reason we kept out of the Euro was the realisation that it seemed impossible to set an economic policy that worked out right for all parts of the UK let alone a whole continent.

Brown thought he had a winner to end boom and bust: set interest rates at a level depending on inflation excluding housing inflation and at a time when a lot of manufacturing was being outsourced to cheap labour countries. It was going really well until the consequent humongous credit boom collided with reality.

Re: it's easy to resolve...

"When will this spate of Brexit hoodoo economics ever end?"

When reality catches up with it. By then it will be far too late.

Re: it's easy to resolve...

You pay something out of your wages called 'National Insurance' which are supposed to fund those...

"Supposed" is the operative word there. NI has been part of general taxation for many years.

The Treasury really, immensely, tremendously hates with a vengeance the very idea specific taxes going to specific expenditure as it wouldn't be able to get its claws on them. It invented an ugly word to describe them: "hypothecated". Would you want to pay something as nasty-sounding as a hypothecated tax? Of course if you knew that NI went to the NHS, pensions etc. or Vehicle Excise Duty under its old name of Road Fund was spent on roads you'd think it was a good idea.

Ideally NI would go direct to the relevant spending departments and VED would go direct to the DoT & Highways Agency and even a contribution to the NHS to cover the costs of treating RTA injuries. That would force governments to be a bit more upfront about general taxation levels.

And a final point about NI. I take it you pay NI as part of PAYE. Do you realise that you only pay employee's NI? Freelancers pay both employee's and employer's contributions. Maybe you didn't know that.

Re: it's easy to resolve...

It's only because the gov wants needs to clear it's debts that we are all suffering.

FTFY or nearly. Damn difficult to strike through an apostrophe.

Re: My toothpaste

"We really need to consign that completely illogical system to history."

Along with metric. Do things right. Binary would be a bit cumbersome but octal or hex would be fine. The evolutionary chance that gave us 5 digits on each hand is a pretty dumb basis for a numbering system.