Posts by Doctor Syntax

Hey, tech industry, have you noticed Amazon in the rearview?

Re: Nice Rant

"your users are likely using the internet to connect anyway"

This is only true for some values of "your".

Graphene solar panels harvest energy from rain

Re: Roof tank?

"I estimate that the ROCI for the panels is around 3 years at current usage"

That's because everyone without solar panels is subsidising you.

Bundling ZFS and Linux is impossible says Richard Stallman

Re: Stallman can change the GPS as welll...

You mean he's going to go up there & upgrade all those satellites?

Re: Question

"Sorry but you are plain wrong. That black and white enough for you."

Hi there, A/C.

Are you a judge who's had this case to decide? Because if you're not neither your view nor Stallman's nor Ubuntu's nor Linus's nor my opinion counts.

The contention on Ubuntu's side seems to be that loading a module does not create a derived work of the kernel, it's just two works sitting alongside each other in memory. Until we get a court ruling on that we don't know whether it's right or wrong. Stallman may have been responsible for the GPL but even he can't determine how the court will rule on the facts of a specific case.

Windows 10 debuts Blue QR Code of Death – and why malware will love it

Re: Firefox on Ubuntu

"Ubuntu runs Firefox just fine. You think if it didn't, no one would have noticed? Your fault finding doesn't impress me"

Way back, when Ubuntu first went to Upstart, it became more difficult to diagnose incompatibilities between H/W & drivers or config settings. It was that issue with regard to graphics that pushed me off Ubuntu onto Debian. Of course when Debian Wheezy goes out of LTS and it's wall-to-wall systemd that particular solution will have been lost.

So I believe the OP. "Works for me" is not an example of skilled fault finding but unfortunately it always seemed to be the staple of a few voluble Linux fan-boys.

PC market shambling towards an unquiet grave

So "exponential" growth turned out to be sigmoidal. Why should Gartner or anyone else be surprised?

The future of Firefox is … Chrome

Re: A side note about Thunderbird

Google Thunderbird and LibreOffice.

Re: BURN THE HERETICS !!

"If Gecko gets dropped"

Opensource 101.

It wouldn't matter if Mozilla drop Gecko, it would still exist. They could get together and maintain it themselves. In fact, as they'd then be in control they wouldn't have to spend their lives chasing the latest whatever-Mozilla-have-done-now.

Re: Let sounds like another dev group disconnected ...

get buyin from the users

FTFY. I know it's what you meant but unless you're explicit Mozilla will interpret it how they want it. They probably will anyway. <sigh>

Re: don't get it

£Opera has shown its possible to make a very fine chromium based browser with real product differentiators. Mozilla can too."

Maybe it can. But that would only last a week or so until the next release.

Re: Dang it..

"Just give my Netscape Navigator back!"

OK - http://www.seamonkey-project.org/

Re: Choice

"I moved off firefox to palemoon because the firefox UI had already changed to something I didn't like."

I use Seamonkey, partly for the same reason & partly because I prefer to have browser & mail/news client combined.

And, in response to Mage, it nails both interface issues but a pity about the selection issue.

America's Intelligence Transparency Council to meet for the first time … behind closed doors

Re: The Intelligence Transparency Council

More "Yes Minister". I don't think that show was ever off-target for a nanosecond.

Microsoft Privacy Shield

Re: And so..

"it's the only thing they can do if they want to continue selling into the European market."

Actually, their German data centre with a non-US trustee ought to be more effective.

"Microsoft is the first big US tech firm to replace the Safe Harbour rules."

And the difference is...?

Met cops shop for £150m IT system. Must have: Data centre ops

Re: why?

"Why can't these large contracts be brought under the Home Office purview, so as to benefit from efficiencies of scale?"

This assumes that bringing them under the Home Office would bring benefits. Citation needed.

Read America's insane draft crypto-borking law that no one's willing to admit they wrote

Re: Um, doesn't this blow a hole

Switzerland and Ireland are other possibilities.

"For one thing, it will kill end-to-end encryption."

No it wouldn't. It would just mean USians would have to buy it from abroad. The interesting question is whether the abroad vendors they'd have to buy it from would be someone new or familiar names that used to be US corporations.

The amazing thing about legislators is that they never seem to learn from history. If you pass legislation that enforces something unpopular it doesn't get obeyed, it gets worked round in ways which were usually obvious to everyone else before you even passed the legislation.

FBI, Apple continue cat-and-mouse game over iPhones in New York

Morton's Fork

Let's see.

You told the court in California that you no longer need Apple's assistance because you've acquired this tool that allows you to break into iPhones.

You told the court in New York that you need Apple's assistance because you can't break into iPhones without it.

To which court were you telling the truth?

And BTW, all those folk who said the San Bernadino case was just a one-off - are you still sure about that?

Vivaldi Jon: Mobile – yes. Feeds and an ad blocker… probably not

No ad-blocking

Thanks for saving me the waste of time trying it out. Power users indeed!

BOFH: Sure, I could make your cheapo printer perform miracles

Slight tangent

Meanwhile I spent most of the morning setting up a cousin's new HP inkjet.

Start with the Linux box I set up earlier. No Linux support on the CD, of course, but check if hplip is installed. It isn't so install it through Synaptic, then go through the printer control panel which instantly finds the printer on USB and installs it.

Next, the W7 laptop. This is allegedly supported on the CD.

After a openings and closings of the drive the CD deigns to autorun. My first attempt to click OK to the dialog that asks me if I want to install terminates with a loud burp that seems to indicate an error.

After a second attempt which isn't much better I get to a screen which tells me it can't install and offers to download a troubleshooter.

I let it do that and from this point on the CD is totally redundant. The troubleshooter asks me to reboot. After that it offers to download an installation wizard. I let it do that. I run the wizard which downloads the drivers and finally gets the printer installed. At least there was only one reboot which is pretty good for Windows.

The CD appears to have no function but to throw an error and initiate a sequence of downloads from the net. WTF has happened to the once-mighty HP?

GCHQ is having problems meeting Osborne's 2020 recruitment target

Re: Obvious

"motivational slides,"

Don't you mean "demotivational". That's the effect of the insult-to-intelligence content normal in that sort of crap.

How Remix's Android will eat the world

Re: Remix OS is not FLOSS

"There are better tools out there."

Have you just read Dabsy's latest?

Re: "Remix OS with...

"it's shockingly ignorant of the IT media to demand Microsoft have an App Store stuffed with as many apps on launch day as Android or iOS do now, when none of their rivals had more than a small number of apps on theirs when they started."

It is likely to get into a chicken-and-egg situation.

Punters. Does the Microsoft store have an app for xyz? No? OK I'll buy Android/IoS.

Devs. Not enough customers on MS, I'll develop for Android/IoS.

Field technicians want to grab my tool and probe my things

Re: Things To Come

Stoneshop, I think you're getting into a bit of a flap.

"There really is no excuse for innuendo."

In Dabsy's case no excuse is needed.

Panama Papers hack: Unpatched WordPress, Drupal bugs to blame?

Re: Simpler yet - Just Encryt

'Their idea of security is that damned 25 line disclaimer in their EMail Signature to the effect of "This communication is only for the intended recipient so if you get it instead, be a dear and delete it. K? Thx. Bai!".'

Probably true but very short-sighted. They, more than most people, should have their eyes on the consequences of hacking along the lines of "If someone holding my client's data got hacked how much would I be able to sue for?" followed rapidly by "But if I got hacked how much could I be sued for?". It seems likely that they couldn't afford to pay themselves for giving themselves that bit of legal advice.

Re: If you care about security

"In this particular case; it must have been a fairly fucked-up setup where compromising a website would allow you to get at the mailserver."

And this doesn't even come near the sheer doziness that lies behind using a mailserver as a document store.

Microsoft rethinks the Windows application platform one more time

Re: Services installing supported only on servers?

'it looks they hired too many Linux developers who don't know that services are actually "daemons"'

1. Find a Linux system

2. At the command line type ps -ef|more

3. Look at all the daemons

Re: And that was dumb

"And, as with all established platforms that run up against new technology, it turns out that if you insist on users moving away from what they already have, they are at least as likely to move away to a competitor."

Or to put it another way: never give a customer reason to review the market. I thought that was ancient sales and marketing wisdom.

Re: Be afraid!

"I have seen people in less technical parts of the interwebs that think Microsoft is being generous and we should all be grateful for the free Win 10 upgrades."

Are you accusing elReg of being one of the less technical parts of the interwebs?

Illegal drugs and dodgy pics? Nah. Half the dark web is perfectly legal

So what's the legal half doing and why is it dark? Is it the product of those designers who think grey text on a black background is cool?

Taking an artsy selfie in Stockholm? You might need to pay royalities

"that's ok - even if you post it to Facebook etc. But if someone takes a photo which is then uploaded for use by a web-site that uses that image for their own gain - even if there is no monetary gain - then that's exploiting someone else's work and that's not ok without their express permission."

Maybe you should have given this some more thought.

Firstly, what's the difference between posting to Facebook and uploading to a wiki? Where does a blog come in this hierarchy? Or Pinterest?

Secondly if we followed your wiki argument then it becomes possible to block photography of any scene by putting something that might be considered an artwork in it. This is made even more problematic on two grounds. One is that any building will be copyright of its architect originally - although that might have been assigned to the owner. The other is, buildings aside, how do you identify an artwork? Is that pallet of bricks plonked there for for the builders or was it intended as an artwork https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalent_VIII ?

Re: no

"any such photo that gained notoriety"

What about one that merely became famous?

"to be followed by a demand for royalties"

A good reply might be "So you're responsible. That sticky-up thing has ruined my picture. I want compensation.".

There's oil in that thar … Chinese space probe?

Re: Small particiles don't drop

"B.Eng"

Not Civil I hope.

Nest's bricking of Revolv serves as wake-up call to industry

Re: That's useful information

"Still won't save you. Who pays for the server?"

If it's open source you can run your own server. Is understanding that really so hard?

Re: @Richard Plinston - What sort of wake-up call?

"I hate to point this to you but a free user can't be monetized properly."

And I love to point out to you something I mentioned at the start of this thread: if monetisation of the users was the point of Revolv it must have failed, otherwise why would they close the server? And if that was indeed the case it might be ominous news for other "services" based on the same premise.

What sort of wake-up call?

It seems all too likely that if Nest/Revolv get away with this one others will try it too. Once the money's been taken all those customers are just so many nuisances.

Alternatively you might wonder if Revolv's intended product was the users. If that was the case then it might indicate that the market for that product wasn't sufficient to make the business viable. That might suggest that other businesses run on those lines could be in trouble too.

Hubble spies supermassive black hole in surprising spot

Danger. Unskilled metaphor mixer at work.

'Is this the tip of an iceberg?' Maybe there are more monster black holes out there that don't live in a skyscraper in Manhattan, but in a tall building somewhere in the Midwestern plains."

We bet your firm doesn't stick to half of these 10 top IT admin tips

Re: Nice Theory - but

"Proper procedures are good for routine activities - they are not much good under exceptional conditions."

Your proper procedures should allow for emergency actions but require that the action taken is documented. One reason for employing experienced people is to ensure there's someone available competent to deal with the stuff that doesn't get documented procedures because it's unexpected.

Re: Nice Theory - but

"You won't get much profit, growth or senior management convenience if you have a leak from the air conditioning in the electronically-locked Boardroom which fails, and kills everyone senior."

If it's that limited it won't do any harm to profits and growth. In fact it might improve them.

Re: I recently received a phishing attempt

"The new ones always have to do with payments due or payments you didn't know you paid..."

According to the Beeb the very latest ones know your postal address. I wonder if the recipients are TalkTalk customers.

"Any parent should know that a three-year-old's rreach is much bigger than you'd think..."

It might be much bigger than you'd think. I think bigger.

Re: Nowhere to hide - re: content free emails

" what if email processing is outsourced to an organisation which has a financial interest in collating what drugs you are taking"

There's a simple answer to that. DON'T DO IT.

Apart from any immediate security issues there's the longer term one. If email purports to come from one organisation but actually comes from another you're training recipients to blindly trust that what it purports to be. In short, you're training them to be phished.

We really need to have signing as a required part of the email protocols. No wonder email isn't secure.

Re: Nowhere to hide

"and there's an argument for keeping the sensitive notes in paper form, and never committing them to computer."

It must be a bad argument! The consequence would be anybody who feels they really must have access to them will photocopy them and then there'll be uncontrolled copies around the place. Uncontrolled because there'll be a ban on copying them so all the copies will be sub rosa.

"Is the recipient authorised to receive it?"

It goes far beyond that. Once it's gone it's out of your control. The recipient may be authorised to receive it but how do you know they won't: show it to colleagues who aren't? Print it out and leave it lying about? Keep it on a laptop left lying on the back seat of a car in central London?

This doesn't just apply to email. On my last permie job the vendors of a new warehouse management system said they would need access to the network and it was decided to simply hand them some 2FA device. So the whole company network was now accessible to whoever had this device and the relevant instructions - which were probably written on a label tied to it - and completely beyond our control. I left before the whole thing had gone live so never found out how it turned out.

And, in my opinion, if it's humorous enough (a user once reported the loss of his expensive pager to my team as “We think my three-year-old put it either in the bin or down the bog”) then that's fair game.

No it isn't. Any parent should be aware of keeping important stuff out of a three-year-old's reach.

Turbo-charged quantum crypto? You'll need Cambridge laser boffins for that

Re: Taking it on trust

"getting used in real world situations"

Are there any real world situations where it could be deployed other than line-of-sight links or point-to-point fibre?

UK Home Office seeks secret settlements over unlawful DNA retention

Re: whats wrong with retaining DNA data?

I can only respond to this from my own experience which, admittedly, is now many years ago and from before the privatisation of the old Forensic Science Service:

"Yes, that's the scientific method. Police method is one of the following:

1) Look for something to prove what we've already decided. Ignore anything else."

Evidence was usually collected by SOCO trained by us or by the police surgeon as appropriate and occasionally by a scene visit from the lab. It was then examined along exactly the lines I laid out which I can summarise as: "This appears to support the allegation. Let me try to disprove it".

"2) Find a likely suspect, beat them round the head until they confess to whatever you want."

If this was alleged scene investigation would be by a forensic scientist from the lab, not by SOCO.

From experience I can tell you it's a complete pain searching for possible splashes of blood on the walls of a cell treated with anti-graffiti paint which consists of flecks of different colours.

Bear in mind that allegations are made from people with something to gain. I had one instance where it was alleged a suspect had been hit with a brush handle so hard it broke and, indeed, a broken brush handle was produced in evidence. Direct experiment showed that however hard one hit a pig carcase a similar handle couldn't be broken but if the end hit a floor or wall it would break. Nevertheless the end of the broken handle had fibres which matched clothing from the complainant. The complaint was exaggerated but it seemed likely that the complainant had been poked with the broken shaft. I don't know what the outcome was but in the past there'd been 2 or 3 junior detectives whose name I didn't know hanging about on the fringes of investigations in that division and who I never saw after that.

My experience was that the senior levels of the force wouldn't tolerate that sort of behaviour whether as a point of principle or from a practical point of view in that it could lead to a case being lost in court if it even got that far. One consequence was the introduction of CCTV in interview rooms.

Self harm by prisoners in cells was one problem. And I'm quite convinced that police cells are not the right place to house comatose drunks; there's not enough resources to monitor them continually and so they're at risk of choking to death on their own vomit. I don't know what the solution is there because A&E certainly won't want them.

Google reveals own security regime policy trusts no network, anywhere, ever

"finding decommissioned services that were still running without purpose."

Is this what happened to Revolv?