Posts by bombastic bob

How one programmer's efforts to stop checking in buggy code changed the DevOps world

Re: Jenkins?

"This is a bit like saying you've never heard of git. Somewhat invalidates any subsequent claims of competence."

Not really. It mostly invalidates any claim of knowing EVERYTHING. You can survive your entire career without knowing a THING about git. It all depends on whether or not you've ever needed it, or something like it. Some of us just don't need to chase the bleeding edge all of the time, would rather just work with what we have and get stuff done [which makes bosses+clients happy and higher pay scale, usually].

I'd only heard 'Jenkins' mentioned before, and after reading the article, I'll probably look into it more closely. The truth is, I've never needed anything like it. I don't work in large teams [normally could do the work of a relatively large team on my own, heh, by approaching things efficiently and generally being left alone, no meetings, no pairing up, etc.].

Funniest (or saddest) example of this: at a used-to-company, developed initial prototype in 3 weeks for something that was worked on FOR A YEAR by one manager, one senior coder, and one junior coder, with daily closed door meetings, etc. at the frustration of the senior coder. They used my prototype [which I'd maybe spent a weeks' additional time patching and tweeking] to demonstrate the concept to potential customers SEVERAL times, while still working on the "real" version. At the end of that year-long period, they asked me to step in to help them finish up. The junior guy got laid off, and the senior guy and I finished it up and fixed it. Took about a month to fix it, though. Go fig. I think the design concepts being used in the "real" version were flawed and inefficient to code around and that became the biggest problem.

Anyway, "that" happens, too.

[I suspect that Jenkins would make "doing it the wrong way" more efficient?]

Re: Jenkins?

who hasn't, at one time in his career, written buggy code and then checked it into source control [or committed to production] and then later on had some disaster come about that's "totally YOUR fault" and had to either come in after hours or have everyone breathing down your neck while you fix it...

I only really did that once, an oversight in a late afternoon transaction processing batch job that locked up the database for 20 minutes, causing angry accountants to complain about not being able to do their job, etc.. Yeah, I was USUALLY careful, except that ONE time. Oops. Heh. [and my supervisor scanned over my code before I ran it, too]

I've never actually used Jenkins, but it's beginning to sound a lot like something I'd want to avoid if I were not trying to manage a very very large project written mostly by junior coders. People at my level are usually the ones who HAVE to Q.A. their own work, because there's nobody above you who's capable of it. So in a 'Linus'-like position, you think in those terms all of the time. But the people below you who are part of a managed sub-project, they might not know enough about "the whole system" to make those assessments, and so yeah, some kind of management tool exists.

And so I suppose I should have a close look at Jenkins, in case I'm in "that position" again, not just self-managing some ginormous project that, when done by 1 person, doesn't have "that kind of problem".

(The one-man-band consulting gig works great when you are "the guy" making the prototype and initial production run, gets it all done faster and at lower cost, before the feature creep and one-size-fits-all marketing-driven development begins - that latter part requires a bureaucracy - heh)

That amazing Microsoft software quality, part 97: Windows Phone update kills Outlook, Calendar

How long before

some malware-maker pwns a network someplace, and forces people to "upgrade" their windows devices to a version that has even MORE built-in malware than the Micro-shaft version, which THEN spreads itself by taking over MORE networks (public wifi, whatever) until everyone's windows "device" has been "upgraded" to something that CANNOT BE REMOVED, etc...

and without the choice to turn it off, it "just loads the 'up'grade". And it "cleverly" marks itself with a newer revision than anything ELSE that might show up to overwrite it, hides itself, puts itself into the BIOS, etc. to keep it on the "device" forever and ever and ever...

It's bad enough when Micro-shaft totally SCREWS THE POOCH on their *LACK* of quality control. But this kind of "we forced you to accept something that broke what you had" mentality can ONLY end very, very, badly.

Berners-Lee takes flak for 'hippie manifesto' that only Google and Facebook could love

"Google is also the biggest revenue stream for Mozilla"

THAT explains a lot... Australis and the shift to 57 [and apparent abandonment of 52-ESR]

and weak privacy protections, as well. What's next, HTML 5 audio/video you CANNOT turn off? Scripty video ads jammed into our faces and tracking our every move online in the background, requiriing "click through" and a REBOOT to get past them?

[I should stop giving them ideas]

As if connected toys weren't creepy enough, kids' data could be used against them in future

Re: Just ignore social media when recruiting

well LinkedIn is still ok if all you do is use it for resume and references. All of that OTHER noise needs to just GO AWAY. I've tried to give it a chance since MS came in, but they're starting to turn it into Facebook I think.

As for automated algorithms that glean personal stuff about you on social media, a nice big fat DISCRIMINATION LAWSUIT is in order if something you said online is used to prevent you from being hired, get a loan, or buy insurance. Proving it might be hard, though.

Windows XP? Pfff! Parts of the Royal Navy are running Win ME

Spanish language Win98 First Edition? Diskette images? I might be able to do that...

My old MSDN subscription CDs are still around. I've got piles of them. Upon one of those I'd probably have Win '98 First Edition, Spanish Language even. I'm pretty sure I had all of the language packs.

And most likely other ancient computer geeks like myself would have a similar pile of old CDs

Re: Few comments

"new hardware for ME / 95 / 98 / Win 7 etc will become increasingly hard to find"

interestingly enough, a FreeBSD system could run these with virtualbox or its own virtualizer 'bhyve'.

That would assist with the lockdown, allow for newer hardware, and NOT cost an arm and a leg to deploy.

And wouldn't a virtualized disk image of the ME system be VERY easy to back up and restore?

In any case, solutions exist for the hardware compatibility things. And, of course, networking could more easily be firewalled if it's in a VM.

Re: RE: And how do you KEEP it that way? ...

'Man Overboard!!!!!'

the same way you deal with thieves!

on a related note, perhaps the Royal Navy can invest in completing ReactOS? Open source, compatible with ME applications, and you can FIX the vulnerabilities yourself.

UK rail lines blocked by unexpected Windows dialog box

Schadenfreude

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

After a while this won't be funny any more. just sad.

FYI NASA just lobbed its Parker probe around the Sun in closest flyby yet: A nerve-racking 15M miles from the surface

Re: 5-4-3-2-1

heh obligatory 'Thunderbirds are GO!"

I thought of 'that episode' I remember from when I was a kid, when Thunderbird 3 had to go rescue a 'Sun Probe' with people on it. That was the 1960's when I last saw it. U.S. stations played the Thunderbirds TV shows. It was AWESOME. And, sadly, Thunderbird 3 didn't get enough screen time...

Re: Talk about the gates of Hell !

very complex differential equations are probably involved, yeah. Too much math for me. Basically your acceleration due to gravity is changing in a non-linear manner the entire time, and you can't make assumptions about it being constant at any point, really (not and get THAT CLOSE to the sun without missing the mark). And as you approach Venus, the gravity source changes, and you have to consider Sun + Venus and Sun - Venus and changing fuel mass, all vector summed and compensated for by distance from the center of mass of each involved 'thing'. yuck.

A beer, at the very least, is deserved. Well done indeed!

Spammer scum hack 100,000 home routers via UPnP vulns to craft email-flinging botnet

Re: ISP-branded router - patch? What patch?

if the router has 'bridge mode' for the internet connection [assuming it's DSL or similar] you can (most likely) manage it with a Linux or FreeBSD box instead. works for me! Haven't tried it with cable, though.

Re: Disabling UPnP completely isn't such a bad idea

I did that, too, when I realized it was on the router [and had done so already on the winders boxen]. "HOLY $#!+ BALLS I better turn that off!". I did look for it, though... after having read all of the security warnings about it on El Reg and elsewhere.

"Don't disable UPnP, at least not on the private side of the router - you need it for streaming audio etc, wireless speakers and so on."

FUD. You do NOT know what you are talking about!

You do _NOT_ need UPnP on a router. The only thing it does is OFFER! UP! A! SECURITY! CRATER! to _ANY_ process on the LAN side by ENABLING! A! LISTENING! PORT! on the public IP address... you know, like a COMMAND AND CONTROL PORT for MALWARE!!

UPnP is bad. Disable the @#$%'ing thing. Just like the article says at the end.

'DerpTroll' derps into plea deal, admits DDoS attacks on EA, Steam, Sony game servers

Re: the charge of "Damage to a Protected Computer"

"DDoS is "damage" now, is it?"

think what would happen if it were NOT some kind of "damage". Then every script-kiddie out there would know he'd just get a slap on the wrist, and would DDoS like hell, ALL of the time, because he knew he'd get away with it. HA HA HA "for the LULZ" etc..

It reminds me of a book I read when I was 6 years old: "this is what would happen if EVERYBODY did" (I think that was the title). Anyway, implications obvious.

Re: Should have used 7 proxies

"Who announces their crime in public and then posts evidence afterwards?"

It's why the Dumb Crooks web site exists

A 'bad guy monologue' goes along with the other bragging. That, and a REALLY GOOD 'bad guy laugh' (which I seem to have mastered, according to some, without even trying).

Muahahahahaha!

Windows 10 Pro goes Home as Microsoft fires up downgrade server

Re: Really the Home versions of Windows are evil and the price difference etc Home / Pro is evil

by comparison, how much would a WINDOWS 7 PRO license cost you these days?

and a lot of people WOULD pay "that much" for Win 7 !!!

Re: Contractor rights

yeah, that's the kind of thing that should worry EVERYONE. Periodic "re-activation". What the *FEEL* were they *FEELING* (not thinking) when they excreted *THAT* "feature" ???

Re: el kabong

"In 30 days he'll have some slightly irritating nagging telling him to activate windows."

Implications:

a) Micro-shaft Win-10-nic needs to access their "activation servers" on a REGULAR BASIS?

b) WHY was it turned into a 'Home' system because THEY broke something?

c) No PREVIOUS version of windows (to the best of my knowledge) needed any kind of continuous on-line RE-ACTIVATION process to "stay valid"

d) what if you leave your computer OFF for MORE THAN A MONTH? Or, how about OFFLINE for MORE THAN A MONTH?

e) what if it's a VM that you only run when you HAVE to? [I should test this after I back it up]

f) Micro-shaft has JUST broken their 'contract' with the users by letting this happen

In short, this whole thing *STINKS* like MICRO-SHAT <-- not a spelling error

Six lawsuits against FCC's 5G idiocy – that $2bn windfall for telcos – is bundled into one appeals court sueball

Re: FCC laugh of the day

"And they said that with a straight face."

@mark 85

it's a fair bet you've never run a company, done cost analysis, had to justify the cost of developing a new project, nor had to deal with investors wanting to know what you're doing with THEIR money...

just sayin'.

When you sign the FRONT of the company check, you understand a LOT more than when you're only signing the BACK of it.

Re: It ain't all about poor cities and states

you should've been around when I-280 and I-680 were not yet connected - and the "highway to nowhere". Gummint incompetence at its finest!!! The 101 entry at Story road was a major detour cluster-blank for YEARS, unnecessarily so, because of gummint funds mis-used "that way" as usual... and those partial bridges stuck up in the air, really high, visible from everywhere, incomplete, and not being worked on at ALL for YEARS!!!

So, back in the mid 70's, a San Jose city councilman got a crane to put a car up there as a joke, and political stunt. A couple of years ago they officially named the interchange after him. Who knew?

I looked for a photo of "stonehenge II" (what it was often called) aka "highway to nowhere" with the car on top of that one section. Also according to an article, the city councilman received a traffic ticket from a highway patrol officer, for parking on a freeway.

"Damage Done", then governor Jerry Brown [yes, THAT Jerry Brown] was forced to eat his own incompetence and do something about it. Heh.

Re: It ain't all about poor cities and states

the small town toll booth analogy is interesting, but cell coverage doesn't work like that.

Unfortunately, you can't choose which tower your phone will connect to. If you could, then you could avoid the high toll ones. But you can't. That's the problem.

"one rate for all" makes more sense that way, at least as far as cell carriers go. It also evens the playing field for independent carriers to NOT have to "grease palms" to get a cell tower put up in a specific spot. Well, at least not on the surface... [there _other_ means by which politicians can screw this up and get kickbacks]

SMBs: We don't want to spoil all of this article, but have you patched, taken away admin rights, made backups yet?

when I saw SMB in the title, I was thinking "Samba" or windows networking in general.

OK so "yet another TLA" re-purposed to "yet another definition" on top of the others, even within the same technical realm, just to make things even MORE confusing.

That being said, removing 'admin' access on SMB shares is a *GOOD* thing. Here's what _I_ like to do:

a) host SMB shares on Linux or FreeBSD servers. Make them READ-ONLY via Samba's config.

a.1) alternately do that with a LAN-only web server, so people can view the files via https

b) to update a file on an SMB share like described in 'a', use scp or rsync [preferably from within Cygwin]. A script to do this somewhat automatically (to sync local to remove storage) would help.

b.1) similarly, a "put file" transaction via a web server to add/update or even remove a file, which is less secure but would require an actual login and, perhaps, more easily support transaction-based updates.

c) if that's too difficult for people to work with, IT can wrap a UI around it with a scripting language of some kind.

d) set up transaction-based backups for really important files, so you can revert them easily. Do *NOT* allow access to the backup directories outside of the server's management, and do NOT use a windows machine for the backup!

A properly set up network COULD do things LIKE this, and users aren't "too dumb" to follow some proper procedures with respect to important data. Yeah it requires some IT effort but there ya go.

[other similar kinds of things could be done, too, just saying what _I_ would do]

Dollar for dollar, crafting cryptocurrency sucks up 'more energy' than mining gold, copper, etc

"They could be using that surplus power to extract CO2 from the atmosphere to help fight climate change"

HA HA HA that's funny! So altruistic, except for the premise upon which it is based. Using a means to make money to KEEP the electricity cheap sounds better, to me.

Now, extract CO2 from the air to provide for soda machines, dry ice, greenhouses, and air rifle cartridges? THAT sounds pretty good to me!

(yes, increasing CO2 in a greenhouse makes plants grow faster. If you expand this notion to the entire world, increasing CO2 in the atmosphere will make plants grow faster, and thereby deplete it faster, via a "biological equilibrium" and I happen to LIKE trees and plants, so I'd like more of them, thanks)

cost of electricity to mine the bitcoins [varies around the world]

a co-generation system might make more money with bitcoin mining than selling the extra electricity to the utility...

same with solar panels. just sayin'

I suspect North Korea already takes this into consideration - the local cost of electricity vs profit of bitcoin. What, you think they're NOT mining lots of bitcoin? OK...

Re: as much, if not more, energy to mine

"If you want to mine gold yourself, then panning for gold is certainly viable in NZ and Oz."

California and Alaska as well. Probably other places, too. But for fun, not so much profit.

Making actual money probably requires some real investment in equipment, sluicing, and whatnot. There are 'reality' TV shows on cable networks that show people actually doing this.

It might pay better to dredge a river delta, if you can afford tiny percentages of gold and silver and whatnot in the silt. that assumes it hasn't been over-dredged already.

maybe some day when space travel is more common, you'll see independent miners heading for asteroids and planets like Mercury where rocky stuff is more prevalent and it's still possible to access all of it if you're careful about the sun being up every 40 out of 80 days for a given location. [I'd think mobile equipment staying ahead of daybreak might do it].

But yeah, when the price of gold makes it profitable to go to extreme places to get it, people will. Or, just do it for fun on a weekend trip with the kids.

Woke Linus Torvalds rolls his first 4.20, mulls Linux 5.0 effort for 2019

"MS Windows is now written in C# which is why there are no bugs in it."

HA HA HA that's a good one! [you WERE joking, right?]

Re: It's called humor.

Prick

That's Mr. Prick.

Re: Bring back the old Linus

"'RTFM' is a good way to answer people asking beginner questions.

especially on IRC. Well, teach a man to fish, right???

noob: I need help with [thing]

me: what kind of help?

noob: [something clueless]

me: did you read the man page? 'man thing'

noob: no, but I still need help

me: google is your friend. learn to use it.

etc.

just pointing out the obvious, again. you're welcome. Too many of THESE conversations and I just start with a link to the documentation after _I_ google it, and say so after the link.

me: [web URL] - I found this by googl'ing "the query", it was the 4th entry on the first page

[a subtler way of saying RTFM, while *still* being "helpful"]

/me points out that inserting "duck duck go" or "bing" in place of 'google' is also acceptable - heh

Linus is NOT being 'passive-aggressive' FYI

"new passive aggressive Linus"

FYI this is not 'passive-aggressive' to tone down the anger in communications.

A passive-aggressive person is like a protester that hangs limp when the police carry him off. It makes it HARDER for the police. He's resisting arrest, NOT being violent, yet STILL engaging in 'aggressive' behavior against the police. That's "passive-aggressive".

I've seen TRUE passive-aggressives in action, and it's IRRITATING and self-centered. Passive-aggressives find things that YOU do that they don't like, then complain about them to others ALL of the time, to exert pressure on YOU. They object to everything you do, trying to sound "scientific" or "knowledgeable" in order to make YOU look bad. They schmooze behind the scenes and get things done OUTSIDE of your approval or consultation. They often don't cooperate with your tasks, forcing YOU to fall behind deadlines. If possible they'll try to get you fired with false claims (boo hoo hoo he hurt my feelings!). When faced with the reality of their opposition, which may really be rooted in incompetence or personal issues, they often rage-quit or become openly aggressive about it [backed into a corner]. Without saying it too much, YES, they *ARE* manipulative people, and you can tell who they are by THAT alone.

It's also considered to be a psychological disorder.

Re: just mewling quims.

All of these UNNECESSARY "nice-ities" - this just reminds me of 'The Wolf' from Pulp Fiction...

"Pretty please. With sugar on it. Clean the #$%'ing car!"

(he was being 'curt' because he was trying to get things done, and time was limited and basically the reason he was there to take charge in the FIRST place, did not have time for 'pleasantries' etc.)

this reminds me of that ONE Mythbusters episode...

[it's more therapeutic to voice your, uh, FRUSTRATION, via profanity and colo[u]rful metaphors]

BUNNY KITTEN MOTHER-PUPPIES! <-- heh

(just doesn't work as well)

European Union divided over tax on digital tech giants as some member states refuse free money

Re: VAT

"angry headlines in the tabloids about how some billion-dollar business is paying $4.93 in tax."

that's correct. they do that. And they do that LEGALLY by exploiting all of the loopholes, etc..

YOU would, too, if you could. Right? I know of NO altruistic people who would just bend over and pay out all of that money to a gummint when there's a legal way to get around doing it.

the laws of unintended consequences

per-packet taxes mean fewer packets

per-transaction taxes mean fewer transactions

Using a country's IP address blocks to levy taxes means increased VPN usage (as mentioned above) to avoid taxation.

Do you _REALLY_ want "a tollbooth" on 'teh intarwebs' ? I don't.

And what effect would DRIVING COMPANIES AWAY from your country [not being a 'tax haven' any more] have on INCOME TAXES from employees that WORK there? [this could be moot if an entity is simply a shell company working as a pure tax shelter, which would have few or no local employees].

But yeah, if you drive them AWAY, your tax revenue will be ZERO. Understandably, nobody's gonna just BEND OVER and TAKE IT when gummints impose taxes and regulations.

unintended consequences are OFTEN the direct result. And politicians NEVER "get it".

We don' need no stinkin' bounties: VirtualBox guest-to-host escape zero-day lands at GitHub

when Sun bought VirtualBox the first thing I saw was increased support over what qemu and kqemu had given you [what virtualbox was originally based on]. I saw devotion to NON-windows operating systems and I was happy. I think Sun was behind multi-core support in virtualbox, which I thought was AWESOME.

So far I'm not seeing "bad things" while Oracle has it, although you might say that the lack of urgent response to zero-days and months-long delays in fixing might be Oracle's bureaucracy...

oh, and that dreaded "just get the newest version" so-called FIX that was also mentioned in another post... this is open source and patches _ARE_ possible, given a pull request that can be adapted to earlier (stable) releases [as needed].

I happen to like virtualbox

I happen to like virtualbox, but I don't open up my VMs to 3rd parties. In cases where it _MIGHT_ happen, I can at least make sure root has a *strong* password/phrase.

I'll look into the 'paravirtualization' workaround anyway. Years ago I had trouble setting up thing like that, so new VMs aren't using "that", but since then it's probably working correctly so I'll re-visit.

In the mean time, vbox "NAT" lacks IPv6 support... so maybe "it's time" to look at another way to do networking.

Bill Gates joined on stage by jar of poop as he confesses deep love for talking about toilets

open defecation "the norm" in a society

unfortunately, we cannot "do for them" what they are unable/unwilling to "do for themselves" without executing some kind of pressure upon them, like foreigners refusing to go to cities (or employ people) where public 'un-sanitation' is considered "normal".

I'm not sure anyone is so altruistic as to subscribe to that notion. However, if it DID become a 'human rights' issue of some kind, at the U.N. for example, it would have to side with those who are adversely affected by poor/nonexistent public sanitation.

In the 1st world, trash pickup and sewers and sewage treatment are considered 'normal'. The black plague was one of the reasons why this is so. Preventing plagues was a huge motivation behind not dumping bedpans or chamber pots into the street, and requiring the use of public toilets instead of gutters.

Then again, with things being as they are (and getting a bit worse, I'd say), places like San Francisco are looking more like the 3rd world every day...

Anyway, attitudes have to change. Just like it is with some countries still violating civil rights based on sex, religion, etc. we can't fix THEIR problems until THEY are willing to fix THEIR problems. [it's possible to pressure them to change their minds, but that's a slow and politically charged process sometimes, especially when that country makes your electronic toys or provides you with oil or raw materials]

Re: Windows FE (Fecal Edition)

maybe it would be an improvement over the so-called "low water flush" toilets. So instead of flushing ONCE [older designs], by using LESS water per flush, you have to flush it 3 times to "get it all"... (or listen to it running constantly when the 'bulk' has too much mass to get past the bendy part because it 'uses less water').

Either that, or it'll be "flush it 5 times" like a reboot process during "up"grades.

what's next, 'slurping' up data about what we've been eating, and if "it floats" it's "you're eating too much meat/fast-food" and activists will now picket your house?

The potential assault on privacy and freedom (and marketing it or using it against you politically) is too much for Micro-shaft to ignore!

Re: "Bill Gates joined on stage by jar of poop"

(re: Mr Hanky shoutout)

Hi-dy Ho!

/me can't find 'poo' icon...

Re: Cue the toilet humour... whoops, too late!

I once wrote a trashcan desktop icon application that was a toilet (back in the windows 3.x days).

Nowadays, we can expect that "windows everywhere" will soon turn EVERY desktopcomputer into a toilet. After all, it's the new "lowest common denominator" platform upon which UWP must "look and feel" the same, everywhere, because, Win-10-nic.

now, how will that 2D FLATSO toilet interface work again?

Macs to Linux fans: Stop right there, Penguinista scum, that's not macOS. Go on, git outta here

Re: SecureBoot Bites Again

new name needed:

*EVIL* *BOOT*

"secure" boot is *EVIL*

Just plain *EVIL*. It's designed to LOCK OUT COMPETITION.

It needs ANTI-TRUST action, PRONTO, if users can NOT unlock it.

Intel peddles latest Xeon CPUs – E-series and 48-core Cascade Lake AP – to soothe epyc mygrayne

Re: 6 cores vs 32 ??

good luck getting a WINDOWS OS to properly leverage all of those cores [at least for a desktop/workstation].

Now, with virtualization, pretty easily done with any decent work load.

I'd like one of those 'threadripper' CPUs on my desktop workstation, though. I have need of "that many cores" and I'd use FreeBSD and/or Linux...

Solid state of fear: Euro boffins bust open SSD, Bitlocker encryption (it's really, really dumb)

*FACEPALM*

see icon

Re: Full Disk Encryption Not Good For SSD

an SSD-friendly encrypted file system would encrypt file names, path names, etc. from the index, but would not encrypt the block allocation, pointers, indexes, etc. so as to minimize the impact of encryption on re-writes. That way the data would still be encrypted, along with the names, but would not have to re-encrypt large parts of the file system because you changed something.

it would still be possible to determine "this is a large file" and try to decrypt it the hard way, but with a strong enough key... good luck. maybe you could look for file headers as a 'crib' of some kind, but a properly designed algorithm would prevent THAT from working, too.

Re: "should not rely solely on hardware encryption"

POSIX systems have a cert mechanism for ssh that might work for mounting an encrypted file system using a FUSE file system, as one example...

if it does not already exist, it should.

/me could create one if I wanted to... but do I _NEED_ to?

Re: The issue is changing the password...

let's say the encryption key is derived from a math operation on a hash of the password/passphrase and the stored key on the disk. If you change the password, you'd need to re-calculate the stored key. If it's possible to do this from the actual key, that might at least address THIS problem. But a truly secure system might derive the actual key with a 1-way operation (like matrix multiply or similar).

in any case these things _COULD_ be solved in ways that make the system secure, and "not what THEY did".

US draft bill moots locking up execs who lie about privacy violations

Re: No "right to be forgotten"

no 'right to be forgotten' - this is an EXCELLENT point!

If GDPR-like legislation were to be made in the USA, it would _NEED_ a "right to be forgotten" requirement on any 'opt-in' or 'not-opt-out' data collection, including for those who do NOT subscribe to a service [such as anonymous users of google, fa[e]ceb[ook,itch] and Tw[a,i]tter and anything else that has a scripty icon on a typical web site].

This actually *kinda* makes my point that the proposed legislation was intended to ENRICH L[aw]YERS and pander to specific anti-corporation voters, and that's about it.

Real protection: not a bit.

The existing FTC requirements on banks disclosing selling your info to 3rd parties should be sufficient, I think, plus a "forget me" process that's simple for web sites.

Re: I voted for him.

"more than few corporate shills freedom-loving, sensible people who believe in less government are reading El Reg today."

Fixed It For Ya.

"soon the Republicans will start to legislate these issues"

well I'll have to disagree with you on this one. The current position of the Republican party is SMALLER government and FEWER (better) regulations. Making more is probably NOT the answer, anyway.

That being said, the existing Federal Trade Commission laws may be enough on their own, if properly applied. FTC applies to banking and privacy already. Extending that to intarweb traffic wouldn't be all that difficult, and would provide the _same_ kinds of protection we get against banks selling our information to 3rd parties without our permission.

I suspect that punishing corporations in order to make headlines and pander to left-leaning voters isn't the primary focus of the Republican party (yeah no duh). Anti-trust _HAS_ been important to Republicans, since Teddy Roosevelt, as well as a "fair playing field" for competing businesses. So it'll get done, eventually. But it's not an emergency to rush to legislation with it, not like some of the other issues that have been getting handled over the last 2 years [like recovering the economy, fixing foreign policy, and "draining the swamp"].