* Posts by The IT Ghost

70 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Dec 2016

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We lose money on repairs, sobs penniless Apple, even though we charge y'all a fortune

The IT Ghost

Re: Counter-arguments

Given that most everyone in politics, whether they be members of Congress, or Parliament, Presidents or Prime Ministers, have little grasp of technology makes it very hard to have anything explained to them. A few are somewhat savvy, but most are relying entirely on aides to brief them on the "issues" while they're on the way to vote on them. An understanding of complex and creative accounting? They've never grasped how it is that a movie studio that makes a movie for $120 million, which does $400 million in revenue on opening weekend, still only reports $2 million net profits on that movie, and lost money big time overall for the year, therefore, pay no taxes

The IT Ghost

Re: Famous truths...

I challenged a friend of mine about a recent, unnecessary purchase. I was informed "It was half off! I saved 50%." I answered "But you didn't need it. You could have not bought it and saved 100%." I just got a blank stare in return.

People seem to respond on an almost competitive level when something is marked down, as if they think they're getting "ahead" of the poor souls who paid full price for the same item last week.

Denial of service kingpin hit with 13 months denial of freedom and a massive bill to pay

The IT Ghost

Re: Protest via DDoS ?

One set of rules for the commoners, one set for the government and their agents.

You get in a tussle with a friend and punch him in the ribs with a stick, you get felony charges and a long stint in jail. Police officer does the same, its "pain compliance technique" and considered perfectly okay. You make people buy your product or suffer losses (material or financial) that extortion. Felony, jail time. Government does it, its "vehicle registration". Go on about public good all you like, but the end is the same - two sets of rules, and only one group is making those rules.

Open wide, very wide: Xerox considers buying HP. Yes, the HP that is more than three times its market cap

The IT Ghost

Re: How are they going to fund it?

What will happen is, eventually a Chapter 13 bankruptcy to wipe out the interest for a few years while they "reorganize". Then some venture capitalists sink some money in it to bring the company back to life- temporarily. Then either another round of Chapter 13 or Chapter 11 in an attempt to get rid of the debt for a fraction of its value. Then Chapter 7, and it all wraps up. Meanwhile, the top execs have gathered lots of nice fat paychecks, and then "moved on" at each stage as part of the reorgs. Next set of C-levels come in with grand emails to the surviving staff, only to lay off a few thousand more. Then that set of C's moves on, and its repeated by the next ones. Eventually cutting staff doesn't prop up the books anymore and someone realizes they actually need revenues. Then they file Chapter 7 because none of the "leaders" have any idea how to actually make and sell products at a decent price.

AT&T: We did nothing wrong in promising unlimited data that wasn't. We're just giving the FTC $60m for fun

The IT Ghost

Re: Money can't buy you love

The problem with the "hit 'em where it hurts" idea - virtually bankrupting a major corporation, is that the people who pulled the "throttling" stunt will just take their golden parachutes, padding their already full bank accounts that much more, take a few months off and then start again as an executive somewhere else, once again earning big money. Its the workers who try to put in their week's work and get their paychecks to get by one more month that get hurt the most.

Cyber-security super-brain Rudy Giuliani forgets password, bricks iPhone, begs Apple Store staff for help

The IT Ghost

Re: If he wasn't such an obviously stupid man

He's the political equivalent of a lightning rod. Not much removed from the role Dan Quayle had as Veep during Bush 41's term in office. The press starts getting too heated up, trot out the Lightning Rod, fully confident the LR will do/say something that will distract the media for days while they laugh about it, and totally forget about what they were after the President for.

Clinton used to do something similar, but since Al Gore had political aspirations of his own and refused to play the village idiot, Clinton would have the military launch a few cruise missiles at random "terrorist" targets.

Remember the 1980s? Oversized shoulder pads, Metal Mickey and... sticky keyboards?

The IT Ghost

In about...1995 or so, I was working for a value-added reseller. One client was also a supplier, and every tech would delay picking up a supply order from that client/supplier until late afternoon Friday. Each Friday at 5 o'clock, everyone in the other building, whether employee or visitor, got beers all-round. Periodically, we'd get a box of inebriated keyboards to clean and (attempt to) revive. Within a few minutes, the tech area had a distinct "Day after a keg party" scent. This was somewhat after the time when paying for keyboard repairs was more expensive than just replacing them, so we always assumed they got a rate cut on tech services somewhere in the Gordian knot of exchanged services.

'We go back to the Moon to stay': Apollo vets not too chuffed with NASA's new rush to the regolith

The IT Ghost

Walter Mondale was saying pretty much the same thing in the early 1970s. Here we are, 45 years later with a busted space program, still spending money by the billions on "social programs", and people still don't have all these great things. People should have learned decades ago - government doesn't fix problems. They just throw money at them and hope something good happens they can claim credit for.

The IT Ghost

Re: "To simply go and come back and say that we've been there again is highly unsatisfactory,"

Eagle, the first LM to land, was full of astronauts. That seemed to work out quite well. Everyone who went got back, just as intended, and even brought back a little bit of the moon with them.

Watch as 10 cops with guns and military camo storm suspected Capital One hacker's house…

The IT Ghost

Re: A little sensationalism?

But, did the police *know* about the weapons before the raid? Nothing in this specific article implies they did.

Sleeping Tesla driver wonders why his car ploughed into 11 traffic cones on a motorway

The IT Ghost

Have to wonder what the person driving the truck (lorry) he's pulling up beside thought of when he saw this car NOT merging in and merrily plowing through the barrels in his mirror.

Ex-NASA Mars InSight contractor sets legal eagles on JPL over whistleblower sacking

The IT Ghost

Re: Isn’t the first time NASA JPL screwed the pooch

Fortunately, JPL doesn't design or build the rockets. They build and operate the payloads (rovers, bits that orbit and crash into other planets (sometimes intentionally, sometimes not)) but the rockets are still designed and built by others, like Boeing/Orbital Space Alliance (Atlas, Delta), OSC (Minotaur, Antares) and even SpaceX (Falcon, Falcon Heavy).

IBM torches Big Tech's get-out-of-jail-free card, says websites should be held responsible for netizen-posted content

The IT Ghost

Slippery slope

This is an indirect undermining of Freedom of Speech. By using third parties to censor what people can post, it creates a precedent. Once challenged in court, and the courts are likely to go along with it since its "private companies" doing the censoring (at the behest of government) its a very small step to create "efficiency" by having the social media companies pool resources on a government moderated panel to uphold the restrictions. And a smaller step to push the companies out of the panel by having them just approve what the government panel decides to do and then just not bother with the approvals at all. First Amendment is effectively bypassed for online posts. Newsies won't cover any in-person protests for fear any quotes they get from protesters would be a liability if published on their website. First Amendment rights for actual verbal speech...curtailed. All through short-sighted profit-chasing and lack of big-picture oversight. Opioid crisis indeed...what a crock. Not that there isn't a problem, but this isn't the way to fix it.

And let's not forget the easy abuse....Persons A and B get together and collude. A posts a bunch of bad stuff on, say, Twitter. Instantly, B captures it and uses A's postings as a basis for a lawsuit, B gets a bunch of money, and shares some of it with A, so they both come out ahead dollar-wise - repeat on Instagram. Repeat on Facebook. Et al. Until all social media imposes a multi-day wait before anything posted is actually made available, so it can be scoured and examined by filters and human moderators for any possible liability issue.

This is a very bad idea.

Security guard cost bank millions by hitting emergency Off button

The IT Ghost

Not a Big Red Button incident, but Mother Nature having her way. Company's UPS was a bit dodgy, maintenance had been at it several times. A new card pass system was put in place to allow entry to the building, and the physical keys were taken back from the lower ranks. Storms hit hard, and my boss called me to report server room issues. Not surprising, since every time storms came round one of the phone links would die. Except I got there and couldn't get in, and my boss had to come out anyway, since he was one of the only ones who still had a physical key. Power was off to the entire server room. The UPS had cut in when power went out, but didn't cut back out when power came back, and when the battery bank was done, it all went dark. Including the server than ran the key-card system. The other network admin and I both got our keys back after that.

BOFH: On a sunny day like this one, the concrete dries so much more quickly

The IT Ghost

Re: Informal poll on whether you've ever had to do something like this

Fun times....many years ago, I worked as a field engineer (whilst being paid to be a bench tech) and got a call to a local attorney's office. They had another firm install Netware 3.12 (newest and shiniest at the time, told you this was many years ago) and the install wasn't complete. On investigation, found one of the small mountain of floppy disks was bad - pulled one from my kit and completed the reinstall, then had to restore the data. Using an ancient 8-track tape drive that hadn't been tested with any Netware since 2.15. It took about 8 hours to just catalog the tape, and a lot longer to restore everything. Ended up working on it for most of 8 days straight, including through the weekend. The attorney signed off daily on my time sheets without murmur. Finally got everything restored, and as an added bonus, had to fix the diskless workstations and get them all PXE booting properly again. Finally all done...next thing I know, the attorney shows up at *our* office mad about the bill he got, despite having signed off on each day. My boss, bless him, quickly extricated me from any participation in the "discussion" and pulled the company owner in instead. No idea how it turned out, but I'm sure a hefty discount was involved.

Front-end dev cops to billing NSA $220,000 for hours he didn't work

The IT Ghost
Pirate

I wonder if he'll end up on the hook for the whole 220k, or only the quarter or so of it he actually got paid. Seems like the sub should cough up their chunk too. But they'll probably be allowed to keep it...its only tax dollars, after all. They can always get more.

Oracle goes on for 50 pages about why it thinks the Pentagon's $10bn JEDI cloud contract stinks

The IT Ghost

Re: Maturity Gap

Its just another wacky acronym, not the end of the world. To the Pentagon, that would be JAWA

How many Reg columnists does it take to turn off a lightbulb?

The IT Ghost

Re: Hotel lighting

Ambiance...bah. I was once in a restaurant where they had the lights so dim (for ambiance) we had to use the light on our cell phones to read the menu.

All good, leave it with you...? Chap is roped into tech support role for clueless customer

The IT Ghost

Re: What?

I had one problematic user (really nice person when not breaking stuff) who kept going back and forth between our office and a client site, and had problems with her laptop just about every week, and always something different. So I nicknamed her Computer Killer, or Killer for short. She even used it when calling 'Hi, its Killer...'. I met her husband at the company party, and she'd told him about the nickname, trying to get sympathy. Instead, her husband started calling her that at home too. Apparently, her malfunction-inducing skills were regularly applied to their home machine too.

Six Flags fingerprinted my son without consent, says mom. Y'know, this biometric case has teeth, say state supremes...

The IT Ghost

Years ago, when I was at Disneyworld, the person I visited with used a season pass and they required FOUR fingers of his right hand be scanned, and that was decades ago.

The IT Ghost

Re: So I gather

But then they have your photo, which is private biometric data and right there on the pass is proof they saved that data. And how do they apply it to prevent cheating? Have an actual human earn minimum wage looking at each pass and comparing it to a face? That costs money! Facial recognition camera to compare the person at the entry gate with the photo on the pass? Again, biometric data, though this time they could claim (and not be believed) they didn't save the data.

And there is the ticklish problem if getting the photo on the pass. The parks want to sell them online so they staff fewer ticket offices, as that's an expense. A probable virtual pass that someone brings up on their phone (even airlines have gotten that far with boarding passes). You can trust someone to paste their own selfie on it...but a clever person will find a way to overlay any photo on it. Say person A buys the pass, and goes into the park with A's photo on the pass. B then alters it with B's photo, and goes to the park later. If the park detects the photo change, they admit they're...wait for it...storing biometric data, since they still had A's photo stored to compare to the one on the pass.

Photos are simpler, but don't get around the "biometric" hurdle.

The IT Ghost

Re: Thank you!

Some such parks will require extra ID when a person presents a season pass. I've never read the T&C for such a pass, but its safe to say they have a clause that prevents sharing the pass with friends, nobody goes to an amusement park every day, or even every weekend, all season long, so there's temptation to go in with a buddy and alternate weekends or something, and split the cost. The park can claim they then lose money due to the high usage rate of the pass.. Since many visitors are underage for a driver's license or other state-issued ID, they needed something everyone has with them, regardless of age. The choices are fingerprints or facial recognition, and privacy advocates will (rightly) protest either.

Is there a solution? They could eliminate the unlimited season pass, I suppose, and instead just push the multi-visit passes with, say, 20, 30, 40 visits per season, they really have no reason to care if people share those, though they probably will still prohibit it. just because they can.

The Iceman cometh, his smartwatch told the cops: Hitman jailed after gizmo links him to Brit gangland slayings

The IT Ghost
Joke

Never seen a bicycle wearing a vest before. Talk about getting attention.

Basic bigot bait: Build big black broad bots – non-white, female 'droids get all the abuse

The IT Ghost

"people were consistently and significantly more negative towards and dehumanizing of the gynoids relative to their human counterparts." Dehumanizing a robot? They're not human to begin with.

GoDaddy CEO says US is 'tech illiterate' (so, yeah, don't shut off that cheap H-1B supply)

The IT Ghost

Re: Trump in Nevada: 'I Love the Poorly Educated'

No single candidate or party is causing the "educational crisis". Its weeks, months, even years spent in classrooms covering things that no student will ever see, use, or hear about again, unless that student becomes an educator as well. If we can pare down the stuff that's of no objective use (I have not been asked to identify the adverb in a sentence since I was in fifth grade - or so) perhaps we can free up time for kids to be taught real life skills. Democrats have screwed things up just as much as Republicans have, its short-sighted to place the blame entirely on one party. The "purse strings" of Congress are controlled by the House of Representatives - all spending must originate there. Since 1855 (when the two party system pretty much took hold), Democrats have controlled the House 86 years, Republicans, 74. For 40 years, ending in 1995, Democrats never lost their majority in the House. If all the educational ills of our nation are due to the Republican treachery, exclusively, we should have had an educational system that was the envy of the world in 1995. But we didn't. Fact is, *both* sides of the aisle are packed with cretinous, self-righteous narcissists, and the solution is term limits to force turnover in Congress so new people with new ideas have a chance, instead of having the same old carcasses re-elected time and time again with the same tired old plans and the same tired rhetoric. I don't care if a person has a "D" or "R" after their name on the news reports - if they've been there 15 or 20 years, they're dead weight and need to be tossed out to make room for someone who might have more than getting re-elected (yet again) in mind. Plus, it'd help of the Congress Critters realized that, eventually, they'll be private citizens again and be subject to the laws they make the rest of us live with, instead of being in Congress and subject to Congressional immunities until they keel over and die of old age.

The IT Ghost

Re: Solution

Free college for everyone? Never going to happen, doesn't matter who gets elected. Nor should it. College isn't a right. Its not "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of a bachelor's degree." But I'm not getting on my soapbox today. I would rather see people coming out of college able to handle Windows and/or Cisco kit. Because most networks are Windows-based, that's where the jobs are. Likewise, most routing and switching runs something very like Cisco IOS, and in fact, usually identical, since IOS isn't patented or copyrighted, since its derived from Unix and thus is no an original work - so anyone can use it, and *lots* do, so learning Cisco actually gets you solidly grounded in a lot of manufacturers. SUSE? Good on you to learn alternative tech, but I suspect most of your CS peers are happy to learn the skills likely to get them a job right off. I have never been a Microsoft fan...I came up in the days of Novell Netware, which I believe to this day was a far superior product compared to Microsoft Servers. But Microsoft is where the money is, and as I have to work for a living, I have to work with the products the companies are buying, not with what I like the best.

The IT Ghost

Re: @Ghost ... Solution

I never mentioned either one..in this thread, I think I mentioned code monkeys in another posting thread on this article, though. Here, I was just talking IT as a whole; waiting for universities to re-tool their curricula and starting churning out people who have knowledge and how to apply it in the real world is a fool's game. Companies can come out ahead if they take some initiative and train their people instead of expecting people to just come to them already experts in whatever field of IT.

The IT Ghost

Software Architects write up the design for the developers. The developers then slap the Software Architects around a bit, remind them that anti-gravity drives require hardware, not software, and the Architects then revise the specifications so the developers can get on with their code-monkey work.

The IT Ghost

Solution

The solution to this problem isn't to drive kids through 16 years of education...its for companies to open their budgets and send staff to technical schools to learn specific technologies. Universities are great at teaching theories, and a very few have begun to actually integrate vendor coursework (primarily Microsoft) into the curriculum so students graduate with the diploma that says they know the theory *and* a certificate that demonstrates at least a minimum level of practical knowledge. Take a new hire, have that person spend the first two weeks being trained in the dominant technology the employer uses that the employee will be supporting. Then allocate another two weeks the next month for training in a secondary skill area.

Costs a few dollars, sure, but without the four year degree, HR at most other companies won't even let the person's resume through the first culling, so the candidate will be staying a while (plus, there are always contractual agreements that you won't quit within a certain time unless you pay back the costs). And the person who has actual tech training will be better able to contribute than one who has a four year degree with no practical aspect integrated in. Over time, other universities are likely to include a practical aspect to their degrees, but for the time being, filling the alleged half-million jobs is a matter of investing in people...not buying their servitude. Take the average salary for the area, for a newbie, and cut a few thousand off the top, but add it back in as training. Its a perk, and the company can move that money to the business expense column instead of payroll.

And with a bit of cleverness, the company can avoid paying for any advanced training, even though there's supposed to be a budget of x dollars per year per person for training, by keeping the work load too high for the employees to actually go to any training, once they have the minimum necessary to blunder along doing the job they have already.

The IT Ghost

Because "STEM" is a cool buzzword, or I suppose in this case, buzz-acronym. And its "developers", not "programmers". Did you not receive your latest copy of Buzzword Almanac?

Amazon S3-izure cause: Half the web vanished because an AWS bod fat-fingered a command

The IT Ghost

Re: So much for fault injection testing !

Plenty of fault was injected, no doubt. Probably 4 or 5 people shown the door, none of them the one who actually flubbed the command.

IBM's Marissa Mayer moment: Staff ordered to work in one of 6 main offices – or face the axe

The IT Ghost

Re: Downward spiral?

The IBM PC was, for the time, a good product - PS/2 was CRAP. Proprietary *everything*...damned Microchannel...back in the day you could get a good sound card for $90...ISA. An entry-level MCA card, $160...and that was in 1991ish. Monitors...mine lasted a year before one of the guns went out, necessitating replacement. Pins on the video card so fragile they bent if you looked at them wrong. I suppose it was a decent system when it worked, but it was expensive to buy and more expensive to upgrade. I was very happy to retire my 8088 PS/2 70 for a self-built 386SX...with a ****ing ISA bus.

The IT Ghost

Re: @IT Ghost.

Actually, I was a contractor there on two separate occasions - once for 18 months or so, another for just under five years. The first time I switched teams once, and the second time twice, and possibly a third was pending at the time I resigned. But...in the sense you mean of actually being an IBM employee, no; I was a yellow-stripe.

The IT Ghost

Re: She has no clue

Me, too. I said nothing at the time, since you then get dinged for "being defensive", but I thought "I'm over THERE talking with people near where my desk is, I'm just not over HERE on the other side of the building, chatting with people where you can see me from your office."

The IT Ghost

The part that I find odd is that a person could live in a suburb of Atlanta, but be working on a team on LA, and instead of going to the Atlanta office, be forced to move to LA, despite living within a semi-reasonable distance of *an* IBM office. Too much to hope for that the unlucky person would be permitted to switch to the team based at the office already nearby, rather than moving to where the cost of living is three times higher? This isn't about being "competitive" or "x factor" or any of the other buzzword-bingo terms used here, this is so a managerial person that reports up the chain to our videogenic friend here can go and count noses and shoulder surf to make sure people are working, to keep the minions firmly under thumb. If you're looking to get someone to spend seven figures on an AS/400 upgrade, you don't work that deal over the phone from the other side of the country. And airplanes, hotels, rental cars...they add up fast, especially if the saleperson has to make several trips. Add in more of the same for "presales engineering" on at least some of those trips, you can quickly find expenses exceed the "savings" of putting everyone in to one location.

Fact is, it boils down to trust..or lack thereof, in one's employees. So you gather them together where you can watch them...c'mon, these the salespeople, they're on commission. If they goof off, they don't get paid...at least, not very much. Besides...if "A" has zero sales for very long, its not hard to think "Gee, maybe we should be talking to A, find out what's going on." Maybe there's leads A is chasing but the customer has to work the budget, and pry more money out of the accountants, maybe A is watching Youtube all day. Either way, A isn't getting much income. That's a self-correcting situation...A will eventually need money and get busy selling stuff, will drum up new leads for the stagnant ones, or move on to some other job where doing nothing pays well and is appreciated...like being a member of Congress. They're paid well and, generally, the less they do the better since everything they do ends up costing billions of dollars for no return or make life less happy for the average taxpayer.

BOFH: Password HELL. For you, mate, not for me

The IT Ghost

Re: "I rarely get cold calls"

Of course he got a return, but he was demoted to removing hands and such for a while, before working his way back up to...<ahem> head executioner.

The IT Ghost

Re: "I rarely get cold calls"

I get the "Windows Support" ones rather often, I usually hang up, but sometimes they tick me off so I mess with them. Sometimes my only computer is an Apple. Sometimes its various Linux distros, a few times I simply invent an OS name and claim I wrote my own. Having claimed to be "Windows Support", they have then undercut themselves. One of these days, I'll spin up a Windows VM and let them play a while, then power it off in mid-stream and claim they broke my computer.

I might also, at some point, interrupt them right off and say something "Oh, thank goodness you called! My computer thingie won't get on the Interweb thing, you can help me fix it!" And since their only skill will be connecting remotely to a working machine and loading it with crapware, yet they claim to be "support"...I predict awkward pauses.

Paper factory fired its sysadmin. He returned via VPN and caused $1m in damage. Now jailed

The IT Ghost

He must've been angry and bitter - that much is clear from two facts - first, he started his rampage right after he was sacked, and second, a felony rap like this means he's going to have a hell of job finding work again at all, and the nature of his crime means he torpedoed his IT career. Its not like he took some exotic, skilled way in to make mischief he could teach others to avoid - they left the door wide open!

HR has a tendency to forget to notify IT of things...I've had many a battle with them. The moment the head of HR closes their office or conference room door to have "The Talk" with the about-to-be-unemployed, an underling needs to be ON THE PHONE with IT. That person should not leave that room with working credentials.

FAKE BREWS: America rocked by 'craft beer' scandal allegations

The IT Ghost

Re: This story only got written...

No, he's suing because Wal-Mart is charging more for the product based on its status as a "craft" beer, when it doesn't meet the definition. We have TONS of microbreweries in my area (Atlanta metro area), and none of the big brands are making inroads in buying them out. It is not the *good* crafters that get bought up - its the marginal ones. The good ones make money and prosper selling superior product at premium prices, and very often to a limited geographical area. The beer cartels want stuff they can ship out by the pallet load, not product that goes out by the case. Some crafters, like our local Sweet Water, don't pastuerize the beer, so it can't be shipped very far, and has a very short shelf life. The cartel boys don't want something like that.

New Royal Navy Wildcat helicopters can't transmit vital data

The IT Ghost

Re: And they have to land to ask for directions !!!

"Visual Orientation Exercise". I think the exercise failed, and its time for a COURSE in it instead. Nice to see the pilot pulled rank though, and made is co-pilot actually get out to ask for directions.

The IT Ghost

Re: This weeks name

I always look for corporate logos on the missiles that go whizzing by me. Doesn't everyone?

Citrix: CEO exit plans accelerated, results take a turn.... for the better

The IT Ghost

Having been one of the ones laid off (not fired, we got severance) I really liked the atmosphere at Citrix, but I saw the writing on the wall - I was a new hire at the time, no seniority, no special skillsets, and that put me squarely on the chopping block. A good place to work, plenty of chances to work with other teams, other departments. I was not happy to have to leave, but at least I saw it coming and took everything home before Axe Day - few things are worse, in my opinion, than having to stand there packing your stuff while everyone else is trying to hide their relief it was you to got cut instead of them, and be sympathetic - while some random representative of the managerial corps hovers over you watching that you don't steal anything belonging to the company. The departures, in my personal opinion, could have been handled better.

US anti-encryption law is so 'braindead' it will outlaw file compression

The IT Ghost

Re: Just a point of clarification...

To be pedantic, the President cannot "make laws". He (or, someday, she) can sign bills that Congress has approved so that they become law, but that's not making a law, since the President cannot introduce legislation to Congress. At least not directly. Executive Orders are another matter, and, constitutionally, only apply to people employed by the President. Just as the CEO of a corporation has sweeping powers to issue edicts to that company's own employees, but have no standing outside that company, so do is the idea behind Executive Orders. Much has been made of them, especially in the past 8 years, but I do not know that the legality of them in regards to the general populace has been expanded in the slightest.

In any case, the slide to increasing levels of idiocy began with Clinton (the First). That's where the notion of "Oh, we can't give tax breaks to individuals! They might *save* that money for their futures instead of spending it right away to stimulate the economy!" began. Where we got the idea that "to professionalize, you must federalize!" (That wasn't Clinton, but it was that era). Where the idea that it was perfectly okay for all your electronic devices to be snooped through just because you had the temerity to enter the United States was born. And where we go this gem "We're either going to do what we said we're going to do, or we're going to do something else."

IT guy checks to see if PC is virus-free, with virus-ridden USB stick

The IT Ghost

Re: Petards.

Not a virus, but IT fellow at a place where I was contracting had come up with a plan...insert a DVD that had just enough on it to boot the machine, format the C: drive, link up to the network and pull down the a disc image (This was the mid 90s, this was pretty clever by the standards of the time). Infected desktop? Pop the disc in, reboot, and watch the magic.

He gets everyone gathered for his big demo. Hooks his laptop to a projector, adjust the image just so, pops the desktop imaging disc in, reboots...and at about 2% of the format, goes int a blind panic realizing the desktop image disc didn't have the network drivers for his laptop.

Oops.

Unfortunately, he hadn't gotten around to working on the laptop imaging project yet, so did was stuck doing his recovery the hard way.

The IT Ghost

Re: Not work but...

In fairness, poster did say that the startup options had been disabled. So booting from a CD/USB may have required some...persuasion.

Haven't run across the "disable startup options" trick yet, only seen the Gen I and II ransomwares thus far. And one scareware that merely claimed the files were encrypted and hoped for panic payment.

RAF pilot sent jet into 4,000ft plummet by playing with camera, court martial hears

The IT Ghost

Re: Low level loss of concentration

"Dismissal" for an officer is the same thing as a "Dishonorable discharge" is for an enlisted. A person with either one is followed by that for life...when one seeks civilian employment, one has to account for the years spent in service...if you own up to the dishonorable/dismissal, most of the time you go right to the bottom of the list, if not disregarded immediately. If you lie, and claim an honorable or medical discharge, or invent civilian jobs to account for the time, better hope your new employer never finds out. Nothing can balance out the lost lives, but these two will be reminded of what they did every single day they have to work at a lower-level job. If they work in a labor union area, the union won't back their complaints as readily as someone else...because of what they did...they might even forbid someone with a dishonorable from even being in the union - which means, no job at all in a union shop. Non-union...the bosses will be a little slower to hire someone with that history, and pay raises will always be a little less than someone else would get...and promotions will be extremely rare. "Look what you did last time you got responsibility for something." I don't know if its right...but its punishment for life, in a very real sense.

The IT Ghost

Re: Piloting From the Ceiling

I'm wondering at what point the co-pilot realizes "when we level this thing out, I'm landing on something that isn't made for me to land on."

US Supreme Court to hear case that may ruin Lone Star patent trolls

The IT Ghost

Actually, if the judge is accused of malpractice in some manner the the Bar Association takes exception to, and they elected to pull the judge's license to practice law, that judge can be removed from the bench without Congressional action. But getting a group of lawyers to narc on another lawyer is probably harder than getting a formal impeachment. To the best of my knowledge, being licensed to practice law is required to be a Federal judge - ergo, if you are no longer licensed, you are no longer qualified to serve. But, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if there wasn't a clause hidden somewhere that negates what seems a common sense rule. If a person drives a truck, and loses his driver's license, he gets fired from the job. So if getting the job requires a law license, and you lose it, you SHOULD lose the job. But...lawyers.

David Hockney creates new Sun masthead. Now for The Reg...

The IT Ghost

Re: Don't Buy the Sun

Now there's a bright lad

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