Posts by sal II

Senior White House official claims China’s K3 model stolen from Anthropic

Re: US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent...

I don't need names. In my head I read "Senior White House official" as "Ignorant career lier" (at least during the current administration).

So I knew from the title it will be a load of BS

Anyone with a shed, an extension cord, a couple of GPUs and an overdraft is building datacenters. Fujitsu just offloaded five

Smart move

This is smart move - sell their aging stock at the peak, while ignorant investors whip out their check books at the sound of Datacenter. Then by the dip after the AI bubble bursts and Datacenters got for dime a dozen.

Patchpocalypse Now: Microsoft tops last month's record with 622 Patch Tuesday CVEs

Re: 622 CVE's

yes, if you consider 1k as a single figure

Tech support scam caused massive data breach at Australian airline Qantas

Re: Hmm

"It's about time these commissioners grew some teeth"

Oh, they do have teeth alright. To sink into all the juicy steak dinners

Linus Torvalds tells AI haters to fork off

Re: I'll believe it when I see it

Enlighten us, give us examples of tangible benefits of LLMs for the average person. Preferably ones that outweigh the drawbacks, which are quite tangible - mass layoffs, increased electricity costs, cyber bullying with deep fakes, enshitification of search results, mountains of AI slop across the spectrum.

Home Office's glitchy eVisa rollout lands UK privacy regulator in campaigners' crosshairs

Re: Glitch

"And since any supplier competent to build identity infrastructure should have flagged those gaps..."

You give to much credit to the kind of suppliers that win government contracts...

Accenture admits to 'isolated matter' after crook tries to flog alleged 35GB haul

"There is no impact to Accenture operations and service delivery."

"There is no impact to Accenture operations and service delivery." YET.

The guys hasn't yet sold the hoard, wait until the "right" people get their hands on all of the details inside

Allstate Insurance quits Broadcom, alleges vengeful license audit on the way out

With perpetual licenses you can use the same key on multiple vCenters - In some cases it's done by accident, something that regular audits/true-ups will catch and remediate. Or it could be done on purpose to avoid paying for licenses for a lab or other non-production environment, that doesn't need the vendor support for compliance, cyber insurance purposes etc.

NASA unsure Boeing Starliner will ever be certified for human flight

Re: SpaceX did

And Boing had experience with the Apollo capsule, yet here we are

T-Mobile appears to be quitting VMware – and fighting a very familiar battle for support rights on the way out

Re: Delightful idea

The support calls are just half the story. The more critical part is the vulnerabilities patches. In regulated industries you can't afford to run outdated software. Also cyber attack insurance coverage could be problematic. Especially in high profile cases like this the attackers knowing you are running old unpatched version of vSphere

Angry devs vow to flee GitHub Copilot as metered billing takes hold

Re: Who could have predicted this would be a bait and switch?

"The question is whether the firms offering LLMs have attached enough bait and lock in to pull off the switch."

They don't have choice, Antropic and OpenAI are about to go public, which will soon trigger the collapse. Once people see the real numbers and realize the emperor wears no clothes it's game over for the vast majority of these AI startups. They now have a limited window to extract as much as they can before the pop

Claude celebrates Anthropic's stock market float with blockbuster ... outage

Monster year

It will be a monster year alright, for pump and dump exit scams.

My prediction is that Antropic and OpenAI will go first, so the VCs can make quick buck (bonus if you have the balls to short mag7 soon after), then pour it all in SpaceX. Which although hugely overvalued (much like Tesla), at least has a real product with near monopoly on space launches, with no real competition in sight.

Europe tests laser links as satellite comms outgrow radio

in all fairness, they picked a spot on earth with low chance of clouds. Probably not suitable as only link, but as a booster during good weather, should be find

1 in 5 Brits think AI layoffs could trigger civil unrest

Greedy corps

Lets make one thing clear - AI is not replacing jobs/human labour. Greedy corporations do.

More often than not, before any confirmation AI is suitable replacement.

And in all cases without factoring the impending x10 and above increase of token prices.

Don't know about rioting, but there will be a reckoning and it will be ugly.

VMware quietly debuts Arm hypervisor tech preview

Licensing

I wonder how the licensing will be handled, given much higher core count and prevalence of efficiency cores compared to 86

Civil servants to protest outside Capita AGM over pension shambles

Re: Crapita

Nothing to be amazed by. All of their "competitors" are equally crap. So the main differentiating factor is who buys the decision makers the fanciest dinner.

GitLab promises a different kind of layoff as biz pivots toward AI

Investing in the business

"What is it then? Well, according to Staples, GitLab plans to use most of the money it saves by sacking staff to invest in its business."

Soooo, Stock buybacks?

Waymo's self-driving cars face their toughest test yet: London

Re: Video recording needed

You are either being sarcastic or blind. If anything, I would say cyclist are who run red light are a majority.

UK.gov's top tech jobs pay more than prime minister earns

Re: Tech

Indeed, we all know that PMs don't rely on tax payer salary, but rather cushy post-term private sector jobs.

Memory-makers' shares are down. Some RAM prices have eased. Blaming Google is not a good idea

You are greatly underestimating the corrupt politicians greed. Until the guillotines actually start chopping heads, they will keep serving their pay masters.

HMRC hands £473M Fujitsu migration deal to AWS after competition melts away

Re: The missing option

Because there is no technical capability anywhere in the public sector, because the pay is low on all levels.

Microsoft Authenticator to nuke Entra creds on rooted and jailbroken phones

Re: So, let me get this straight

No, the maker of app that handles MFA, will allow said app to wipe saved credentials for said Maker's authentication platform, mostly used to access resources hosted by said Maker.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong.

Re: Need a new TOTP then

also easy to circumvent with SIM swap/clone

Sorry, kids. Memory crunch threatens to kneecap Chromebook shipments

Good riddance

Between the RAM/storage price spike and the new $600 Macbook Neo launch, surely looks like doom and gloom for chromebook.

Which is a good thing in my books, this is a pointless product inferior in every aspect to a second hand laptop or Android tablet (or even iPad) at the same price point. It was used to borderline scam cash strapped educational institution and end users alike to spend money on e-waste.

Got one free with a Samsung phone purchase 1-2 years ago. Can't use it even for web browsing, 1366x768 screen resolution in 2024 is criminal

UK tech hit by double trouble: Fewer foreign techies amid skills squeeze

Talent vs AI

Why do they need talent? Last time I heard we were all being replaced by AI.

BBC bumps telly tax to £180 as Netflix lurks with cheaper tiers

"simple" solution would be state/taxpayer funded ringfenced pot for the niche/local content, then subscription based funding for the content for the "masses".

But nothing beats forced subscription under threat of criminal offense...

SpaceX back to Falcon 9 launches as Musk blathers about Moon city

Re: Didn't he just put all his eggs into a different basket

The economics will never work out, unless they manage to break the laws of thermodynamics.

Even if launch cost is 0 (and not into $Bn), there is no viable solution for the heat dissipation in vacuum. The morons think "oh scape is cold yeah" and 24/7 solar power, not realizing that the lack of air means no convection for heat transfer, only radiation.

Yes, backsies: Crypto exchange Bithumb claws back $40B in accidental payments to users

Re: 430'000'000 Bitcoin 695 Users x 620'000 Bitcoin, thought there was only 21 Million

Read he article again. it's not 620'000BTC x695

It's 620'000 /695

"However, the platform accidentally credited 620,000 bitcoin (~$42 billion) to the accounts of 695 users the following day – around $61 million each, if divided equally among them all."

In any case they were all "imaginary" BTC on the exchange DB, not on the blockchain, otherwise they couldn't have recovered it.

Edinburgh councillors pull the plug on 'green' AI datacenter

You are confusing single tenant hyperscaler DC with multi tenant colo DC. My numbers might be extrapolations, but are based on over a decade work with a number of colo DCs of all sizes

it's more than 2 dozen jobs. In addition to the DC operator roster of security, engineers, cleaners etc. Depending on the size at any given time there are about a dozen outside filed engineers that operate with a DC. I would but the job creation closer to the 100-150 range.

In addition many companies that use DCs tend to coalesce their offices in locations were said DCs exist. So that will definitely open a number of other jobs. With the newly emerging trend of decupling from US bases hyperscalers the demand for on-prem/local DC space will grow in the coming decade.

Other indirect benefits are improved internet exchanges connectivity that would eventually trickle down to local residents and small businesses in the form of higher bandwidths and lower latencies, cheaper colocation from increased competition etc.

Also where did you get the loud part from? Have you actually been near a DC? while the myriad of fans inside can cause quite the cacophony, the noise outside is indistinguishable from an office building.

Whether it will be enough to offset the downsides of having a sizeable DC build is another matter. But please don't downplay the benefits of a new DC down tie a 2 dozen jobs and that's it.

Google soaks up 1GW of Texas sunshine to power $185B AI spending spree

Re: USA!!!! USA!!!! USA!!!! Yeah..nah

Maybe they have a stable genius master plan to let the foreign companies build the infrastructure then draw on the dictatorships playbook and nationalize it. If they can manage to make Intel "sell" them 10% imagine what they can do to foreign companies.

Capgemini to sell the biz that works for US government amid criticism of ICE contract

Had you bothered watching some other bystander videos and not jus the DHS propaganda, you can clearly see an "officer" removing the suspect firearm and taking it 20 feet away from him, before the shots are fired.

But why do I bother correcting you, at this point anyone defending ICE (if not in general, at least in this particular situation) is clearly delusional and beyond redemption.

You also have the right to be shot in the back while laying on the ground, subdued and disarmed.

Microsoft spends billions on AI, converts just 3.3% of Copilot Chat users

Re: Where there's a will there's a way

You can't compare on-site storage with offsite storage. It's apples to oranges. For the average user the easiest offsite backup is cloud and out of these M365 Family is by far the cheapest $/TB option by a mile even if you exclude the Office licenses.

Trump promises nuclear datacenter permits in 3 weeks, calls Greenland 'big beautiful ice'

Re: TACO time

There were no NATO talks, it's juts his usual grandstanding trying to save face. Like virtually any "deal" he has ben banging on about.

SAP scores £275M award from UK tax collector – sans competition

Better German based SAP, than the likes of Oracle and Palantir.

Undoubtedly it will end up costing at least triple the headline number.

Cloudflare CEO threatens to make the Winter Olympics a political football after Italy slugs it with a fine

Re: the ugly american face of SaaS

The problem with your statement is that Italy, nor it's courts, yet alone some BS agency has no jurisdiction worldwide - and that's what's what they are asking here - to block IPs and FQDNs worldwide.

This is just another example of a potentially well intended law, written with zero input from technical experts and no meaningful ways to comply with.

30min to enforce !!! based on some football club / media company say-so

Britain goes shopping for a rapid-fire missile to help Ukraine hit back

Re: Something

Every part of this initiative sounds reasonable. What made you think it's just headline material?

Apple’s lousy AI didn’t stop it beating Samsung’s smartphone sales for the first time since 2011

Major iPhone design revamp in 2027

"The firm also thinks Apple will deliver “a major iPhone design revamp” in 2027 to mark the 20th anniversary of the iPhone."

Not with Tim Apple as CEO, and if latest rumors that his exit won't be until late 2026, this won't allow sufficient time for any major change.

Unless of course they mean a switch to revolutionary aluminum unibody with rounded edges. /s

Seven years later, Airbus is still trying to kick its Microsoft habit

Re: 20 million cells?!

Oh yes you/they do. The whole multi Bn insurance industry is running on monster spreadsheets like that

Airbus: We were hours from pausing production in Spain

Re: What about connectivity

yes but looks like their goal is to continue production, not just give them more time for controlled shut down

What about connectivity

"Airbus is now ensuring adequate generator fuel reserves and priority supply contracts across its facilities in Spain, France, Germany, and the UK. The goal is to maintain operations for several days during a "massive blackout" without relying on external fuel deliveries."

They will also need to make sure that whoever provides their connectivity has similar provisions. Otherwise it will be a bit futile.

'Largest-ever' cloud DDoS attack pummels Azure with 3.64B packets per second

in the coming years, once vibe codding by AI becomes the norm, people will mourn the "good" old days of low cost countries coders

UK asks cyberspies to probe whether Chinese buses can be switched off remotely

Same will happen when the computer and public cloud infrastructure they often rely on are blocked by their respective supplier. But I guess since it would be most likely USA based supplier it's all good...

UK agri dept spent hundreds of millions upgrading to Windows 10 – just in time for end of support

Re: Solution for low salaries in gov IT

They can't get employees, because the paybands, that can't have an engineer earning more than their mediocre middle manager that has been in the job for 2 decades on like £40k or God forbid the senior management £50-60k. And you are not getting quality techies for £40k, yet alone seniors. So for long time they are forced to resort to contractors, because that's the only way to pay enough to attract talent.

AI bubble to deflate as enterprises defer spending to 2027

Re: Spending and revenue

The problem is that there isn't that much revenue to begin with. It's all hype. Large portions of the supposed revenue should be coming from companies laying off staff to replace with AI, but a lot these are starting to realize that AI can't quite hack it in most areas targeted.

More and more organizations come to realize that genAI is not AGI and outside of semi-useful chat bots that already exists without spending Bns on AI and fake videos and images for light entertainment - there aren't that many real world applications that could warrant the exuberant costs.

Firewalls and VPNs are so complex now, they can actually make you less secure

Re: Companies that use on-premise HW VPNs more likely to be attacked?

The study definitely confuses correlation and causation. Provides little evidence of specific exploits that were targeted in aforementioned big vendor FWs.

It's like stating it's less secure to use armored cars for large cash transfers, because you are more likely to be a victim of an armer robbery.

It completely fails to recognize the fact that large chunk (if not the majority) of ransomware attacks are not coming through the FW, but are a result of phishing, social engineering and malware triggered by users etc.

Twist in Tesco vs. VMware case as Computacenter files claim against Broadcom, Dell

This is literally the title of the article....

Re: Took some reading to understand

Did you bother reading the article? As with many if not most companies, Tesco used a reseller, in this case Computacenter to purchase the licenses, it was Computacenter they had the contractual options for extended support with

Microsoft, Nvidia, and others inject $40B into AI bubble with massive datacenter deal

Re: Properly zoned and permitted land

There is a "small" problem with your suggestion of rebuild - those pesky customers that need to be evicted first and many of them would have multi-year deals