Posts by Chairman of the Bored

Julian Assange to UK court: Put an end to my unwarranted Ecuadorean couch-surf

Re: a solution

Brilliant. Gets him off your soil, allows the UK to show it is not a lapdog to the US, and maintains that jumping bail is an actionable offense. I especially like the part about forcing Assange to keep his damned yap shut.

Ever wondered why tech products fail so frequently? No, me neither

Know thy user

Sometimes you need a tester who truly understands the environment.

In meeting in which a vendor showed off a 'improved signal processor line replaceable unit hardened to survive the naval environment'. Program manager handed it to his deputy and said, "You're former navy. Does this look sailor-proof to you?"

Deputy... "I dunno..." Smashes it into edge of table, kicks it across the floor, slaps it into floor. Stuff rattles inside. "No, sir! Not sailor proof!"

Vendor ... 'WTF!!!??? That cost ten grand!!!... You're gonna.. "

PM? "Yeah, ten G. But it's not worth $#!t!"

SHL just got real-mode: US lawmakers demand answers on Meltdown, Spectre handling from Intel, Microsoft and pals

Re: Panic

No downvote because I can kind of see where you are coming from, but the lack of quality apparent in the mitigation makes one question whether the industry had any real intention of fixing the problems.

The purpose of a free press in a democracy is not entertainment; it is a feedback mechanism that exposes problems. In this case, it delivered a pretty well timed kick in the arse to the right target.

When I was in gov't service we would ask each other and ourselves, "Yeah, this may be legal... But would we want ourselves on the front cover of the Washington Post doing it?"... "No?!" ... "Then FFS stop doing it!"

Hawaiian fake nukes alert caused by fat-fingered fumble of garbage GUI

Wasn't there a little issue with training tapes...

...at NORAD during the Carter admin? Where we thought we were getting poked and started down the road of mass retaliation? And then the USAF tried to cover it up?

I have a new excuse of avoiding my mandatory training now... training is dangerous!

Infamous Silicon Valley 'sex party' exactly as exciting as it sounds

Re: Electrical engineers have better parties...

Making your hardware smaller? Yeah, that's a problem. Better than the old CS guys floppy disks, but still.

If you can remember the party, you didnt do it right

Electrical engineers have better parties...

At the very least you can get your fuse blown

IBM melts down fixing Meltdown as processes and patches stutter

Re: Electric Avenue

Ouch. Sounds like a perfect s##t storm. Drink one of these, repeat as needed until the sting wears off

Amazon coughs up record amount of info to subpoena-happy US government

Surprised the numbers are that low

Given the number of transactions Amazon processes and the billions of dollars of cash flow I'm surprised the number is so low.

Perhaps suspiciously low? Do I hear a sucking sound coming from the other side of a closed door?

Military alliance NATO adopts official hymn

Warren Zevon?

Guns Money and Lawyers?

I went home with the waitress, the way I always do

How was I to know, she was with the Russians, too?

I was gambling in Havana, I took a little risk

Send lawyers, guns and money, dad, get me out of this

...

Kernel-memory-leaking Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign

Why not just hire a VW engineer...

...and just cock up the benchmarks to match? My bet is that you can get one just coming off parole really cheap. Just kidding. I hope.

Funnily enough, no, IT admins who trash biz machines can't claim they had permission

Dang it!

This guy gets a lot done when he's pissed off. Wonder how things would have gone if he had shown a similar level of effort towards actually doing his job!

How fast is a piece of string? Boffin shoots ADSL signal down twine

Meh.

Break out your MIT Radiation Laboratory handbooks from the late 40s and look up 'dielectric rod antenna'.

Mines the one with the massive, thick rod in front...

Rogue PIs found guilty of illegally snagging personal financial info

Re: I thought this was going to be something different...

Change your default SSL port, mate. You will be shocked to see how much the attacks drop off. What's left is probably from threats that kid at least a cursory nmap on you - makes them interesting from a counter targeting perspective. Mumble, mumble... f'in script kiddies, mumble mumble.

Oregon will let engineer refer to himself as an 'engineer'

Re: Am late to this one

You may have a point there. In much of my grad school work in hard sciences I felt like I was the one getting random and over the top punishments. It's not called being a lab slave entirely without reason.

I wouldn't blame the profession though for the idiotic actions of the state. When it comes to Government do not assume malice when sheer, mind-numbing stupidity is also a valid explanation. Occam votes for the latter.

Dark side of professional registration

I'm a P.E. but I work in a discipline supporting a highly regulated field in which safety of life requires formal proof.

Such is not the case for most engineers. I respect their work and their ability to call what they do by the most straightforward and appropriate title. That said I do expect to see some education in the maths and hard sciences for one to call oneself an 'engineer'. When I see 'Microsoft Certified Engineer' on a resume... lets just say there had better be something else on there!!

The dark side of regulation in the US is that in many trades (plumbing, electrical, later HVAC) regulation pretty much existed to keep minorities out. In some locales official corruption enabled registration to serve as an enabler for certain organized crime rackets. Not a pretty history

So you're 'agile', huh? I do not think it means what you think it means

I cannot believe I'm going to defend...

...some of the stuff I saw when I was is Gov't service but here goes:

For agile to work, one needs and intelligent and engaged customer. A hint of this is found in the question, 'has your customer seen source code?' In a govt to govt context if you show source code, your PM will s#can you immediately. Why? The customer would have absolutely no clue what to do with it. I've seen projects (looking at you DHS) where turnover at the mid-level management to decision maker level was so high that teams could not get on the calendar to brief the wunderkind of the moment before he shoved off for greener pa$ture$. For years straight.

So what do you do when your customer cannot find their own ass with both hands, a flashlight, and a radar set? Make your own best estimate of what they need... somehow get the yes-men, sycophants, and sociopaths above you to agree to a course of action.... maintain laser-like focus on those requirements so you dont piss away resources chasing buzzwords or shiny... and execute. Sounds a lot like the much-maligned waterfall, no?

If you try to go agile you are brought into constant contact with the same yes-men, sycophants, and sociopaths. They've got no insight into whats needed - no technical ability - and are only going to demand more buzzwords and shiby.

The actual users? Nowhere at the table in the bureaucracy. In the "as built" govt waterfall-ish process they get at least some representation because the developers usually hire some to serve as requirements leads early on.

I'm not claiming the as-built process builds products that are optimal, cheap, or necessarily effective. What I'm saying is that its the best you can do in a Byzantine bureaucracy populated by sinecures. Going agile without having a decent customer seems like cruel and unusual punishment, and thats unconstitutional.

That's reality. And that's why I drink and my liver shall be buried with full honors.

Do you suffer from the shame of 'Scroll Jank'? Help is at your fingertips

I thought this had something to do with drinking.

The Ol’ Janx Spirit Rhyme went: “Oh don’t give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit/ No, don’t you give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit/ For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die/ Won’t you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit”...

Car rental firms told: Tell your customers about in-car data slurps

Depends on the airport

Absolutely second the advice of the poster who advised buying the secondary insurance.

Dozens of trips to Germany. Consistently get screwed in Frankfurt with bogus damage claims. Munich ok. Stuttgart is amazing... fast, clean cars and no B.S.

London OK, get screwed in Paris. Go figure.

Worst place in USA has got to be Los Angeles International. All the car lots are off-airport in an area that reminds me of some interesting times I had in Iraq. Having waited forever for a bus while inhaling clouds of diesel smoke, you are taken on a torturous route to the lots. Thoroughly disoriented and delayed 30-60min you are now a captive customer in the agency's filthy facility. Wait another hour and they figure you will sign damn near anything. And why not? Unless you reverse the process through the shuttles or take an exciting walk through Hawthorn - at night perhaps - for an identical shakedown at a competitor's site. This is an freakin' organized crime racket!

If you've got to go to LA, fly in through John Wayne instead. If coming from abroad you will have to do a connection somewhere but time-wise probably come out ahead regardless. And you won't get shaken down, mugged, etc

Euro Patent Office commanded to reinstate 'Nazi judge' it attacked

Re: It Just Doesn't Matter

Tapeworm in fiscal gut... excellent turn of phrase, sir! I'm going to borrow this. Have a pint.

If the reporting is accurate the manager definitely requires dismissal

This is one area where EU governance is light years ahead of USA. When I was a govt worker on the left side of the pond, I discovered that it is essentially impossible to pursue a libel or slander case. Basically if a person is a total dirtbag on govt time they cannot be sued. The gov't gets sued in the dirtbag's place ... if and only if the govt decides it will let you sue it. Care to guess how often that happens?

The only effective defense Ive seen is when a supervisor (of know psychopathic tendencies) secretly accused a subordinate of child molestation when interviewed for his clearance reinvestigation. He found out about is when he foia'ed his clearance investigation records. Feds pursued the manager for making a false statement, which is a very light felony. My employee ended up keeping his job, and the manager was promoted to a sinecure

Report: Underwater net cables are prime targets for terrorists and Russia

Magnet vs cable?

Depends on the type of steel used in the strength members. If its austenitic stainless, it will ignore the magnet. I don't know what is actually used.

Picking up with magnet? Tough to do. Stuff is heavy, one tonne per km seems to stick in my mind. Grappling hook would probably work better.

Had song and dance years ago about threats to terrestrial internet. Briefing after briefing had the same tired stock photos of men in turbans looking furtive or weak-chinned teenagers in hoodies hunched over keyboards. Rep from our provider (name rhymes with 'verizon') finally exploded, "Bullshit!!! The real threat is Feddy Fredneck atop his Fiber Seeking Backhoe tearing out armfuls of fiber while scratching his butt and ignoring his foreman..."

You never forget a comment like that!

The reg really needs to do an article on...

...the life and times of Cyrus West Field. I will raise a pint to the gentleman.

He is the man behind the first transatlantic cable and demonstrated character and extraordinary perseverance despite crushing failures. They certainly do not make men like him anymore; our inability to plan and act beyond one fiscal quarter in the future would have shocked him and his investors.

Drone collisions with airliners may not be fatal, US study suggests

Re: How is this different than birdstrike?

See FAR 33.76 and the associated advisory circular. For small to midsize birds you need to demonstrate 75pct thrust for 2min regardless of internal damage. For large flocking birds? You're flocked.

Good example of decent thrust after severe fan damage is the British Midlands crash; due to human factors crew shut down their good engine and flew a pretty good

distance (~30min) on a destroyed one, though not at full power. IIRC this was a fan failure with parts ingested... the works. Too low and slow to relight perfectly good engine they had shut down when loss of performance became apparent. Dead engine failed totally on throttle up and a/c did not make runway.

Re: How is this different than birdstrike?

Very good points. In my experience though I don't think the materials hardness at these velocities makes much difference. KE is KE. The total energy content of the LiIon is dwarfed by the kinetic energy of the rotating machinery , even assuming it has time to deflagrate before ceasing to exist. The design basis for an engine is to "survive" ingesting one of its own fan blades, which poses much more interesting materials challenges to downstream equipment than bones or metal and plastic bits. Survive here means to continue producing thrust for some time period, not experiencing "uncontained" failures etc.

Consider the American Airlines' Hudson River incident: both engines ingested multiple large geese - far beyond design basis - and both shut down with severe internal damage. But the passengers did not have hot bits of metal penetrating the cabin, severing control lines, etc. Their bad day could have really sucked but some quality engineering really paid off. Sometomes you do get an uncontained failure - a Quantas A380 incident comes to mind - but these are pretty rare.

For the US the relevant law is FAR 33, which I think the Chinese leverage. Do not know what Europeans use for certification. See:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/part-33

For specifics.

Re: But did they test for....

Wouldn't a proper British drone use PE-4 instead of American C4? Seriously though most military HE will just burn if ingested. Its shock sensitive, and usually does OK with bullet impact. Dont think rotating machinery poses a big problem.

Now, a proper missile warhead with a slapper, booster, and HE charge... with a frag casing to make the little expelled bits more exciting... THAT is a problem. Ask the poor people on the Malaysian air flight that got whacked over Ukraine... what a hell of a way to go.

How is this different than birdstrike?

If I hit a 2kilo bird or 2kilo drone at the same relative velocity, do I really care? There are more birds at present. Large birds can cause issues - esp when they go into engine cores - as demonstrated by the American that landed in the Hudson River.

For some slightly sensational reporting of CFD results, see: https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2015/10/102815-engineering-jetenginedronestrike.html

Watchkeeper drones cost taxpayers £1bn

Surprised at how few hours are flown...

...but not too surprised at the price.

Given the requirements to operate in EU/UK civil airspace, this system is man-rated in a sense and definitely has to hit EU airworthiness certificate standards. That makes for a very expensive development and cert. IIRC the first aircraft development to break a billion was the DC-10 airliner and that was back in the 70s. Modern airliner development makes that look very cheap, by up to an order of magnitude. Yes civil aircraft are larger but the marginal increase in material is not the issue here. A bog standard B737 will set you back 25-50mil. I'm intentionally using civil numbers here because at least in the commercial sector you need to make a profit at some point so you get a better feel for real costs than if you are working with a Lockheed or BAE who is just out to screw you.

Bottom line- aviation is extremely expensive. Sucks to be a taxpayer. Can we try peace?

Unfit to plead before a US court? You may face 'indefinite detention'

Defense council needs to grow a pair

If the real issue here is lack of justice and inability of a UK citizen to receive a fair trail in the USA, let's say so and make that the subject of discussion. Making this something about mental health (mumble mumble) just avoids the real issue and can be considered an enabling behavior.

IBM does what IBM does best: Raises the chopper again

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means

"...the permanent employee population"

'Treat infosec fails like plane crashes' – but hopefully with less death and twisted metal

Re: Yes: InfoSec incidents should be learned from as the accidents they are. But...!

Cargo cults! +1 for the appropriate Feynman reference.

Re: Zero interest

@Tom Paine, aren't a lot of you guys in financial services under professional licensure as well?

My P.E. is my license to be sued. I am personally responsible if a design under my stamp fails. Not that the degrees and license guarantee quality, mind, but at least you know that I/we cleared at least some minimal bar and have some degree of committment to continuing education.

The first time I saw the term "Microsoft Certified Engineer" on a resume I wanted to puke...

Re: Triumph of sensationalism over common sense

@AC, excellent points. I don't see the IT world as open an honest. CYA seems to be the primary SOP, and it seems that no amount of public humiliation is pulling bug chunks of the industry out of the gutter. Where are the shareholders in all this?

My day job is hardware engineering for aerospace widgets. I love this because I can pursue quality relentlessly. But I cannot imagine most industry could survive with our cost structure. We produce some hardware, vast amounts of test reports and documentation, and as little software as humanly possible. Very little innovation for sake of new stuff. Nothing is very "sexy" or "advanced" - not much for thr marketing weenies to get all excited about. But we don't fail. Ever.

Near retirement now. I'm concerned with what I see coming up through the ranks - especially the management ranks. The new IT / IA / HW kids are good but the people who aren't packing what it takes to succeed in the hard science side suck. And these are your future leaders. Chasing buzzwords and "shiny" for shiny's sake. Constantly chasing buzzwords they read rather than doing any analysis to understand what is really needed. Rather than aerospace grade discipline spreading to the world of IT what I see is the crap-of-the-week club taking over aerospace.

Triumph of sensationalism over common sense

I dont think the briefer has any feel for the cost and time involved in an air accident investigation. Would anyone be content with 18 months to 2 years btw an infosec problem and a report? Sure, emergency airworthiness directivea and whatnot can be issued mid-cycle but these are done sparingly for both economic and engineering reasons (make damn sure you dont introduce new failure modes... take some time to test) AAI is not cheap, either.

Software and IT systems (hes talking infosec, so people are within the system boundary here) are far more complex than aero machines, so you have a much higher failure rate. But you also have a much faster timeline to make a system whole after failure.

Its apples and oranges. And oranges dont grow in my climate.

Boss made dirt list of minions' mistakes, kept his own rampage off it

Has your boss ever exempted himself?

When working for the gov't I had to suffer through innumerable mandatory trainings, to include sexual harassment and whatnot. One week after completing my backlog I had to talk to a program manager

Upon entering his domain I found he had a contractor sitting at a PC doing his ethics training while unmistakable sounds emanated from his office suggesting that he and the (rather blonde and leggy) branch head were doing ... head ... things. That qualify?

Is this IT? Yeah, they were experimenting with hot plug technology I guess

'Urgent data corruption issue' destroys filesystems in Linux 4.14

Re: This is another success story of open source.

@bitbeisser,

Respectfully disagree here. Professional software designers do test extensively; and believe me - open or closed source the devs are pros who take pride in their work.

Bugs in the wild though will happen due to the sheer complexity of the system - for any decently complex system an full factorial experiment of all potential decision paths is infeasible for any reasonable length of time. One is literally trying to prove a negative.

Suggested link for starters: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/des_s99/sw_testing/

What separates the men from the boys is how you handl a bug or design flaw. Ten days cycle time on a single report is v good.

Once more unto the breach: El Reg has a go at crisis management

Your exercise summary needs a soundtrack

Might I recommend "Lawyers, Guns, and Money" by Warren Zevon?

Amazon launches Secret Region – so secret it's endorsed by the CIA

What's to keep foreigners out?

Our extraordinarily skilled Office of Personnel Management. You know, the same guys who... wait a sec... (hyperventilating into bag)

Baaa-d moooo-ve: Debian Linux depicts intimate cow-sheep action in ASCII artwork

"Blown out of proportion?"

I see what you did there!

Big Cable's pillow talk with FCC to forbid US states from writing own net neutrality rules

Re: Hang on a sec...

3 of 5 plus head? Sounds like a pretty solid lock.

Re: Hang on a sec...

@AC, you make a good point. The term 'national security' has been overloaded far, far beyond the breaking point.

I'd argue that the genesis of our defense-industrial-congressional and intelligence-industrial complexes stem from decades of chief execs of both parties exploiting fears of nuclear war and a "need for an immediate response!" to grab ever more power for the executive branch. Without the Cold War fears to exploit now we bend ourselves in knots over terrists.

Silly me, I thought article 1 section 8 of the Constitution gave the legislative branch the power to declare war or peace. So little backbone left in those chambers all they can do now is bend over...

Hang on a sec...

...no fan of big cable, Pai, or big gov't...

But regulation of interstate commerce - later found in 1883 to include commerce within a state to have significant bearing on interstate commerce - is actually a legitimate power of the US federal government. See article 1, section 8, clause 3. Of all the stuff the fed claims to be lord of, commerce actually seems legit.

Now here is a question for you that I cannot figure out: article 1 powers belong to the legislative branch. That's why FCC is an independent agency. Why the hell does it seem completely beholden to the orange one, then?

New UK aircraft carrier to be commissioned on Pearl Harbor anniversary

So... when do we get the HMS Suicidal Insanity?

HMS Suicidal Insanity! Absolutely guaranteed to crush the enemy or fail gloriously trying.

Anonymized location-tracking data proves anything but: Apps squeal on you like crazy

Purely hypothetical question...

It seems to me a mobile has three sources of location; GPS if on, geolocation through cell tower triangulation, and geolocation by IP address on your WiFi - which I assume is a database lookup against your provider's data.

Which one has highest priority?

And given a disagreement between the three sources, what is considered ground truth?

My assumption is that GPS is the gold standard if available. And if for some reason an SDR was spoofing a location... can you move yourself or would the discrepancy in your location data sources flag you as a person of interest?

Dick move: Navy flyboy flings firmament phallus for flabbergasted folk

Let's have some empathy here

After a long, hard day of shoveling paperwork...

Two heroes had their seamen prepare their airplane...

Push the throttles' balls to the wall...

Pulsing engines shoot hot stuff out of tight nozzles...

As they recline in bliss...

But alas! Its a cockpit, not a box office. Nowhere in sight is any place for all this pent energy to be released! (Look at those balls-they are *blue* FFS!)...

So they resort to juvenile displays of dubious artistry...

(Part of the sad and wildly ineffective mating rituals of the adolescent male)

Now robbed of their afterburning vigor...

The engines spool back and the whole sad mess slowly sags towards earth...

On the tarmac our great jet is flaccid, with flaps drooping and safety pin flags hanging limp.

Still no box office, the aero machine is again surrounded by lonely seamean...

...who put it back into its hangar...

Pity these pilots!

Time for a stiff drink!

Massive US military social media spying archive left wide open in AWS S3 buckets

Why cloudy?

I'm not going to defend inherent hypocrisy of policy pointed out by previous posters.

But I think I can explain why this is a cloudy mess. Suppose for a moment you're an army civilian or contract employee sitting behind the mil-spec firewall. You are subjected to hundreds of written and unwritten rules concerning config, hardware, software... many different rule sets from warring bureaucracies above you - each eager to prove its the One True Fount of Authority. On the other hand you've got a job to do. On the third hand you can outsource this pain to a fly by night subcontractor - or a dodgy bit of a major contractor - and let them do whatever they want outside your overlord's realm.

Blue or red pill, which will you take?

World Vasectomy Day: 15k men line up for live vent-blocking

Re: WARNING 10% + Chronic Genital Pain risk comes free

@AC- glad the diet is helping. Here are some books you should read before engaging the rheumatologist or ID specialist.

Bought a copy of the rheumatology disorders primer for both myself and my GP and it really moved both of us forward. If you and the doc both take an interest in the research it really pays dividends - you're now a real patient and not some bloke with an insurance card and a gripe.

Textbook of the autoimmune diseases, Lahita, ISBN 0781715059

Primer on the rheumatic diseases,

Klippel, ISBN 0387356649

How the Immune System Recognizes Self and Nonself: Immunoreceptors and Their Signaling, Kitamura, ISBN

4431738835

These texts have dozens if not hundreds of references of references to the formal literature for further insight. With some scrounging you can probably find these used for $30-$50ea

Re: WARNING 10% + Chronic Genital Pain risk comes free

What I'd suggest is that you consult with an rheumatologist and or infectious disease expert who has published on autoimmune disorders. At the time I was dx I was lucky enough to be doing some work for Johns-Hopkins hospital.

If Im really careful with diet and exercise I can pretty much stay off the immunosuppressive drugs and steroids. Flare ups sometimes still require intervention. Whats an anti-inflammation diet look like? Very Mediterranean. No red meat, light touch on grain - avoid wheat in particular. Lots of fish. White meat ok. No beer (damn it!). As much veggies and fruit as you want. Migraine? No red wine for you. White ok. No artificial crap, particularly no petroleum-based colors or preservatives.

Low impact exercise, esp swimming and hiking.

Re: WARNING 10% + Chronic Genital Pain risk comes free

Mate had to have an arm amputated and had me write on it in sharpie "Correct one! Remove before flight!" and a rather rude version of "go away" on his other extremities.

Guess its a lot harder to do that on the internal bits.

US authorities swallow security-free script for pill that knows when you're off your meds

Re: Can be useful

@CrazyOldCatMan, thanks for the tip, mate. Have a pint. I will look into this.