Posts by Fred Daggy

UK government rings the death knell for SIM farms

Re: Ineptitude

Whenever that phrase is uttered by someone trying to push for more uber-powers, that phrase has always stuck me as having 2 words too many. Much better: Children, Think!

Share your 2024 tech forecasts (wrong answers only) to win a terrible sweater

Visual Basic support in the Windows kernel

(1) Visual Basic 3.0 support added to the Windows Kernel. Kernel modules can now be run inside the VB IDE in 16 bit mode.

(2) In other news, Printer Manufacturer releases a working Windows driver for their printer that clocks in at under 100mb and deploys without mysterious telemetry and subscription services.

(3) EU levies anti-competition and/or GDPR fine that (a) sticks in court (b) seriously hinders multi-billion dollar company and prompts reform of the industry.

(4) Year of the OS/2 desktop

Surface Duo crashes the party as Doctor Who celebrates 60th birthday

Re: Disney will kill The Doctor more surely than The Daleks ever could

You're dead right. Couldn't remember why it was nagging on me. The of "The Star Beast" was just the ending of "Bad Wolf" (lite). Even had a girl called Rose saving the day.

Disney will kill The Doctor more surely than The Daleks ever could

The Daleks, The Cybermen, The Sontarans and The Master/Missy couldn't destroy The Doctor. But Disney has (or will).

Too much unexplained techie-techie and an ending that was pulled out from the dark bodily crevices and had no other in-show explanation. Visually "ooooh wow" for the Disney crowd but a stinker of an episode. The Meep hiding in stuffed toys was directly lifted from E.T., so very lazy writing there.

Best scene: The mock trial. Both comedy and turning the episode. Worst scene: Everything inside The Meep spaceship.

I'll give it a bare pass, but want to see improvement.

(Hated Who as a kid because I never like Tom Baker which inevitably followed The Goodies, or perhaps Monkey, but then I saw a a Pertwee episode and loved it. I may have been just too young for The Doctor. Warmed to most of the Doctors, but now ... well, the favourites have to be Capaldi, Pertwee and then McCoy)

Why have just one firewall when you can fire all the walls?

And if English is used in the interface, the Y will NOT be in the expected position. For QWERTZ rules the keyboard landscape there. Hope the bespoke interface doesn't expect US keyboard ... or shudder French-French.

Windows Server 2022 update gave ESXi host VMs the blue screen blues

Rockstar

Rockstar phenomenon, i'd say. Not confined to just IT. SWMBO has one at her company in a field almost but not quite entirely unlike IT.

Ladies, Gentlemen, humans of all identifications: Please keep your egos in check, and check the egos of those around you. (Goes off to give mine a stiff talking to)

As for Microsoft, well, that's just cost cutting innit.

Meta, YouTube face criminal spying complaints in Ireland

Used to be true

TV ads used to be just background filler. NOW THEY ARE 15, NO 20, NO 100 TIMES LOUDER THAN WHAT WAS PLAYING ON THE IDIOT BOX BEFORE.

Which is why I watch TV about twice a year. And Doctor Who.

Want a well-paid job in tech? You just need to become a cloud-native god

Re: Someone Else's Computer certification

Agree ... and disagree.

Surges rarely come out of nowhere, but short sighted thinking and a lack of communication by management often throw IT under a bus. Imagine this conversation "Shit, numbers are bad this week." "ah, do we launch a sales promotion, 30% of products, x, y and z" "Great thinking".

Communication goes out ... to the market, but not to IT. Sales go bananas ... or would have, except no capacity exists on the infrastructure that works well 99% of the time. Or could have been provisioned with just a little notice, but this communication hits after working hours.

Also, no money for training or modernising a monolithic app. Dev team wants to modernise, Infrastructure wants to modernise, but bean counters win the argument "No money for training, no money for outside consultancy and we have to amortise this investment".

Cloud native could have saved the day here. But on-prem works well 99% of the time. Its up to the management to work out what they want and the workers to make it happen.

EU lawmakers scolded for concealing identities of privacy-busting content-scanning 'experts'

Re: Stupid see, stupid do

No, but you do get a Nobel prize.

YouTube cares less for your privacy than its revenues

Re: ChromeSetup.exe considered harmful

Its not wrong. It may not be right, but not wrong either.

CompSci academic thought tech support was useless – until he needed it

Re: Support queues - get around them.

This is Operating System agnostic. If you can't fix a problem, move it in the UI. Closes the previous ticket and buys you some time until a new ticket appears.

Google bins integrity API that looked more than a bit like horrible DRM for websites

Won't somebody think of the Billion Dollar Megacorporations?

You got an upvote. This technology WILL be used for fingerprinting users, wherever they may be. For monetisation purposes only, I assure you. And any other purpose a web dev thinks up - like blocking non-Chrome browsers (the 90s called, wants it IE5.5 back), or blocking classes of users "just because".

Millions of smart meters will brick it when 2G and 3G turns off

Re: No corruption here.

I would replace "mass surveillance" with "mass monetisation". Governments just aren't that smart and reeks of conspiracy theorists.

Money, on the other hand. Now, that's a strong incentive. Not just in being able to manage electricity generation and purchase, but selling the punters usage data. And, based on micro changes to the power used, time that different devices were used. Each electronic device would have to register a different spike on startup and shutdown. Fingerprinting these should be a doddle.

Paying for WinRAR in all the wrong ways - Russia and China hitting ancient app

Re: WinRAR? Why? Not this Millennium.

UUencoded file could be decoded by many different programs, even around the turn of the millennia. I earned my first guru badge by finding the boss' file was actually a UUencoded file. but no amount of coaxing would get the standard tools to decode it. Renamed the file to something.zip and let winzip open it ... perfectly.

Engineers pave the way for building lunar roads with Moon dust

Re: Inevitably

Right here, they do it all at once. But take a year with the road blocked off. Then *bam*, on day the road is magically sealed again having shown no sign of human or machine intervention in the last 11.5 months.

From chaos to cadence: Celebrating two decades of Microsoft's Patch Tuesday

Re: Getting worse??

Quality of the products is getting worse. As is the quality of their management products.

A spot of love for WSUS, perhaps? Nothing much has been done since, um, around 2008? An update to the WSUS server service to it can accurately report the status of a client. Perhaps a "Patch this now" button. Or some reports that are actually useful. What is the status of client "X"? How is the overall compliance for the estate? Which host are up to date and which ones are critical? What's up with this host - it patched but did it reboot to complete the installation?

Then there is the client. Binary log files, what about some real-time diagnostics? They WERE plain text and one could see what was happening in real time but Windows 10 stole the script from SystemD's play-book. Sometimes I just want to see what patches are required on a client without launching the actual download and install process - nope, one dare not even go in to that dialog box now. How about a "fix me" to actually fix broken update components, reset to factory default so that the client reports in to the WSUS server again?

The code exists, it was in MSBA. Could have been easily integrated if someone had wanted it.

Wouldn't be subtle pressure to cloudify everything, would it?

Israel and Italy have cheapest mobile data out of 237 countries

Big Mac to be rescue.

To be fair, it should be Gb/Big Mac, in local prices. Consistent and easy for nearly all markets to implement.

Now IBM sued for age discrim by its own HR veterans

Re: Am I missing something?

Not when you're time frame for some target is 6 months or less, while the retirement of the target is more than a year away. Target might be reduced costs, turn loss to profit, etc, etc. Old employees in many jurisdictions also have a higher "on-cost" due to seniority bonuses, additional retirement funding, etc.

Because no executive ever thinks beyond two days. 1 - their next quarter's bonus targets and 2 - vesting date of shares. No long term survival of the company, planet, customers, environment or (other) people. There is no resource than cannot be sacrificed. Ethics are a nice tickbox on a triple bottom line report that can be ignored 99.999% of the time. Me and mine is the only mindset.

Required to calm the soul after taking a look at the emotional poverty of the world business and government leaders, perhaps more than one. --->

Probe reveals previously secret Israeli spyware that infects targets via ads

Re: How to pay

And Netflix still wants (or even has? i don't subscribe) advertisements, even after paying.

US Department of Justice claims Google bought its way to web search dominance

Re: Microsoft would know

Covert download, sure. But not respecting Windows file system standards and running from the users folder, instead of Program Files.

Of course, users were not administrators, so could not official install. There was an actual reason that users are not administrators ... one of which was SO THEY DONT LOAD SOFTWARE. But, profit before morals. take a leaf from every virus writer and put it in AppData. That alone burnt my trust in Google.

Cloud is here to stay, but customers are starting to question the cost

Right tool for the job

As ever, its "right tool for the job". Sometimes it is on-prem and sometimes it is the cloud. But just because it is in the clould you still need (among a long list, lets not nitpick here) SME, failover, DR, redundancy, backups, security, monitoring, compliance, testing, debugging, capacity planning, cost monitoring, etc, etc. NONE of that is magic'ed a away just because you're in a cloud. And its all expensive.

On prem is a skill set. Read, train, practice. Break it and fix it.

Cloud is a skill set. Read, train, practice. Break it and fix it. Just like you learned with your crappy 486 back in the day.

There are some upside though. Before my company went all-in on the cloud, there were switches in offices that were old enough to drink in the US. Always put back to the next budget cycle. That is a much managements fault for not understanding that this stuff isn't going to last for ever, as it was IT fault for not selling the risk and consequences. Now, the cost is rolled up. Still, management hasn't got why on-prem performance is (still) much worse that via VPN.

Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

Oh gawd no,

I really hope that they take the time to make this an MDM option. We had good security around our laser printers, with nice windows queues, (mostly) sensible default and as cheep as possible toner, etc. However, first thing that every nob with a company credit card did was buy their own crappy, very crappy, printer for their desk. Because their fat bloated waste of oxygen could not be arsed to walk out of their office and perhaps 10 meters down the hall.

At least this was helicopter spend. We never accepted a chargeback for ink or repairs. But most of the crunts wanted us to support their shitty printers. Mostly we won that battle.

Was probably a badge of honour to have a personal printer. It was treated by IT was a sign that the owner was a f*cksticle of the highest order.

At least this might kill the 10gb printer "driver", I mean advertising for subscription.

Attackers accessed UK military data through high-security fencing firm's Windows 7 rig

Re: "the UK's Ministry of Defence [..] does not comment on security matters"

Department by department nomination of taxation might make a number of bureaucracies very nervous. So, it won't happen as there would be too many vested interests upset.

But if it would happen, for example the police, military, might suddenly become very customer friendly. Fits right in with free market economy.

A nice compromise might be 90% is pre allocated and then 10% you can freely nominate. If you don't nominate, it get distributed according to the pre-allocated formula. (Need an icon for greybeard scratching the chin.)

We all scream for ice cream – so why are McDonald's machines always broken?

This is the business model of all franchises. Business hint: No ever got rich being at the bottom of the franchisor/franchisee food chain.

Re: Wait, their milkshake maker works like an HP printer ?

It means that Maccas is trying to continue the case as long as possible and bleed Kytch dry.

One would think that they have learned their lesson on that tactic. Nope, SOP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLibel_case

USENET, the OG social network, rises again like a text-only phoenix

Re: What killed USENET was ...

Agreed. But it just took one HTML post to kill a thread. :-(

What killed USENET was ...

Microsoft. And I am not even sure it was done intentionally.

Outlook Express. (Searches both remaining brain cells) About 98? I think around about 1998, which was probably prime time for Windows 98, MS releases Outlook Express.

It started with a trickle, then a torrent, then a flood. But HTML posts everywhere. HTML was the default for composing and sending. Both email and newsgroups. Every other news client posted in plain old ASCII. You could turn Outlook Express to plan text in the configuration, but 1 user in a million did that. I think I was using tin and Forte Agent. But the groups became just about unusable. Also, Spam picked up in a big way.

The web might have loaded the barrel, spam shot it, but it took a Microsoft product to deliver the coup de grace.

So many newsgroups had such good info. The MS newsgroups around NT4 and Windows 2000 beat any modern Web Forum. Once in a blue moon i use google to look at some groups i used to frequent, now, not a single useful post in years.

After years of fighting Right to Repair, Apple U-turns-ish in California

And if Apple was really smart, they would have ...

And if Apple was really smart, they would have got on board, and ensured that the legislation was called "iRepair". Imagine that sticking in the craw of competitors when this legislation is mentioned.

India lands Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on Moon, is the first to lunar south pole

Re: Well, I'm guessing Roscosmos is keeping veeeery quiet now

Still, could be worse. They could be turned into Executive Management, or a CEO.

High severity vuln in WinRAR could allow code to run when files are opened

If survivability is key, then TAR, optionally followed by GZIP will be your friend.

Source code available and should be runnable even 10,000 years down the track. Add in checksums to data before and after you TAR it.

Personally, i use 7-zip, but i have had my arse saved by tar (via Cygwin) for storing of system logs on Windows. S-ox records and a PFY auditor - "can you prove you never changed this?". Yup, and here you go ....

Last rites for the UK's Online Safety Bill, an idea too stupid to notice it's dead

Re: Not holding my breath

For every Oxford, there is an LA, or a Milton Keynes. (Visited, the former once - never again, used to go to MK 3 times a year for work). Cars, cars, cars, cars everywhere. If you're a car loving owner great (or possibly not, because of all the traffic, cost of petrol, congestion). But no car (either too young, too disabled, too poor, too old, or ... ) really equals no life. No access to shopping, education, leisure or employment. Car is king and no other options are considered.

A 15 minute city would give options, not restrictions. Walk or bike? Go for it! Car, sure - but you don't NEED to car it.

(Think that needs to be pointed out more often, a 15 minute city gives options and freedoms, not restrictions)

80% of execs regret calling employees back to the office

OMG

Won't somebody think of the Billionaires?

Internet Archive sued by record labels as battle with book publishers intensifies

And term of life+ cannot achieve the aim of promoting arts and sciences

Any term of copyright which is longer than the natural lifespan of a person cannot promote the arts and sciences. Suppose that a work is created when the author is in their late teens/early twenties. Only a limited number are produced. The author lives to about 100 years of age, the copyrighted work is nearly 80 years old already. Most owners of the work have passed on, many copies lost destroyed the work is forgotten about and STILL the work isn't in the public domain. No one can create a derivative work, nor be inspired by it and publish it. A tree from the fountain of creativity is nipped in the bud and cannot flourish.

Some reasonable (countable on one's digits) number means that there is some chance the work can be distributed when it is still relevant, and the seed of the idea germinate and grow.

Re: Leave them alone, damn

Agreed. And any work which is effectively abandoned, loses copyright immediately. If you're not selling it, or refusing to sell it - you lose the privileges assigned.

Most distant observed star is blue – and it isn't alone

Something Blue, Far Away?

So, there was something blue, far away in space and time? ... why did i think it was something else?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TARDIS

Astronaut-menacing sunstorm spotted rippling across inner solar system

Re: Nobody could have predicted the Tsunami

So ... um, what's the downside?

Japanese boffins slice semiconductors from diamonds – with lasers!

Re: Diamond wafers

Yes, when you need that extra push over the cliff.

Google's browser security plan slammed as dangerous, terrible, DRM for websites

Re: By negative tests

... and geofencing just became a whole lot easier.

This idea needs to be given the "old yella" treatment, toot sweet.

By negative tests

So, there is a test for cheating tech for online games ... what is to stop a web site using a test against all known software to determine what the user is actually running? Not only is that a fantastic way to fingerprint a system, but also determine if a system is running vulnerable software. Basically, a way to allow root kits and other undesirable software. (Oh, god, I hope they don't make me down the WIn32 or Win64 virus!). Virus writers don't even have to scan the net now, cost effective malware delivery, just target systems using Google (I assume it will be virtually the only gatekeeper here).

Who is going to determine if a particular piece of code is cheating tech, or not. Border cases and false positives abound. Not to mention assistive technology for the less well abled.

Google's next big idea for browser security looks like another freedom grab to some

Re: Too late!

Why not this? "Lynx/2.8.3rel.1 libwww-FM/2.14 SSL-MM/1.4.1 OpenSSL/0.9.5a"

Australian court orders Meta subsidiaries to pay $14 million over data use

Wot?

Abraham said in court documents the fine "carries with it a sufficient sting to ensure that the penalty amount is not such as to be regarded by the parties or others as simply an acceptable cost of doing business."

I think the wrong unit of measure was used. Million? Try Billion THEN you will have their undivided attention. I am sure that dishing out huge fines does two things (1) ensure sufficient attention is paid by large organisations to the needs of politicians and (2) that the same money can be used to ensure that there is enough pork to stuff in each barrel to ensure constant re-election and a continued administration of point 1.

Linux has nearly half of the desktop OS Linux market

Re: ChromeOS is a fake linux

So where's the Linuxean Popular User Front?

Bizarre backup taught techie to dumb things down for the boss

Re: I need my Trash

It does. At least for Outlook and Exchange. And was used with prejudice in the days of MSX 5.5, with a 16gb DB limit. That's 16gb for ALL users. A later Service Pack increased it, can't remember how much.

But yes, certain users (not always those of the highest level), used Recycle Bin as just another folder. But the user base frequently filled the Exchange DB - and didn't want to pay for an upgrade or another server. Cue Group Policy - with only a single person capable of knowing how to manipulate Group Policy editor (as Sir Humphrey might say, the person represented by the perpendicular pronoun), "Empty Recycle Bin on Closing Outlook" and "Never prompt for confirmation when emptying Recycle Bin". Cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth next Monday. But, the Exchange Server had some space for a few months. And myself a lot less stress for those months.

Alternatives were offered, some free, some paid for, none were accepted - I did what I had to do. (One department was the worse at large mailboxes, but their over use of Outlook affected every other equally deserving department)

These Group Policy objects have been in place ever since.

LG to offer subscriptions for appliances and televisions

Re: Rent seeking

Unfortunately, the TV can just sit there listening for Wifi connections. And then slowly brute force them. Hell, if i was a manufacturer, i'd even have a slow, low powered bitcoin miner in them.

I am sure this is what has happened to my LG TV. No ethernet cable, never defined a wifi SSID. Careful to never even activate the networking. However, i have lots of Wifi hotspots around me. Almost all are closed. But it only takes one open one and BAM, connect, upload telemetry, download update. Menus have changed over time on this TV, DESPITE being as careful as i could.

LG, because everything else available in my region are running Android TV and that is another cesspit of evil.

As others have said: 4 or more HDMI inputs, volume control, input control, brightness control. Done. No smarts. Barely even dumb. You have ONE job TV, display the bloody picture from my chosen input.

Microsoft whips up unrest after revealing Azure AD name change

SCCM? I still call it SMS.

But yeah, wish MS would show it a little love. The list of features it supports grows very, very slowly, as for deprecated features, well "Our list of allies grows thin".

(Where's my greybeard icon, or at least 'get off my lawn')

Turning a computer off, then on again, never goes wrong. Right?

Don't assume ... always question ...

But remarkably common practice. Especially among single/small team developers who haven't got their head around Windows. Or running as a service, or not running as root/administrator, or assuming everyone else is.

What is it, 20 years since MS published guidelines about not using these account. More than 30 years since Windows NT 3.5X, but especially Windows NT 4. Or at least Windows 2000 ... which at least had a usable GUI and a real Administrator account.

The first problem solving question from a "Un-helpdesk" droid is normally about "Is the user an administrator? Have you disabled UAC? Have you tried running it as Administrator?" So, they are still out there.

Australia's 'great example of government using technology' found to be 'crude and cruel'. And literally lethal to citizens

Re: Oz just like UK

Only because the Government changed hands. If the old mob were still in, I am sure that it would be so far under the carpet. (If the parties had been reversed, i am sure that the current situation would still apply)

Let us not confuse competency for political expediency.

UK's proposed alt.GDPR will turn Britain into a 'test lab' for data harvesting

Re: Wot could possibly go wrong?

Based on past evidence, by an interested outsider, any Data Act will be a green light for local vested interests to feast. Industries and actual protections for proles be damned. So long as the rich get richer. The only tiny upside is that they will be LOCAL and not outside vested interests.

Sadly, unless it is a GDPR, from the real EU, it is only Data Harvesting light and cannot use the name GDPR.

That seems to be what has happened in other jurisdictions that have so-called *Data Protection" legislations.

Let's have a chat about Java licensing, says unsolicited Oracle email

Better the devil you DON'T know, in this case

If one talks to 2 different Oracle Licencing experts about compliance, expect (at least) 3 different versions of "no, you're not compliant".

Don't deal with the devil.

Bosses face losing 'key' workers after forcing a return to office

Re: Please Let Me Set the Record Straight

It is a fallacy that a bank is too big to fail (or any business). If it fails, it fails. Just make sure that those responsible are held to account (if necessary). The others might just think "it might happen to us too".

Probably what will happen is that the "snouts in the trough" get wider and go deeper.