Posts by devTrail

Another Apple engineer cuffed over alleged self-driving car data theft: FBI swoop on bod as he boards plane to China

Re: how much were they getting?

Sounds like he only joined Apple for one reason...

Sound like he joined Apple with great expectations, but was quickly disappointed.

Re: $100,000 in cash.

If the guy has not been there very long,

Where did you read it? The article say he was hired by Apple in 2018, but it doesn't say whether ha came from China or was already working in the US.

Furthermore the article says he paid part of the bail in cash as opposed to a property collateral, but it doesn't necessarily have to be actual cash.

Re: how much were they getting?

According to last summer's Party congress, everyone in China has the duty to steal tech.

Why are you trolling?

It's a bit cliche to be stealing secrets for China ...

If the theft succeeds it's a little bit more difficult to chase a company in China than in a western country. The odds are way better even in cases like this where it doesn't seem there's any government or big company involvement.

how much were they getting?

So the first one applied for a job in a Chinese company, I don't know whether he received an big offer to steal trade secrets, but for sure he already decided to leave. I wonder how much he was paid, you might expect an engineer working in a critical project in a big company to be getting a good salary and a lot of perks in order to keep some attachment to the company, but it seems nowadays corporations don't care so much about it.

Brit security services firm SecureData sold to France's Orange for an undisclosed sum

Re: Rental UK

Cadbury, Jaguar, ARM and so on.

Conflict of interest

I can understand the need to secure access to some services that might be absorbed by excessive demand. But on the other hand a provider of security services is also an auditor of your systems and your network, doesn't the fact that they own the providers create a conflict of interest?

Terribly Sorry Bank reports 165% drop in profits to a pre-tax loss of £105.4m

Re: Who decided such massive change all at once?

From previously published accounts of the migration project, they were already running ~2 years behind ...

Of course. If you want to be able to handle all the possible use cases things can get really complex. It is likely that the decision of a big massive migration was taken at the beginning of the project and the fact that they were 2 years behind was a consequence of it, therefore I don't think this is an explanation of the question I asked.

Who decided such massive change all at once?

The bank's execs blamed the problems on middleware, but a prior analysis from IBM seemed to point at issues with testing.

As usual when things go wrong the blame game begins. Sometimes it ends in the tribunal, sometimes it's just a fake exchange of accusation played in order to buy time until people forget the story. But most of the time the real culprit is willingly ignored. In this case I would like to know who decided to migrate the customers all at once, agile approaches are nothing new and stories of failures in too big projects are not a surprise.

Smaller tech firms just aren't ready for a no-deal Brexit, MPs told

Re: Incompetence

after decades of them consistently 'acting' stupid I am convinced they are incapable of anything else.

I beg to disagree. Stupidity is random. Consistency can only be achieved through well planned malice.

Re: Incompetence

Might be incompetence, but it could also be unwillingness in order to cry foul.

What are we talking about?

What are we talking about? Real tech companies or those small agencies that act as a legal screen between the contractor and the real "employer"?

The second ones will probably suffer, but I won't shed a tear for them.

The chips are down: Now Microsoft blames Intel CPU supply shortages for dips in Windows, Office sales

Communicating via pictures

Notice the pictures introducing the articles. Clickbait titles hinting at exchange of accusations between companies and you see Ballmer, positive articles talking about the future and you see Nadella.

This sadly translates to a decline in system administrator jobs.

This actually seem a marketing message. Maybe admins won't be so busy upgrading installations, but this is a solution that solves some problems on one side and creates some more on the other side.

Worried about Brexit food shortages? North Korean haute couture has just the thing

Re: Fake news

"Mainstream like...the BBC? The Mail? Express? Telegraph, Times, Sun?"

I didn't read all of them, but everything I read predicted food shortages and all of them omitted to tell that at the end of March there will not be sudden border controls even in case of no deal Brexit.

Get the facts reaching a conclusion as a result of a willful omission is fake news.

Fake news

Now the fake news of food shortages has even been transformed in a marketing joke. Not a single media source that the EU emergency plan states that even in case of no deal Brexit border controls will not be set up immediately, but there will be a gradual shift. This is further evidence that fake news do not come only from the internet, they are coordinated by mainstream media, moreover mainstream media outlets may appear at odds between each other, but their lies are carefully tailored to fit.

Mozilla security policy cracks down on creepy web trackers, holds supercookies over fire

Expected reaction

Many internet sites will react by making navigation with Mozilla more difficult. Right now a lot of sites don't bother about your security settings, If you block third party cookies many functions like streaming videos do not work and if you ask them why they don't tell you to enable third party cookies they tell you to use Chrome (which enables third party cookies by default).

Re: Err didn't Microsoft get slapped down for this?

When Microsoft decided to do a similar thing with IE10 (do not track)

The "Do Not Track" flag was introduce by Firefox, Microsoft in IE10 chose to override it and change its meaning.

The "Do Not Track" flag is meant to express an explicit request of the user. Microsoft by overriding the policy and setting the flag by default stated that it wasn't anymore an explicit request of the user and as everyone expected after some time internet sites began to ignore the flag claiming that it any case it didn't express a user request.

Basically Microsoft made on purpose a choice that backfired.

Apple: Trust us, we've patented parts of Swift, and thus chunks of other programming languages, for your own good

Re: Genuine Question

Trouble is that you ask teeth for the small fishes and you get fangs for the sharks.

Re: Is it an attack on Rust?

Actually I didn't think about it only for the idea of the OO language based on C. But because the main purpose of Rust is to extend C++ with memory safety and security enhancements which is the subject of the patents.

Re: SUN once said the the same positive things about Java Patents and licensing structure

I think the problem is your last sentence; you're right about server/desktop versus mobile, but Sun was doomed long before Google got involved.

Thanks, at least there's some discussion going on.

I agree on the fact that Sun was struggling and that SPARC machines were expensive. But they were still fighting to survive and I think that Google delivered the coup of grace.

Re: SUN once said the the same positive things about Java Patents and licensing structure

I can understand the thumbs down, but if people don't agree why don't they reply? Does anybody remember a different story? Who doesn't know history is doomed to repeat it.

Re: SUN once said the the same positive things about Java Patents and licensing structure

Sun case is different. They release Java with a mix of copyrights and different type of GPL non GPL licences. Actually Hotspot was a mess of open/non open modules. Sun said that they wanted to release Java free on the Server/Desktop, but they hoped to cash something on the mobile platform, so J2ME was less open. Google move cut their last source of funding and pushed them into bankruptcy.

Re: Typo

I don't know very much about Swift. But in Scala it is "Options chaining" since the "option" is the alternative branch for the nulls returned.

BTW if we are really talking about the same thing it means that this is a case of patent piracy.

Is it an attack on Rust?

Maybe I misunderstood reading the abstracts of the two linked patents. But it seems they are preparing to attack Rust. Am I right?

Actually after the bad publicity they got with the story of the bounce back patent Apple learned not to use them directly, usually after some time they pass their patent to small unknown companies and let them go on with the lawsuits, then the media will blame the unknown patent troll. So if the target is really Rust it will take few years before we can really see what's going on, but the it will be too late.

Gripe to UK, Ireland, Poland: Ad tech industry inhales, then 'leaks' sensitive info on our health, politics, religion

Re: A Google Spokesman

If I understood correctly the article it is even worse than that. The data is provided before the ad is purchased and the ad itself might be irrelevant, the client buys the information and buys the ad only as a mean to pay for the information, then if the user looks at the ad or not it's just a little bit more, but the real trade was already done.

Florida man's deadliest catch forces police to evacuate Taco Bell

What was the grenade doing there?

As far as I know Florida was far from conflict zones. What was the grenade doing there? Was it a soldier training area or was it dumped by someone who held it illegally?

Data flows in a no-deal Brexit are a 'significant' concern – MPs

Re: Project Fear

If we have ceded control of things that matter, they're being run by people doing a good job!

Actually this is not correct. The UK never ceded control on anything, they just became part of a group whose purpose was joining their forces. Being a peer in the group doesn't mean ceding control.

Re: Scaremongering

In 2 1/2 years, the UK government hasnt even managed to agree with itself ...

It doesn't have anything to do with my comment.

Comes March data flows won't be paralised.

Comes March there will be no empty shelves.

Re: Scaremongering

Well, that's a relief. We can worry about the empty shelves in time for christmas.

Come on man! Until the end of the year means they have time to organize everything. And it also means that the news about it are totally fake.

Re: A cynic would say

The divorce bill is about paying back spending planned by Europe in the UK or on behalf by the UK. Plus the financial guarantees on the Greek debt strongly pushed by the UK government that wanted to save the British banks overexposed on the Greek debt.

Scaremongering

It seems that the government is unleashing a new wave of scaremongering reports. Businesses are not unprepared and they can deal with whatever will be the outcome of the negotiations. Problem will arise only in case of withdrawal of passporting right for financial services, but that won't happen suddenly.

But it doesn't stop here, on the BBC right now I can see on the homepage the fake news about market shelves that would be left empty. Nobody is telling that the EU commission has already declared that in case of no deal Brexit they would leave a grace period probably until the end of the year on border controls, so no empty market shelves for now.

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

fingerprinting children

Just one lawsuit and few dozen possible future lawsuits while this people are fingerprinting children.

Such a weak response from the parents gives a measure of how much the population has been dumbed down and brainwashed.

Intel boss: Expect chip shortages into mid-2019, stumbling server processor sales this year

Re: cashing in on its monopoly

I keep referring to the current situation and you keep replying that the current situation is not true because the future will be different.

Re: cashing in on its monopoly

You write as if you were completely oblivious of the current situation. Intel screwed up the 10 nm process, but it didn't screw up its position. AMD just made a small dent into Intel sales. Intel was close to a monopoly in its segment and that situation changed only slightly, at least for now.

cashing in on its monopoly

It seems Intel is creating some artificial shortages to cash in on its actual power on the market. That is working for now, but doesn't it seem a little bit short sighted?

UK-EU infosec data sharing may not be KO'd by Brexit, reckons ENISA bod

How relevant can be his declarations?

How relevant can be his declarations?

Was he speaking on behalf of the agency or was he speaking as a member of the agency?

For sure he could not speak on behalf of the European Commission, ENISA mandate is providing expertise and advice over laws and regulations, but their role stops there.

Open sourcerers drop sick Fedora Remix to get Windows Subsystem for Linux pumping

GNU or POSIX?

Nonsense

Fedora is meant to be the experimental version and RHEL the stable version. Mixing the second one into the first is not going to increase the stability because the network of dependencies gets even more entangled. So, what should be the point? It makes absolutely no sense

Oracle robbed just about anyone who wasn't a pasty white male of $400m, says Uncle Sam

Re: Bad news for the US

I can't understand what you are talking about. The preference for cheap Asian young graduates can be easily proved, but why did they choose to prosecute Oracle and not all the other corporations? The fact that something is common practice is not an excuse in front of the law. So whatever will be the decision of the court in this case it won't sanction decades of inaction.

Bad news for the US

You may like or not Oracle, but this is not a good news for the US. A law that becomes so open to interpretation that public officials can decide to apply when it suits them is the moment when bureaucrats become too powerful and corruption takes a leg. Coming form a country doing poorly in the Transparency International ranking I know what I'm talking about.

The funny thing is that part of the accusation is quite plausible and part of it seems really ridiculous. I have no difficulty to believe the part referring to the cheap Asians, but the snub of the minorities can be easily explained with the unequal schooling system in the US and the lack of qualified people.

On the other hand what is a common practice has benefited so much the balance sheets of big and small corporations that I doubt this story will change anything. If condemned Oracle will take a hit and go on with business as usual and all the other corporation won't even take notice.

Nationwide UK court IT failure farce 'not the result of a cyber attack' – Justice Ministry

No local option

So, it is clear that the whole system is designed in such a way that no PC can work on local system and synchronize later.

Even though PCs have become really powerful people keep designing system with the mainframe concept.

Nothing 'unites teams' like a good relocation, eh Vodafone?

There's a big difference in what they know, what they can do and what they want to do in this case.

Reminds me last week article

It reminds me last week article about IBM using forced relocations as a tool to get rid of older employees. Together with the news about the service departments outsourced with IBM it signals that the downsizing is going on strongly.

EU will have agreed a tech tax by March, says French finance minister

Re: That could plug the EU's brexit budget gap.

To plug the Brexit budget gap it would be easier to cancel all the contracts to build HS2 already signed with the private firms. The EU is providing 50% of the funds. BTW all the British media has been quite dishonest about the divorce bill. Nobody really explained what the money was for, the purpose was to hide that the gap between what the UK pays to the EU budget and what comes back is quite small.

Holy crappuccino. There's a latte trouble brewing... Bio-boffins reckon 60%+ of coffee species may be doomed

Re: Global warming as a useful label

Climate change is the poster child of all environmental issues right now, and even it is being given scant attention because of the economics concerned.

I don't think so anyway I am saying that the situation is not correctly reported.

The other issues you've raised are even less likely to gain any attention, ...

It's the media that decides the attention. Don't believe the claim that they report what the public is interested about, they decide what the public is interested about.

Personally I don't think the earth is overpopulated - at least not quite yet.

Consider Britain, the net balance between food imports and exports is negative, British countryside does not produce enough to feed the population, British forest do not produce enough oxygen to offset British CO2 production. The UK is already living on borrowed resources. Now check the population density and check the charts of the population density in most of the third world countries.

This wasn't meant to be an anti-capitalist rant (and I apologise if it's coming across as such), but the reaction to climate change is sadly very typical of how we treat problems that need global cooperation. On this basis the future doesn't seem very assured.

Why should I be bothered by an anti-capitalist rant? To be honest I don't like the kind of reasoning: "if you don't think it this way then you must be thinking in this other way" The world is not just black and white, and if someone says that mainstream media communication about climate change is misleading you can't assume that this person is a pro capitalist climate skeptic,

Re: More to coffee than Arabica and Robusta!

My main bean is grown in india - Monsoon Malibar. I but it in green and roast it myself.

Most of the coffee is bought anywhere during the day, not homemade, rarely people really know what kind of coffee they are drinking.

I doubt coffee makers, given the price it fetches, will not let many breeds go extinct.

It happened for bananas that are now almost a Cavendish based monoculture. Makers are very well aware of the issue, but short term earnings and the scale economies brought by concentrating on few breeds prevail.

Re: Global warming as a useful label

Doesn't mean warming isn't happening,

I agree.

we need to address all of those issues not hide behind one to ignore the other

No, they're not being addressed and media information is so misleading that we are largely ignoring them.

Global warming as a useful label

Overpopulation.

Excessive exploitation of fertile land driven by corporations grabbing huge swathes of land worldwide and cutting down forests to plant monocultures vulnerable to any kind of pest or disease, but more efficient moneywise.

Misuse of water causing excessive evaporation and unpredictable weather patterns.

Careless movement of fruits, beans, saplings wooden frames without checking for any infestation thus spreading globally fungi, pests and diseases.

Global warming has become a useful label behind which to hide a lot of problems that nobody wants to address.

BTW Ethiopia mentioned in this article has become in the last ten years one of the primary targets for foreign land grab.

Vodafone signs $550m deal with IBM to offload cloud biz

Double luck

The IBM rate of acquisitions and dumping is getting so fast that sooner or later we'll begin to see people going through the same experience twice or trice.