Posts by R Soul

Bargain-hunting boss saw his bonus go up in a puff of self-inflicted smoke

Re: Free Vending

All good things must come to an end, though, and one day, we were informed that Security considered our coffee maker a fire hazard. .... Security was informed, and magically, the problem went away.

This shows a distinct lack of imagination. You could have called the coffee maker the engineering department's mission critical aromatic liquid dispensing tool or something along those lines. That should have been enough to keep the company's elfin safety bozos at bay.

Something similar happened at a former place of work. Management decreed there couldn't be any non company-supplied electrical devices in the building. The safety goons tried to confiscate our shared fridge that had been used for years to cool all sorts of tasty beverages. They got told to fuck off. It wasn't a fridge y'see. It was an electromagnetically, thermally insulated test chamber - and vitally important for the effective running of the department.

Perhaps they do. My question is which UK, the one in Asia or the one in South America?

The vile Americanism of placename, bigger placename is too stupid for words. The only time it might be needed is when discussing two or more places with the same name - for instance the Perth in Australia and the real one in Scotland.

Telegram founder and CEO arrested in France

E2E encryption

"Telegram has end to end encryption, so they literally cannot control what's written in messages"

I see. That explains why Mr. Gates controls everything that's written in plaintext with Outlook, Word, etc,

Missing scissors cause 36 flight cancellations in Japan

Re: The ghost of 9/11 casts a long shadow

It may not get you in the cockpit but if the pilot gets a panicked call from a flight attendant saying that the terrorist is threatening to cut their throat and could then stab a lot more passengers on the plane, what would the pilot do?

Make sure nobody can get into the cockpit. Set the transponder to squawk 7500 - hijack. Divert to the nearest airport. Leave the cabin crew and passengers to slug it out with the terrorist(s). Of course all bets are off if Steven Seagall or MacGyver is on board.

Elon Musk claims live Trump interview on X derailed by DDoS

It was a chat with one of his backers.

Which one's which?

ICANN reserves .internal for private use at the DNS level

Re: .internal and the root servers

You're badly confused. .internal isn't banned from the public Internet. And even if it was, there's no DNS police to enforce that ban and throw the offenders in jail.

All ICANN has done here is say .internal can be safely used on private nets because they're never going to delegate that TLD. [For some definition of safely.] That doesn't stop anyone from using .internal anywhere or letting that bit of the name space pollute the public DNS. Just like they could before ICANN's latest proclamation.

Next, DNS servers will go to the Internet to resolve .internal domain names. Unless they're specially configured not to. Too many bozos don't realise that. I've lost count of the number of times I've had to tell corporates that lookups for secret-project-name.internal leaked from their "secure" intranet. And their lack of DNS clue caused that.

Having every major caching server return cached NXDOMAINs for lookups of .internal names makes little difference in the overall scheme of things. These servers will have supported negative caching for about 25 years or so. [RFC2308 was published in 1998.] Which means .internal lookups from resolvers in the big eyeball nets have had marginal impact on root server traffic for those names since the days when AOL was carpet-bombing the planet with their CDs.

However these major caching servers are not - and never have been - responsible for the overwhelming majority of the .internal DNS lookups that hit the root. Those tend to come from idiot forwarders or misconfigured stub resolvers that go nowhere near a decent resolving server. That ~15yo ICANN study showed that the root was getting more lookups for .internal than just about every ccTLD and gTLD. It's unlikely that pattern of bad behaviour has changed much since then, even if the all-fours are now slurping up the bulk of resolver traffic.

So does reserving '.internal' now mean '.corp', '.home', and '.mail' gTLDs may be up for sale in future?

In theory, maybe. In reality, never.

ICANN's put .corp, .mail and .home on some super-special list of TLDs that cannot be created. They were put on that list for security and stability reasons. They will never come off that list until those security and stability concerns are addressed. Which can't happen until there's overwhelming proof there's no significant dependency on those TLDs in the huge installed base of crapware that use these today: firewalls, proxy servers, fucked-up corporate nets, IoT, CPE, AD setups, etc. Good luck making that happen before the heat death of the universe.

.internal and the root servers

I can't imagine that anyone using .internal is actually calling out to the rootservers much to resolve it because it's simply not a valid TLD.

Try again. All sorts of bogus domain names from supposedly "private" networks leak in huge numbers of queries to the One True Root.

There have been many studies on this. In the one ICANN commissioned ~10 years ago, the root servers got more queries for .internal domain names than for any ccTLD or gTLD (apart from .arpa, .com, .net and .org). See https://forums.theregister.com/post/reply/4909322 for more details.

Resolvers have no way of knowing what is and isn't a valid TLD unless they query the One True Root or hold an up to date copy or the root zone.

Unless resolving servers get specially configured to handle .internal (say) on some private net, DNS lookups for that net's .internal domain names will leak to the One True Root.

Techie told 'Bill Gates' Excel is rubbish – and the Microsoft boss had it fixed in 48 hours

Re: 'Do you need anyone in your QA department?'

Redmond HQ: "What's QA?"

Silicon, stars, and sulfur make Apollo's unlikely legacy

"Science is corrupt."

Too true. Isaac Newton took a bung to invent gravity.

CrowdStrike update blunder may cost world billions – and insurance ain't covering it all

Re: Insurance may have to eat more of it

In that two week period, Linux was entirely erased and we went back to Windows.

Why? Surely you knew systemd includes the best stock control system ever?

CrowdStrike file update bricks Windows machines around the world

Re: Waiting For this....:)

Unfortunately, Crowdstrike offers a version of their software on Linux.

Nothing to worry about - until it gets assimilated into systemd.

CrowdStrike shares sink as global IT outage savages systems worldwide

Re: The fault's with Microsoft^wsystemd

This has to be called Poettering's Law.

Re: The fault's with Microsoft

"You can't blame the manufacturer of the engine for that, they way you are blaming Microsoft for CrowdStrike's monumental f*ckup."

But M$ are to blame. Third party code should never be able to crash an OS. Or run on an OS which allows that. CrowdStrike's crapware wouldn't be necessary if M$ shipped a decent OS that wasn't riddled with security vulnerabilities. CrowdStrike's epic, epic fail is unforgivable They deserve to be sued into oblivion for the inconvenience and consequential losses they caused. [They cost me thousands in cancelled/rebooked flights and hotels this weekend.] However, that's just a side-effect of the underlying disease.

Nobody should be running anything important on Windows. Ever,

Re: things that are running

Well, I plan to be around in Y292,277,026,596 to find out one way or the other.

FWIW, I'd still be waiting for Beardienet customer service to answer the phone then.

ESA starts work on planetary defence mission, because Bruce Willis is retired

The ones we have to worry about are the very much bigger ones that we haven't found yet.

Nah. I saw the documentary on how Bruce Willis and his team sorted out the big asteroid last time round. They'll be able to do it again. Even if Bruce isn't fit to go into space any more. For one thing, Ben Affleck will have plenty of time on his hands for another mission now he's no longer shagging J-Lo.

How NeWS became yesterday's news in the window system wars

Re: Why not extend the filesystem?

Whoever came up with NeFS must have been on very good drugs. Any idea where I could get some?

FreeDOS and FreeBSD prove old code never dies, just gets nifty updates

Re: Why?

FreeBSD is a bomb-proof OS that's used for a significant chunk of the planet's core Internet services: DNS, web, email, etc. And it doesn't run systemd.

Former Fujitsu engineer apologizes for role in Post Office IT scandal

Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

"I am not sure that I can make my mind up whether Gareth Jenkins was knowingly misleading the courts or whether he was entirely misled by Singh."

These things aren't mutually exclusive. Not that it matters. As an expert witness, Jenkins had a duty to the court to be impartial and tell the truth. He wasn't and didn't.

Oh and he lied at the inquiry too.

Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

"This includes adhering to Part 33 of the Criminal Procedure Rules and the Code of Practice for Experts, neither of which he's never read and didn't even know existed."

That's a lie. Jenkins claimed at the inquiry he was unaware of this. He was then shown the emails about Part 33 sent to him from the PO's lawyers. At which point he suddenly remembered he has been told.

Your claims about Jenkins not being an expert witness (or even being a reliable witness) are approaching Trumpian levels of delusion.

Are you trapped in the Vennels/PO/Fujitsu/Horizon reality distortion field?

"The evidence presented during his testimony didn't show he was being dishonest"

The evidence he gave in the trials says otherwise. Read their transcripts.

In Seema Misra's trial, he said "No external systems can manipulate branch accounts without user awareness and authorisation.".During the inquiry, he admitted knowing that remote access was possible.

Re: Jenkins was complicit in the cover-up

You really must stop making excuses for Gareth Jenkins. Here's what the BBC made of his appearance at the inquiry:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c880e78rl77o

Pay close attention to Section 2 "He was sent expert witness rules".

Jenkins was complicit in the cover-up

More than that. He seems to have committed perjury. In one of the subpostmaster trials, he testified that it was impossible for anyone to tamper with the Horizon database. But at that time he knew this was possible.

Notice too how all of the evil lying bastards responsible for this scandal have only apologised for causing distress to their victims? Nobody's said sorry for initiating the bogus prosecutions. Or putting innocent people in jail. Or bankrupting some of the victims. Or for bullying subpostmasters into making false confessions. Or interfering in independent audits. Or hiding evidence. Or lying. Or for failing to do their jobs: due diligence checks, getting Horizon's bugs fixed, asking questions when problems became public, etc. One of the PO's directors claimed he didn't know the PO could prosecute people. WTF?!

British Airways blames T5 luggage chaos on fault 'outside of our control'

Re: The baggage doesn't bother me any more...

the tag said Atlanta..."

So what? Every flight involving the USA generally means some sort of layover or changing planes in Atlanta.

" Even if they only got a few planes loaded, surely that is better than sending passengers off without it?"

Nope. It would be better for the passengers who get to fly with their luggage. But probably not for anyone else.

When loading bags (or passengers) takes too long, it can badly fuck everything up for the airline and airport. The plane is likely to lose its take off and ATC slots => a delay to get new ones. It will probably arrive late at its destination, delaying the return flight. In extreme cases, there could be no crew for that return flight because they've gone over their allotted flying hours. The knock-on effects of that can take days to put right: yet more cancelled flights because crews and planes are in the wrong place. And while a plane is delayed at the gate waiting for bags to be loaded, it blocks another plane from using it, creating even more logistical problems and delays.

Airlines will have worked out when the hassle and costs from missed bags are less than those for a few hours when a plane is doing nothing or stuck at the wrong airport. Except for Ryanair of course. They don't give a shit about anything - apart from ripping people off.

systemd 256.1: Now slightly less likely to delete /home

Anyone got any believable reasons why one would actually want to use it?

Because the systemd cargo-cult knows best. So just suck it up and don't ask awkward questions.

Here! Drink more of the systemd kool-aid. It's good for you, rich in the finest unmaintainable bloatware.

Re: ...Boccassi is Poettering's colleague at Microsoft

Going? It hasn't ended well already.

Re: Too complex!

"Regrettably, it is getting much more difficult to find a non-systemd Linux distribution."

So just switch to a real OS which doesn't have this abominable piece of shit.

Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy'

Re: "42% less Unix philosophy"

The latest systemd abortion may well have "42% less Unix philosophy" (whatever that means). It *deliberately* never had any of that. However systemd retains 100% of Poettering's unbelievably shitty design. As if that appalling bloatware ever had any sort of design.

Re: It's the only way to be sure.

It's the only way to be sure.

HP-Autonomy: Attorneys wrap up arguments in Mike Lynch's stateside criminal fraud trial

Re: "not doing proper due diligence"

Due diligence isn't all it's supposed to be. There are plenty of examples of companies getting the all-clear from the auditors days before they went tits-up: RBS, Northern Rock, BHS, Lehman Bros, Enron, Thomas Cook, etc.

Boeing's Starliner finds yet another way to not reach space

Corporate bollocks-speak

"All three of these chassis are required to enter the terminal phase of the launch"

It's probably a bad idea to talk about anything in aerospace having a terminal phase. More so when Boeing is involved.

Parliamentarians urge next UK govt to consider ban on smartphones for under-16s

Re: In short....

Sadly, that chatbot is still trying and failing to open up new pork markets. And. That. Is. A. Disgrace.

'Little weirdo' shoulder surfer teaches UK cabinet minister a lesson in cybersecurity

taking responsibility

Witness one Mr. Johnson, who frequently 'took responsibility' during the pandemic. Can anyone demonstrate any evidence whatsoever that his claim actually had substance, i.e. resigned over the failures that were manifest even at the time, and which he directly claimed to take responsibility for?

Resigning over his many failings in public office would not be taking responsibility. Johnson (and the rest of his clown parade) need to be held to account in the courts for their actions. Prosecution for 300,000+ counts of manslaughter for his starring role in the COVID shit-show should be a no-brainer. Johnson should also take responsibility and be facing prosecution for many other serious crimes: perjury (lying to parliament and the monarch), conspiracy to pervert the course of justice (protecting his criminal MP cronies and violations of the ministerial code), misconduct in public office, Partygate, etc, etc. That lying crook deserves to be in jail for a long, long time. And that would be taking responsibility.

UK PM Sunak calls election, leaving Brits cringing over memory of his Musk love-in

Re: Disappointing

Cameron tried that one and they basically told him to get lost.

This is a lie. The tosser resigned the day after he lost the Brexit referendum.

Brussels was, and is determined to punish us

Yet another lie. The then government deliberately set out to have no deal with the EU and didn't negotiate anything. Brexit minister (and fuckwit) David Davies showed up at the EU with no papers or discussion documents. This made sure there was nothing to negotiate with the EU. Though there was plenty that should have been negotiated - and still hasn't.

Re: Disappointing

What he should have done was to go back to the EU and demand a better deal

What Camoron should have done was finalise the post-Brexit arrangements before invoking Article 49. (And maybe having a referendum to confirm the country accepted those terms.) Remember the hot air at that time about hard and soft Brexits? Instead, he fucked off and left the hopeless Theresa May to clean up his mess. She was too weak to control the gammon wings of the Tory Party and was bounced into exercising Article 49 before anything had been sorted out. The rest as they say was history.

Re: Disappointing

Are yousure as many as seventeen people intend to vote for the Conservatives on July 4th? Seems a bit on the high side to me.

there really isn't anywhere else for them to go.

There's plenty of space underneath the very bottom of that barrel. This is where you can find the likes of Mad Nad, Pritti Vacant, Braverman, Rees-Mogg, BoJo, Badenough, Raab, Shapps/Green/Stockheath/Fox, Gove, Javid, Hancock, Camoron, Kwarteng, Cleverly, Lettuce Liz, Neanderson, the tractor porn guy, Jenrick, Leadstrom, Trott, Atkins, etc, etc.

Re: Disappointing

Not 2014. Maybe 50-60 years before then.

Re: Disappointing

"our own industries have been devastated by European competition"

They were devastated by *global* competition. FTFY. The UK car industry for instance was wiped out by a combination of globalisation and mostly Japanese manufacturers.

There are plenty of other, more significant, factors for UK's industrial decline. These include decades of chronic underinvestment, low productivity, shit industrial relations and a neoliberal boardroom consensus for short-term greed instead of genuine and lasting wealth creation, 60+ years of spectacularly incompetent/corrupt/stupid government also played a key role.

Starlink offers 'unusually hostile environment' to TCP

Re: What's his definition of hostile

Except in this case, it isn't. Geoff Huston is not an academic. He doesn't (need to) write grant applications to get funding for his excellent research work. Apart from those inconvenient truths, your comment is right in every way.

Brexit border system outage puts perishable goods transport in peril

Just how stupid are the numpties that plan these things ?

You have to ask?

Have a look at the main Brexiteers and take a wild guess.

Re: I think there will be a huge rise in smuggling

How could TV execs be expected to gauge the success or failure of such a series?

You want us to think of the children? Couldn't agree more

Re: Article 8 of the ECHR

No courts (I think you meant judges) are elected In the civilised world. [Yes, I know US elects some judges. But I said "civilised world". No courts areaccountable to the electorate or politicians either - and with good reason. Legal process and application of the law has to be impartial and free from political interference. Unless you're in Russia or some banana republic. ECHR isn't our highest court. That would be England's Supreme Court.

BTW, what part of the European Convention on Human Rights upsets you the most, the right to a fair trial? freedom of expression? right to life? prohibition of slavery and torture? the right to liberty?

The UK reveals it's spending millions on quantum navigation

Re: Quantum Navigation System for planes

Ryanair's "airports" have arrival boards? Who knew?

Cloudflare CEO sues over free-roaming fidos at his ski resort paradise

Re: Tabloid voyeurism

it must be possible to use a stylesheet and some javascript to convert logical SI units into presentation US customary when the browser's locale in en_US. Or indeed £, p. into £sd for the faredge ukip fringe (give them their own gibberish locale gb_GB;)

Why? The Register can just keep using its well-established units of measurement: the giraffe, London bus, Wales, etc.

Ex-Space Shuttle boss corrects the record on Hubble upgrade mission

Re: We came that close to not knowing about O-rings.

Only when they're in the wrong plaice.

Help! My mouse climbed a wall and now it doesn't work right

Re: It goes the wrong way!

That's nothing! I used to work for a company run by a truly evil bastard. One of our small acts of revenge was to put the mouse on the left hand side of his keyboard. Said bastard was clueless about anything IT. And right-handed. It took Dr. Evil several months to figure out putting the mouse on the right hand side of the keyboard greatly enhanced his UX. Tech support always told him the mouse was working perfectly whenever they checked it after he'd complained. And dutifully put it back on the left hand side of his keyboard.

Australia’s spies and cops want ‘accountable encryption’ - aka access to backdoors

Re: Don't call me Shirley

"It won't be used against fly-tippers, school catchment area shoppers, dog-shit not-picker-up..."

Bollocks! PC Cryptoplod will come after them to (a) boost their crime detection numbers; (b) use the resulting number of prosecutions to "prove" crypto backdoors "work".

Re: Now just a cotton-picking minute

SSHH! You're giving Sunak's clown cabinet ideas. Remember they're the lying tossers that have just passed a law claiming Rwanda is safe.