Posts by nobody who matters

Bank of England says JLR's cyberattack contributed to UK's unexpectedly slower GDP growth

Re: Financial support

"The Government is backing Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) with a loan guarantee expected to unlock £1.5 billion to support its supply chain."

The word 'expected' is carrying a awful lot of load in that sentence.

If JLR take any of it up, I can well imagine that about the same proportion of the money will actually reach the suppliers as the proportion that reached the customers/suppliers from the bail-out money that the Government directed to the banking industry not many years ago.

Re: Dodgy figures.

".......there wasn't much systems integration with the rest of the tata empire

Well, actually there was - TCS interlinks all the Tata empire through providing the IT services for all of it.

Re: Dodgy figures.

Not the manufacture (or rather, assembly) of complete cars any more, that is true. However BMW still has their factory pressing body panels for the MINI built at Cowley ;)

Re: So now we know that cyberattacks cost ...

"They should be asking their IT depts what they're going to do about hardening systems"

I imagine that in a great many corporations, their IT department (where they still have something significant enough to call an IT department on the premises as it were), have already tried to impress upon their managers a need for greater attention and expenditure being needed to keep the corporation's IT systems secure from attack, and those managers have rebuffed their warnings because it will cost money/impede communications between them and suppliers/customers, or because they really don't comprehend the consequences of such an intrusion, and (not being very knowledgeable regarding computing and the internet in general) they think whatever basic security they already have is all they need and so think their systems are already safe, or have the attitude "It's OK, we're insured".

The problem requires not just legislative action by Governments, and realisation that more needs doing by the Boardroom, but needs a prolonged and effective process of educating those in management roles within a company as to the actual level of risk they are currrently facing and are increasingly likely to face in the future.

This is also going to require arrogant management to accept that they don't know and don't understand IT and the internet, which is something that (judging from the reports that members of IT departments have frequently related on these discussion boards regarding management ignorance/arrogance/pig headedness on IT matters) appears to me to be the biggest hurdle to overcome.

Microsoft apologizes for not explaining cheaper no-AI M365 plans, and all it took was a government lawsuit

Do you mean it isn't!

And there was me thinking Wallace and Gromit had proved that it is made of Wensleydale.

"Our relationship with our customers is based on trust and transparency".

That will be the misplaced trust that naive customers have for MS, and the transparency of the customer's device and efforts (or lack of them) to prevent MS from exfiltrating all their personal information.

Ministry of Defence's F-35 blunder: £57B and counting

Re: Nothing new

"I always thought but for the accident of birth and some manners there is more in common with your blue collar tradesman and the aristocracy than with middle-classes."

Possibly because most of those at the top or bottom of the class system are what they are, whereas a great many who reside in the middle class seem to be trying to be something that they are not ;)

"......dictatorships (evil or otherwise)......"

I am really struggling to think of any dictatorships which I would place in the second category. Can anyone else think of any?

Re: 99.5% of projects fail

Source: other people's educated guesswork, by the look of it ;)

Labor organizers accuse Rockstar Games of 'ruthless act of union busting' after layoffs

Re: "what do Rockstar really loose? [sic]"

Nope, I am posting about reality. The reality is that that the majority of claims are indeed misplaced (and therefore frivolous), and that is invariably why union representation is not forthcoming. In cases where there is fairly clear evidence to support a claim, unions are usually very supportive (and I do speak from real world knowledge here).

If you have had cause to take a former employer to a tribunal and had no help from your union, you either were not a member of a union, did not have a realistic case for a claim, or your union was/is crap.

I think an accusation of bias coming from you is a bit rich to be honest - on certain subjects you exhibit a bigger degree of bias than almost any other regular commentard.

Re: "what do Rockstar really loose? [sic]"

If you really found that it was that complicated, I am sorry - but it really should not have been that onerous. My knowledge comes from having had a close member of the family who was regularly involved in unfair dismissal cases (albeit usually from support and advice for employers who had claims made against them), and from a close work colleague who similarly had an Uncle whose job was advising and training Trade Union representatives on UK employment law.

The big issue is that very frequently claims for unfair dismissal are frivolous and without any basis for a legitimate claim, and are therfore doomed to failure from the outset. However, in cases where there was a genuine case of dismissal having been unjustified or carried out incorrectly, the tribunal process works well - I can point to one case that I know about where the worker was awarded 18 months pay (and he succeeded with the help of his local secretary for what was then the TGWU).

Clearly you don't have much experience of Unions either.

Re: Labour

I rather think that the US standardising on spellings without the U (and other mis-spellings) was mainly down to the petulance of Noah Webster in his initial compilation of the American dictionary that came to bear his name, rather than any British petualnce in response ;)

The English spelling of labour involving the U did after all, stem from the source of the word from the French, who had in turn added the U to the original Latin 'Labor'. .

Re: "what do Rockstar really loose? [sic]"

You don't appear to understand how employees claims for unfair dismaissal actually work. It does not normally involve anything like the long and convoluted series of actions that you claim, and as for awards rarely covering legal costs, that just underlines your lack of understanding of the tribunal process.

In addition, anyone who is a Trade Union member is will get expert legal advice and backing from their union, regardless of whether the workplace is unionised or not.

Re: "what do Rockstar really loose? [sic]"

Perhaps you haven't had a great deal to do with employment tribunals, but the compensation that is awarded to those who are judged to have been unfairly dismissed can amount to some weeks or months salary, which if there are a significant number of individuals involved will certainly add up to a "hefty chunk of money".

I would also question your assertion that workers wouldn't want a tribunal case showing up for fear of jeopardising future employment - perhaps they would rather just leave the (now published in public) record of them having been dismissed for 'Gross Misconduct' to follow them around. Failure to contest it would surely imply acceptance of guilt.

We appear to only have the point of view from the Union/workers side though, and there is no specific information as to what the nature of the Gross Misconduct was, but discussing ways to improve the workplace on Telegram certainly won't be considered sufficient for summary dismissal by a tribunal, even if they had been bad-mouthing the company or its management in their posts. The UK has some fairly strong regulations governing both the reasons why and the procedures for, dismissing staff. The scope of things that allow summary dismissal is relatively small, and even then it has to be done by the correct procedures. Without a clearly justifiable (and serious enough) reason for immediate sacking, there are a sequence of witnessed verbal and written warnings that have to be gone through for repeat offences before you can hand a troublesome employee their cards.

I suspect that this may be (once again) a US based employer who either doesn't understand that other countries do things in a more civilised fashion than the USA, or they think because they are based in the US, they can do as they like. If that is the case, I think they are going to get a rather sharp and costly awakening to the reality of UK/European employment laws.

Fortytwo's decentralized AI has the answer to life, the universe, and everything

Whatever answer to life, the universe, and everything Fortytwo's decentralised AI has come up with, it will almost certainly be the wrong one

Europe preps Digital Euro to enter circulation in 2029

Re: eurozone fulfilment platform

"I'm assuming that the EU wants to provide a replacement of the service currently provided by Mastercard and Visa for debit cards, maybe also for credit cards."

You don't need a new digital version of currency to do that though - you need new European based payment processors to do the same money transfers as VISA and MasterCard currently do. It can use the Euro in the same way as they do, it doesn't need a new currency setting up.

The Chinese Box and Turing Test: AI has no intelligence at all

Re: What happens when the drumming stops?

"I gather it's a reasonably common joke, but nonetheless one I had not heard before"

Me neither, I had to go and look it up.

It must be some peculiar meaning of the word 'joke' that I had not previously encountered - I didn't really think it particularly funny.

Re: Chinese Room counterargument

Surely in simple terms the Chinese Room is much like the relationship between computer software and hardware - the rules are the program, and the man-in-the-room is representing the hardware that the program runs on. He just follows the rules without any understanding of what the question is or the meaning of the answer he composes.

"......the thankfully deposed former PM."

Thankfully deposed because all the PMs we have had since him have been soooo much better.......?

I have to say that there are occasions when I am prompted to wonder whether we would have been better off keeping him :(

MPs urge government to stop Britain's phone theft wave through tech

Re: Repairable? or Theft-Proof?

"It does amaze me that you don't see more thefts in London"

A BBC report a while ago (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-65105199) suggested there is a mobile phone reported as stolen in London on average every six minutes - is that not enough for you?

Re: Repairable? or Theft-Proof?

"My iPad and laptop are with me pretty much 24/7."

You are fortunate that you have a job and lifestyle that accommodates you having all three near to hand all the time.

A great many ordinary people dont have the luxury of being able to do that, even if they were able to afford the cost of having three separate devices in the first place ;)

Re: About 80,000, phones moved abroad

"......how about the police do some police work?"

If there were sufficient numbers of Police, they probably would. As it stands, they are stretched beyond their limits, and after years of pursuing the wrong qualities for new recruits, it appears that police forces such as the Met' are now stuffed full of officers who are too busy looking after their own illicit interests.

It is relatively easy to move 80000 phones abroad - it is not as though they send them all in one container. Neither, it appears, do they necessarily all get sent straight to China - lots have been tracked going individually by various methods in steps via other Asian, Far Eastern or even African countries. Without checking carefully everybody's baggage and every package being shipped through all the usual carriers, and interrogating everybody about the provenance/ownership of any phone found in their possession, what exactly are police/customs/border patrol supposed to do to about it? Interested minds (and law enforcement) would like to know :)

The best way to stop (or at least, reduce) the problem is to take steps to prevent the thefts in the first place, and that is principally up to the owner of the individual phone taking care to not to present the thieves with the opportunity for theft in the first place.

Perhaps you should have put a different number on the front ;)

It is also apparent that in many cases they don't work alone - recent reports that I have read are saying that they often work in small gangs, and often use very fast electric bikes. It doesn't take more than a fraction of a second for one to grab you whilst the other yanks a lanyard off your wrist/arm/neck or whatever. Unless you have a security rated steel braid for a lanyard, a simple pair of scissors or a sharp knife would very quiclkly overcome that obstacle - but of course, no criminals would carry a knife with them, would they............

And of course, if you did have such a steel braid, the thief would very likely relieve you of your arm in the process of ripping your phone away.

Re: Stop putting phone in back pocket...

"Stop putting phone in back pocket...

It would be interesting to see the statistics for how many phones are in fact stolen out of people's pockets or handbags.

I suspect it is 'not many'. From all the reports of phone theft that I have read or heard about, the thieves snatch them from the users hands whilst they are in use and therefore unlocked. Stealing a locked phone from someones pocket probably isn't going to yield much benefit for the thief.

Re: Repairable? or Theft-Proof?

"ALL of the banking apps and crypto apps are password protected...."

Yes, and those passwords almost invariably stored in the phone, probably set to autofill when the bank website login page is brought up. The thief has your unlocked phone, he also has access to your passwords. As any MFA will also almost certainly come to that phone one way or another, he has that too. It is only biometrics that will hold him up, but how many people actually have those ?

I say 'he'; of course it could be a she, and in a recent bust of a ring who were caught sending large numbers of stolen phones abroad, all but one of those arrested was female.

Re: Repairable? or Theft-Proof?

"Have you a source?"

None whatsoever; beyond every news report of people having had their phone snatched and their bank account emptied shortly after, and then finding their credit cards stored on their phone have been maxed out. Along with numerous posts across social media that others have drawn my attention to saying similar things. But, beyond that, no evidence at all :/.

However, I do agree that ultimately pretty much all of these stolen phones will be sold on for use in parts of the world where they are not so concerned about where they have come from, and where their communications systems allow the stolen phones to continue operating with little more than a new SIM.

Re: Repairable? or Theft-Proof?

As the article says - there is little evidence that mobile phones are being broken for parts. The reality is that the vast majority are being snatched whilst in use (and therefore unlocked) so that the thieves can access private data - principally the owners banking/crytocurrency and identity informaton.

Current phone blocking is mainly via the network, but stolen phones are being exported to countries where the network blocking doesn't work. From an article on the BBC website a couple of weeks ago (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20vlpwrzwdo) thieves are getting up to £300 for phones stolen in the UK. Most of these are then sold on to China where they can sell for the equivalent of several thousand pounds. That doesn't sound like a spare parts recovery operation by anybody's definition!

The manufacturers keep claiming it is for spare parts and that they can't do anything about it, because they don't want to spend the effort (and cost) of implementing proper disabling tech within the phone and take on the responsibility for disabling stolen phones themselves. As usual, it comes down to money and greed by the manufacturers.

Shield AI shows off not-at-all-terrifying autonomous VTOL combat drone

Re: AI-written PR slop?

For situations where they were landing in very low gravity situations and where there was little or no atmosphere, yes, certainly. None of those that returned to Earth did so using rocket thrusters to aid landing, which is the important point relating to operational needs of the proposed UAV featured in the article.

Re: Genius-Level Procurement In Whitehall SW1......

Just to be pedantic (again), the Royal Navy doesn't actually have any F35B - they are based at RAF Marham, with detachments to the carrier(s) and are jointly operated by the RAF and Fleet Air Arm together.

Re: AI-written PR slop?

Just to be pedant for a moment, but the Apollo command modules in particular (after re-entry) fell to earth under gravity before deploying parachutes to control the rate of descent before crashing into the Pacific Ocean, from where they were recovered to land with the ais of a Sea King helicopter and a ship of the US Navy. I think similar procedures applied to other craft that you have mentioned, but I have neither time nor inclination to look them all up tbh.

Digital ID is now less about illegal working, more about rummaging through drawers

Re: Welcome to Groundhog Day

Bearing mind that every time that Barclays have closed my 'Home' branch and moved my account to the next nearest one (before subsequently closing that one too), they write to me to tell me that reason for the closure is because nobody is going into the branches anymore, so I am surprised that Sir Kier actuallly found any customers in the Brighton branch in the first place.

It would have been a big enough challenge to find an actual branch of Barclays to start with - they have mostly shrunk back to only having an actual branch in the county town around my region of the UK. My current 'Home' branch is now one of those banking hub thingies (which doesn't offer any counter services, or indeed very much in the way of any of the things one would actually go into a physical branch to do. I now have to post any cheques that I recieve to the pit of despond named Rotherham!).

Microsoft suggests temporary registry hack for stricken smart card users

"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence" (N.Bonaparte C~1774 - obviously he didn't say it in English!)

Royal Navy sharpens claws on Wildcat choppers with anti-drone Martlet missiles

Aero use of the name Martlet existed long before Gerard Bull used it in the 1960s - the British had a Martlet in service in the 1940s (the Royal Navy version of the Grumman F4F Wildcat).

I suspect the current usage will relate to the origin of the name - a heraldic mythical bird with no feet which never roosts, used as an allegory for continuous effort.

OpenAI GPT-5: great taste, less filling, now with 30% less bias

"Most civilised countries have some form of Universal Healthcare.

In the states, the overton window puts that in the 'far left' - the same place as those 100 million deaths.

If you can't see an issue with that, you may need professional help"

I think you have totally missed the point.

"Thilo Hagendorff............contends right-wing ideologies conflict with model alignment guidelines to make models harmless, helpful, and honest"

I find the suggestion here that (extreme) right-wing ideologies are harmful, unhelpful and dishonest and that (extreme) left-wing ideologies aren't, rather perplexing. Most people (who generally hold political views which are within a short distance left or right of centre) would view ideologies veering towards the extreme end of either right or left with distrust and dislike.

As a good proportion of the output from these alleged 'AI' LLMs seems to be inaccurate, misleading, or just plain incorrect, I would argue that it is the LLMs themselves which are harmful, unhelpful and dishonest.

The price is wrong! California goes Bob Barker on algorithmic price rigging

Re: I think they'll have problems with this one.

"But the problem is not using an algorithm per se, it's using a third party algorithm also used by all your competitors and with all of your data and all of their data to come up with a "standardised" price for all of you. That's whats being outlawed."

Using any method of fixing similar prices across a number of different suppliers/sellers already has a name - it's called a cartel, and is illegal in most civilised economies already.

Digital ID, same place, different time: In this timeline, the result might surprise us

Re: What advantage?

"A stolen phone is sent to China for parts because encrypted/locked devices are unusable to anyone but the legitimate owner."

If it is locked, yes. Most phone thefts take place whilst the legitimate owner is using it - therefore whilst it is unlocked.

All the thief has to do is keep pressing buttons to keep it that way until they can extract the information they want from it - the contents of the owners digital wallet, access to their banking app and email to change passwords. If you also have an official digital ID on it, by the time you get a replacement phone or get to another device from which you can wipe the data from the stolen 'phone, you may find that your identity and all the wallets and apps now point at somebody else.

The thief is only going to come unstuck where you have extra security such as facial recognition required/enabled.

If all the stolen 'phones were only fit to go to China for spare parts, nobody would be bothering to steal them.

Re: It won't happen.

"I cannot see them going into coalition with Reform."

Me neither - if there was any realistic sniff of that being likely to happen, the Tories would be probably lose the support of a significant proportion of the voters who haven't yet deserted them.

If anyone tries to compulsorily make me have a smartphone, they can fuck off and die (to put it politely; if they continue to harass me into having one I will start to get rude and abusive!)

Re: Dishonest about it's purpose

licence ;)

UK to roll out mandatory digital ID for right to work by 2029

Re: This is a nonsense

Masters or not, she frequently gives a very good impression of having no expertise ;)

Ends 9th Jan 2026, petitions run for 6 months so must have started in July surely?

Re: Playing devil's advocaat...

"All these systems get replaced every few years by the next over due over budget system"

Tell me honestly that you are unaware how old/how long some of the current Government/official systems have been running without being replaced (and keep a straight face whilst doing so).

To help correct you misconceptions, I will point at some of the NHS IT systems to start you off.

Re: This is a nonsense

A policitian?

Re: Change of Govt.

"Nige doesn't like it."

He may be saying he doesn't like it, but you can bet your arse that he and his far-right associates will make full use of it in keeping tabs on those who disagree with them should Reform win the next General Election - and I have to say that in making his announcement, Starmer has very likely (in my opinion) handed Reform victory on a plate!

Google is very sorry for pulling down COVID misinfo and pledges never to use outside fact-checkers

Re: Politicise Everything

"Politics is defined as a small group of people influencing a larger group."

Perhaps try looking up the definition of politics in a reputable dictionary ;)

It doesn't quite mean what you appear to think it does.

Politicos: 'There is a good strong case for government intervention' on JLR cyberattack

".......but stopped short of confirming that the government might intervene with financial support.

Even if the Government intervene and pay money over, the financial support won't come from 'the Government'.

It is taxpayers money - it is you and me who will be paying for it.

It's the usual nonsense that we get from inept businessmen when their business is in trouble because they are bad at running/managing their business. The Unions usually join in to support their members who are the ones who will ultimately take the biggest hit.

Both seem to think 'the Government' have some sort of Magic Money Tree to bail them out. They don't; some of it is my tax money, and I object to it being used to prop up an incompetent business who have got into a mess entirely through their own bad management.

A business furthermore, ultimately owned by an organisation with more money than I can sensibly comprehend. Make them pay.

Google stuffs Chrome full of AI features whether you like it or not

"You surely mean......."

You surely mean;

"Why browse the web yourself when an AI sidekick can spoon-feed you what people in power and authority want you to see, and hide the things they don't want you to see"?

Thin end of the wedge again!