* Posts by Velv

2756 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jan 2010

And we return to Munich's migration back to Windows – it's going to cost what now?! €100m!

Velv

I suspect some of the commentards missed the point.

Even if you were switching between two products that support an Open Document Format you incur costs to switch, it’s not free and open. You need to train users, you need to train support staff, and you need to deploy the software. Digital independence does not exist unless you tell staff they can choose their own software as long as it writes open document format, and they’re supporting themselves. And no enterprise, business or authority would consider that a viable option yet.

Velv

“the risk posed to digital independence by being locked into a single proprietary architecture”

Er, HELLO!

The point of the article is about how much it is going to cost to switch from one to another, they are already locked into LibreOffice, etc and are paying the price to switch to an alternative. You may think because it’s a free world, open source, and not Microsoft that LibreOffice is the perfect digital independence option, but it is just as constrained as every other offering.

You back a horse. You might not have to pay to ride the horse, but you’re certainly going to have to pay to get off the horse.

UK.gov admits porn age checks could harm small ISPs and encourage risky online behaviour

Velv
Big Brother

Age verification

First they imposed Age Verification at the ISP on the online porn, and I didn’t complain because I don’t watch porn online.

Then they imposed Age Verification at the ISP on the online gambling, and I didn’t complain because I don’t gamble online.

Then they imposed Age Verification at the ISP on tool purchases, and I didn’t complain because I never buy scissors or knives online.

Then they imposed Age Verification at the ISP on ...

There are already “age checks” in place, adding additional checks is the slippery slope of censorship and totalitarianism.

Jocks in shock as Irn-Bru set to slash sugar and girder content

Velv
Boffin

Re: How to be English in Three Easy Steps

“Post an article on an IT news website that has nothing to do with IT...”

Perhaps you never read about the Aye-Mac

Oi, force Microsoft to cough up emails on Irish servers to the Feds, US states urge Supremes

Velv
Headmaster

Re: Feral Criminality

If this was a money laundering or drug case they would get off their asses and get the locals involved

My understanding is that this is a drug case (“narcotics trafficking” to use the reported words). If I remember correctly the accused was outside the US (in Ireland), shipping substances into the US.

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

Velv
Childcatcher

Re: Caffeine high?

Never underestimate the bandwidth of sending the office gossip for the coffee every day...

Australian central bank says 'speculative mania' and crime fuel Bitcoin

Velv
Boffin

“electricity used in the process of mining the coins are staggering”

The electricity used in the process of mining NEW coins is staggering.

Mining new coins is like Quantative Easing (or printing money), adding new money into the economy. Bitcoin was deliberately designed with a throttle to maintain some control as the economy grew.

Auto auto fleets to dodge British potholes in future

Velv
Coat

Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.

Barclays bank bod in the cooler for aiding Dridex money launderers

Velv
Pirate

Re: I'd do 6 years porridge for £2.5M

Proceeds of Crime Act - you don’t get to keep it unless you’ve laundered it very very well. And if you got caught, you weren’t very very good at laundering.

Kentucky lawmaker pushes smut filter law (update: maybe not)

Velv
Boffin

When has technical feasibility ever worried politicians and lawmakers when they come out with their ideas to save the people?

Florida Man… pockets Uber cash to keep quiet about data breach

Velv
Velv

"wouldn't it be better to have a reformed company than a bunch of people out of work?"

Isn't one of their major claims that nobody works for Uber?

Lauri Love appeal: 'If he's dead, no victim's going to get anything'

Velv
Boffin

Re: Evidence is portable...

"The allegation is that a crime was committed in the UK, it's a criminal offence in the UK..."

The allegation is that a crime was committed on computers located in the USA. The laws of both jurisdictions have effect.

If a US citizen on the US side of the border shoots a US Citizen on the Mexican side of the border, where did the crime take place, USA or Mexico. One would hope it was considered a crime in both, but where should the trial take place. Could the shooter be convicted twice in two countries?

It is not as simple as "Case closed".

Scotland, now is your time… to launch Brexit Britain into SPAAAACE!

Velv
Coat

Re: Prestwick??

Can you imagine the sales pitch to top American businessmen*.

Launch from the US mainland in a suborbital craft and be on Turnberry in under an hour. Or Troon. A short helicopter ride to Muirfield, St Andrews, Carnoustie or one of a dozen other "top" courses.

*there may be some businesswomen who play golf, but let's face it, most of the top business wankers are men.

Royal Bank of Scotland website goes TITSUP*

Velv

Re: RBS?

“Fred Goodwin did it another way. He simply leveraged the bank to a stupid extent and then purchased a load of sub-prime (ABN AMRO). ”

Shows how little you know. RBS was not leveraged, it bought the sub-prime ABN-AMRO with 10Bn cash. The problem was then not having any “savings in the bank” when hard times hit.

If RBS had not bought ABN AMRO and Barclays had won the deal, when the crash hit Alistair Darling would have been asking Fred Goodwin to bail out Barclays in the same way he asked Lloyds to bail out Halifax Bank of Scotland. There would have been no under the table Qatari rescue of Barclays.

Chainmail tires re-invent the wheel to get future NASA rovers rolling

Velv
Coat

"Throw in the fact that it's not yet possible to send a spare wheel to Mars and have it fitted"

You can. You just call out The AA or the RAC. But I believe you need to be with your vehicle with your membership card to hand when they arrive. (adapted from Sheldon Cooper, The Big Bank Theory)

'Do the DevOps?' No thanks! Not until a 'blameless post-mortem' really is one

Velv
Coffee/keyboard

One problem I’ve encountered with “doing the DevOps” is that it is perceived as a new way to do IT. All of IT. Everything agile.

The article hints at it, it works really well for software development and release. Being agile delivering hardware is not so easy. You can be agile if you’ve delivered a capability to be that way, hardware sitting waiting to be used. And cloud can help. But in this austere world, who is really going to pay.

DevOps is NOT a panacea, a cure all. It is simply another tool in the box to potentially bring benefits. Done well, you save. Done badly, you go out of business.

Pastry in a manger: We're soz, Greggs man said

Velv
Mushroom

Christians getting upset at Greggs...

...while sticking a dead tree in their house and cover it with tinsel and lights, spend millions on "presents" for friends and relatives who already have more stuff than they need, all while eating and drinking themselves into several stupors. Because that's the true meaning of Christmas.

To those Christians who quietly go about observing their belief, I wish you good tidings. The rest of you hypocrites get the mockery you deserve.

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

Velv
Headmaster

There are a small number of people who enjoy medical attention.

For the vast majority the thought of any kind of medical procedure is depressing, a unpleasant necessity, something we need to do but would rather we didn't. Last hospital I visited didn't have the entertainment of cocktail service and a cabaret band, it was kind of focused on the serious job at hand.

Now Oracle stiffs its own sales reps to pocket their overtime, allegedly

Velv
Gimp

Re: Paid overtime...I wish

Unless you are the only person on the bottom rung of the ladder, why are you and your colleagues persisting the "culture".

If a substantial number of colleagues can highlight that working the hours of the big boss is NOT in the best interests of the company you'll have better engaged employees who'll probably do more work in less time.

A good boss will already know this and should be directing their management team to change the culture. A poor boss expects you to be there when they arrive and still be there when they leave. Or is the culture set by the mid-level staff who don't actually know what the big boss wants...

Mm, sacrilicious: Greggs advent calendar features sausage roll in a manger

Velv
Go

Re: Makes a change from chocolate

Gin - John Lewis.

Velv
Trollface

Don't worry. Godwin will be along shortly too

Shiver me timbers! 67cm Playmobil pirate ship sets sail for Caribbean

Velv
Pirate

Re: Nearly as good as the PARIS project...

I think your backronym should probably be on the ships name:

Aberdeen

Dread

Ventures

Ever

Nearer

Trinidad

Using

Radich

Excursion

Alexa, please cause the cops to raid my home

Velv
Pirate

Fortunately for him, Amazon has offered to pick up the 500 euro tab for Alexa's weekend party as a sign of goodwill. Although whether his neighbors will be as forgiving is yet to be seen.

Amazon has given the neighbours a free Alexa and Prime membership.

Revenge is a dish best served cold...

You know what's coming next: FBI is upset it can't get into Texas church gunman's smartphone

Velv
Boffin

Re: FBI can't unlock smartphone

"There is presumably a small logical difficulty in preventing violent killers in the military having guns"

He was disgracefully discharged from the Military, and as a matter of policy such people are meant to be added to the "no guns" list. Clearly the "no guns" list is an effective gun control...

Velv
Mushroom

"murder-suicide"

You what?

It was NOT a "murder-suicide".

This was pure out-and-out murder by a man who had access to guns.

He tried to get away, and may have died in the escape, possibly by his own hand, but lets not dress this up. It was another mass killing as a direct result of the free access to guns in the USA.

Frowns all round as Smile and Co-op online banking goes down

Velv
Trollface

Waiting for the obligatory "why don't they fail over to DR" commentards without anyone knowing the root cause of the issue

'Qualcomm, we will buy you... for... one HUNDRED... BILLION DOLLARS' – Broadcom

Velv
Pirate

Re: No way in hell

Really?

You seem to forget who is in the Whitehouse trying to remove regulation

Punctual as ever, Equifax starts snail-mailing affected Brits about mega-breach

Velv
FAIL

Re: Moved house?

Equifax are useless with addresses.

They cannot agree that I'm on the Electoral Roll since the Electoral Roll in Edinburgh doesn't use the Postcode Address File (it uses the Rates valuation scheme of old).

Experian and Callcredit both managed to put together all the records, Equifaxs response was "get your bank to change your address"

Health quango: Booze 'evidence' not Puritan enough, do us another

Velv

Re: Why can't academics simply tell the truth

Not just biting the hand that feeds you, the commissioning body would simply commission another report from someone else and your report would never see the light of day.

Velv
Big Brother

Can I just remind everyone that the current Secretary of State for Health is Jeremy Hunt.

Now that Public Health England have been caught red handed lying about the scientific evidence is he going to resign?

USB stick found in West London contained Heathrow security data

Velv
FAIL

"Hmm, I've found this USB stick, lets just plug it into my computer and see what is on it"

What a great untraceable way to start the spread of malware. Just leave some infected USB sticks lying around and wait for them to be plugged in

Healthcare insurance cheat-bot bros Zenefits cough up $1m to make SEC probe go away

Velv
Facepalm

Great, SEC making sure the shareholders are compensated.

Who’s compensating the policy holders who have potentially missold health cover?

Tells you everything you need to know about America.

Roaming charges drop smacks O2 daddy Telefonica in the profits

Velv

Re: Losing customers

OK, maybe I missed something in the email, but aren’t they removing the Tu Go app because the phones now have it native in the OS? I know the iPhone does, and I’m fairly sure more recent Androids do too.

Doesn’t help if you’re on an older device, but then I’m not aware of comparable Apps on other networks for WiFi calling either.

Julian Assange says Cambridge Analytica asked WikiLeaks for something

Velv
Flame

Re: Why the Assange hate on El Reg?

“I’m The Leader of the Gang (I am)” is a magnificent song, chant, anthem.

Doesn’t stop Gary Glitter being a completely obnoxious evil cunt.

Don’t cross the general good points of Wikileaks with the behaviour of Assange, one good deed does not make you a Saint.

Velv
Childcatcher

Please stop feeding the media whore by publishing non-articles like this

No, the FCC can't shut down TV stations just because Donald Trump is mad at the news

Velv
Devil

"(Anjit) Pai was made chairman of the FCC by Trump in January"

Anjit Pai was sacked as chairman of the FCC by Trump in October

'Open sesame'... Subaru key fobs vulnerable, says engineer

Velv
Boffin

Maybe I missed something here...

You can unlock the vehicle right? OK, so you can get at any possessions stored in the boot, glove box etc.

But this doesn't bypass the immobiliser? You still need the correct key in the ignition to start the thing?

Assange thanks USA for forcing him to invest in booming Bitcoin

Velv
Headmaster

Re: Paper profits only

You're making the assumption that anyone Wikileaks wants to pay won't accept Bitcoin. If they can spend the Bitcoin then they're not illiquid.

Concerns raised about privacy, GDPR as Lords peer over Data Protection Bill

Velv
Headmaster

Re: Confusing and unworkable

"You must delete personal data if you are no longer using it. You must not delete personal data if the subject will ever want to access it."

So I can't delete the data I'm no longer using in case the subject in the future wants to raise a Subject Access Request to see the data that was being held on them.

All seems a bit rushed and poorly written to me

'There has never been a right to absolute privacy' – US Deputy AG slams 'warrant-proof' crypto

Velv
Boffin

So if someone wants to get legal, technically there is no encryption available today that cannot be broken.

What there is however is strong encryption that makes the breaking sufficiently complex and expensive to make such a breaking impractical.

VPN logs helped unmask alleged 'net stalker, say feds

Velv
Big Brother

Re: Location, Location, Location

"Use a provider and a server based in a country that's not in the Five Eyes and you should be out of the reach of the FBI and their friends."

Oh how naive you are. You might be out of reach of the flat foot plod, but don't for one minute think you are out of reach of those who are above the law.

What is the probability of being drunk at work and also being tested? Let's find out! Correctly

Velv
Pint

Define "drunk" :)

Back in the early 90's a company I worked for had a policy. The actual wording was "you must not attend work drunk to the extent of being incapable". Left quite a lot of scope for a pint or three at lunchtime (and to be fair there was no risk of working with alcohol in the system other than not getting the work done).

It's a real FAQ to ex-EDS staffers: You'll do what with our pensions, DXC?

Velv
Flame

Public Sector Employees "UNDERPAID"

Next time someone from the public sector claims their salary is lower than those in the private sector, point them at this.

Yes, on the headline "salary" private sector does seem to be ahead. But once you remove this 40% pension contribution, suddenly the Public Sector looks like a vastly better deal. And the Public Sector pension scheme can't go bust like many private schemes have.

Twitter's 280-char blog mode can be enabled client-side. Just sayin'

Velv

Re: Never understood why ..

So make it unlimited characters.

Congratulations, you’ve just invented Facebook.

Gov contractor nicked on suspicion of Official Secrets Act breach

Velv
Big Brother

As Bernard Woolley put it about leaks from Ministers:

"That's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it? I give confidential security briefings. You leak. He has been charged under section 2a of the Official Secrets Act. "

Helium's for balloons and squeaky voices, not this 10TB Toshiba beast

Velv
Boffin

I love the MTTF figures that all the disk vendors come up with.

2,500,000 hours Mean Time To Failure - that's 104,166 days, or 285 years. Disk drives haven't even been around 85 years, never mind 285.

Now I understand there's some complex predictive statistics going on, but given my (and I'm guessing your) experience of many drives failing in under 5 years (and a substantial number do), then if the mean is 285 years then they are predicting more than half the drives will still be working after 285 years. BOLLOCKS!

Have MAC, will hack: iThings have trivial-to-exploit Wi-Fi bug

Velv
Coffee/keyboard

Re: iPhone 5

While I suspect you're right and no manufacturer will "support beyond 2 years", this is not a situation we the consumer should be simply accepting.

A smartphone is no longer just a bunch of cheap electronic components, it is an entire computing device costing several hundred pounds (or £1,000+ for some!).

We wouldn't accept Windows, Linux or MacOS being out of support after two years, so why should we accept it for iOS or Android (or any other that comes along). I can understand manufacturers having a warranty on the hardware of 1-2 years, but the OS as a soft item should be supported and upgraded for a realistic life. We're not talking about feature enhancements, we're talking security, and let's face it, in the vast majority of cases the core code will not have changed for the same security vulnerability over the years, so the fix will generally be known to the author.

Velv
Big Brother

Re: iOS 11 brings more issues

"For the best experience on your iOS device, try to keep Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on."

In other words, in order for us best to track your every movement in real time it's best if you keep Bluetooth and Wi-Fi turned on.

Chairman Zuck ends would-be president Zuck's political career

Velv
Childcatcher

YES, it matters which Puppet is in The Whitehouse.

Because Puppets are normally silent, voiced by someone allegedly with talent.

When the Puppet can talk for itself it shoots its mouth off and gets everyone in trouble.