Posts by Pascal Monett

So, all this hoopla for an intern

Tell me, is it normal that a company supposedly working for several customers goes and posts its code on a public repository ?

This Cloud thing is driving people nuts. Yes, I can imagine that using GitHub is a great convenience, but for Pete's sake, you're writing sensitive code that is destined to do something for your customers !

Get that stuff off the Internet and back onto a private, secured server !

Is it the End of Days, or is Hell just quietly freezing over ?

NVidia is actually giving the Linux community (and others) a free door into its kernel code ?

What on Earth is happening ?

After many, many years of resistance, Borkzilla got the cancer, now NVidia is bowing down (albeit partially).

I hope this is a sign of things to come.

Team Rule Of Law ?

Oh, you mean except where Russia is concerned.

Because Team Rule Of Law has gleefully cut Russia off of everything they could that should have been guaranteed by the rule of law.

Trust the US to invent lofty terms to cover their actions under a veneer of respectability.

I'm not saying that Russia's invasion should have just been ignored, something had to be done (like respect a certain treaty some decades ago), but it's a bit rich to come in now spouting Team Rule Of Law.

If your Rule Of Law has whatever exception you want, it's no longer the Rule Of Law.

"the BIS called for the creation of consent systems that are user friendly"

Right, in other words, they are asking someone else to solve the problem.

I guess I'm glad that someone is looking into this, but if the BIS has any clout, shouldn't it be at the forefront of this effort (meaning putting money into it) ?

"If Starlink detects a dish isn't at its home address, there's no guarantee of service"

Why ?

What does it matter where the dish is ? There is a dish, with a paid subscription. You should be able to lob it on the roof of the car and drive around with it. The cubestats are moving at thousands of miles an hour anyway, a few more dozen shouldn't have any kind of impact.

"An account which can survive the disappearance of the server, or service, that it originated from"

Great idea. I have just one question : who is paying for the maintenance of the account ?

Whether you signed up for free or have a paid hosting account, this new idea supposes that BluSky is going to be dealing with the survivability of said account.

With what money ?

Because that's what it always boils down to.

How is BluSky going to fund maintaining all those free logins ? They are free, nobody is going to pay to maintain them.

I think BluSky is going into PieSky territory.

Remote Desktop Protocol

Top of the list of things I disable when dealing with a new machine.

I understand its use in a business environment, but installing that on Joe User machines is a crime in itself.

"abandoned IT assets"

I would think that the primary duty of a network admin is knowing exactly what is connected to the network and why.

Any router or switch should be accounted for, and any new connection (because a beancounter decided to bring in a new router without asking) should be logged and analyzed to find out where it is and why it's there.

All changes to the network should be documented and a clear overview of the global situation should always be available.

It's not rocket science.

"That counts for something"

Yeah. Google will get a nice gold star for the effort.

Meanwhile, I will continue to avoid using Chrome for anything but my gmail, and using Firefox+NoScript+uBlock Origin for my general surfing needs.

Ads ? They're useless, privacy-invading AND a security menace.

The "Law of No Evidence"

"Law of No Evidence: Any claim that there is 'no evidence' of something is evidence of bullshit"

That seems to be pushing it a bit in my view. If I am suddenly convinced that the disappearance of my sunglasses means that my house has been broken into, but find no broken window, no scratch marks on my front/back door keyhole and no muddy footprints anywhere, then there is no evidence that my house was broken into.

So it's just me forgetting where I put the bloody things.

No evidence is evidence that either you have to look harder, or you have to look elsewhere.

by the end of 2023

Well that's a cool 19 months away.

Couldn't they make it optional a wee bit sooner ?

"a supersonic ballet"

Somehow I doubt that recovering a rocket booster with a helicopter is going to prove economically viable.

There is no guarantee of recovery, and if the operation misses, the booster is gone and you have spent not insignificant amounts of money on a helicopter for nothing.

Given that there is no way of ensuring success, what is basically needed is to know how many failures they can sustain before going under.

"it licenses designs of the kit it sells and therefore owes royalties"

It licenses designs to an entity that is part of the global corporate structure - therefor it is an internal issue and not something that should avoid tax.

If tax laws were capable of dealing with that, then the loophole would be closed.

The fact that every multinational does it, everyone knows it and no country has done anything about it is a clear sign that there is something wrong with taxation laws.

I don't need fenced frames

I use NoScript

I applaud the spirit of this article

I am totally in agreement with the idea that privacy protection needs to become a branch of Science and treated in the same open and sharing way.

As much as I like the idea, I will not, however, buy an Alexa, or stop using NoScript and uBlock Origin and thus, I will not participate in giving "the enemy" data just so I can find out how they use it.

I prefer the concept of castle walls and drawbridges. I just hope "the enemy" is not in the process of creating the cannon.