Posts by Andy The Hat 1842 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Oct 2010
"don't strip leading zeros from stock numbers "
Sorry, I'm sure all modern users are aware of the stupidly obvious Lotus 1-2-3 formatting command sequence - user realises what has happened, user swears, user edits number with leading apostrophe - to prevent this? I can't believe I still have to routinely use that 'technique' ...
In the late 80's one of my first newbie tasks was to move a database off a Harris mini onto a PC and I used a simple DOS-based flat file database application that was easy to set up, could search by example, generate standard or custom reports with a few keystrokes, export data etc. Worked absolutely fine and ran off a floppy! That system worked really well for years until some IT department big-wig decided it needed migrating onto Access at which point complexity and lack of usability killed it totally for the users. After a while it got migrated onto Excel where, to be honest, it was horrible and difficult but it worked *for the people that needed it*.
If I want to do the same initial migration now the words to be spoken will probably include "Access", "SQL" and "Oracle", "cloud", "hardware upgrade", "internet stability" ... And, when the punter is scared enough of the prices, horrendous learning curve, cost of books and cost of courses and realises 90% of their investment is actually for useless software components because all they want is a simple flat file database that's easy for non-IT geeks to drive, they'll end up using Excel (probably badly) as there's bugger all else and they 'know' it ...
Perhaps, for the average punter, we need to take a step back to the database past and simplify so the punter has an alternative to Excel? But just think of the money we'd lose if people could actually do what they wanted to *well* with minimal input from consultants, support desks, training courses, books ...
The Judge is patently wrong as US companies never brazenly rip off IP or take part in any sort of industrial espionage, no no, no arguments.
( Better just check whether Cisco had any dealings with the pesky Chinese in the last fifty years so we can blame any issues on state coercion ... )
"The disruption occurred, Microsoft says, because a bug in its Azure AD's Safe Deployment Process rendered it unsafe: the safeguard pushed through a crash-inducing update into production, bypassing the usual verification process, and ultimately broke AD."
I have no idea what this says. Can somebody translate it into English please?
My take is that an update was applied which shouldn't have because it was buggy enough to ultimately take down the system *and* it was applied by protection software which was bug ridden enough to do exactly the opposite of what it was supposed to do ... or have I got the wrong end of a very sticky stick?
I assume the ICO are investigating this but is it doing so as a 'simple' breach of EU law (GDPR) by a European entity (Blackbaud UK) or under Privacy Shield/Safe Harbour (or whatever was in force at the time) if the data was held in the US by the parent company or is it planning to hit the easier and more finacially lucrative targets which are the numerous charities, education establishments and universities which had their data breached?
I tried searching the ICO site for any reference but had no success ...
"...anything other than simple RGB connection will give a worse picture or lag or both..."
Not sure I believe that ... look at some Freeview transmissions and you'll discover that it's a physical impossiblity to degrade the picture further and not refer to it as noise ... though, come to think of it, that's true for some of the HD soap/reality/selfpublicising twaddle laughingly referred to as "entertainment programming" for which the SNR can be significantly improved using semi-power-cycle technology.
So if I was a drug dealer running a county lines system and I said "sorry officer I've just got to delete my drug-dealing phones because I'm concerned that my friendship with an alleged murder may be seen by the authorities", that would be ok too?
When you hear stories like this they almost smell of something nasty in the system ...
KRYTEN: Uh-oh, a door. We'd better use an air vent.
LISTER: No need.
KRYTEN: Sir?
LISTER: Look, I'm gonna do something now, Kryten, that's totally, totally
gross. I don't want you to look. Turn around.
KRYTEN: What?
LISTER: Trust me, you don't wanna know!
...
KRYTEN: Logically, sir, there is only one way you could have possibly
have opened that door. I feel quite nauseous. Where is it?
LISTER: Where's what?
KRYTEN: Oh, sir!! You've got it in your jacket!!
LISTER: I got us out of the hold, didn't I?
KRYTEN: Sir, you are sick! You are a sick, sick person! How can you
possibly even conceive of such an idea?
LISTER: Cheer up! Or I'll beat you to death with the wet end!
KRYTEN: Sir, if mechanoids could barf, I'd be onto my fifth bag by now.
You're a sick person! Sick! Sick!
The question arises - Google are fully aware they will lose and challenge based on the IE/NN case, so what are they doing differently to cover their arses? Or are they just making so much money that the fine at the end will be tiny compared to the extra income generated while the case is rolling on?
"If his repeated bankruptcies had happened here, it is more than likely that he'd have been banned from holding any directorships long ago."
In his own words "Bankruptcy has been good for me". In much of the world, "fraud" and "misappropriation" and "embezzelement" and "corruption" may be used. However in the US the rich, especially the super rich, apparently use a different dictionary.
The difference here is if Lloyds had a £130m heist there would be public screaming going on, coppers and the FSC running everywhere and the potential of some prison sentences for the purpotrators, those who were responsible for letting them in and (usually) the management who will take a hit (or promotion!) When it happens to a BC repository/exchange/moneypit there are a few very people rich people wimpering in the corner whilst having their bods looking for some recently rich people's testicles to nail to a wall. At best an IT geek may design some kind of sticking-plaster patch to not let the naughty boys and girls do it again and otherwise things will continue as normal ... until next time.
This was obviously a built in design flaw to allow back door access by the anti-US Chinese state snoops to gain cont...
<puts finger to earpiece ...>
err what?
Microsoft are American?
Are you sure?
Ehem. Thankyou for coming everyone. It was a simple programming error. What silly billies they are! Nothing to see here ...
"£160m (over a one-off 16-month period) but pre-tax profits of just £86,000. "
With auditing successes like that on his c.v., surely he is entitled to a Non-executive not-responsible Finance director's job in charge of "The Laundry" at Amazon ... or is he still not good enough?
It's called "capitalism" and has nothing to do with common sense, workers or public anything and everything to do with someone's perception of cash value ... Sell it and make loads of money today on one side, keep it and make smaller amounts of money for much longer but with more risk tomorrow on the other - where's the pendulum of cash likely to swing?
The issue was that it was sold to foreign investors in the first place but, for whatever reason, that's the way the UK Government apparently like things to be.
I was one of those subscribers ... very sad to see the email address disappear but that's at the whim of multinational organisations.
<Vodafone email> Reminder: Your Demon email will stop working.
Me on very protracted chatbot call: Hello Vodafone, I have an email to tell me that my Demon email will stop working.
Bugger, being a crappy Techbot it does not work in any sensible way shape or form.
Eventually, and many digital exasperation later ...
Digi Tech: I understand your problem. Hello, are you on wi-fi at the moment?
Me: err yes. Why?
Tech: Can you open a browser window and sign into the router please. 192.168 ...
Me: Why?
Tech: So I can help you with your problem.
Me: Why? My Demon domain is being stopped. What's that got to do with my router?
Tech: It's to help you keep your email working. If you can just access 192.168 ...
Me: How is signing into my router going to help? (I neglected to mention I was in lockdown away from home so it wasn't even my service ...)
Tech: We've got to change DNS settings to keep your email working ...
Me: Why? What has that got to do with my email domain being withdrawn?
Tech: If you can just sign in to ...
Me: Why? What's that got to do with my Demon email being stopped?
Tech: <no response>
At this point I suspended things and lodged a formal complaint that I felt I was being scammed by an official Vodaphone "tech" trying to gain access to my system. After a month Vodafone denied it was a problem and called it 'a misunderstanding'.
Time passes ...
<Vodafone email arrives> We can extend your licence for two months until dd/mm/yyyy. Aren't we just fab? Do you want us to?
As it happens, the domain expiry date was that date and was fully paid up so I had already penned a draft "Give me my money back and compensate me for withdrawing the use of my domain early you gits" letter. I guess someone had realised the cock-up so the draft email was filed as almost the last entry in my Demon mailbox ... sad end to nearly three decades of use ...
Many thumbs up for Demon - thumbs down in as many ways as possible for Vodafone.
I know it's barely concievable but try to imagine a company writing a security-hole filled application, running on a buggy Microsoft Operating system, on an i386 platform managed by Intel firmware. Who would even consider writing the phrase "Intel responsible for security holes ..." in such a case? This story is the Trumpophile/xenophobe's equivalent ...
Pick your vendor and show me an intentional vulnerability ...
There will be the odd state sponsor involved somewhere but I'd wager 99.9% of all vulnerabilities are down to mistakes but the conspiracy theorists will never accept 'mistakes' as they believe anyone who suggests such a thing is obviously in league with the state sponsor ...
Given it's basically a dumb terminal, a UK based person uploads data then there should be some privacy agreement in place between the countries involved (eg the not-at-all-Safe Harbour) for the data involved. However if the user creates new data on a remote cloud computer (a commercial product design for instance), do the same international data agreements apply or the privacy laws of the host country(s) in which the data was actually produced and stored?
"There are also two voting caps in an effort to make voting more equitable: no one member can cast more votes than three per cent of the total votes cast in board elections, and 10 per cent when it comes to voting on other business. And there is preferential voting in which candidates for board seats are knocked out in different voting rounds."
It's easy and obviously based on the equally easy
"will those of you who are playing in the match this afternoon move your clothes down onto the lower peg immediately after lunch, before you write your letter home, if you're not getting your hair cut, unless you've got a younger brother who is going out this weekend as the guest of another boy, in which case, collect his note before lunch, put it in your letter after you've had your hair cut, and make sure he moves your clothes down onto the lower peg for you."
As per the story - this appears to be a violation of Apple's Configuration Trademark which makes siexure a reasonable course of action.
In the US you can register your product with CBP with respect to its design - so if it resembles an earbud, even if it's printed with a dayglo blue logo sayning "not produced by any fruity company" it could still be in violation of Apple's Configuration Trademark.
"This of course assumes that the identity provider itself, whether facebook, apple or google, in not hacked, dodgy or incompetent."
Which was basically my point. Person A grabs my FB signin (though we all know that FB accounts are never ever hacked ...) and away the naughty person goes ... Instead of having access to one site they've now got credentials for 10 or 20 ...
How does
"Never reuse passwords"
square with
"It can be more secure to use one or two identity providers run by top technology companies, rather than using separate logins for every internet service"?
Just getting ready to use my Facebook password to log into my bank account ...
"This case exposed one of the ways that Chinese intelligence officers work to collect classified information from the United States without having to step foot in this country,"
Or, in plain English, a paid agent nicks it from WITHIN THE COUNTRY, passes it to a paid courier WITHIN THE USA who manually transports it to China ... the only bit that's 'without having to step foot in this country' being the final delivery. Isn't that chain similar to the way every case of espionage works?
Obviously the CIA don't do that as they always set foot in a foreign country and directly send their spying results to HQ (probably after opening channel d) and would never employ local agents and dead drops to do naughty stuff for them ...
Oh dear. Another example of not knowing the difference between a "civvie SUV" and military Wolfs. Or the difference between an armoured vehicle and a rapid response vehicle. What the military *should* have been buying is up to the military specification procedures.
"... a suicidal person died before police found them, ... IPCO said after investigating it had "notified the affected person of the fact of the serious error," "
Does the ICPO actually own a Ouija board? Ok so that's a bad joke but did the IPCO investigate itself after this travesty and if not, why not?
"Can-berra"
... hissss ...
"Come in Can-berra"
... hissss ...
Dum dum dum ...
*_click_* "Apologies Voyager 2. Your call is important to us and will be dealt with as soon as possible in line with normal GP appointment sheduling guidelines. You are currently NUMBER 1 in the queue ...If you wish to hold your call may be answered by a receptionist between 8 and 8.30am next February ... If your circuits have suffered a hiccup, please try rebooting. Returning for a service due to any sort of cough is right out ..."
"Virtually" ... except I also have a fixed phone as the DECT devices obviously fail when there's a power cut and, as has already been said, emergency contact systems, burglar alarms, the extension into the shed because the DECT phone signal doesn't reach ...
At present I would assume that Openretch will be fitting new cabinet/premise lines and terminators as required for free ... unless of course it falls under the current 'Full fibre' meaning "fibre somewhere in the network" ruling, and the new "fully digital" system means "analogue copper to the premises" which would of course save a lot of money ...
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
