* Posts by TheVogon

3511 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Jan 2013

AWS goes live with Windows containers... but contain yourselves: It's going to be niche

TheVogon

Re: Windows containers

Ok so plus 24MB for the .NET core runtime install or plus 80MB for the full .NET framework.

TheVogon

Re: Windows containers

A Windows Nano server Docker container is 232MB

Judge slaps down Meg Whitman for accusing Autonomy boss of being a 'fraudster who committed fraud'

TheVogon

Of course not performing proper due diligence before a multi billion pound purchase is just negligence rather than fraud....

There's a reason why my cat doesn't need two-factor authentication

TheVogon

"I end up having to race around the neighbourhood hunting for all-night petrol stations that can sell me eight AAs."

Order Lithium AAs from Amazon. Last way longer.

Someone slipped a vuln into crypto-wallets via an NPM package. Then someone else siphoned off $13m in coins to protect it from thieves

TheVogon

Re: Surely...

Unauthorised taking of something and depriving the owner of it is theft. Just like stealing money from a bank account. Pretty sure most legal systems would already cope with that. Failing that its unauthorised access to a computer.

TheVogon

Re: Surely...

Money only has value because we all agree it has. The gold standard is long gone.

Like using the latest version of Microsoft Office? Love Offline Files? Not for long!

TheVogon

Re: Did anybody find offline files reliable?

No you don't. Onedrive can cache all files including from fileservers and SharePoint. See for instance https://redmondmag.com/articles/2018/04/27/onedrive-for-remote-file-access.aspx?m=1

TheVogon

Re: Too many cooks

Office upload centre is needed for collaborative editing only. And yes it's veeeeerrrry slow with large documents.

If you don't need to edit documents at the same time as other users, remove the tick box from "Use Office to sync your files" in the Office Upload Centre system tray app and it will save files and sync many times faster.

TheVogon

Re: Sup with the devil...

"The workaround is to not use Office to open the file, or to stay connected. Or update to Work Folders or One Drive for Business."

Or testing updates before you deploy them.

Court drama: Did Oracle bully its customers into the cloud? Nine insiders to blow the whistle

TheVogon

Re: Do you HAVE to use Oracle?

"and it would be too much trouble to migrate to something else."

SQL Server AAG can replace even Oracle RAC server. And its often relatively easy to migrate compared to most other options.

Everywhere I have worked in the last decade I have set Oracle to disinvest if it wasn't already. Horrible company, with horribly complex and insecure products.

We ain't afraid of no 'ghost user': Infosec world tells GCHQ to GTFO over privacy-busting proposals

TheVogon

Re: "...for example to stop terrorists..."

Oh well, they were outnumbered by the pro Brexit voters again in the EU election. They can go cry in a corner somewhere.

No Huawei out: Prez Trump's game of chicken with China has serious consequences

TheVogon

Re: Collateral Damage

"In previous times, this damage was US aircraft taking out our vehicles. their soldiers trying to shoot ours and so on."

As my father said to me:

When the English shot, the Germans ducked.

When the Germans shot, the English ducked.

When the Americans shot, everybody ducked.

TheVogon

Re: Huawei forward

"Temporarily. Rare earth metals aren't rare."

Some of them are. And China supplies ~90% of current requirements. It would take years to bring alternative sources on stream.

TheVogon

Re: Huawei forward

"Prez Trump's game of chicken with China has serious consequences"

Quite - China are apparently going to ban the export of rare earth metals to the US in retaliation. That will screw loads of US interests.

EE switches on 5G: Oi, where are your Mates? Yes, we mean the Huawei phones

TheVogon

Re: Bit of a crap deal

"But, but you'll be able to download a movie in "seconds"!"

And more importantly, be able to real-time stream multi-angle 8K porn with an Atmos soundtrack!

Office 365 user security practices are woeful, yet it's still 'Microsoft's fault' when an org is breached

TheVogon

Re: MFA

"On the other end allowing them on non-company phones may be a security issue."

Why? MFA software can be on any mobile device. The underlying hardware source is not relevant.

TheVogon

Re: Security Polices Set by Microsoft

That's well documented, by design and expected behaviour. Which is easy to change if needed. Not Microsoft's fault if you don't RTFM!

TheVogon

Re: When Does Technology Become A Burden Instead of A Benefit?

Well on premise to Azure AD / O365 and Azure AD to on premises both fully support single sign-on so if you do have to authenticate multiple times, then ask your IT department why.

TheVogon

Re: Good-byee!

"So nothing is secure, and up to date corporate expertise is either nil or thin, and probably eroding monthly."

Who says nothing is secure? It's pretty easy to lock down O365. If one guy is managing the requirements of 4,000 users (quite possible if you automate leavers / joiners) then this would suggest that he is pretty well trained. And if he leaves tomorrow, because O365 is a completely standardised solution you could have a replacement contractor up and running in a day or two.

TheVogon

Re: MFA

"If Microsoft's MFA was vaguely sensibly granular, and worked with cheap(ish) fobs or smart cards then it would be a help."

Microsoft MFA works as a free application on your mobile device. No need for $$ fobs and smartcards.

"Enforce MFA for using a workstation within the corporate network? Not so much? "

Yes it will - you authenticate against Azure AD and use single sign-on to on premises resources.

"Enforce MFA to allow a user's email application to connect to email on their mobile phone? Erm, this is getting awkward"

No it isn't - Microsoft MFA does that out of the box.

TheVogon

"Being able to set user application admin parameters on an application you do not install and monitor, running on a box you do not control, in a security domain yoiu do not control does not mean you control it... it means you can request that various things happen."

You do install OneDrive, you centrally control all policies, it is on operating systems that you control, and on client devices that you control. Otherwise it wont work - unless you want it to work in those circumstance. And even then you can still control BYOD systems via Intune policies, etc. that will be required as part of logging into OneDrive.

TheVogon

Re: Yet another bit of blackmail

"ODF support? Yes, the trolls tell you that Microsoft's support for ODF is "the best" - reality begs to differ. MS Exchange and Outlook still do not speak carddav and caldav"

Those are not part of ODF.

Why would Microsoft care when the native MAPI / ActiveSync solutions are way better and pretty much everyone uses Exchange. There are third party plugins if you need this.

TheVogon

"taking a potentially sensitive document out of corporate control "

OneDrive is not out of corporate control. It can be fully locked down and you can apply DLP policies, backup policies, etc.

"Is it possible to granularly restrict such data leak services"

Yes. As even a basic knowledge of O365 would tell you.

TheVogon

Re: Security Polices Set by Microsoft

"Cost is another problem. Want Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), for example? This service checks email attachments and links for malware, blocks malicious files in SharePoint online, and attempts to detect phishing attacks."

Exchange Online Anti-Malware also does that for free. Office 365 ATP proactively screens for unknown and evolving threats in real time by “detonating” potential carriers (email attachments, embedded URLs, files linked to malicious websites, etc.) in a secure, sandbox environment.

Wanted: Big iron geeks to help restore IBM 360 mainframe rescued from defunct German factory by other big iron geeks

TheVogon

But why would you want to? A mobile phone could outperform this many times over.

Tesla driver killed after smashing into truck had just enabled Autopilot – US crash watchdog

TheVogon

"[X] Expecting that since the bloody car is advertised as autononous that it can at least drive itself."

Teslas are advertised as getting autonomous driving features in the future by a software update. Autopilot is not that.

Giga-hurts radio: Terrorists build Wi-Fi bombs to dodge cops' cellphone jammers

TheVogon

Re: Elections???

"Would this be the election in which 270 humans died, literally *died*, because they were counting votes until they died?"

Seeing as there were over 7 million election workers and that the elections and counting were a lengthy process there is nothing here to prove that wasn't due to natural causes?

TheVogon

Re: WiFi Routers can be anywhere; cell towers are generally in fixed locations

"Just initiate an EMP of the area & wipe out all electronics."

And the voltage surge would trigger any bombs too!

TheVogon

Re: RDS anyone?

Way more complex to engineer though and RDS encoders are not cheap.

TheVogon

Re: Diretional antenna

Police don't rely on mobile phones.

You're on a Huawei to Hell, China tells US: We'll fight import tariffs, trade war to bitter end

TheVogon

Re: Fart

"The problem is that Trump is doing the right thing in the wrong way"

How else would you do it? The Chinese wont care about polite requests,

Your FREE end-of-the-world guide: What happens when a sun like ours runs out of fuel

TheVogon

Re: Perhaps

"Theresa May will still be clinging-on as Prime Minister"

Only because everyone knows that the alternative of Corbyn is much worse.

Tangled in .NET: Will 5.0 really unify Microsoft's development stack?

TheVogon

Re: With apologies to Tolkein

" the runtime used makes little difference"

I call bollocks. The .Net runtime just works, is fully backwards compatible and there are only 2 versions to install (3.5 or 4.7+) that cover all other versions.

With Java there are dozens of versions that sometimes have to coexist - which are commonly not backwards compatible. And you can only have ONE set as the browser default version! Not to mention a couple of orders of magnitude more security holes and generally inferior performance. Its a sucky mess in comparison.

Microsoft emits free remote-desktop security patches for WinXP to Server 2008 to avoid another WannaCry

TheVogon

Re: Avoiding worse PR

"These updates are available from the Microsoft Update Catalog only. "

So no automatic Windows Updates. About 1% of users are going to install this before it's too late...

Let's check in with our friends in England and, oh good, bloke fined after hiding face from police mug-recog cam

TheVogon

Re: What the heck

In other words he probably acted like a twat when they stopped him for acting suspiciously. He is perfectly within his rights to not want to be scanned - and the police are also perfectly within their rights to find that suspicious and to check him out.

The Year Of Linux On The Desktop – at last! Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 brings the Linux kernel into Windows

TheVogon

Re: MS SOP: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

"how is MS extinguishing "Linux on Desktop"? "

Well in most corporations there are relatively few users of Linux on the desktop - primarily developers and niche requirements. And maintaining those often dual systems for a subset of users is expensive both in using extra hardware / infrastructure and in having to support, maintain and patch 2 entirely different OSs.

Now corporates are instead deploying WSL under Windows 10 and binning that parallel world. Happy bean counters. And in my experience mostly happy Linux users because it makes their life easier too.

So you will now commonly not get the seed Linux environments that could potentially be pilots for wider Linux desktop usage cases. Chicken dinner for Microsoft.

TheVogon

Re: I looked at the MS link provided

If that's going to happen and it probably already has, it doesn't need Microsoft:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/15/openbsd_backdoor_claim/

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/06/nsa_cryptobreaking_bullrun_analysis/

etc. etc.

Home Office cops an earful for emergency network feck-ups - £3bn overbudget and 3 years late

TheVogon

If they paid market rate salaries in the first place, they wouldn't need all the expensive contractors.

The problem is that the government seems to think that pressing a button on a Tube Train is worth more than years of education and technology training and experience.

I'll, er, get the tab? It's Internet Edgeplorer as browser pulls up chair to the Chromium table

TheVogon

"Its laugh they spent all these years trying to lock in customers to IE only to be bit by an inablity to change years later."

Not really - it means that corporates use Edge instead of Chrome as Chrome cant handle these legacy sites whereas Edge can automatically launch them in IE.

Zavvi tells customers: You've won VIP tickets to Champions League final! And you've won tickets, and you've won tickets, and you, and...

TheVogon

I bet quite a few of those Liverpool fans blew the weeks disability allowance before realising it was a mistake!

Autonomy's one-time US sales chief can't remember if he took part in grand jury hearing

TheVogon

Re: Stereotypes

"I doubt it will ever get to the entertainment value of Judge Wright's handling of Prenda Law"

Oh it gets way better over here. Try for starters "I refer you to the answer given in the case of Arkell vs Pressdram."

TheVogon

Re: British Judges ...

"It's all about getting the Right Judge. Which in turn means getting the Right Lawyers, to fix it up for you.

Harder if the other side is also sufficiently well-lawyered, which I guess must be what you meant."

That's how it works in the colonies, not in Great Britain. Whilst you can certainly Lawyer-up in the UK, being rich doesn't otherwise influence the judicial process. Hence why lots of say Russian and other international business disputes are heard in GB.

Eggheads confirm it's not a bug – the universe really is expanding 9% faster than expected

TheVogon

Re: Evolution of the Hubble Constant

Germany are not planning to switch back to Nuclear as far as I know. And why would they when new solar and wind is cheaper per KWh including balancing costs?

TheVogon

Re: Problems, problems

"Therefore in water with Cherenkov radiation the electrons are traveling faster than the speed of light."

No they are not.

"Compare high speed electrons from a reactor in free space to light in a vacuum chamber on the surface of the earth. The free space electrons will be faster."

No, no they wont. They both travel at a maximum of ~ 300,000 km/s

TheVogon

Re: Problems, problems

"not faster than the speed of light in a vacuum but faster than the speed of light on water"

So not faster than the speed of light then.

TheVogon

Re: Evolution of the Hubble Constant

Yews it does count the full carbon impact of both vehicle types. Electric cars are lower CO2 over any appreciable mileage / lifetime.

Thanks to AGW there is no acceptable option to be using fossil fuel vehicles in the near future.

TheVogon

Re: Problems, problems

There is no such thing as the "fabric" of space. It's energy or matter than is expanding. Hence Einstein's laws apply.

Huawei, Huawei. Huawei, Huawei. Feeling hot, hot, hot: US threatens to cut UK from intel sharing over Chinese tech giant

TheVogon

Re: Quite right too.

How is Britain going to change continent? That's an awful lot of land to move.

TheVogon

Re: @AC ... The real reasons

"There is a real reason why the US is doing this."

So you have to buy US manufacturer kit with NSA preinstalled backdoors in it of course.