Years ago I said I'll get a smartphone when it's basically a Psion with a phone attached.
Seems reality has finally aught up with my aspirations from 1996...
Posts by Zippy's Sausage Factory
766 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Mar 2008
How's this for a stocking filler next year? El Reg catches up with Gemini
This week in 'Bungles in the AWS S3 Privacy Jungles', we present Alteryx – and 123 million households exposed
Thursday 21st December 2017 12:43 GMT
Re: There's a hole in my bucket
They used to sing that song at my school and it used to drive me insane. Hated it.
I almost changed my mind a bit when I heard the Harry Belafonte version, recorded live. When he gets to the end there's just this delicious silence from the crowd awaiting the punchline.
I just decided I needed to listen to more concert recordings, really.
Telly boffin Professor Heinz Wolff has died
Murdoch's Fox empire is set to become a literal Mickey Mouse outfit
Thursday 14th December 2017 15:35 GMT
I suspect there are two reasons and it's a combination of the two.
First being that Murdoch came from a news background, news is what he knows and disrupting industries is something he has done in the past, so he sees a future in the changing news market and has an idea about how he can benefit from that change, and that idea requires money.
The second is that Disney already owns some news and sports networks (proper news, not like Fox*) and wouldn't be interested in the deal if they were included - ESPN is losing enough money thanks, and the possible antitrust implications of the news networks are also a no-no. Therefore if the news and sport were included, Disney wouldn't be interested.
* Before anyone trolls me, Fox were taken to court in 1994. Their defence was that unlike other news stations they are not obliged to tell the truth as they are under an "opinion" licence, not a "news" licence like CNN or MSNBC. They won. Therefore I feel completely justified calling Fox "the home of fake news", as they have admitted in court that they make things up and are legally entitled to do so.
Former ZX Spectrum reboot project man departs
US authorities issue strongly worded warnings about crypto-investments
Tuesday 12th December 2017 14:49 GMT
Re: Hidden meaning
Maybe the system is terrified of losing their money laundering monopoly ...... http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-11/hsbc-share-surge-us-doj-removes-sword-damocles-money-laundering .....
I miss the days when Zero Hedge had the mission of being an economics blog, instead of trying to make Breitbart look like the Socialist Worker...
Archive of 1.4 billion credentials in clear text found in dark web archive
Tuesday 12th December 2017 11:39 GMT 
It'd be nice if someone like HaveIBeenPwned would load this up and then tell you WHAT PASSWORD they had in that list. I can then use my password manager to find that password, plus I now know where the leak came from.
Oh wait, but then I might sue someone, and they might sue HIBP because - well, if your security got breached and nobody ever finds out, did it really happen? I mean, that's an approach that's working SO WELL for Uber right now...
So you're 'agile', huh? I do not think it means what you think it means
Monday 11th December 2017 11:02 GMT
Re: Agile
Indeed, I've seen maybe 2 or 3 projects that really do Agile correctly.
I came here to say mainly that, actually. Most of the development methodologies out there actually work if you follow them - some better than others, and most only in particular kinds of projects.
I've seen so many people who say "we use x metholodology" and then they don't. They say "ah well yes we improved it to match our corporate culture". No, no you didn't. You just decided to cherry pick the bits you like instead of using it. Kind of a bit like putting a racing car engine into a Lada. It'll work, but the results you get will be, shall we say, sub-optimal?
European Commission intervenes in Microsoft Irish data centre spat
OK Google: A stranger with stash of pirated films is spamming my Google Team Drive
NiceHash diced up by hackers, thousands of Bitcoin pilfered
Denied: Uber's request to skip to UK Supreme Court to appeal workers' rights
Tuesday 5th December 2017 12:47 GMT
Given that Uber are losing money hand over fist, the question is how long investors are going to want to keep supporting them. I'm guessing that the next financial crisis will produce a bit of a credit crunch and then pop, they're gone.
And let's face it, we all know there will be another financial crisis. There always is...
Brit bank Barclays' Kaspersky Lab diss: It's cyber balkanisation, hiss infosec bods
You're SAP-ing my will to live: Licensing debate lumbers on as ERP giant tries to rebuild trust
Crown Prosecution Service is coming for crooks' cryptocurrency
Thursday 30th November 2017 15:33 GMT
So what happens if they get a confiscation order for some bitcoin the day after they are sold to, let's say, a pension fund? Surely at that point they can't still confiscate the bitcoin as the pension fund would be out of pocket?
I don't have a point here, just wondering what would happen if they confiscated from an innocent third party who bought the cryptocurrency in good faith.
Samba needs two patches, unless you're happy for SMB servers to dance for evildoers
FCC boss Ajit Pai emits his net neutrality extermination plan
Thursday 23rd November 2017 00:35 GMT
"Repealing these regulations will create threaten jobs, increase competition charges, and lead to better, faster, cheaper Internet access bigger, fatter wallets for all Americans CEOs of Internet Service Providers," he said. "My view is that the Internet should be run by engineers and entrepreneurs, not lawyers and bureaucrats robber barons, not human beings."
FTFY
Permissionless data slurping: Why Google's latest bombshell matters
Microsoft says Win 8/10's weak randomisation is 'working as intended'
Wednesday 22nd November 2017 16:18 GMT 
I'm not sure I understand this...
There's a "full hardened" mode that you enable via a registry setting, but it might break stuff.
There's a "full hardened mode but only for processes they say they're OK with it" that's the default, and probably won't break most stuff.
Given that there's like a gazillion sheep Windows users, doesn't it make sense to not break stuff if possible? I mean let's face it, your average idiot corporate user doesn't care much about security, so long as they can run that silly joke problem they got from their mate down the pub some old finance application the company shelled out for when Windows 98 was an exciting new prospect...
Twitter's blue tick rule changes may lower the sueball barrier
Tuesday 21st November 2017 16:16 GMT
A more sensible policy, surely, would be to say that anyone who can prove that they are sufficiently fame-worthy, or that they have been impersonated on the site before, is eligible for the blue tick. And that the withdrawal of the same comes after, say, x number of upheld complaints in a certain time frame (say ten in six months), and that would merit a one-year ban from the tick and then a second strike would be permanent.
Level 5 driverless cars by 2021 can be done, say Brit industry folk
Tuesday 21st November 2017 16:13 GMT
I've said this before, but...
I reckon we're a single Fleet Street editor deciding there's papers to be sold before they launch a "BAN THESE KILLER CARS" campaign.
I mean, how much of the Daily Mail / Express / Telegraph readership are cab drivers/truckers - at least, in the opinion of the editors of the "news" papers anyway?
MPs draft bill to close loopholes used by 'sharing economy' employers
DNS resolver 9.9.9.9 will check requests against IBM threat database
Transparent algorithms? Here's why that's a bad idea, Google tells MPs
Tuesday 7th November 2017 10:47 GMT
Sounds like weasel words to me
Their analogy doesn't hold up, really - if I want to build my own microwave, or lightbulb, I can go get the patent documents or find a technical publication about it. This doesn't mean I'll have the technical capability to build a working one, but that doesn't mean I can't find out how it works.
They're essentially saying "look, it doesn't matter if you know how it works, so long as we do". That's a different thing altogether...
Evil pixels: Researcher demos data-theft over screen-share protocols
UK Home Sec thinks a Minority Report-style AI will prevent people posting bad things
Friday 10th November 2017 13:21 GMT 
I think it's very possible that Amber Rudd intends to waste a huge amount of taxpayers' money on artificial intelligence software that won't work. What really scares me is that based on recent legislation, the government tends to make things statutory offences* so that there can't be any defence against the charge when they really shouldn't, and I wonder if "being told you're going to do so by precog software" is going to be one of them... :(
* if that's the term - ones where there's no permissible defence, like the five years when they find a hun in your home or child porn on your laptop...
Microsoft touts real-time over-the-network pair programming in Visual Studio, GitHub ships it
Thursday 16th November 2017 11:00 GMT
This is old, well-documented MS behaviour:
1. competitor ships product
2. Microsoft announces they are working on the same, but more expensive and with "Microsoft" written on it
3. Easily impressed PHBs decide to wait for the Microsoft one because nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft and what's even better the MS salesman might give them a free pen or - if they get really lucky - a key chain
MPs slam HMRC's 'deeply worrying' lack of post-Brexit customs system
Tuesday 14th November 2017 12:40 GMT
Re: "I presume David Davis and his fellows will vanish post-Brexit, "
"I presume David Davis and his fellows will vanish post-Brexit, "
Which is actually pretty bad news as he seemed the only IT literate Conservative with an interest in protecting UK citizens privacy.
Until he got a ministers' job and then suddenly he couldn't distance himself from that cause fast enough, sadly.
BlackBerry Motion: The Phone That Won't Die
ARM emulator in a VM? Yup, done. Ready to roll, no config required
Uber loses appeal against UK employment rights for workers
Dumb autonomous cars can save more lives than brilliant ones
Wednesday 8th November 2017 16:23 GMT 
It doesn't matter
My theory is that the first time a crash involving an autonomous cars features on the evening TV news, the Daily Fail, Excess, Scar and all the other red tops will run "BAN THESE KILLER CARS" headlines. Circulation will spike on that day, so they'll think "aha, another cause".
Within two years, the government will cave, and ban driverless cars and computerised driving aids from British roads.
Punctual as ever, Equifax starts snail-mailing affected Brits about mega-breach
Google Drive ate our homework! Doc block blamed on code blunder
Wednesday 1st November 2017 10:38 GMT
Re: Vapourous clouds
No, it doesn't. It keeps it out of US jurisdiction. Even out of extravagantly claimed US jurisdiction.
Are you sure about that? Because I'm not...
Official: Perl the most hated programming language, say devs
Microsoft slowly closes Outlook Premium's door while Office 365 winks at you across the street
Tuesday 31st October 2017 14:40 GMT
Never bought Outlook premium. But I hate MS Office enough that that's made me a permanent non-customer of that nonsense. Same as it has for OneDrive.
No, I don't want Office 2016. Given how well it works at work, I have no desire to pay for software that is literally so bug ridden I've just wasted an entire morning to make a simple change because Excel is no longer a reliable work tool for me, thank you.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
