Posts by Pascal Monett

iFrames

Is it time to remove that from the browser toolbox, or do iframes have a legitimate use that we can't do without ?

Because there's a lot of miscreants using iframes for their nefarious purposes.

"Of course the US itself has form"

Yeah, and the NSA being abysmally stupid enough to get itself hacked means that said Russian hackers are probably gloating that they're using US tools against US targets.

Well done, NSA, you have single-handedly upped the ante worldwide with your stupidity.

Counterfeit chips

It beggars belief that someone would actually try this. I mean, sure, a counterfeit luxury purse is still a purse, but a counterfeit processor ? How do you justify that ?

You can't just go sell an 8086 and brand it a Pentium. A counterfeit luxury purse can look as good as the original, but a counterfeit chip is going to be found out real quick.

These guys must be happy to sell just once to each customer, because I'd never buy from them twice.

What this really means

It means that, from now on, it's going to be a lot harder to find excuses to work with China and not seem lika a hypocrite.

Oh, silly me, I forgot the main excuse : China makes 90% of what we buy.

"Google has revealed a shift of policy" . .

that means that it has finally understood that if it didn't allow 3rd-party payment systems it was in for global blizzard of lawsuits.

Good.

Too bad that it probably won't be bringing its sale share down to the 5% where it belongs. Yet.

"sources finger Capita-run system"

Honestly, with so many failures on its CV, how the Hell is it that Capita continues to get contracts ?

Who's is whose cousin in the upper spheres ? Or is it somebody's wife's son ?

Because there is absolutely no financial, professional or reputational reason to choose Capita. With its history of delays, overcost and underdelivering, it simply boggles the mind that it keeps getting new contracts - that it regularly fails at.

"due to the cryptocurrency's current price fluctuations"

Current ?

I don't know if you're aware, but BitCoin's price has never stopped fluctuating (wildly).

It's only because it is the funny money granddaddy that it has attained such heights. As usual, the first into the pyramid scheme reapes the most rewards.

Adopting BitCoin as legal tender. I don't think that will last all that long. Then again, it's El Salvador, so they can go ruin what's left of their economy, it won't be a big problem on the world scale.

It will be a problem for the poor in El Salvador, though.

Even though I disagree on his pronounciation

I will gladly salute his achievement.

Let us not let his mistaken opinion be a reason to not acknowledge that he did indeed bring a lot of good things into this world.

"you can still have that overarching governance and control"

Of course you can have proper project management, just like you can design an Access database correctly.

The only problem is that, when you put design tools in the hands of Joe Anybody, you get a project coded by anybody. From my experience, that mostly means a collection of Excel spreadsheets with buttons calling VBA code that nobody knows what it does because the guy who coded it left the company, there is no documentation, cryptic information popups and basically everyone is praying every day that the whole hairball keeps working.

So you go ahead and put process design tools in the hands of people who don't know how to code. I will be chortling quietly when reading about how your customers are frustrated because they can't make anything work properly.

Yeah, well when you'll stop paying them ransom money, they'll stop attacking you for money.

Of course, that doesn't mean that they'll stop attacking you.

"Beijing simply will not tolerate substantial COVID-19 outbreaks"

And what is Beijing's policy on the flu ?

Enough of this madness already. Omicron is very contagious, but not dangerous. Let everybody get it and get over it.

Hang on a minute

"Online services like fraud analysis or threat intelligence are some of the areas that are expected to become increasingly powered by AI, and these capabilities were already previously handled by software"

And they will continue to be. Just slapping AI on the process doesn't make it AI. Fraud analysis is not entirely easy, but if you think that a statistical analysis machine is going to erase fraud I have a bridge to sell you.

I have had a training course in detecting fraudulent activity, mandated by one of the clients I work for. It is . . . complicated. I'm not convinced that an "AI" is going to do any better than what is in place at the moment.

But hey, banks have money. If they want to waste it on this, good for anyone who gets the deal.

Nothing new here

It's been a while that CPUs have been designed by programs.

The only difference is that now, said program is being called "AI", so it's newsworthy.

"no modernization without informatization"

And no informatization without Xi watching over all of it.

No thank you.

We now have smartphones with lasers

That is an interesting development. It is also genuinely a technical achievement.

I suppose it doesn't help battery life, though.

750,000 unsolicited marketing calls

And that makes for only a £405,000 fine ?

It should be a £750,000 fine at the very least, with bankruptcy guaranteeing you'll never be a manager of a company in the UK again.

Come on, guys, it's high time you started fixing that shit.

"Drivers should be compensated [..] from the moment they log on and off the app"

As much as I sympathize with Uber drivers, being paid simply because you're logged on is an open invitation to being paid for nothing.

I hate Uber and its managers with a passion, but no, this is not acceptable. You get paid for your work, not for being logged on.

"After all, people who pay one ransom can often be persuaded to pay another"

And that is why the USA has made it a crime to pay kidnapping money. It worked.

It must be made illegal to pay ransomware scum. Don't pay them and the well dries out, they stop and everyone is better off.

Insurance companies must abolish their policies on this.

Companies need to train their staff and have (better) backup procedures in place.

If you don't do it for yourself, do it for your country.

"Skywater Technology's 130nm process"

That is not a "not advanced" technology, that is dinosaur technology these days.

I'm wondering if it wouldn't be cheaper and more efficient to purchase a low-end Intel or AMD chip and program that. Even a 14nm general design would almost certainly be faster than a dedicated 130nm design, and more energy-efficient.

Of course, not if you're using Windows on it . . .

One day

One day, people are going to have to learn to stop clicking on every attachment sent by a complete stranger.

The day that actually happens, Infosec will globally have a lot more time to devote to more devious failures.

Where I live, in France, I use Orange for my Internet/TV/landline connection needs. Orange owns the backbone and everything up to my house. If I have a problem, there is no finger-pointing to be done, it's all Orange's responsibility from start to finish.

That is why I have no intention of leaving Orange for SFR, as SFR regularly asks me to.

If I did that, then I would be right smack in the middle of the same problem you had, SFR saying that it's Orange's fault and Orange saying the reverse.

I've been there before, I have no intention of going there again.