Posts by Pascal Monett

"Surely such an ancient piece of code [..] wouldn't launch?"

I had that kind of surprise with Chuck Yeager's Air Combat.

It's an old DOS game from, IIRC, a bit before Microsoft Flight Simulator, and it was a lot of fun to play because you could configure what you going up against to a rather impressive degree (for the time, especially).

I first played it on my trusty 8086, and it ran fine.

Years later, I was fiddling around on my brand-new 486DX66 and suddenly, I wondered how CYAC would react. Now, I have tried quite a few DOS games since the 286 was done and buried, and most of them end practically as soon as you start the game because they are generally tied to the CPU frequency.

Not CYAC. I don't know how they programmed that thing, but it ran just fine on my 486. I'm sure it would also run fine on a Pentium. Don't know about today's multi-core CPUs though.

Maybe I'll have to try that . . .

Oh really ?

"There's always that risk that customers come to you and say, I can't possibly buy your product, because you've got maybe one version out of date of OpenSSL. "

Are you trying to make me believe that you have customers that actually check out the technical aspects of your product before buying it ?

Because that would be a first, in my experience. Generally, the customer buys the product, then finds out what doesn't work and IT has to spend time (and possibly money) to solve the issue. Then the manager responsible can strutt his stuff in front of the Board and boast about how he made incredible gains for the company.

We're going to have to live with it

COVID is not going away. We're going to have to deal with living our lives despite it.

After all, the flu claims hundreds of thousands of lives every year, and we don't quarantine for that.

"the nation feels Samsung needs his leadership"

Hello Mister Crook, could you please go back to the very environment that you abused and got condemned for ? We've apparently got nothing better at this time.

Yes, please do help yourself to a cigar . . or the box.

"What happens if the owner of a popular package dies"

That's a good point. If the package name management system is changed to ensure that only the owner of the name can relinquish it, then if said owner is no longer alive, there will be no one to relinquish it.

Stalemate.

So there will either have to be a process to take ownership by the package management authority, or the package owner should be prompted to nominate a "secondary" owner (and not himself with another email address) in case of non-response under 90 days or something like that.

In any case, it is not an easy situation to resolve.

All the borkage

This is a clear sign that companies bring in outside competence to set up the displays and ensure the content, and then let it rot because nobody on-site has a clue how it works.

When working in a retail store that has an electronics department, that is particularly credibility-destroying.

It's a Standards website

It doesn't have interactive content.

It's a text website, with a few videos.

They can't handle a server ? They need to "outsource" their IT on that ?

Dammit, give the contract to me. I'll set up two servers on two seperate lines with failover and the job's done.

And I'll only take £1M/year.

"web giant lacks formal sexual harassment policy"

It shouldn't have to have one. You sexually assault someone ? You're fired and the police are called in.

It's simple.

"researchers have no idea how it can tell"

Well it would seem that the statistical analysis machine found certain criteria that were consistent enough for it to rely on but were not evident to the human brain. When you're a machine treating thousands of images, you don't forget any of that. A human will not remember the first image after analyzing the 100th.

"Microsoft, however, does not plan to revise its algorithm"

I'm not surprised and frankly, what could they change ?

The algorythm does have to go and query the DNS servers at one point or another, there's nothing to do to avoid that part, so, for once, this is not actually Borkzilla's fault.

It would, however, be nice if Borkzilla could brainstorm a mitigation of some sort, since there are DNS providers who are not impacted by this vulnerability.

"They all show the vulnerability of everything"

Yes.

Well, especially since the NSA was stupid enough to get itself hacked and have all its precious zero-days pilfered.

Ever since then, things have gotten a lot worse.

Thanks NSA, you really outdid yourself on that one.

"develop and implement better cyber security plans than are currently in operation"

How's about the US military start by upgrading its IT to 2020 standards ?

Don't they still have XP machines on the network, or is that old news now ?

Anti-ransomware software ?

Isn't that what Anti-Virus software is supposed to help with ?

Aren't the two going to clash ?

Because AV software doesn't like having anybody else on its turf.

The class action system is broken

Yes, lawyers should definitely get paid for their time.

No, lawyers should not get more money than the people who have been wronged.

Class action or not, lawyers should only get their hourly fee, not a cent more.

IBM has 15 quantum computing machines ?

Well, when we finally learn how to program them, IBM looks to finally have a leading position once again.

If it survives until then, that is.