* Posts by adnim

2081 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Apr 2007

Facebook previews GDPR privacy tools and, yep, it's the same old BS

adnim

Nice article Kieren

It's all about psychology and manipulation.

Did you know that the screens on gambling machines are designed with the input of psychologists?

The problem I have is where I draw the line between shrugging my shoulders and thinking... "I don't really give a fuck, perhaps it's evolution" and "For fuck sake people wake the fuck up".

Please advise :-)

Facebook admits it does track non-users, for their own good

adnim

knowing and forgetting

"knowing your IP address allows us to send the Like button to your browser..."

Yes for the fraction of a second it takes to deliver the button, then it can be forgotten right? It doesn't have to be recorded, stuffed into a database and be collated/compared with clicks on other sites with a like button in order to track the IP address.

For a like button to function a url will suffice, the button image can be local to the site being viewed, Javascript and the recording of IP address is not needed at all.

Microsoft has designed an Arm Linux IoT cloud chip. Repeat, an Arm Linux IoT cloud chip

adnim

Linux in code, not in spirit.

When ever I read about MS providing services that support or are Linux based, I don't see proper Linux. I see MS Linux (not to be confused with Xenix) a strange hybrid that MS controls. It is no longer FOSS, even if given away free. And its only purpose is to provide a route for users of Linux into the maws and the account books of MS.

MS know that most embedded systems (IoT especially) are Linux based. They see a future where IoT is everywhere and not just those useful places like light bulbs, fridges and sofas ;-) They want to make sure that they are not left behind as most innovation in this field involves Linux.

As far as I am aware using anything Linux created or provided by MS involves some kind of payment. (A Windows OS, a cloud account, another MS product/service) This is hardly in the spirit of FOSS.

Linux worked wonderfully in my environment before MS started its embrace of the OS. It still works perfectly without MS anywhere near it.

If one is trapped in an MS environment then I can see where the MS support of Linux is of use. However, I do not believe the MS embrace of Linux is an altruistic move made with concern for the customer.

An easy-breezy attitude to sharing personal data is the only thing keeping the app economy alive

adnim

Re: And that's exactly why...

I don't use these services either.

It's not so much to protect my privacy, lying and never telling the truth on a webform does for me in those situations where I have to share some information.

It's more about not giving a shit what a bunch of strangers say, think or do.

I do not need nor feel the need to tell the world and it's dog what I had for breakfast, where I had breakfast, provide an image of that breakfast and a map to the location of the eatery in which I ate breakfast to prove it either.

Parents blame brats' slipping school grades on crap internet speeds

adnim

There was no Internet

when I was doing 'O' and 'A' levels. And we were taught the actual subject.

I get the impressions that today's school children are taught how to pass exams.

I used to love the peace and tranquillity of the school and local municipal libraries.

Windows 10 to force you to use Edge, even if it isn't default browser

adnim

Forced to the Edge?

I was forced to the edge of sanity supporting windows over the past 25 or so years. I learned a great deal fixing MS stuff. And fixing Windows brought me a good income.

Now I don't have to support Windows at all, my training wheels have gone ;-) and I admin Linux servers and code websites. It is far less frustrating, much more fun, far more reliable and much more rewarding.

I feel like a passenger using MS products. I feel like a driver using Linux.

MS want me to use Edge? They would have to force me to use Win 10 first!

NHS Digital heads accused of being 'suppliers', not 'custodians' of UK patient data

adnim

The patients are the suppliers.

Everyone else seems to be distributors or wholesalers

Air gapping PCs won't stop data sharing thanks to sneaky speakers

adnim

Theory and in practice?

Audiophile speakers and professional studio quality microphones, just may be able to communicate in the 18khz to 24khz range. The roll off on professional kit in this range is, I guess between ±3dB and ±6dB, it's been years since I worked in a studio.

Your average consumer microphone and PC/laptop speakers I believe would need to communicate with each other at a volume and frequency range a human... even an old one like me, could hear.

Millionaire-backed science fiction church to launch Scientology TV network

adnim

Re: Z-lister club

"Call any vegetable. And the chances are good. That a vegetable will respond to you."

I would pray to the spirit of Frank Zappa if I didn't think such action was only slightly less pointless* than praying to one of the gods we have created.

*Frank actually existed, so I conclude there is more chance of a reply.

123 Reg suffers deja vu: Websites restored from August 2017 backups amid storage meltdown

adnim

It is safer to presume

that any service provider will at some time fail to provide the service that one subscribed to. And despite all the promises, guarantees and assurances they will lose, delete or otherwise destroy your data.

If it is important data, don't pass responsibility for the back up of that data to a third party who's terms and conditions often protect them from any failure to provide the service.

Here's how we made a no-fuss RSS vulture app using trendy Electron

adnim

When Scroogle closed down. I wrote my own Google scraper to replace it. It worked well. No adverts, no compare the xyz site, no shopping results. Unless I allowed them. Unfortunately Google change the layout, the element ID's and classes of the result pages with annoying regularity. I gave up on trying to keep up after a couple of months. On the odd occasion I use Google now I have settled on the element hiding rules of adblock origin.

Yorkshire cops have begun using on-the-spot fingerprint scanners

adnim

Not on IDENT1

I have never been arrested nor have I never been finger printed. Does this mean I can refuse to be printed at the side of the road because doing so would be a waste of time?

Rhetorical question. I know they would print me simply for collection purposes.

Why is Bitcoin fscked? Here are three reasons: South Korea, India... and now China clamps down on cryptocurrencies

adnim

I am confused

I have this algorithm that generates numbers and provides evidence that those numbers were generated and not copied. Please pay me for the numbers I have generated.

Whilst I accept that generation and speculation in bit coin markets may well earn the clever and adventurous miner/speculator a few $/£. It actually does not have any real value.

Apparently Charlie Chaplin once said "I would rather have a nice cup of tea and a bun than a bitcoin". Citation needed.

I guess the same can be said about gold... It is useless when you are hungry, unless there is someone that wants it enough to feed you in exchange.

You're the IT worker in charge of securing the cloud for your company. Welcome to Hell

adnim

"You're the IT worker in charge of securing the cloud for your company."

I am, I don't put anything that is not in the public domain in the cloud. CDN's do have their uses.

Out of office workers VPN into a private network. No third party has any of our confidential information on their severs.

Crypto-jackers slip Coinhive mining code into YouTube site ads

adnim

Google says it took action against the ads once it became aware of them

Same here. I blocked doubleclick.net at my router before Google bought them.

Danger! High voltage: German customs bods burn half-tonne of weed in power station

adnim

What a waste

see title

TalkTalk banbans TeamTeamviewerviewer againagain

adnim

Re: Hmmmm

I read dildo

Damian Green: Not only my workstation – mystery pr0n all over Parliamentary PCs

adnim

Re: Poor excuse for a politician

I sincerely hope that it is a troll post and unwarranted t (good name for a rapper but I digress) does not really think that way...I don't care enough to trawl through his/her past posts and psychoanalyse.

The alternative is, it wasn't a troll post and unwarranted t (that really is a good name for a rapper) sincerely believes in what he/she wrote. Now in 2017 that is more scary than any trolling.

The six simple questions Facebook refused to answer about its creepy suicide-detection AI

adnim
Joke

Re: Ridiculous trying to automate this

'I wonder how they're going to try and derive advertising revenue from the suicidally depressed'.

Advertise razor blades, sleeping pills or rope to them?

Facebook's send-us-your-nudes service is coming to UK, America

adnim
Joke

Re: What could possibly go wrong?

Mmm, I'm a front end developer.

Node.js and docker

adnim

Node.js and docker

Trying to teach an old dog new tricks.

I have to learn node.js and docker.... Well I don't have to I could just resign.

I have coded in various languages, a bit of a jack of all trades and master of none. I find myself having to work out what a node.js app does and how it does it. The app is critical to the business. And I do mean critical. This app was written by a very smart youngster who has moved on. Lot's of clever stuff, even though he has admitted the code is "shitty" ( I can't tell shitty node.js code from good node.js code). Given time, I can sort it, the problem is that time is a critical, there is zero documentation and the app is full of bugs.

I have searched, I have looked around. And I have read read node.js documentation, I have worked a lot of stuff out. Still, I am ill equipped to perform how my employers expect.

I can recreate what this app does in another language that I am more familiar with but it would take months, this is not simple stuff. I don't have months.

Can anyone recommend any courses or web resources that provide good tuition with well commented examples of how to create and dockerise node.js apps that accept user input and use the input as parameters to parse hundreds of disparate text files and render the results to xml?

Best practice, security etc?

Do fear the Reaper: Huge army of webcams, routers raised from 'one million' hacked orgs

adnim
Happy

Re: Safe home router ?

BiPAC 7800DXL?

Seems pretty good. If ADSL+ is all ya need

Boffins suggest UK needs an 'AI council' but regulation is for squares

adnim
Devil

Practical common sense

Until this is achieved by AI. And indeed local councils, I see little change to the way things are done.

Supreme Court to rule on whether US has right to data stored overseas

adnim

How far should an American warrant go?

As far as US borders. Land marked borders.

Pretty simple really. However being a simple minded, KISS kind of person, I am probably not over analysing the situation and extending said borders into places where the US has a financial or military interest. Regardless of their judiciary (zero imho) in those areas outside of said borders

Leicestershire teen admits attempting to hack director of the CIA

adnim

The real threats

go unnoticed for months maybe years and are never reported. Why? because they went unnoticed for months maybe years.

On another note:

Only skiddies attempt to hack from a location that can be traced back to them.

Running anothers' code is never hard, understanding what it does and what trails it leaves isn't so hard either... Unless one is a skiddie.

EU tells Facebook and Twitter: Obey us or we'll start regulating

adnim

Re: "illegal content inciting hatred, violence and terrorism online"

That's how nearly every fsckr operates.

Open minded and friendly discussion ending in mutual acceptance of logic and the evidence has never held any credence with those whom have an agenda. (most people have an agenda, ALL nations HAVE an agenda).

To paraphrase Roger Waters.

"Each man has his price bob and your's for most it's pretty low"

It is generally illegal everywhere to stand and shout about how you disagree with the controlling powers' view, attitude or actions.

You have no freedom. You did not feel it hit your ass as it left the room?

Microsoft won't patch Edge browser content security bypass

adnim

"its a feature, not a bug"

As bugs are a feature of Microsoft software...

I'm confused.

Pssst... wanna participate in a Google DeepMind AI pilot? Be careful

adnim
Joke

DeepMind?

DeepThroat or LongTongue preferred.

On a serious note.. Properly anonymised data please. Strip any and all data that can potentially be used to identify the OWNER of that data and we have a positive. Of course if we are looking at regional variances some location data my be required. However, a postcode/zip code is going to far.

The word owner is capitalised because corporate entities forget just who owns the data. Being an aggregate of data does not equate to ownership.

Identity fraud in the UK at 'epidemic' levels as cases rise 5% – report

adnim
Trollface

Don't

share your life with strangers on line. ie:Social media. Tell lies on every web form one fills in. If one feels the need to brag about ones achievements on line to total strangers or the general public, perhaps your life is not as fulfilling as you imagine.

And blank the registration number when one posts an image of ones new M3. (I am happy with my 17 year old Ford Focus)

ffs!

Why do you cry when chopping onions? No, it's not crippling anxiety, it's this weird chemical

adnim
Joke

Chop them under water

The scuba diving kit works wonders

Did eye just do that? Microsoft brings gaze tracking to Windows 10

adnim
Facepalm

What?

"Any privacy concerns would revolve around whether it was possible to identify individuals with the eye-tracking data, and whether it was stored."

Eye tracking data would be as much as a privacy concern as keyboard monitoring and mouse tracking data.

The fact that a camera is constantly monitoring ones face is not a privacy concern?

I guess not as we all know a person cannot be identified from a photograph or video footage. </sarcasm>

Hackers can turn web-connected car washes into horrible death traps

adnim

Meh

I just buy a new car for cash when the old one gets dirty ;-)

BTW.. hackers can bend anything web connected to their whim, if they are smarter than those that chose the OS, and set up the web interface.

Q: WinCE? Isn't there a more secure OS out there that is OSS?

A: Maybe... it depends how it is configured.

UK.gov: You can't have our drone test results because... er, security

adnim

Like every government policy,

it is not based on the level of threat as determined by an expert group, it is about control.

Expert groups are commissioned to produce a report that the government will ignore if it is detrimental to what they want. Yet still lends credence to a decision because an expert group was commissioned to advise government.

There is only cake when we get rid of the last bad guy/gal... Unfortunately that would leave us without enough MP's to form a government.

Got bot? How to put it to work with Microsoft's Cortana Skills

adnim

mmm

"Microsoft claims “145 million monthly active users” for Cortana."

Would that be 145 million users that don't know how to switch it off?

Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook blow massive amounts lobbying Trump administration

adnim

Thats exactly what it is...

Bribery, you took the words from my mouth. +1

Nothing could protect Durex peddler from NotPetya ransomware

adnim
Devil

"...and advertising group WPP"

So not all bad news then?

PCs will get pricier and you're gonna like it, say Gartner market shamans

adnim
Meh

This is Gartner

<me>hands out pinches of salt</me>

Bonkers call to boycott Raspberry Pi Foundation over 'gay agenda'

adnim

"...Gaining this 'acceptance' is step one in the path to homosexuality.."

And I thought it was the realisation that one was attracted to people of the same gender that was step one. Acceptance is not required to be homosexual or transgender, it just makes life a little more comfortable for those that are.

Religious indoctrination is step one on the path to bigotry.

Pwned UK SME fined £60K for leaving itself vulnerable to hack attack

adnim

Re: OK

You have a point.

However: If one gets hacked and exposes the personal information of ones clients to an unauthorised third party, it is not the fault of a company or government that was taking similar and as lax precaution as oneself...

It's YOUR fault.

Huge ransomware outbreak spreads in Ukraine and beyond

adnim
Joke

The older I get

the more I think that those who are trained to run computers aren't. And I can never see more than seven layers (or is it veils) in my mystical dream world of Unicorns, no matter how hard I try, or try to get hard.

Joke icon...cos some don't understand satire.

The only real downside to this is that the tax payer and consumer will foot the cost as prices or quantity/quality of product are adjusted so as not to upset share holders and the stock price.

AWS launches celebrity-spotting-as-a-service: What a time to be alive

adnim
Joke

AWS launches celebrity-spotting-as-a-disservice

FTFY

DUP site crashes after UK general election

adnim
Unhappy

Sigh

Allegedly forward thinking (they say what they think will earn a vote) UK political party beg the help of religious fundamental nutjobs in order to form a parliament.

We're not saying we're living in a simulation but someone's simulated the universe in a computer

adnim
Joke

@Demos Re: Are we a simulation?

"and if we are in a simulation, is it simulations all the way down?"

Yes it is.... until you reach the first turtle.

Live blog: Fired FBI boss spills the beans to US Senate committee

adnim

Re: Comey calls Trump a liar

You may be right Adam 52, but so very few get rich by being honest, politician or otherwise. Oh sorry, my bad, he didn't get rich did he. He was born rich.

adnim

Comey calls Trump a liar

Isn't Trump a politician?

The word synonymous comes to mind

Kaspersky files antitrust suit against Microsoft

adnim

Re: Yes, progress happens.

"Remember when Windows wasn't a bloated sack of shite?"

Yes, I think it was called DOS

adnim

Re: Boo Hoo

In an ideal world all OS's should be secure by default without any need for AV. Unfortunately getting code out of the door quickly and selling it or giving it away for free and monetising by stealing data from the user drives the commercial software industry.

As "IT professionals" we have a choice... We can lock down our systems and our networks. And choose to use alternatives which may or may not require some low level tweaks to work they way we want.

Feel for the consumer, the victim, the person that thinks clicking on the "Next" button will solve their problems and cause them no grief.

adnim

@cavehomme2 Re: "We want Microsoft to stop misleading and misinforming..."

IMHO Nope, they are all equal. Honest and truthful multinational corporations do not exist in the real world. Only in advertising do such entities exist

adnim

"We want Microsoft to stop misleading and misinforming..."

So they want Microsoft to be honest and truthful.

I have never known MS to be that, it might be beyond their capability.

Perhaps Kaspersky think that Unicorns exist and everyone lives inside a huge hug bubble.