Posts by Mike Pellatt

Re: Windows giant aware of Teams social engineering phishing attack

It wasn't quite such a dumb idea when every password in The Known Universe wasn't out there.

Using the same device for 2FA as the one you're trying to log-in via, though...

Re: band-aid fix:

But my back's broken.

Moving 10 feet? Not the brightest idea in the world.

See, every suggestion that someone comes up with to "fix" W3W is worse than the obvious solution of not using it, but using a proper, pre-existing, geolocation system with a public location code generation algorithm

I guess you missed point b) in my post.

Re: Pathetic

It seems to take forever for an individual to be barred from being a company director, and even longer to actually prosecute when they inevitably ignore the ban.

It can also handily be worked around by having a family member as the director instead.

Re: Tech is not the solution.

Surely GPs just need to be like Doc Martin.

Then they'd have a handy ultrasound in their surgery.

And doubtless an MRI as soon as we get room temp superconductivity...

Re: Motorola should call their bluff

I'm old enough (and in this case that's not a sarcastic phrase) to remember GCHQ demonstrating an analogue multi-channel HF Comms system they'd developed called "Piccolo". This was at the annual RSGB show In the late 1960s. Damn clever it was, and pretty much entirely analogue.

Re: Pilot Error

I also recommend reading RAIB (Rail Accident Investigation Branch) reports.

In this case, though, you will see a recurring theme of "we've already discovered what the industry should do, but they STILL haven't done it" (e.g. zero hours contracts for staff working for contractors so they inevitably have multiple jobs and are fatigued when working on safety-critical tasks) or, even worse, the lessons learnt after the Clapham disaster being forgotten so another one is on the cards.

"We take data security very seriously ..."

It's the same sort of terminological inexactitude as

"Your call is important to us"

when you've been told that 50 times after being on hold for 25 minutes.

It clearly isn't the least bit important to you, otherwise you'd have, you know, actually answered the call by now.

Re: Odd tactic

This is your regular pointer to the strategy Peter Cochrane advocated when BT's CTO, which would have seen FTTP to every premise decades ago.

But instead, because Public bad, Private and Competition good, we had the cable companies, lots of little local franchises until the inevitable consolidation into one national operator came about.

Re: IT is a cost to be minimised

Everywhere.

Especially in the places where Excel is banned.

Re: PanelSim, SimH, Hercules Studio, etc.

Oh yes, the blinkenlights were a joy to behold. Getting the DEC engineer to replace all the faulty ones was always a challenge.

But.... when we had to take the slave off maintenance 'coz of budget cuts (late 70's UK IMF rescue days....) I got to recognise the logic state when we got SSP (Stop Second Processor) crashes. Apparently random series stabilisers (per row of TTL logic) tripping out on overcurrent. Finally (after 4 pints of Directors one lunchtime) tracked it down to an O/C end winding on the PSU transformer, so the unregulated DC feed was a volt or so down. Dropped it down a tap each side of the halfwave, all was good, and DEC none the wiser when it went back on contract.

We used TOPS-10's brilliant ability to do both timesharing and realtime for the data capture from an HPD flying spot digitiser for bubble chamber film. Although timesharing did stop for a couple of seconds while a frame scan took place.

I remember the joy when our systems programmers finally got SMP going, that was the time the second processor started earning its keep.

Re: Universal service obligation

Or - as I've recently discovered - the POTS copper is direct-in-ground buried, not even in ducting. There are whole estates like this, with chambers and a little bit of ducting to fool you.

No use at all for getting fibre to the home.

Re: The Great Mismatch

At least it's better than BT, (successfully) asking the taxpayer to do that for them. As well as the customer, subsequently (differential Openreach pricing in copper-only areas).

Re: Simple workaround

Virtualisation is so last-year.

Try out this new-fangled containerisation. Or, as the marketdroids have renamed it, "serverless"

Exactly. What sort of techniques do you think APTs use to achieve P?

Re: Programming for smart contract execution... What could go wrong?

Not if:

i) You've got the functional specification right

ii) Each machine has a separately coded implementation

This is, after all, how safety-critical fly-by-wire systems were supposed to be implemented.

I have no idea:

a) If that is still the case

b) If cryptobros have heard of this

Re: Timing is the problem

Yabut that's not synchronising anythings with a large rest mass.

Re: I replaced a network cable.

Write out 100 times:

"Free as in speech, not Free as in beer"

Re: Annnnd...you completely missed the point of the article

It turned out with Oilivetti writing one of their OSs in the early 80s in Pascal, because some NCGs believed what they'd been taught.

Needless to say, didn't turn out well. Fortunately the OS from the previous generation of kit worked on it.

Re: A timely reminder

And of course general practice was privately provided forever.

GPs were historically independent contractors to the NHS, not employees.

Not the same as megacorp contracts, I'll grant.

Re: Heads up networked Time Machine users

Not if you're using netatalk for that. I know I am!

For general filesharing, both SMB and AFP were pensioned off here over 2 years ago in favour of Nextcloud.

And that's made Time Machine pretty much redundant for my use case too.

Re: if the salaries were improved./ Universities need serious reform across the board

You almost had me there until you said "climate lie"

Re: PHP is somewhat responsible for MySQL’s uptake

There, in one post, is why Django.

Python

PostgreSQL backend.

Re: Communism bad

They are required to put the long-term interests of the investors first. That is demonstrably achieved by being interested in the company's customers, rather than taking no interest in hem or even working actively against them.

Re: The guy's here...

I'm tempted to use that somewhere and save it in my browser, just to see if Google or Microsoft have spotted it in a list of stolen passwords anywhere

Re: Online French banking outside working hours - fuggedaboutit

Only if you insist on attempting to speak to it in English. Try the tiniest bit of school O level French on it and all of a sudden its attitude will improve dramatically.

It's only human and hoping for a little bit of respect, after all.

Re: Could one of the longest and dirtiest cases in tech history finally be over?

But not half as much as Caldera The SCO Group The US Trustee in Bankruptcy Unxis Xinuos

Came here to say exactly that.

"Physician, heal thyself".

No other provider I login to has such an annoying captcha system. And, like so many providers, you don't get SAML support without paying for the Enterprise product.

If you can show me the OLT and ONT equipment currently available that supports this technology. And the additional power supply and battery capacity needed in the OLT to supply 10,000+ ONT's. Then I'd say that's a useful comment.

Until then....

Re: Another one?

2 years at Intel cured me of the aspiration to work for an American company.

Should have realised, had had a good view of AT&T for the previous 3 years.