* Posts by Dan 55

15337 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Jun 2009

Totally Subcontracted Business: TSB to outsource entire IT estate to IBM for a cool $1bn after 2019 meltdown

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Splendidly well done, IBM !

Ah, so their in-house (or spin-off or subsidiary or whatever it is) IT has raised the white flag.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Splendidly well done, IBM !

The question is have TSB's board unilaterally declared independence from Banco Sabadell's IT operations or has Banco Sabadell decided they're unable to support TSB and let them go with their blessing.

Are you getting it? Yes, armageddon it: Mass hysteria takes hold as the Windows 7 axe falls

Dan 55 Silver badge
Alert

Re: "plugging the holes in that decade-old code"

I don't think I'll be needing one but thanks for the offer anyway (I think).

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: "plugging the holes in that decade-old code"

It may be because you're missing KB4490628, install that first.

2020 and Windows Update still can't work out dependencies. What a time to be alive.

US hands UK 'dossier' on Huawei: Really! Still using their kit? That's just... one... step... beyond

Dan 55 Silver badge
Gimp

Welcome to the US-UK post-Brexit trade agreement

A similar bunch of heavies, a similar document, only this time with an industrial-sized tub of Vaseline.

Icon shows the attire Johnson will be wearing.

ICANN finally reveals who’s behind purchase of .org: It’s ███████ and ██████ – you don't need to know any more

Dan 55 Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Has anyone asked

They're okay with it.

Step away from that Windows 7 machine, order UK cyber-cops: It's not safe for managing your cash digitally

Dan 55 Silver badge
Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: What does NCSC mean?

They will probably support it until MS knocks Win32 on the head in Windows 10, which will be quite a while yet.

Dan 55 Silver badge
Facepalm

What does NCSC mean?

Not Conscious of Software Choice? Alternative browsers do exist, IE11 is not obligatory.

Dan 55 Silver badge
Meh

Re: Britain's cyber-plod have warned people not to use Windows 7 machines for online banking

Just use a modern browser and an add-on to spoof the user agent to W10.

Banks have ploughed ahead with SMS one-time codes and 1FA banking apps dressed up as 2FA instead of using card readers so I guess the changes of them cutting off Windows 7 computers are between null and 0 anyway.

AI of the needle: Here's how neural networks could detect nighttime low blood-sugar levels using your heart beat

Dan 55 Silver badge

What, don't you like not knowing how the answer is arrived at and spuriously incorrect results?

Google's clever-clogs are focused on many things, but not this: The Chrome Web Store. Devs complain of rip-offs, scams, wait times

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Could it be described as a House of Cards?

Why would they need to contribute financially, considering that MS, Apple, etc... already contribute fixes to Chromium and Chromium pays for itself by being compiled into the data slurp-engine that is Chrome?

Y2K quick-fix crick? 1920s come roaring back after mystery blip at UK's vehicle licensing agency

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: 2038

How would you e.g. subtract two times and do a three-way compare if you're using unsigned variables?

The bit pattern is the same, the meaning to that pattern is given by the data type. It's not easily swapable in a non-trivial program.

Dan 55 Silver badge
Coat

Re: 2038

* Where once and for all is defined to be the 4th of December 292,277,026,596.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: 2038

Not a simple fix, be careful not to trip over backwards-counting for loops and similar, you can't compare the counter against 0 because it could be MAX_INT (-1).

Why is a 22GB database containing 56 million US folks' personal details sitting on the open internet using a Chinese IP address? Seriously, why?

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: be sued into oblivion? No

And no, I don't know why I said 72 million people instead of 56 million.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: be sued into oblivion? No

I think it would be quite easy to argue that whatever the business has done, it has not cured the damages from having a DB with data about 72 million people accessible from the open Internet during an unknown amount of time but that is for the court to decide.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: be sued into oblivion? No

Have I read this wrong?

What is the Risk, Under the CCPA, if a Company Has a Data Breach?

An injured consumer may sue for statutory damages or actual damages, injunctive relief, or declaratory relief. A consumer must provide a written notice to cure the violation before bringing action if they are seeking statutory damages.

Also, class action seems to be allowed.

Dan 55 Silver badge
Go

CCPA

Presumably they can now be sued into oblivion under California's new privacy law which came into force this year. Should be interesting to watch.

LG announces bold new plan for financial salvation: Trying to actually make phones people want to buy

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Here is a phone I want to buy

Literally everything?

(2) a 3.5 mm headphone jack - OK, socket and DAC, but it's a feature that people want, otherwise phone manufacturers would be in the business of selling rocks, and it's probably paid for by (4).

(3) microSD card support - a micro SD card slot (as found in a RPi) connected to the SOC and the OS supports it, pennies, probably paid for by (4).

(4) no notch - lowers cost.

(5) a physical home button, physical back button, physical menu (not app switch) button - three whole capacitive buttons, probably paid for by (4).

(6) the ability to uninstall any junk I neither want nor need - software configuration problem (i.e not a problem) and a lot of bundled software is a stub app which is replaced on first update from the Play Store anyway.

Eggheads have crunched the numbers and the results are in: It's not just your dignity you lose with e-scooters, life and limb are in peril, too

Dan 55 Silver badge
Devil

It's not the riders I'm bothered about

Rather the innocent bystanders they plough into.

Blackout Bug: Boeing 737 cockpit screens go blank if pilots land on specific runways

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Why is the company still alive?

This is Ryanair's planned seat configuration for the MAX (if they don't change their mind and decide to set it to be the same for both aircraft types):

Ryanair ‘Rebrands’ Boeing 737 MAX

Microsoft engineer caught up in sudden spate of entirely coincidental grilling of Iranian-Americans at US borders

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: And the consequenques fo failing to act?

Your memory seems to not stretch all the way back to last week where Iran's most senior general was assassinated by drone which I think for most countries constitutes a declaration of war.

Your regional ally was warned by Iran that US bases on its soil would be hit in retaliation (not that I support Iran over this), and it said "go ahead". Even Israel and Saudi can't even support the US over this one.

No country in the world has supported the US' threat to destroy 52 cultural sites if Iran retaliates in some way.

Your president is a) making a calculated effort to divert attention from his impeachment trial in an election year, b) blundering about like an idiot not knowing how this could bring the entire region to war, or c) both.

Dan 55 Silver badge
WTF?

Re: And the consequenques fo failing to act?

Er, sorry, who just started this latest bout?

Beset by lawsuits over poor security protections, Ring rolls out 'privacy dashboard' for its creepy surveillance cams, immediately takes heat

Dan 55 Silver badge
Meh

The news would be if an Amazon privacy dashboard weren't a total joke

On their main tat-pushing website, devices can be authenticated to your account bypassing 2FA, there's no way of viewing all devices which are authenticated to your account in one place, and devices can make purchases without any confirmation PIN or 2FA.

A stranger's TV went on spending spree with my Amazon account – and web giant did nothing about it for months

Linux in 2020: 27.8 million lines of code in the kernel, 1.3 million in systemd

Dan 55 Silver badge
Alert

The signs and portents for 2020 turning out to be crap are already here...

- US President angling to start a war in the Middle East.

- An entire country on fire.

- Kernel maintainer thinks systemd is a good thing.

Greetings from the future where it's all pole-dancing robots and Pokemon passports

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Greetings From the Future

As Sharon and lots of other people have said, "everyone can do something".

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Greetings From the Future

Sorry, fired off a post too quickly and it came out wrong. Should really be this:

Australia is the world's third-largest exporter of CO2 in fossil fuels, report finds

However a third of CO2 emissions means there is still something that Oz can do.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Greetings From the Future

Oz sells a third of the world's coal. Of course there's something it can do.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Greetings From the Future

Well Australia's on fire, it will be for the next few months as summer's not over yet, and their government is still trying to fight reality. Reality has never been defeated yet, so the government must either change climate policies or get removed.

Y2K? It was all just a big bun-fight, according to one Reg reader

Dan 55 Silver badge
Meh

Re: Bad day

What was there before Y2K? Chronic underspending. What was there afterwards? Chronic underspending.

So sorry for wrecking the graph for two-three years at the end of the 90s meaning some money actually had to be spent on IT, even if sometimes wasn't strictly Y2K related (new kit was needed after all).

Perhaps more consistent investment would be better. I look forward to the beancounters wondering what hit them when offloading everything to Azure and firing everyone blows up in their face.

What's that? Encryption's OK now? UK politicos Brexit from Whatsapp to Signal

Dan 55 Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Re: Having to switch due to the number of participants.

"Having to switch due to the number of participants" is what they want you to think. They obviously know what changes are coming down the line for WhatsApp.

Microsoft: Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree, my PowerShell has gone RC

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Santa's Hat caused offence.

Ghost is github's name for a deleted user. I'll leave the offectiveness is or otherwise of that choice of name for other people to discuss.

I guess it's some 4chan gag anyway. If it is, they're probably disappointed MS caved in so early.

LibreOffice 6.4 nearly done as open-source office software project prepares for 10th anniversary

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: I'm not so sure that options are the answer to why Office is so popular

Well Office and on-premise solutions are now Office 365 and Azure, the same Microsoft you know and never got fired for choosing but outsourced to their servers. What's not to love? Apart from downtime, the lack of privacy, and the lack of local admins, but that doesn't matter. Who can compete with that? Not many.

Boeing, Boeing, gone! CEO Muilenburg quits 'effective immediately'

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Oh, don't worry chaps...

Taking a medium to longer term view, I'm pretty sure you can end up killing enough people.

Say GDP-aaaR: UK's Information Commissioner pours £275k fine into London pharmacy's teaspoon

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: No, 'No Deal' plans will not apply if we leave as planned

The article is right, look at the document called Keeling Schedule for GDPR for what happens in the event of a deal.

Dan 55 Silver badge
Flame

Does it really matter any more?

You can hand over patient data on silver plate to Google and Amazon and it's all deemed above board. Seems to me if there was one thing GDPR was designed to stop it's shenanigans like that.

Starliner: Boeing, Boeing... it's back! Borked capsule makes a successful return to Earth

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Chilton also called out how pristine the capsule looked

Should have just left it in the hangar.

Fuming French monopoly watchdog is so incensed by Google's 'random' web ad rules, it's fining the US giant, er, <1% annual profit

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: They've got a strong point.

We seem to have collectively given up on regulation because Internet and because disruptive and because Google and the rest spend billions on lobbying politicians so they can have it that way.

This isn't Boeing very well... Faulty timer knackers Starliner cargo capsule on its way to International Space Station

Dan 55 Silver badge
WTF?

Re: Santa Express

Even my kid at school has worked out that time-based loops don't work in Scratch. Shame the teacher hasn't.

FYI: FBI raiding NSA's global wiretap database to probe US peeps is probably illegal, unconstitutional, court says

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Read the 14th amendment

I think it's important to get this one right, there's a lot of misconceptions, even commentards that frequent this illustrious organ are under the impression that the constitution doesn't apply to foreigners inside the US.

Amazon slams media for not saying nice things about AWS, denies it strip-mines open-source code for huge profits

Dan 55 Silver badge

Those that don't depend on cloud services are doing okay and can carve out a niche, those that do are just having their work ripped off by the cloud services oligopoly. How did the cloud services oligopoly get where they are today? By open source.

The business model did pay off, it doesn't now. As a start up, your established competition has made billions innovating using open source as a base to start with and has reached that point where it doesn't need to innovate any more. Perhaps the internal culture won't even allow innovation any more, maybe it will only allow money to be invested in things it 'knows' will be successful.

Those megacorps which are already there have billions to invest in staying on top of the pile. They do that by copying and pasting open source and buying up promising apps or services by start-ups and shutting them down.

Google has announced they may bail from cloud services in a couple of years if they're not successful (this 'burning platform' announcement may even help that happen). If they can't do it, nobody can.

Dan 55 Silver badge
Trollface

"Stung by an article mulling Amazon Web Services' market dominance on Monday"

What's the WSJ's take on strip-mining open source?

Log us out: Private equity snaffles Lastpass owner LogMeIn

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Taps

I look forward to it turning into the Bonzi Buddy of password managers.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Google

You sync the password file with the file on your NAS.

I don't want to go on the cart! Windows 10 Mobile hauls itself from the grave one last time

Dan 55 Silver badge

"It really is time to move on."

iOS and Android, what a grim choice. Sailfish anyone?

FUSE for macOS: Why a popular open source library became closed source and commercially licensed

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Free as in beer

Seemed to work after WW2.

WhatsApp chaps rapped for crap app group chat zap: Infosec bods find a way to nuke messages, fix issued

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: How very dare you?!

How are you comparing "this kind of crap" to "for free"? (Answer: with JavaScript, probably wrongly, maybe.)

Deadly 737 Max jets no longer a Boeing concern – for now: Production suspended after biz runs out of parking space

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Rebranding exercise

Ah, well, just don't fly Ryanair, to be sure.

My eyes thank you, Google: Android to get dark mode scheduling in future update

Dan 55 Silver badge
Flame

Re: Patents.

The answer is 2) because Google are desperate for your fine-grained location and this person is good at coming up with bullshit excuses:

Want to use an app which scans for WiFi APs or Bluetooth devices? "Oh, we need you to activate location because the app could harvest MACs and talk to its mothership to work out where you are (even though it may not have the Internet permission)" -> You turn location on to allow device scanning in the app to work -> Google gets your location.

What to use a dark mode app? "Oh, we need you to activate location because when we tell the app to go to or leave dark mode, the app could use that sunrise/sunset time as a way of working out where you are." -> You turn location on to allow dark mode in the app to work -> Google gets your location.