* Posts by Adrian 4

2288 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Jul 2009

Cambridge Analytica dismantled for good? Nope: It just changed its name to Emerdata

Adrian 4

Re: Of course they'll come back

Yes, but those customers will just look for someone else offering the same services. Whether it's provided by former CA employees or someone else entirely, business only exists when customers exist.

Blame CA, FB, whatever, they're all complicit. The real criminals are the ones that hoped to benefit from the scam.

Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie, oi oi oi! Tech zillionaire Ray's backdoor crypto for the Feds is Clipper chip v2

Adrian 4

Re: New phone please

Sound of door breaking down ? Throw phone in toilet, it dies before bricking happens or rots anyway.

Dead-mans-handle alarm tells you your phone is bricked ? Phone in toilet and leg it, they're on the way.

Newsworthy Brit bank TSB is looking for a head of infrastructure

Adrian 4

Re: If their application process is anything to go by ...

Many people have asked what the point of LinkedIn is. I've yet to hear a satisfactory reply.

UK gov grilled over massive exposure to struggling outsourcer Capita

Adrian 4

babes

I think there are a lot of habits I wouldn't want 6-year-olds copying from parliamentary discussions, the least of which is probably their language.

Though sometimes I wonder if the MPs have been imitating the toddlers.

Oh dear... Netizens think 'private' browsing really means totally private

Adrian 4

No, because someone interested in buttplugs could conceivably be interested in more than one.

It's well known that adverts appearing because of your browsing history only recommend items that you'd only buy again after considerable time had passed (cars, refridgerators, sofas). God forbid that anyone would actually see an advert that was useful.

Sysadmin unplugged wrong server, ran away, hoped nobody noticed

Adrian 4

Re: breeding ballpoint pens

The caps are the symbols of their servitude, which they cast off joyfully as they gain their freedom and run naked to their new life.

State spy agencies 'outsource surveillance' to foreign partners – campaign group

Adrian 4

outsourcing

Wasn't it Milo Minderbinder who outsourced not just the spying but the bombing to the other side ?

Drama brews on high seas as Playmobil ship running out of steam

Adrian 4

Can't Elon Musk send a drone ship to recharge it ?

Productivity knocks: I've got 99 Slacks, but my work's not done

Adrian 4

short sighted

I never understood why people wanted to use Slack. The reason most often given seemed to be that they got too much email so that they couldn't use it any more.

Understandable, but Slack and friends are just alternative message systems. They doesn't solve anything, just make you available to a temporarily smaller group. As soon as it gets wide circulation it's just as bad. What are you going to do then - move to another one ?

A simpler method would be to just change your email address regularly.

Whois is dead as Europe hands DNS overlord ICANN its arse

Adrian 4

Re: Phone book

You echo my point.

Your name is not in the phone book, and the only people who contact you are those who you gave it to specifically.

If you want others who know your name but not your phone number to find you, you put it in the phone book.

Likewise with domains : if you want a visible one, you publicise the details. If you don't want it visible, you don't need a DNS entry.

Adrian 4

Phone book

If you want to be in the telephone directory, you have to make details - your name and your number - available. If GDPR is going to force phonebooks to be empty then it's simply silly. Publishing those details for your own benefit is literally the point of it.

You can, of course, choose not to be in the phonebook. Or put a business name rather than a personal one. It's then your problem to make the number usable, presumably by advertising it elsewhere or to a closed group.

Domains should be exactly the same. You want a public advertisement of how to reach you, you permit your contact details to be known. You want a private IP address, that's your problem : you don't need a domain.

Data watchdog fines Brit council £120k for identifying 943 owners of vacant property

Adrian 4

Re: "No, the fine is paid out of the pockets of the guilty council officials."

void passthebuck(me) {

if (someone.pay > me.pay)

passthebuck(someone)

}

Adrian 4

No, the fine is paid out of the pockets of the guilty council officials.

I wish.

Boffins try to grok dogs using AI, a cyber-brain charter, a bot running for mayor, and more

Adrian 4

Re: Dog-like intelligence

You shouldn't fear AIs when they're intelligent enough to rival a dog. Fear them when they're nowhere near that, but pushed into service anyway by their commercial owners.

The only way is Ethics: UK Lords fret about AI 'moral panic'

Adrian 4

Re: Surely any true AI, deserving of a persona legalis ...

Algorythm. That's a rather lovely word.

Router ravaging, crippling code, and why not to p*ss off IT staff

Adrian 4

Not fnarr. Port 79.

When SecureRandom()... isn't: JavaScript fingered for poking cash-spilling holes in Bitcoin wallets

Adrian 4

@fobobob

Some day, all this will be yours.

Sysadmin’s worst client was … his mother! Until his sister called for help

Adrian 4

Re: Dad wanted a PC

There _is_ a lot to be said for that.

But if that's what you wanted, it would be a mistake to get it from PC World.

'Dear Mr F*ckingjoking': UK PM Theresa May's mass marketing missive misses mark

Adrian 4

"I want a scientist in charge for once, like a meritocracy. Someone logical who spends their life cutting through the bias and getting to the issues and actually determining the improvement made in a repeatable manner, who could drastically alter the way we live and can distance themselves from rubbish like sex-scandals and stupid things people say about foreigners. Someone who hires people best for the job. "

I'd like to agree with you, I really would.

But then I remember that Thatcher was a chemist. Not the best advertisement for logical decision-making unpolluted by idealist thinking.

Adrian 4

"So don't complain about what those who got voted in do or don't do."

Fair.

But they all do it, so how are you going to vote to stop it ?

GCHQ boss calls out Russia for 'industrial scale disinformation'

Adrian 4

Most of them, honest scientists, yes.

The 'rogue operators' and the ones who prefer to let the political management be their conscience .. not so much. Don't forget what happened to David Kelly - one of the honest scientists, I believe.

Gemini: Vulture gives PDA some Linux lovin'

Adrian 4

Re: Why

Because it has customers ?

Perhaps they've got imagination, or at least hope.

What puzzles me is why the reviewer loaded Linux and then tried Libre Office. I mean, it's a perfectly acceptable word processor, but hardly a USP for running linux. And pretty likely to be crap on a small device of any flavour.

Someone who buys it to run linux is likely to be far more interested in what it's like for ssh than some gui text editor thingy.

El Reg needs you – to help build an automated beer-transporting robot

Adrian 4

Re: Before the electronics...

Why do you need the containers ?

Make a beer cannon and launch a slug of liquid beer right into the recipient's glass.

Adrian 4

Re: Flying saucer

A roomba-like tray would seem to be either a trip hazard or, if taller, somewhat unstable.

Better to have something with a wide base (recognising the suggestions of using a Big-trak)

http://hackhitchin.org.uk/bighak/

Or self-balancing :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-wvVul0kd4

Adrian 4

Re: Scope Specification

Like this ? Spot can both guard the door and open it for legitimate access.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/video/2018/feb/21/human-robot-dog-boston-dynamics-door-opening-spotmini

Adrian 4

Re: Acronym needed

Lager has that effect. You need to start with a more inspiring initial.

UK.gov expected to quit controversial harvesting of schoolchildren's nationality data

Adrian 4

@TheVogon

She did a great job of encouraging the waste of oxygen that's the City of London. A culture of parasites that disrupt the economy for their own gain instead of nurturing it for the benefit of the whole country.

This country's most effective growth was in the '50s, fuelled largely by immigrant labour. A government that had the country's interest at heart rather than the voting intentions of Daily Mail readers would be encouraging immigration and doing its best to create a large, healthy, well-educated workforce instead of wasting its time and our money on protectionism.

Birds can feel Earth's magnetic fields? Yeah, that might fly. Bioboffins find vital sense proteins

Adrian 4

Re: Mythbusters

Obligatory (though not the usual sort) xkcd

Why a merged Apple OS is one mash-up too far

Adrian 4

Beancounters

They must be pretty poor beancounters if they think a merged OS would help them. They've got an awful lot of beans to count already, acquired by the current strategy in the face of Microsoft who've tried combining them and ended up wrecking mobile and taking desktop to the brink.

Admittedly Apple are good at doing things Microsoft failed at, but it doesn't look a good idea on the face of it.

Watchdog growls at Tesla for spilling death crash details: 'Autopilot on, hands off wheel'

Adrian 4

Re: Walter had complained to his Tesla dealer...

It doesn't state that the car was wrong to swerve. Just that he didn't expect it to.

Shaking up the Nad Men: Microsoft splits up into 'cloud' and 'edge'

Adrian 4

They still don't get why google is killing them.

What you want, kiddies, is a streamlined experience form pocket to cloud. Not a corporate wall between them.

The Register Opera Company presents: The Pirates of Penzance, Sysadmin edition

Adrian 4

How can you forget this one ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S1fISh-pag

Happy 100th birthday to the Royal Air Force

Adrian 4

Re: What about Martin Baker?

https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/584971-martin-baker-prosecuted-over-death-flt-lt-sean-cunningham.html

Thanks for that link. A fascinating, if long, read.

Any social media accounts to declare? US wants travelers to tell

Adrian 4

Re: Congrats, Trump. you just wiped out Facebook and Twitter

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Adrian 4

Re: I'm Amish.

So how would you get to america ?

In a hand-built rowing boat ?

Facebook exec extracts foot from mouth: We didn't really mean growth matters more than human life

Adrian 4

Re: Cressida Dick

It's all very well to blame companies whose business models allow users to broadcast their racist etc. views more easily, especially when they make a profit out of that broadcast, but the problem is still with the users.

Ideally, I would like anyone to be able to express an opinion however they like, and not be limited by whether a publisher wishes to restrict publication. And they should not have to put themselves at risk by publicising their personal details. Again, I hate to defend facebook, but don't they attempt to have their users use their real names ? Unlike most others.

I accept that this causes a problem when the opinion offered is inflammatory and the person hides behind anonymity. But it's the essence of free speech, isn't it ? The problem with filtering at the publisher level is that most publishers - like the right-wing newspaper proprieters of the past - have their own agenda.

I'm all for finding a way to make people responsible for their foul views. This is what happens face-to-face : in a mob, racist views get echoed, but in normal society the minority is shouted down. I honestly don't know what the solution to this is, but am sure that having commercial agents filter it is a bad idea.

I'm honestly quite surprised that I've got downvotes for that posting. Thank you for posting your argument : I'd be glad to hear arguments from all the downvoters. As I understand it, it's that people should not be allowed to express their opinions openly but should have to go through a gateway operated by an unelected operator. I agree that that would reduce the output but I can't agree that it's a good solution. Even if you accept that free speech should be restricted to 'acceptable' speech, I can't agree that either commercial operators or the government are fit for the purpose of defining 'acceptable'.

Adrian 4

Re: Cressida Dick

We don't generally stop things that kill people. The automotive, aeronautical and armament industries continue to thrive. We make a judgement about whether their usefulness outweighs their disadvantages.

Whether facebook is something so good that we can ignore the deaths it might cause is less apparent, but despite disliking it (and not using it myself), I don't really think we want to reduce interpersonal conflict by restricting communication. It doesn't feel like a good solution.

Is there something specific to social media that makes it worse ? I don't think so. Email is social media. Usenet is social media. The only thing that distinguishes facebook is the ubiquity - the tragedy of the commons. Perhaps the commercial pressure makes that worse, but it would happen eventually to anything popular.

Internet of insecure Things: Software still riddled with security holes

Adrian 4

In other news

.. microsoft patched a bunch more holes leaving the world's favourite operating system (allegedly) with a few less than it had before. And doubtless all the other vendors did the same.

Stop going on about IoT holes ffs. We know. Software is crap. Vendors are cheap. Nothing's going to change soon.

Newsworthy would be '<thing> beats hackcon contest', not 'something else is broken'.

Tesla crash investigation causes dip in 'leccycar firm's share price

Adrian 4

Re: local fire brigade was unsure if the car’s battery would explode

There may be a lot of energy in that pack, but it's not as much as a tank of petrol.

Firefighters are used to dealing with that and know what to do to keep it safe. Aren't there similar procedures for electric car batteries ?

FCC boss to block 'national security risk' companies (cough, Huawei, ZTE) from US's $8.5bn broadband pot

Adrian 4

Hasn't he been sacked yet ?

Facebook supremo Mark Zuckerberg has flunky tell UK MPs: Nope, he's sending someone else

Adrian 4

Sounds like an excellent test for Cameron's (now May's) Great Firewall of Britain. Disconnect the UK from facebook.

Meet the open sorcerers who have vowed to make Facebook history

Adrian 4

I'm all for an infrastructure that lets you create a chat group without selling your soul to a data-marketing demon or locking-in to a single source. IRC is pretty close, but the text-only nature is too retro for non-techies. It also keeps away the worst spammers and scammers, so it remains the best choice if the participants can cope.

But I don't think lack of development is what has allowed facebook to succeed. We've had people trying to lock in a community since the beginning - starting with AOL, even before the internet was a big thing for the public. Then geocities, yahoo etc .. they all tried to create a walled garden to make access simpler for their users : and lock them in. Facebook is only the latest and will likely fail too when people get as annoyed about having too many facebook messages as they have about email.

I can't believe the people who claim to use slack etc. because they're swamped with email. Once all their email tormentors find the new channel, they'll be there too.

What Laguna needs to do, along with making public IM easy for the masses, is ensure there is a scaleable method of filtering. That's what will keep a new protocol relevant.

Slap visibility beacons on bikes so they can chat to auto autos, says trade body

Adrian 4

No, it's not AI

As has been noted before on this site : equipment that has been trained to cope with a large number of possibilities is not AI. It's an expert system.

Adding markers to known problems doesn't solve the problem. Are you going to add beacons to every possible road hazard, including the ones you haven't thought of ?

This is the same sort of content-free thinking that's brought us DRLs - make cars more visible so you can see them. And never mind all the objects that can't easily have DRLs and therefore disappear into the background : pedestrians, animals, corners.

You don't fix a problem by adding to the special cases. If a solution doesn't work, you find a better solution.

Cars won't be fit to drive themselves until they can analyse a new situation, not merely recognise a known one, however many extra hints are added to make that recognition easier.

Adrian 4

I saw a moronic comment on the Register.

What an arsehole.

So all commenters are morons (yes, this one included)

Uber's disturbing fatal self-driving car crash, a new common sense challenge for AI, and Facebook's evil algorithms

Adrian 4

It's not a question of blame. The pedestrian put herself in the way of danger, true : but it's considered poor form to blame the victim when the perp. doesn't act in a reasonable manner.

The issue here is not 'who is to blame', but 'why didn't the car respond sensibly to a fairly ordinary hazard'.

If we decide that pedestrians - however badly they behave - are fair game for inadequate driving skills, then we won't need any driving AI. A simple slot-following algorithm like a self-driving train has will do, because there will be no unexpected situations to deal with.

Adrian 4

Re: I'd wonder why the womàn pushing her bike started to cross at all, with a dirty great,

Right-of-way is a convention helping users to share facilities in an efficient manner.

It doesn't confer a right to kill the incorrect party, or even to remove the killer's blame.

Adrian 4

Re: Why didn't the woman see an approaching car, which was traveling <40 mph with headlights on

She should have waited.

However, she didn't, and that's the reality of autonomous driving, whether by human or machine. You're not allowed to kill people just because they're not being sensible,

Fleeing Facebook app users realise what they agreed to in apps years ago – total slurpage

Adrian 4

Re: Facebook vs the Federation - Is the future going to be Star-Wars, Star-Trek or Blakes-7?

Try Ready Player One.

The baddies are Facebook.

This time, it's personals: Craigslist dumps lonely-hearts section, blames anti-trafficking laws

Adrian 4

Despite America's idea that their laws don't respect national boundaries, I don't think Congress has much reach in East Anglia (at least, outside the airbases).

Given how many american cities are named after english ones, I wonder if some unusual phone numbers will turn up in the cragslist entries for Boston, Lincs; Washington, Tyne & Wear; Norfolk; etc.