* Posts by Velv

2756 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jan 2010

First-day-on-the-job dev: I accidentally nuked production database, was instantly fired

Velv
Facepalm

This people, is why you isolate your production environment from any test or development environments.

Accidents happen, people make mistakes. One mitigation is to make sure you cannot cross-contaminate.

UK PM May's response to London terror attack: Time to 'regulate' internet companies

Velv
IT Angle

Re: Bomb the terrorists!

Twenty years ago, religion was basically harmless in the UK (except NI).

Really? Because I remember how heavily the Catholic v Protestant caused trouble and violence in lots of UK towns, and continues to do so today.

There is no place for preaching religion in places of education, places which deal in fact.

'My PC needs to lose weight' says user with FAT filesystem

Velv
Boffin

Once worked on an IT project which the business insisted was important so they put their own Project Manager on it instead of one of our regular IT PMs.

After the first meeting the minutes come out containing "scuzzy controller cards"

Nobody had the heart, balls or straight face to correct him.

BT considers scrapping 'gold-plated' pensions in bid to plug £14bn deficit

Velv
Childcatcher

Re: Thank the Bank of England

Bank of England policies have largely been dictated by the changes introduced by Gordon Brown around freedom in Banking. While in theory the Government put interest rate control in the hands of the BoE, the deregulation of banking led to the subsequent clusterfuck and continued low rates we have today, including the losses in Pension funds and minimal investment returns.

Remember whose fault it was when you vote Jeremy Corbyn

Velv
Coat

Re: Never bothered with a pension...

Become a contractor...

If you don't live the Contractor lifestyle you'll be rich enough not to need a pension when you retire

If you do live the Contractor lifestyle, you won't live long enough to need a pension

NHS U-turns on blanket IR35 tax crackdown

Velv
Boffin

As a PSC you can pretty much avoid paying NI.

Which is a few % you lose.

A few? At 12% Employee and 13.8% Employer - nearly 26%, although the rates do reduce the higher your pay, and are offset by reduced Corporation Tax on reduced profit.

Even "permies" don't realise how big and how stealthy a tax National Insurance actually is - Basic rate tax is technically 32%, higher rate 52%

Europe to splash €120m on free WiFi for ~8,000 villages and cities

Velv
Trollface

All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order and free mobile phone roaming and free wifi... what have the Romans done for us?

‪WannaCry‬pt ransomware note likely written by Google Translate-using Chinese speakers

Velv
Big Brother

Re: More to the point

Won't be long before the government enacts legislation to have all translations filtered through the national security service.

And I've left government and agency vague as it could be any or all of them

Google starts enterprise support for Chrome, including top SaaS apps

Velv
Headmaster

Chrome has had an MSI installer and Group Policy templates for several years, they just weren't well documented, supported or publicised.

I rolled out Chrome five years ago as a second browser in a financial services company that was still on XP at the time (and IE7/8). It was locked to prevent auto-update (we distributed updates through SCCM), it directed through the proxy and a whitelist and blacklist for extensions.

Velv
Boffin

Re: Group Policy

Yes, it does. And it has done since it was released several years ago, there just wasn't much documentation or support for it, something Enterprises seem to insist on.

Julian Assange wins at hide-and-seek game against Sweden

Velv
Terminator

Re: Entertainment

He is not, for instance, at all interested in opening up the Russian government.

Do you fancy trying Polonium Tea?

Velv
Boffin

There's no evidence he did or did not "get away with it". He's avoided being questioned and any subsequent trial by his peers for an alleged crime. While he is an utter (obscenity), the principle of innocent until proven guilty remains true, no matter how much I may think he's guilty of the alleged crime as per the laws of Sweden.

The crime we do know he's committed is the jumping of bail, and only time will tell us if he "gets away with" that crime.

Robot lands a 737 by hand, on a dare from DARPA

Velv
Headmaster

Re: Huh?

The 737 hasn't traditionally been a fly-by-wire plane

Lib Dems pledge to end 'Orwellian' snooping powers in manifesto

Velv
Headmaster

The Truth

"Truth is like poetry. And most people fucking hate poetry."

Overheard at a Washington, D.C. bar and as quoted in The Big Short

Velv
Pirate

...companies would be legally required to introduce a backdoor to their systems so authorities can read all correspondence...

So if the application, service or code is not produced by a company (which is a specific legal definition different to a partnership, sole trader or private individual) then there is no legal requirement to provide the back door?

LastPass connectivity snafu locks out Brits from password manager

Velv
Headmaster

Re: What I don't understand

Well, except for when there's literally any connection problem between you and wherever the hell the company has decided to dump your data. Like, y'know, what just happened.

Which is why LastPass has an offline mode which uses the cached local copy of the database so that users can still retrieve their passwords. On iOS this local DB is on the encrypted file system as well as being encrypted itself so well protected against breach.

While you can encrypt your USB key, can you always run the tool to gain access to the data? I know of no employer where I can connect my USB keyboard their PC let alone run the app to access it, so a USB key pretty much means I would have no access to my passwords during working hours.

Ultimately I don't store any critical passwords anywhere, I memorise them. It's the myriad of relatively trivial passwords in the password safe.

Velv
Big Brother

GCHQ taking a copy of all UK accounts?

Spend your paper £5 notes NOW: No longer legal tender after today

Velv
Flame

I'm still waiting for all those up in arms about the use of tallow in the production of the notes to realise just how many other day to day objects rely on similar catalysts and production methods.

The clothes they're wearing. The car they drive in (or bus, or train). The chair they're sitting on. The machine that makes the Quorn mince...

Don't get me wrong, there are some very conscientious people who do the research and successfully navigate the pitfalls. But they tend to do it quietly and not make a song and dance about infringing their beliefs.

FYI: World was warned FIVE years ago about flaw exploited in Google Docs phishing phrenzy

Velv
Terminator

Remember

If it's free, you're not the customer, you're the product being sold!

And as the product being sold, so have no rights to damages or compensation if it all goes wrong.

UK.gov job ads entice IT bods with promise they will be OUTSIDE IR35

Velv
Coat

Re: May the farce be with you

It's a TRAP!

Just delete the internet – pr0n-blocking legislation receives Royal Assent

Velv
Facepalm

OK, so it's a stupid unworkable idea. But that's not the point.

The point is that the government can say "we've put in place legislation to block minors from viewing online pornography in the UK". The Sun and The Daily Fail can then get off their high horse.

It's about perception, not about actually doing anything useful.

UK.gov throws hissy fit after Twitter chokes off snoop firm's access

Velv
Black Helicopters

We are happy to make clear that Dataminr is not the firm that had its access to Twitter's firehose cut off.

So Dataminr are still spying on the public then?

High Court hands Lauri Love permission to appeal extradition to US

Velv
Boffin

Re: UK law ought to apply, surely?

It is an unfortunate fact about international borders and the easy with which they are crossed in cyberspace. It is not only ambiguous where the crime took place, the crime was committed in more than one place.

Let's take a physical example to the extreme. If an american citizen standing on the Russian side of the Russia/China border shoots dead an Australian citizen standing on the Chinese side, in which country should the trial take place. Russia or China. Or the US, since it could be claimed the US citizen would receive unfair treatment in either Russia or China. Or Australia, as it was their citizen that was attacked.

There is no right answer, and the lawyers are going to continue to make a fortune for decades to come.

FYI – There's a legal storm brewing in Cali that threatens to destroy online free speech

Velv
Facepalm

Default judgements should rarely if ever be used as the basis of a precedent.

Clearly the merits of the case haven't been reviewed by the court so how can they be relied on in the future.

Cuffing Assange a 'priority' for the USA says attorney-general

Velv
FAIL

Re: Deportation

If he'd gone to Sweden when asked and had been found guilty, he would probably be out and free by now, and beyond the easy legal grab of the Merkins.

But no, his publicity is more important than the truth.

Apple's zippy silicon leaves Android rivals choking on dust

Velv

Re: It's just a shame

...but it's a bit like putting a Ferrari engine in a Mini Metro.

What's so wrong with a Ferrari engine in a metro? Pisses off the boy racers when you leave them at the lights, and so rarely make it out of town that the handling makes little difference.

Data trashed? When RPO 0 isn't enough

Velv
Boffin

Third site...

And if you want to do this properly, you're going to have a fourth site.

Like it or not, maintenance must be done at some point. And while you're conducting maintenance that element of your service is offline and your protection is at risk. One incident elsewhere during maintenance and you've potentially lost data.

As said, to really do this properly is expensive. Alternatively the business need to sign off that there are failure scenarios they are not protected against. You'd be amazed what they will sign off when you put a £50,000,000 bill in front of them. "oh, if that's the cost, I guess we can risk losing 15 minutes of data"

Blighty's £1.2bn space industry could lend itself to tourism – report

Velv
Boffin

Re: tourist attractions?

Actually you'd be surprised how many companies in the UK in the space industry are not aligned to defence.

Space is pretty much well understood from a defensive perspective, but commercial and non-defence research are now finding the opportunities and benefits and the funding to leverage it. Cube Sat's in particular are now relatively cheap.

Broadband providers almost double prices after deals end

Velv
Go

BT the worst, yet their stablemate PlusNet have always offered the latest deal to customers when the "cheap deal" they signed up to finishes.

OK, so you have to phone them up to apply, it isn't just a default option, but twice as the contracts been approaching renewal they've emailed a reminder.

NY court slaps down Facebook's attempt to keep accounts secret from search warrants

Velv
Black Helicopters

Comes back to the question of who owns the data on Facebook's servers?

If the data is owned by the individuals and it is up to the individuals to challenge the warrant then the warrant must be served on the individuals and not on Facebook.

If the data is owned by Facebook then Facebook has the right to challenge the warrant.

The judges appear to have sided with the former. This could get interesting if used for future precedents...

Velv
Boffin

Re: Who goes to jail?

I'm assuming its the same in the US as the UK, but it is the Board of Directors who are the accountable people in the event the company is found guilty.

Assange™ keeps his couch as Ecuador's president wins election

Velv
Trollface

I'm surprised Trump hasn't asked Ecuador to hand him over yet, its just the sort of distraction he's likely to throw out there

US ATM fraud surges despite EMV

Velv
Thumb Up

Re: Speed

This delay is a good thing.

It allows time to finish bagging the shopping without the waiting 15 people thinking it's your poor bagging skills holding them up.

Oracle doing due diligence on Accenture. Yep, you read that right

Velv
Childcatcher

You do realise this is just about the yacht teams...

UK.gov departments accused of blanket approach to IR35

Velv

Simple Solution

Let's face it, the "employer" (private or public) has nothing to gain from "cheating" the government out of tax. Business's use contractors as they are a flexible workforce. You take on someone to do work without needing to make them a permanent employee with all the constraints that brings to getting rid of them when things get tight.

So instead of employing Limited Companies and insisting those who attend site are inside IR35 the government should simply be employing those people directly on fixed term contracts.

The government can then leave the Limited Companies to service their multiple clients and save everyone a fortune by ditching IR35 completely.

Velv
Boffin

Re: Stop taking the p***

If a permi and a contractor are getting paid the same, they should be paying the same tax.

If they are being paid the same then they pay the same tax. Despite what myths you've heard and what your perception are, the contractor cannot escape paying the tax. They do benefit from ways to structure the timing of payment, but ultimately the tax is paid, and since the contractor if often on a higher gross rate, they actually pay more into HMRC than a permie would have.

Huawei picks SUSE for assault on UNIX big iron

Velv
Gimp

The Chinese company's high-availability offering is its KunLun servers, 16-or-32-socket beasts that can pull off tricks like non-disruptive hot swapping of like CPUs and memory.

So others have mentioned Tandem doing this, we were also doing it in Windows Server 2003 in, er, 2003 on HP ProLiant.

Calling your redundancy programme Baccarat? Immense Bummer, Management

Velv
Boffin

A similar cost-cutting programme is taking place elsewhere in GTS, with Technical Support Services techies entering into a compulsory redundancy consultation, despite 44 people raising their hands to go of their own accord. Clearly, IBM didn’t want some of those people to leave.

Presumably those roles are not in the UK as it's illegal to split redundancies up into small chunks as this changes the total number of redundancies and the relevant consultation period.

Plans to force ISPs to filter content branded 'disproportionate'

Velv
Childcatcher

Is there an internet for dummies book they can read?

You're making the assumption they can read when all the evidence points to them looking at pictures and videos. (And I'm referring to the parents and parliamentarians here)

A router with a fear of heights? Yup. It's a thing

Velv
Coat

Re: Cheyenne Mountain Complex

The State Capitol building in Denver, Colorado, has mile high (5280 feet, 1609m) elevation markers on its steps.

Fnarr. Do they have, err, "problems" with office workers and visitor staying late for mile high activities?

Judge issues search warrant for anyone who Googled a victim's name

Velv
Boffin

Re: Who is the victim?

As far as the article goes the victim is irrelevant. A person has used a fake identity to commit a crime, this is about tracking the criminal, not remedying directly about remedying the crime. It is those tracking methods, the forensics if you like, that are being questioned.

Velv
Headmaster

Re: you heard it hear first

If you google "Barbara Streisand" you'll just get a message saying "Showing results forBarbra Streisand. Search instead for Barbara Streisand" (Google emphasis, not mine)

This week's top token gesture: Google Chrome chokes energy-hungry background tabs

Velv
FAIL

Smoke and Mirrors around the problem...

Simply opening Chrome consumes masses amount of power. No background tasks, no "websites" open, just one tab on the default page ready to put something in the search box It should be doing effectively nothing sitting on that page, yet the fan kicks up to high speed while CPU use jumps to 50%+

I'm not saying background tabs aren't a problem, but get the core browser fixed first would help.

UK.gov gears up for IR35 private sector crackdown – say industry folk

Velv
Boffin

The UK Tax system is no longer fit for purpose. It needs wholesale replacement to handle the changes in the world of employment opportunities and earning potential.

Permanent, Contract, Gig, Zero hours, etc. All are valid and none of them fit fairly in the current system. Stop wrapping the gerbil in Duct Tape, its done.

One simple income tax on all personal earnings no matter the source, then everyone pays on a level scale.

IBM could have made almost all the voluntary redundancies it needed

Velv
Terminator

And they'll have 2,000 roles to offshore in the next five years if El Reg's information about the Lloyds deal is correct.

Plenty more opportunities for VR, although I do hope they realise the terms that Lloyds and HBOS IT staff are likely to be on. 4 weeks for each year of service is typical for the financial services industry (although I have no direct examples for Lloyds / HBOS)

UK to block Kodi pirates in real-time: Saturday kick-off

Velv
Coat

Re: Curious argument

It's called trickle down economics.

Rich footballer buys a Bentley, dealer can afford to send kids to private school.

Private school employs new PE staff to teach kids to play cricket.

PE teachers spend time in the pub watching the football on TV.

Pub pays extortionate fee to broadcast football.

Sky/BT pay even higher prices for the broadcast rights.

Footballer gets a higher pay packet.

Simples

Anti-TV Licensing petition gets May date for Parliament debate

Velv

If households are going to be charged a fee for the provision of a public service television then why not just add it to the council tax bill for each property?

And before you say "but I don't have a TV so I shouldn't pay", I don't have kids but I still need to pay for the local schools.

This ferry is said to weigh 250 cows. We say that is actually 20,600 Lindisfarne Gospels

Velv
Headmaster

Re: Cows/Cowes, IOW?

Boom! (And according to some traditionalists) Tish!

Shirley you mean "ba dum, tish!"

Tech contractors begin mass UK.gov exodus in wake of HMRC's IR35 income tax clampdown

Velv

Re: Simple Answer

Velv. Why does your scheme keep employers NI?

I see both sides of keeping / removing Employers NI. You can move all the liability onto the employee, but does the employee feel better paying 30% or 40% even though the gross at the start is different. Stealth :)

Also, under the current scheme the Employer contribution is only 2% above ~£42k. If you make ER NI 15% on all earnings (i.e. no higher NI cap) then you get stealthy "extra" tax via the company for those who are paid more.

You're Donald Trump's sysadmin. You've got data leaks coming out the *ss. What to do

Velv

Bernard Woolley: That's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it? I give confidential security briefings. You leak. He has been charged under section 2a of the Official Secrets Act.

(Yes, Minister)