The Quantum of Firefox
I see you took solace from that title.
4259 publicly visible posts • joined 19 May 2010
Communists saw human society as a "system" that could be perfected if only a small group of very clever people (themselves) could only be given absolute control over it. How did that work out again?
To be fair, the actual root idea of communism (with a small "c") where everybody shares property, and wealth is distributed equally amongst everybody, is a valid utopian ideal.
The way that Communism was actually implemented in those countries that espoused it was as a ruling elite with all the property and all the wealth, and the rest of the population kept in poverty.
At one site I worked at, the server room (on the third floor) had a number of rows of racks set at 90degrees to the external wall, and between each row was a large high window in the wall which was hinged at the top.
I was working in the rack nearest the wall, and leant on the window whilst trying to persuade a server into the sliders in the rack.
The window was unlatched, and opened under my weight, so there I was hanging out of the window with a large server in my arms, desperately trying to lever myself back in through force of will and a toe hold under the rack...
Interesting moment... :)
I think I've written before about our comms room. Unusually, we, the Ops staff were given the opportunity to design the space and layout from a blank sheet when we moved into the building, as it was a new build specifically for the company.
We therefore designed the whole area to be open and spacious, with a central row of racks down the middle of the room with power distribution and network access from the ceiling, and wide sturdy worktops down one side, with loads of power outlets and network ports available. Dedicated air-conditioning was put in place with a hot side and a cold side for the racks.
Access to the comms room was controlled by electronic tags as well as physical locks, and only IT staff and company Directors were allowed access.
Within 3 months of moving in, the room had changed from a roomy, pleasant work space, to being jammed full of crap. There's a golf cart, a set of car wheels, broken desks and chairs and all sorts of other stuff, to the point that it is no longer possible to open the rack doors unless you first empty the room into the corridor.
The IT staff have not done this, so guess who?
There's an awful lot of FUD being preached in the name of GDPR.
Article 6.1 states:
1. Processing shall be lawful only if and to the extent that at least one of the following applies:
(a) the data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes;
(b) processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which the data subject is party or in order to take steps at the request of the data subject prior to entering into a contract;
(c) processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject;
(d) processing is necessary in order to protect the vital interests of the data subject or of another natural person;
(e) processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller;
(f) processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal data, in particular where the data subject is a child.
As far as I can see both (c) and (e) are sufficient to allow for the publication of basic whois information.
I realise that Britain has always considered Russia its enemy...
I'm not sure that that is the case, and certainly not to the extent that America has taken it, both in the 50s, and now again in the present.
I completely agree with you that the article seems determined to cast doubt on Telegram's integrity, and surely, if any software written in Russia is to be considered a security risk, then exactly the same should be said of any software written in America.
I'm quite sure the NSA and other shadowy organisations are doing their best to subvert American software to their own ends, either with or without the agreement of the software companies.
Being autonomous doesn't magically remove a car's need for physical maintenance and repairs, so I would suggest that the traditional car dealers are better placed to continue to sell autonomous vehicles.
I'm not aware of many (any) IT resellers with a fully equipped workshop for car maintenance...
Once the USB attached peripherals took over from PS2 connections, it became trivially easy to connect more than one keyboard and mouse to a PC.
In an office of back to back cubicles, if done with some subtlety, this could provide hours of enjoyment, as the victim's keyboard and mouse apparently did random things.
Like the mouse ever so slowly drifting diagonally across the screen, or the keyboard sometimes adding random letters, but not necessarily the same ones.
I think I've posted before about one of our sales staff who went to do some in-house training for some of the software we produce.
She sat with one young lady who had a wireless mouse and keyboard, and consistently, over the duration of the training period, the client would grab her mouse upside down, and then try moving it, and clicking it, and then whinge about how "she's told IT about her mouse being broken loads of times, but they never fix it".
Our salesperson said she had to hold herself back from just snatching the mouse from the client and showing her how to use it, all through the training session. She said afterwards she was rehearsing in her mind the old question: "do you still have the box your PC came in?"
The problem with GOV.UK Verify is that it outsources / delegates the verification process to third parties, including credit reference agencies...
So the security and verification it provides are just as vulnerable as it's weakest link.
Hello Experian, Verizon...
Any answers to security questions – such as your mother's maiden name – given to Equifax during an account signup should now be considered compromised, the NCSC warned, and should be changed for other websites, if possible.
Mum? Hi, yes, listen, I need you to change your maiden name to something different...
Yeah, but look, it's not me, it's the government...
Well can't you forge your birth certificate, or something?
Ok, ok, forget I asked...
Using an 11kW charger would take six hours to fully charge a Tesla Model S, ... from the 25 per cent full state.
So a 3.5kW charger is likely to take between 18 and 20 hours to charge an equivalent vehicle, therefore people will be much more likely to use a higher wattage device.
This means that the following:
The project concluded that across Britain 32 per cent of low voltage circuits (312,000) will require reinforcing when 40 per cent –70 per cent of customers have EVs based on 3.5kW chargers.”
...is a load of rubbish, and that actually the current electrical infrastructure is unlikely to support any serious uptake of electrical vehicles.