* Posts by Woodnag

530 publicly visible posts • joined 24 May 2010

Page:

AI lawyer to fight first legal case in court, startup claims

Woodnag

How is an AI legally a lawyer?

Does it pass bar? How can it be sanctioned for misconduct?

That NHS England patient data platform procurement, FDP, is live. And worth up to £480m

Woodnag

It's just another asset to be sold

Patient data will be sold, even if there will be some more wriggling first. Just like council houses, playing fields, water, power, rail, GPO...

UK gov makes fresh grab at Arm to list IPO in London

Woodnag

Horse, barn door

The time for intervention under the argument that ARM was a national treasure was before sale. There's no leverage now.

LastPass admits attackers have a copy of customers’ password vaults

Woodnag

So our vault info, even if accessed, is now useless.

Hopefully so. But the plaintext info has an awful lot of info for social engineering attacks to reset your new passwords.

Woodnag

Re: Someone Else's Password

I've used Shortkeys Lite for the last 20 years. Freeware back then. https://www.shortkeys.com/

Apple accused of censoring apps in Hong Kong and Russia to maintain market access

Woodnag

Don't forget PRISM

At least we get told about the Gov-forced limitations in China and so on. The PRISM surveillance in USA was secret:

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/what-prism-who-edward-snowden-nsa-spying-476785

"Prism is a Us government-run programme for accessing vast swathes of data from some of the world's biggest and most powerful technology companies, such as Apple and Google... Prism is a programme giving NSA operatives direct access to the servers of these companies, giving them unfettered access to personal information of billions of people around the globe."

Cisco’s Talos security bods predict new wave of Excel Hell

Woodnag

Workaround

Change the default program for .xll to Notepad or similar. Create or copy a text file to the desktop, then change suffix from .txt to .xll. Right click the file, and change the default program. Job done, snarf down some Fuller's London Pride to (ex)celebrate.

UK lawmakers look to enforce blocking tools for legal but harmful content

Woodnag

Re: This "shield" already exists

What's the plural of g-string? Because one only holds a single member...

Woodnag

Re: This "shield" already exists

I propose the collection noun "muppet" for polititions.

Italy, Japan, UK to jointly launch sixth-gen fighter jet by 2035

Woodnag

...not strange, NATO

Military isn't normal business.

Britain has likely missed the boat for having a semiconductor industry

Woodnag

Semis

There seems to be an underlying presumption that customers will come in droves to buy whatever ICs these new UK startups come up with. Brexit doesn't help with selling to EU, which has NXP and ST anyway, the US has consolidated to TI-ADI-Microchip. Since UK industry is mil-aero, needs to be hi-rel and rad-hard products, which is a high ASP but tiny volume market.

Doctors call for greater scrutiny of bidders for platform that pools UK's health info

Woodnag

Re: Scurnity

Palantir have been promised the contract, because US drug industry will get the data as a result.

Light getting shone on the deal just delays it until it can be granted when no-one is looking.

There is no accountability.

Koch-funded group sues US state agency for installing 'spyware' on 1m Android devices

Woodnag

Re: What about the mandatory installation of Facebook?

Since all apps are always running, I wonder if FB uploaded your contacts between the OS upgrade and you deleting it?

Elon Musk issues ultimatum to Twitter staff: Go hardcore or go home

Woodnag

...work 3 times longer for the same pay

Elon hasn't brought up the across the board pay reductions yet, has he?

Woodnag

fire you or quit

When laid off, Twitty has to pay towards your unemployment benefit claim...

Germany says nein to Qatari World Cup spyware, err, apps

Woodnag

So a cellphone is mandatory to enter the country...

...just think about it.

Go ahead, be rude. You don't know it now, but it will cost you $350,000

Woodnag

Re: You get what you order

The smallish firm that does my personal tax started a scheme that customers prepaid an estimate of the fees at the start of the tax season. Those that couldn't afford that dropped out, and that included the problem non-payers that were the reason for the scheme.

Breached health insurer won't pay ransom to protect customers, warns of more attacks

Woodnag

NHS?

Nearly. They have a deal with Palantir, who grabs it and then hands out our personal data willy-nilly.

Apple patches actively exploited iPhone, iPad kernel vulns

Woodnag

Exploit

All I need to know is whether the exploit requires JS to be enabled in Safari for it to work.

Note that Mail doesn't have a setting to disable email html processing - please advise if I'm wrong...

Firefox 106 will let you type directly into browser PDFs

Woodnag

Security settings?

So if the PDF has security settings disallowing editing, commenting etc... will FF still allow it? Breaking the security PW is easy - Elcomsoft Advanced PDF Password Recovery (APDFPR) does it in a fraction of a second. Not so trivial to break a PW needed to open a PDF, mind you...

PayPal decides fining people $2,500 for 'misinformation' wasn't a great idea

Woodnag

UsForThem?

You don't like UsForThem's speech, so that counts as "reason(s) they were blocked"?

Post-Brexit 'science superpower' UK still hasn't appointed a science minister

Woodnag

Re: Headline to come...

...with the reliable switch made by MK. Oh, wait...

Woodnag

The country that couldn't be bothered to retain ARM...

...just wants the pretense of trying.

Australia asks FBI to help find attacker who stole data from millions of users

Woodnag

Gov-run IDaaS

If it's a Gov-run IDaaS, then when (not if) it is breached, the denials and coverup will be immense.

In any country.

Look who's fallen foul of Europe's data retention rules. France and Germany

Woodnag

Re: So basically...

...when the state has in depth data on everyone, every prosecution becomes a selective one. And deterring political activists becomes very easy.

Cisco SMB revolution: selling hardware with no subscription required

Woodnag

Maybe they know that the patchable life isn't very long?

https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/08/cisco_routers_vulnerability/

No subscription, no implied ongoing security patching obligation...

Mozilla CSO demands fines to curb Big Tech surveillance

Woodnag

Instead of fining the company, senior management should be fined

Not if the company pays their fine.

Woodnag

"financial penalties are a meaningful way to move the needle"

Nope. Because the fines are lower than the profit, and don't cause the transgressions to stop.

Custodial penalties are a meaningful way to (etc)...

Ad blockers struggle under Chrome's new rules

Woodnag

Manifest v2-based extensions will stop working in Chrome...

You are fine. The extensions won't actually stop working, but simply not be supported in later versions of Chrome. So set yourself up with a nice install of ungoogled Chromium from Woolyss, and don't upgrade it.

Amazon expands end-to-end video encryption to battery-powered Ring devices

Woodnag

Video only accessible on specific devices?

So how to submit a video to, say, a court as evidence is it can only be viewed on a phone?

Amazon drivers unionize after AI sends them on 'impossible' routes

Woodnag

Glasgow hands out about as many traffic fines as the whole of London...

...but only to cars registered to English addresses.

Nadine Dorries promotes 'Brexit rewards' of proposed UK data protection law

Woodnag

UK rejoining the EU?

EU will insist on UK adopting the Euro as a condition of re-entry, which won't happen.

Woodnag

GDPR teeth

This is to provide a haven in UK for FB when IRL is finally forced to apply GDPR.

Then there will be 10 years in the courts with FB & UK arguing that the new UK data laws offer adequacy with GDPR when the whole point of the new UK data laws is to allow the likes of FB to pillage data just like in the US.

UK's NHS goes to market for $2b HR and payroll system

Woodnag

Re: Who created this monster?

Fujitsu then? After their great work with the GPO...

Or Palantir, since they have their tentacles in the NHS patient DB already?

Amazon has repackaged surveillance capitalism as reality TV

Woodnag

There's also the elephant in the room that hasn't been discussed...

How do Ring know which are the fun videos to broadcast after getting permission?

They trawl through ALL OF THEM, initially automated, then people look at the shortlisted ones to finalise selections, all without explicit permission.

Exactly.

Zoom patches make-me-root security flaw, patches patch

Woodnag

Don't Zoom have any competent security testers?

I find it unbelievable that a company as large as Zoom couldn't even patch an externally disclosed flaw properly on the first release. Doesn't the word 'release' have any meaning in terms of testing and quality to Zoom?

Missing an exploit, sure, it happens. But the initial flawed patch release should entail a consequence to the senior manager who signed off the release.

Microsoft asks staff to think twice before submitting expenses

Woodnag

Re: M$ looks to be pinching pennys

Companies making big noise about tough times ahead? Sounds like a way to discourage employees from asking for COLA pay raises.

Woodnag

Microsoft managers personally paid the bill to feed and water staff at a company picnic

So... Microsoft managers paid the bill for a company expense from their *taxed earnings*, while for Microsoft that would have been simply another cost?

Engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

Woodnag

Re: 6 here!

We lived in cardboard box in middle of road, and radio had the mutt's nuts because we couldn't afford a cat's whisker.

1.9m patient records exposed in healthcare debt collector ransomware attack

Woodnag

You forgot:

"Data security is one of PFC’s highest priorities"

Woodnag

What do you mean, "are they?"

Palantir already had access to UK health data, to name just one.

Microsoft tests CD ripping for Media Player in Windows 11

Woodnag

Re: Innovative

The innovation is passing the CD title back to their server as part of your surveillance history.

FYI: BMW puts heated seats, other features behind paywall

Woodnag

Re: So who is responsible for fixing the heated seats if they fail?

You don't licence hardware: you buy it or rent it.

If the heated seats hardware is part of the car purchase then any mods you do which don't violate copyright are your business.

Woodnag

So who is responsible for fixing the heated seats if they fail?

Who actually owns the heating hardware?

Woodnag

So when a used car is sold...

...it needs to be very clear what is being sold, and what was simply being rented by the seller.

HavanaCrypt ransomware sails in as a fake Google update

Woodnag

HavanaCrypt ransomware sails in...

How exactly?

UK signs deal to share police biometric database with US border guards

Woodnag

They must destroy...

...but the info is passed to USA (etc) on receipt, so that's just a red herring.

IBM settles age discrimination case that sought top execs' emails

Woodnag

"systemic age discrimination" vs "systematic age discrimination"

It's pretty clear that a word has been chosen that can be argued to mean something later that is not what we understand it to mean now.

That the mouthpieces confused the two is interesting... which one was the word that Legal told 'em to use?

Misguided call for a 7-Zip boycott brings attention to FOSS archiving tools

Woodnag

Re: I like 7Zip.

Imagine the protests if it was suggested that UK or USA random individuals should be penalised for their country's illegal incursions into Iraq, Syria or Libya, or the recent murder of that Iranian general.

UK govt considers invoking national security in Arm IPO saga

Woodnag

Nope

Acorn was around before the BBC Micro (System One, Atom...) and Sophie is an exceptional engineer.

Page: