* Posts by Mark 85

12880 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Nov 2012

GDPR...rrrse! Mass-mail fail as German biz asks UK resellers for consent to use their dealer data

Mark 85

Re: Ah, the joys of career-ending emails

Fortuantely, I never heard anything.. Maybe he found it funny!

More likely that either the spam filters caught it or if it got through then the admin nuked it.

Harvard freshman kicked out of US over OTHER people's posts on his social media

Mark 85

Fuck the USA. I really hope they do succeed in kicking out every single last "illegal" immigrant or any visitor who doesn't meet their bigoted, white nationalist viewpoint.

S**t rolls down hill from the top and with the s**t being spewed by those in power, this is what they are reaping.

Mark 85

Re: So to gain entry into America you MUST......

<sarc>Or...maybe cross a border via Canada or Mexico? Risky as hell though.<sarc off> We have worse people already in this country (US) who were born here. Politics, "security agencies" and the BS they spew is unbelievable. I do feel bad for the guy.

Git the news here! Code quality doesn't count for much when it comes to pull requests

Mark 85
Holmes

Just had one of those moments....

<see icon> This seems to be prevalent everywhere today. Politics, coding, manglement, sales, etc. and not limited just to IT.

Eight-hour comms lags and shock discoveries: 30 years after Voyager 2 visited gas giant Neptune

Mark 85
Pint

Re: Thanks for this

Let's not forget to toast especially those who unnamed heros went ahead and filled the tanks completely instead of doing what they were told.

Mark 85

Re: Voyager: The Most Amazing Unmanned Mission

Sadly, I do believe that most people and governments have long forgot this along with the goals and hopes for future work out there.

Mark 85

Lovely thought and I agree but human nature/stupidity and all that gets in the way.

Female-free speaker list causes PHP show to collapse when diversity-oriented devs jump ship

Mark 85

Re: Meanwhile in other news...

We've all seen this shit before where physical overrides experience, talent, etc. and yet, rather than these SJW'w working on the quality of work, they focus on quotas. It was a disaster back in the 70''s and it has continued being a disaster to today. It's box ticking at it's worst. I always thought that the best person for the job should be hired. Everything else like race, religion, sex, and orientation shouldn't matter.

Old joke back then but still applies: The best employee is a one-legged black woman who's gay because it fills so many slots.

Can't bear to part with that well-worn copy of Windows 7? Microsoft might let you keep it updated an extra year

Mark 85

@ Shadow Systems --Re: The cost of Win10 is far too high.

Have an amen from me also. I'm a one man very minor operation and damned if I can see going to Win10 with all the BS. I don't want to be their "free" tester nor do I want their telemetry and other BS.

Viva la revolution against Win 10 and all the BS.

Fraught 'naut who sought consort's report says: I was up to naught, I will thwart fault tort

Mark 85
Pint

Upvote and a beer for that. Why didn't the passwords get changed? Sheeesh... I've been through the divorce bit and the first thing the lawyer told me at our first meeting was "change all your passwords and don't give them to anyone.".

Trump attacks and appeals 'fundamentally misconceived' Twitter block decision

Mark 85

Re: Let him have it!

There's been some news reports on this about Twitter's policies and how they are applied. Seems POTUS gets "special" privileges because he's the POTUS. Which comes down to "one rule for them, one rule for us".

Disclaimer: I'm not a Twitter user.

'Not productive for our business'... Michael Dell urges end to US-China tariff tit-for-tat spat

Mark 85

No one wins a trade war and casualties go beyond the targets to just about everyone from businesses not even involved in the trade war to the consumers having to pay more "tax" (that what a tariff actually is) for goods. We (the world) has enough problems without tossing this one in on purpose.

Biz forked out $115k to tout 'Time AI' crypto at Black Hat. Now it sues organizers because hackers heckled it

Mark 85

Re: Openly and fairly...

Exactly. If it looks like BS, smells like BS, don't step in it.

The story so far: How's that Autonomy High Court battle with HPE looking at half-time?

Mark 85

Re: So far - what

To judge by the reports so far HPE has not proven anything (except that HPE had idiotic management).

No matter how this turns out, that will be the final result: HP (HPE) has idiot manglement and is dying a slow death.

I couldn't possibly tell you the computer's ID over the phone, I've been on A Course™

Mark 85

Re: He should be proud that of that guy

Takes more time, but it means they're calling a trusted number.

The number can be trusted but what about the helldesk?

Mark 85

Re: He should be proud that of that guy

They had a newbie in the department so someone gave them a part code and told them to order it.

When I was in the Marines (US), this was very common and seems to be a rite of passage. Our line shop got a pickup truck as the order somehow got passed through. Then again, we would tell a newbie to go to supply an pick up such goodies as "5 gallons of prop wash", "200 feet of flight line", etc. Ah... good times.

My god, it's full of tsars: A gun-toting Russian humanoid robot is on its way to the International Space Station

Mark 85

Re: Too close!

Well.. it is all in the name: Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research. The first word sort of gives the hint. The question is "final for who?".

US regulators push back against White House plan to police social media censorship

Mark 85

Their platforms are driven by on the engines of human drivel,

This also includes most of the news media. A quick look around them and much of their content is human drivel or totally out of wack. For example, why should my news feed from say Yahoo, Google, etc. contain stories about auto accidents in cities a thousand miles from me?

Mark 85

Re: biased against right-wingers.

Bob,

The basic flaw in all this is that the extreme right has seized the label "conservatives" and also had it thrust upon them by the extreme left as if it's a bad thing. It used to be that conservatives were the middle ground. At this point, I'm not seeing any middle ground only the extremes fighting each other.

Wait a minute, we're supposed to haggle! ISPs want folk to bargain over broadband

Mark 85

It's like buying a car. The asking price is on the windshield. Once you decide you like that car, the haggling games begin.

Mark 85

Re: PlusNet Billing

I'm guessing that their billing and customer support are all off-shored to contractors? We have that issue here in the States. The only way to get anything resolved is to go into the local office. Even then.... they have an almost impossible time dealing with the contractors.

As for pricing.... again I make a visit to the local office and in 15 minutes it's done.

Footnote... as I said, I'm in the States. I only have one choice for anything really resembling broadband (cable). The rest are basically WiFi and slower than molasses in January.

Overstock dot-gone: Surplus biz CEO now surplus to requirements, ejects after Russian spy fling, deep state rant

Mark 85

So he be joining McAfee in a secret mountain hideout?

My MacBook Woe: I got up close and personal with city's snatch'n'dash crooks (aka some bastard stole my laptop)

Mark 85

Re: That's horrible.

Was the bear's name Yogi by perchance? He would have had a hat and a tie if it was.

Mark 85

Re: That's horrible.

That's not good for your chain though.

Better to loose a chain than the whole bike.

Don't trust Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency, boffins warn: Zuck & Co know that hash is king

Mark 85

Re: Ignore Facebook Completely

It's just us IT folks are more aware of the data suck and the implications. From what I gather, about the only ones who have read and understood "1984" are IT types.

Mark 85

And this: and to appease regulators and lawmakers, Facebook can be expected make its platform a robust surveillance system.

This is a wet dream for all those who do surveillance. I'm sure there will be an "access fee" charged by FB also to "offset costs". And it might get them so freedom from various legislative bodies because they're doing "important work for the government".

Electric vehicles won't help UK meet emissions targets: Time to get out and walk, warn MPs

Mark 85

Re: Alternatively,

Bring back horse transport.

After we do that, let's get the fires put out in the South American jungle area. Seems that an awful lot of CO2 is being released from them.

Disgruntled bug-hunter drops Steam zero-day to get back at Valve for refusing him a bounty

Mark 85

Re: From my understanding...

People are in danger whether he releases it or not.

I'm not so sure about this particular bug. If someone has physical access to your PC/laptop, then maybe. However, if you walk into where your computer is located and there's a guy wearing a hoodie with a bunch of 1's and 0's floating around him, then yes, you have a real problem.

US soldier cleared of taking armoured vehicle out for joyride – because he's insane, court says

Mark 85

Re: So...

I'll try it right after the scheduled bombing of our own airbase tonight. Contracts come first.

Mark 85

And he worked in infosec...

The paranoia runs deep in this one.

Sorry script kiddies, hacktivism isn't cool anymore: No one cares about stuff that's easy-peasy to defend against

Mark 85

Re: Hacktivism ? Didn't that become obsolete ?

Money and greed rule. If you can't get it legally, there's illegal ways.

How four rotten packets broke CenturyLink's network for 37 hours, knackering 911 calls, VoIP, broadband

Mark 85

This has bit of "intentional" to it. Do systems sometime generate packets? Did an engineer decide to do some "testing"? Or was it a test of an attack method? I'm shocked though that there's no fines involved or scapgoats called out.

You monsters: Screen time murders your kid's imaginary friend – until they reach school age

Mark 85

Re: Legal and General Insurance

The scary part of this is that I can see it happening due to entitled parents/children and all that.

Mark 85

Re: Yay!

Not sure if you were trolling on this, but I took it to mean that it was causing children to be trained up to lack imagination. Not so good if it turns out to be the case.

But that's exactly what government wants. If you have imagination, you might be a danger to them. Look to the leaders of just about any government for an example of what they want.

It will never be safe to turn off your computer: Prankster harnesses the power of Windows 95 to torment fellow students

Mark 85

I suppose I was young and niave, and didn't realise what a bunch of twunts most manglers are.

They have become that. If it's not their idea, then who ever mentioned it is not a team player, etc. That and they just don't like having their boat rocked for something they don't know or control.

Mark 85

Re: sad mac

or is that too much to do before your colleague gets back from the loo?

There's probably a script for that. Fast, efficient, and repeatable.

Mark 85

@Pascal Monett -- Re: BOFH potential for sure

Today I would agree with you. Back then, things were simpler, computers were new and not the heart of many companies. When I received my first computer at work (an IBM before the 286's came out), the boss said "run amok", play with it, you'll learn more screwing things up than by doing them right. He was correct. In today's environment....no way in hell would I do that.

Teen TalkTalk hacker ordered to pay £400k after hijacking popular Instagram account

Mark 85

He was said to be adept at "social engineering and exploitation of the network provider's inadequate systems"

I guess a case could be made that the "inadequate systems" part of this could also be large problems. Reads to me as Talk-Talk and Telstra are a steaming piles of insecurity.

Overstock's share price has plummeted. Is it Trump's trade war? Bad results? Nope, its CEO has gone bonkers...

Mark 85

This whole thing does seem to smell of being drug induced like Mr. Sheen's doesn't it. I have witnessed this type of behavior in a relative who liked their narcotics (legal ones only).

Criminal mastermind signed name as 'Thief' on receipts after buying stuff with stolen card

Mark 85

Re: What ?

Since this is obviously the stuff of soap operas.... What of Marylou? <ominous organ music>

Police costs for Gatwick drone fiasco double to nearly £900k – and still no one's been charged

Mark 85

Re: No no no

Greenland isn't a problem. Trump will buy it because "security", etc.

Mark 85

Re: £900k is a lot of money to spend investigating...

Arrogance? Something for than arrogance. From the article: "Chief Constable Giles York later doubled down on his employees' behaviour, refusing to apologise for the wrongful arrests and suggesting the two innocent people should have been grateful to police for not having them "released under investigation"* "

That innocents should be grateful that they weren't further harassed? This is just so wrong it boggles the mind. This seems more like Gestapo tactics than anything else.

Astroboffins have spied the largest star that has gone supernova and it's breaking all the rules

Mark 85
Coat

Re: Another..

It wasn't I. My antimatter in safely stored in the other closet. I'm not sure where the Dyson Sphere is right now. Hopefully in the basement.

Truckers, prepare to lose your jobs as UPS buys into self-driving tech

Mark 85

Testing only in Arizona?

So hopefully they''ll try testing in other places that actually get inclement weather like snow, heavy rain, ice, fog, etc.

Let's add that this is a long-haul CEO's (add board and stockholders) wetdream. If they don't have to pay drivers, more profit.

'Hey Google, remind Greg the locks have been changed, and he should find a new place to live. Maybe ask his mistress?'

Mark 85

I'll upvote the creativity but lets not given ideas.

Mark 85

Re: Dystopia, one improvement at a time

Or just stop inventing things.

Not going to happen especially with Google. There's too much at stake here such as mining every advertising penny they can. Just another reason in my opinion to dump and never use any "smart" device.

Cisco axes hundreds, shares tumble amid China cut-off – but we're winning the trade war, right? So much winning

Mark 85
Coat

How can this be?

Because we're winning the trade war and all the tariffs are paid by the Chinese.

Bomb-hoaxing DoSer who targeted police in revenge was caught after Twitter taunts

Mark 85

Re: Being litteral about it

Same trick with any browser on a Linux live dvd.

Was he clever enough to use Linux?

World recoils in horror as smartphone maker accused of helping government snoops read encrypted texts, track device whereabouts

Mark 85

Re: The under-emphasised point is that

Absolutely. Still, given the number of times various home-grown bombers and terrorists turned out to have been "known to the security services beforehand", I'm uncertain as how close an eye a very close eye really constitutes...

It's a question of priorities and funding. Since we've always been at war with Eastasia, our government can ignore them and focus on the citizens.