Re: An Attack or a Screwup?
NotPetya was exactly that. Someone in Maersk Kiev opened an attachment and the virus spread from there.
Posts by macjules
3426 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Oct 2014
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Australia's Lion brewery hit by second cyber attack as nation staggers under suspected Chinese digital assault
PC printer problems and enraged execs: When the answer to 'Hand over that floppy disk' is 'No'
Ex-director cops community service after 5,000-file deletion spree on company Dropbox
Huawei going to predict the future? Nope, say company leaders when asked about Joe Biden winning US election
BT and Serco among bidders competing to run Britain's unfortunately named Skynet military satellite system
Customers of Brit ISP Virgin Media have downloaded an extra 325GB since March, though we can't think why
No Wiggle room: Two weeks after angry bike shop customers report mystery orders on their accounts, firm confirms payment cards delinked
Tuesday 16th June 2020 19:17 GMT
Re: At Chris G, re: Lycranthropist.
Marvellous word for it. My better half was once verbally assailed by an Lycranthrope in Kings Road where he was holding on the back of her (convertible with top down) car and being pulled along. She stopped and asked him to let go at which he put the bike down and launched into a screaming fit at her. Two things happened:
1) The vehicle behind her was one of those high-sided waste collection trucks with 2 Polish men - one of them grabbed the bike and threw it into the back of the truck while the other gave the by now apoplectic moron his card and told him he could collect when he learned to keep a civil tongue while talking to a lady.
2) When the screaming subsided he called the police alleging he had been attacked by my wife and she (not the Poles) had stolen his £5,000 Porsche racing bicycle. He was given a 30 days suspended jail sentence for making a false allegation and settled out of court with my wife for £2,000 and a truly grovelling letter of apology after she wrote to his employer requesting his dismissal.
Must have been hard for him to walk home on those designer cycling shoes though ...
We cross now live to Oracle. Mr Ellison, any thoughts? 'Autonomous self-driving computers eliminate human labor, eliminate human error'
Gulp! Irish Water outsources contact centres to Capita for up to €27m over 7 years
There's no accounting for TITSUP*: Beancounters bemoan Sage cloudy sync software outage
Splunk to junk masters and slaves once a committee figures out replacements
Ex-eBay security execs among six charged with harassing, threatening bloggers who dared criticize web tat souk
845GB of racy dating app records exposed to entire internet via leaky AWS buckets
GitHub to replace master with main across its services
In Hancock's half-hour, Dido Harding offers hollow laughs: Cake distracts test-and-trace boss at UK COVID-19 briefing
Saturday 13th June 2020 18:46 GMT
Re: The Cake is a lie !
Apropos the "Cake" metaphor I prefer the GDS analysis of how most government projects are run, thus:
"We are well on course and ahead of schedule. We have the roof installed and the chimney is being put in right now. We are expecting good news on delivery and installation of the walls shortly and we fully expect the foundations to be laid within the next 2 years."
Sounds like Diana Harding is the perfect project manger to run Talk Track and Talk Trace
Oh crap: UK's digital overlords moot new rules to help telcos lay fibre in sewer pipes
UK.gov announces review – not proper inquiry – into Fujitsu and Post Office's Horizon IT scandal
Thursday 11th June 2020 18:52 GMT
The last "proper "enquiry" IIRC was into the Balaclava Charge and subsequent destruction of the Light Brigade of cavalry. It stated that Lucan, Raglan and Cardigan were not fit to be in charge of remount charges in the stables, let alone several regiments of lancers.
A hurriedly reconvened enquiry found the opposite.
Thursday 11th June 2020 10:48 GMT 
Zuckerburg could not have written it better
“The Post Office is committed to applying the lessons it has learnt.”
They spent over £23m of public money on legal fees and all the while they knew there were “high risk” issues with the computer system, but did nothing about it.
“In the past, we have fallen short.”
They falsely claimed sub-postmasters stole hundreds of thousands of pounds, leaving a number of the wrongly accused in prison and some to take their own lives. If that is "fallen short" what is "made serious prosecutable errors"?
“In the past, we got things wrong in our dealings with postmasters and we look forward to moving ahead now.”
They drove people to suicide. Those people cannot “move ahead now”, so perhaps "moving ahead" should involve a criminal trial of those responsible, from junior to senior positions, and a formal apology with proper public settlement, not one engineered between barristers over claret.
Earnings up, broadband users (and voice calls) down: TalkTalk posts prelim results for FY 2020
What could possibly make a cranky crocodylomorph more terrifying? How about one that chases you on its hind legs?
You know Facebook has an image problem when major nonprofits start turning down donations over political lies
Thursday 11th June 2020 12:39 GMT
Do ZuckBots dream of electric sheep?
The real Mark Zuckerberg is a prisoner in the Evil Island Laboratory of Larry Ellison where he spends his days fixing Oracle problems on Windows. The one you see is a synthetic: the unchanging hairline is a clear giveaway, along with the inability to say anything apart from "I do not wish to answer that question <beep>".
Where is a decent Bladerunner when you need them?
Trump's Make Space Great Again video pulled after former 'naut says: Nope
25 years of PHP: The personal web tools that ended up everywhere
Yet another beefy BSOD spotted lurking within the walls of US patty pusher
Monday 8th June 2020 11:39 GMT
Re: Stuffed full of deliciousness
It is not food hygiene that is the problem. It is that the UK just can not for love or money get it right in regards to "fast food" and especially burgers. McD or Burger King in Switzerland or Austria are amazing places to eat at and the burgers are on a level with those you might find in Granger & Co - about the only place in London/SE that I could recommend for a burger.
Smart fridges are cool, but after a few short years you could be stuck with a big frosty brick in the kitchen
British Army pulls up its SOC: New regiment to do infosec work even civvies will recognise
We're number... six. Analysis puts UK behind Switzerland and Kuwait in 5G adoption
If Daddy doesn't want me to touch the buttons, why did they make them so colourful?
Friday 5th June 2020 07:28 GMT
The Z-fold nightmare
They used to make binders that you could use to bind a large printout into a plastic folder with, which simply secured via the holes in the perforation strip on either side of the paper. A great idea until you employ an idiot who carefully spent several hours removing all the perforated strips: and that only gets worse when 1 year later security want to see access logs and you have to dig out the unbound printouts.
Amazon warehouse workers sue over safety concerns as several contract COVID-19
Facebook to save US users from ads bought by foreign state-controlled media
The UK's favourite lockdown cheese is Big and Red but doesn't require a stinking great audit after consumption
Defending critical national infrastructure... hmm. Does Zoom count as critical now?
Talk about a control plane... US Air Force says upcoming B-21 stealth bomber will use Kubernetes
Staff in a huff, personal call with Trump, picking fights with Twitter, upsetting civil-rights groups – a week in the life of Facebook's Zuckerberg
Not the Wright stuff: Bitcoin 'inventor' loses bid to sue YouTuber who called him a liar
SpaceX Crew Dragon docks at International Space Station
Black horse down: UK banking giant Lloyds suffers an online wobble
Home Office waves a cool £1bn to outsource handling of British visa, citizenship applications
So you really didn't touch the settings at all, huh? Well, this print-out from my secret backup says otherwise
Friday 29th May 2020 08:39 GMT
To my shame ..
I once stood back and allowed a senior manager to roast my staff without standing up for them. It was our Christmas party in the early-90's and he was one of those people who saves up a whole year of personal pain just so that he can release it at the Christmas do - I think we have all met/employed/been employed by someone like that.
He stood up at the end of the meal and proceeded to start by praising us and gradually progressed to seriously insulting everyone. Apart from the incredible "I do not comprehend why we employ women in IT" and "I might be your superior but I still fail to understand what you all do for a living" some of his diatribe was directed against very junior individuals. I was expected afterwards to "thank" him for his speech but declined to do so - to my eternal shame I should have responded.
Lesson learned: do not allow sexist, racist or *ist bigots into senior positions. He lasted about another 3 months and during his entire remaining time we just could not get his computer to work properly - everytime he saved a document the computer would unexpectedly reboot while he seethed but remained quiet.
Trump issues toothless exec order to show donors, fans he's doing something about those Twitter twerps
Surprise! That £339 world's first 'anti-5G' protection device is just a £5 USB drive with a nice sticker on it
Boeing brings back the 737 Max but also lays off thousands
Thursday 28th May 2020 14:10 GMT
Re: "more than a dozen initiatives focused on enhancing workplace safety and product quality"
Quite. It is a shame that such a superb aircraft as the 737 should be subject to somewhat shoddy software development in its next incarnation. I was told by an aerospace engineer at Airbus that it was down to Boeing using cheap computers that, while ok with the 737, are just underpowered for the requirements of the MAX. Dunno if that is true or not.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
