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* Posts by Daniel B.

3134 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Oct 2007

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Crypto weakness leaves online banking apps open to attack

Daniel B.
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Boffin

Switching cyphers?

That's "security by obscurity", and depending on that isn't secure at all.

I know about the "encrypted tickets", though I only use them for session identification. No real loss if someone decrypts a cookie; the really sensitive stuff I send using an AES128-encrypted message, signed with a RSA-2048 key and the secret AES key is also encrypted with RSA-2048. So the "secure transfer" stuff is actually secure, but that's because I take an extra security step instead of using MS' "secure tickets". Meh.

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Microsoft shields Russia's refuseniks from police harassment

Daniel B.
Joke

Time for a Yakov Smirnoff...

In Russia, Piracy comes to YOU!!!!

In America, you buy Microsoft products. In Russia, Microsoft buys YOU!!!

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Veteran spam suit troll plaintiff calls it quits

Daniel B.
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So what?

These guys were pimping off spammers ... and they got reamed? Yeah, probably because they aren't patent trolls or MAFIAA trolls. Sad to see this ruling, because "trolling spammers" seems to be bad, but "trolling real inventors" seems to be good.

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Microsoft's man in Nokia: he's all business

Daniel B.
Thumb Up

Android would overtake Blackberry?

Android as 2nd place worldwide ... that would mean not only jumping over iOS, but also the Blackberry share. Now that's impressive, given that the BB OS market share is still twice the iOS share. Even then, Symbian is still big in the smartphone market; its market share is still pretty high, last I checked Symbian had a 40%+ piece of the pie. So Gartner's 2014 prediction isn't far-fetched ... but Android leapfrogging RIM this year is kinda far-fetched. However, this prediction also means that iOS isn't going to be anywhere near the top three by then.

Now if Android does pull off that prediction ... the smartphone market is going to get very interesting.

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2 CPUS 1 CUPP

Daniel B.
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Unhappy

Jobs killed that for you. :(

I think you want a smartbook, which is basically an ARM based netbook.... oh wait, the iPad killed those developments. Damn you Apple!!!

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Nintendo hails Super Mario's silver anniversary

Daniel B.
Happy

Waiting for a 1-UP doodle...

Google fail! :(

Though Donkey Kong did have Mario, called "Jumpman" back then. The first "real" Mario appearance is in the mostly forgotten "Mario Bros" game ... the one involving turtles getting turned upside down and a big POW thingy in the middle. "Super Mario Bros" is much more known because it was the first side-scroller; in this sense "Super Mario Bros" has a similar story to "Street Fighter 2" ... where few people remember, or even played the original Street Fighter.

So yeah, for most people, Mario just turned 25. Those who played the obscure Mario Bros. will peg Mario's age at 27. :)

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Cinema chain bans laptops, tablets

Daniel B.

Secure lockers?

Some places have some kind of "secure lockers", where you just choose an empty one (the key is in the slot), chuck your stuff in, put in a coin, close & lock the thing and take the key with you. So nobody can open it 'till you return with your key. If cinemas offer this option, I would see no problem in just chucking in my laptop/iDevice/whatever. I would want to have my phone on me, though ... there is the odd chance that someone calling me would be doing so for an emergency, that's why I put my Blackberry on vibrating/silent mode.

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Smartbook done to death by Apple iPad

Daniel B.
Boffin

I want a smartbook, though.

The format has the things I actually want:

- It's a netbook, but it isn't a shitty x86-based crapware. It's ARM!

- It can have a real OS, either Nokia's experimental MeeGo or some Linux flavor.

- It isn't locked-down by anyone.

Unfortunately, they took too much time to release 'em and the iPad does seem to have stolen the thunder of these devices. However, I also think that there is still market for smartbooks; I really hope they do pick up, as they would take over both Intel and MS.

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'Hyperbolic map' of the internet will save it from COLLAPSE

Daniel B.

Oh the irony

Caída means "fall" in Spanish; and it is usually used to refer to system outages. "Se cayó mi internet" (my internet went down), "se cayó el servidor" (the sever went down), "el sistema está caído" (the system is down) ... it does bring some chuckles to read that acronym.

About the hyperbolic routing ... all this time I thought that the real problem with the internet was the lack of redundant links, such that a boat slashing an underwater fiber cable will leave a whole continent offline. Whoops!

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Robots capable of 'deceiving humans' built by crazed boffins

Daniel B.
Terminator

Did they name them?

I think they've just invented the Decepticons.

I'll begin to worry when the Second Variety starts rolling into production. Now that is something I would definitely fear...

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Nokia's new boss is Microsoft man

Daniel B.
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Oh dear

You're younger than Linux? Now I truly feel old. The only OSes still in use that are older than me must be OS/360, VMS, Tandem NonStop and the original AT&T UNIX. Even the "modern" OS/400 and OS/390 (now z/OS) are younger than me. The one OS that seems to be about my age is DOS.

That said, I agree that "switching to Android" is as lame as Palm switching to Windows. That basically killed them. I can only hope that MeeGo does get some major improvements, or that Symbian gets a good face-lift. I find the current breed of mobile OSes lacking; I've basically stuck with Blackberry OS because it's secure, but it is confined to Blackberries.

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World's only real flying car in price hikes, further delays

Daniel B.
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Flame

Yeeowch

You mean the flying buggy that sometimes takes off, and never lands ... but actually crashes. The Transition doesn't seem to have that problem, but the 150kg limit does seem to be a show stopper. I weigh 79 kilos, which means I'd have to fly with someone under 70kg or fly solo.

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ARM flexes muscles with fivefold performance boost

Daniel B.
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Coat

Oh my.

You have now stuck into my mind a "Process Thunderdome"

"TWO PIDS IN, ONE PID OUT"

Mine's the one with the MFP badge.

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Apple: third-party iOS dev tools OK after all

Daniel B.
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Jobs Horns

I found an Apple-shaped troll

I doubt that the sudden antitrust stuff slammed at Apple was a simple coincidence. It came right after Jobs started his anti-semit^Wanti-Flash crusade. Of course, they couldn't keep banning Flash and at the same time, allowing other devkits to generate iPhone apps. If Jobs had banned those other tools, there's a good chance that all those app devs would've flocked to other platforms, like Android.

It is probably not under the "monopolistic practice" per se, but "unfair competition" might be the issue here.

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BlackBerry World hits 10K apps

Daniel B.
Thumb Up

BB World 2.0 is actually good

One of the good things about it is that I can actually purchase the apps now. It used to be that Mexico was a "free apps only" region, but now I can purchase the apps, though it does seem to be the case of PayPal being required. However, that might be me not being in the US.

Some of the apps are pretty good, I've even purchased a few of 'em. Their sales model is also different; you pay ain initial fee for releasing apps, but whatever sales you get, they go 100% to you, instead of the 70/30 split. Of course, this could be because RIM already benefits from the BIS/BES service contracts and thus has no need to pimp the AppStore. Then again, neither does Apple, but Apple loves to pimp everyone.

Anyway... the few apps I've purchased have been pretty useful. I've also noticed that ever since the AppWorld came out, the number of BB apps have increased. That's pretty good!

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iOS 4.1 out today, iPhone hackers say

Daniel B.
Joke

It's a trap!

That phrase must be attached to a picture of Admiral Ackbar to have the intended effect!

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Brits don't want in-flight calling

Daniel B.
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Roaming charges

The extortionate roaming bills will mean that the regular yappers won't be yapping on their mobiles anyway.

Actually, I'm much more annoyed by frickin' crying babies on flights. The human brain is hard-wired to respond to those, so a baby crying will wake you up, and won't let you sleep. Arrrgh!

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Eric Schmidt warns Berliners: 'We know where you are'

Daniel B.
Happy

Ve know vere you are

As everyvun knows, ze phraze should be said vith a German accent, ja?

The excuse of not knowing the particular German background must be at most 20 years old. I may have been a kid when 'der Mauer' went down, but I still know how bad the Stasi were. It is probably because of that that Germans have pretty good privacy laws over there.

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'Copyright troll' seeks $150,000 from republican candidate

Daniel B.
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Mixed feelings

As much as I love watching Repubs getting bit by the same big-corps they claim to "protect", I really wish that they counter-sue with a RICO lawsuit. This is mob-like behaviour, and should be treated as such.

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Oz pedestrians fall to 'Death by iPod'

Daniel B.
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Earplug headphones

Walkmans used the big headphones, which didn't do much about ambient noise. The first in-ear headphones didn't do much about that as well... but some of the newer mp3 player inear headphones actually work as earplugs, blocking most ambient noise. Those are the "zombie trance" guys.

And yes, I did have a Walkman, but I didn't have the noise-blocking headphones.

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Sony updates PS3 system software

Daniel B.
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Boffin

Been there, done that...

The original method was pretty much naive; the PS3 would check a predefined URL which gives back a txt file, saying which is the "current" version, which is the "mandatory" minimum version, and a link to the latest firmware. Clever users did a "bypass" on this, pointing DNS to a fake server giving the old txt file; it allowed us to keep using 3.15 on PSN. Sony did something though; after 3 weeks, one of those weird hex-numbered errors started appearing. We suppose Sony added some additional FW checking stuff server-side.

so yeah, those monkeying with the USB dongle are going to be left out in the cold, in a similar manner we OtherOS dudes were left out.

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Judge extends Oz PS3 mod dongle ban

Daniel B.
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Thumb Down

Doubt it.

3.21 only had "removing OtherOS" as its "must-have feature", which led to many PS3 owners calling it a downgrade. The only FW update you'll see will be the one blocking this vector, or another vector; it won't magically bring on new features. And you'll have to upgrade, as the PSN doesn't allow you to connect with older FW; their FW-checking stuff was beefed up after the whole 3.21 fiasco.

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Daniel B.
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Unhappy

Freetards vs. Homebrew+OtherOS

Most of the driving forces behind cracking the PS3 were enticed to do so after OtherOS was killed. Unfortunately, once these guys cracked it, the freeloaders immediately use the acquired skills enable piracy on the device, under the guise of 'backups'. This is a load of bull, as the PS3 already installs a good portion of the game on the HDD, so the BluRay disc isn't used as much, so there isn't that big a risk of BR scratching.

And *still* no way to get OtherOS back. That should've been the main goal, if this toy had enabled that, it would've given them legal standing to not only keep on the sales, but probably force Sony to re-enable OtherOS on future firmware updates. But noooooo... they wanted free games. While I think that the "piracy == theft" argument is pretty much flawed, I do not condone piracy.

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German kiddies punted porn-projecting pens

Daniel B.
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You broke my Sarcasm detector!

I hope.

Hitler went after the Commies, as anyone who has read about the Richstag fire and the NSDAP's rise to power should know. The party was called the "National Socialist" party, but it was actually a counter-socialist party to begin with, and with Hitler it became something truly evil.

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Death by iPod: beware the zombie trance

Daniel B.
Alert

Noise-reducing earbuds aren't an excuse.

I happen to have the kind of in-ear headphones (earphones?) that reduce noise to a point where you can't really hear anything. When I'm in the subway, or in the bus, I have no problem with this. If anything, it also makes the subway ride bearable, as I can't hear the loud jackasses who sell pirated CDs on the train; they carry portable amps with their "music" cranked all the way up to 11!

However, if I'm on the street, the first thing I do is to take out one of the earbuds, and turn down the volume. This is common sense, and anyone who doesn't do this is just waiting for a Darwin Award.

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Energizer bunny hits iPhone, BlackBerry - wirelessly

Daniel B.

as useless as the PowerMat

I've seen a crapload of PowerMat commercials. I fail to see the convenience of these gimmicks, as they take longer to charge, and it involves adding some weird extension to my handset(s). I've got 4 cellphones that need charging (3 of them are Blackberries) and I yet have to find a good reason why this would be good for me.

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Apple Ping unfriends meanie Facebook

Daniel B.
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FAIL

Umm...

Isn't Apple the one that started with the dumbed-down paradigm? Their design goal has always been for its OS and devices to be used by even the dumbest user. So it is in fact the Windows OS the one that has recently dumbed down everything, and not the other way.

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Daniel B.
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Pirate

Subs

I suppose that submarines will have to use another term for their active sonar thingies as well...

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It's alive! Duke Nukem Forever breaks out of vapour trail

Daniel B.

It will kinda kill some of the jokes, though.

DNF will actually be released before everyone's transitioned to IPv6.

But then again, Starcraft 2 actually got released before DNF.

The really good joke is that there's a pretty good chance that most current-gen console owners have never, ever heard about Duke Nukem.

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Chrome celebrates second b-day with sixth release

Daniel B.
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Thumb Down

They aren't giving a flying fudge on that, though.

There was a biiig thread complaining on that:

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=41467

and basically, Google's telling complainers to go have recursive intercourse. They don't seem to be so bright with user input, remember Buzz?

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General Motors bitchslaps Tesla with Range Anxiety™

Daniel B.
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Boffin

ICE

Aren't the ICE and TGV trains running on full leccy engines all the way? There are quite a bunch of those doing 300+ km distances on those. The power requirements would probably go down if you factor in the MagLevs like Transrapid, where the linear motor is more energy-efficient than the mechanical one.

Of course, this model works on trains, but it doesn't work with EVs because they can't be currently plugged in to a catenary or third rail like the regular trains do. Cars thus require to haul with big-ass batteries that take a lot of time to recharge. Flow batteries, maybe?

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Daniel B.
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Boffin

Flat-friendliness

And this is my main gripe with all full EVs. Living in flats means that you can't just plug the thing in. This has discouraged me from buying most EV prospects; hybrids do interest me more, but they are too bloody expensive!

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Daniel B.
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Flow batteries?

Wouldn't it be better to just use flow batteries? That would reduce the "charging" to a simple "electrolyte change" at the station. That should work as similar as filling up the gas tank today. Is this truly hard to implement?

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AOL goes soul-searching with Google in 5-year deal

Daniel B.

AOL

Used to say that they were the #1 ISP in the USA. Charging by the hour, and at very expensive rates at that... *using dialup*. No wonder that when broadband came, everyone left in droves.

Now they're largely forgotten.

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Jobs takes swing at Google over Android activations

Daniel B.
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Thumb Down

Which is still doctoring numbers.

Android is only sold as a phone, and while there are some tablets out there, I think that Google isn't counting those. You can't really say that you have the upper hand on cellphones if a good chunk of your devices aren't really cellphones, can you? It isn't quite the case with the BluRay/HD-DVD wars where the HDDVD camp didn't count PS3s, even though they were perfectly capable of playing movies. The iTouch and the iPad *can't* make real, cellphone calls. Those are competing in another, different market where the Nokia "Internet Tablets" and the Tablet PCs roam.

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US loses last chance for free wireless

Daniel B.
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Boffin

Legal liability

"The legal framework is such that people are liable for other people's traffic on their routers."

That is why my WiFi AP is set up all the way to WPA2-AES. I don't want the cops knocking in my door because some freetard downloaded kiddie porn, or some drug dealer organized a hit using my "free" wifi. Even with this, I set up my home network in such a way that the wireless network is in a separate subnet, so I can simply firewall it so that they remain separate, or simply block everyone except the "authorized users".

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Open source PS3 hack code posted

Daniel B.
Boffin

But the real question is....

... will it allow me to enable OtherOS?

If it doesn't, I'm not interested.

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NZ woman pays motorised tribute to A RYAN 1

Daniel B.
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50KILA

Might have not got the 50 (the guys explained what 50 meant with the 18750 plate discussion) but "KILA" is gangsta rap for "Killer".

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Lock up your Crackberries

Daniel B.
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Thumb Up

Mexico City: Crackberry Zone

Same over here. Most "first smartphone" buyers have been buying into the Blackberry appeal; it seems that the idea of a cellphone-based IM system (Blackberry Messenger) has a big appeal over here. The iPhone being much more expensive than even the priciest BB might be another reason...

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Daniel B.
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Boffin

Aready does?

"Why don't the Lock Screens for smart phones have a space where the owner could provide his contact information (alternate landline telephone number, e-mail)."

My Blackberry does this. It has a configurable lock screen message for "Owner Name" and "brief message", which are shown every time the phone's locked. While I didn't put my home phone or address, a quick search on the whitepages can give them my home number. Or even better, they could go to a Customer Service center for my carrier and get them to send the handset to me.

However, I think I'll stick my email on the screen, so that anyone can send me an e-mail telling me they have my phone. That is, of course, assuming that the person who found it wants to give it back. Whoever nicked my Bold 9000 clearly wasn't interested in giving it back.

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Sony Oz mod chip dongle ban hearing delayed

Daniel B.
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OtherOS, indeed.

"yes, this does not bring back OtherOS."

This is why this dongle doesn't interest me at all. I don't want to engage in piracy at all, but I do want my frickin' OtherOS back. However, I do not wish Sony to be harmed as the competition (MS XBOX 360) has an even worse customer disservice record. At least Sony isn't pimping console owners for online play, charging extra for wireless controllers or banning third-party accessories. Yes, I'm still mad at them for killing OtherOS, but I hate MS even more!

I do hope that Sony realizes that by killing OtherOS, they only pissed off the hacking community enough to make them take a shot and actually try to crack the PS3's security. Its been 5 months since the infamous 3.21 firmware came out, more than enough time for a dedicated team to start churning out these cracks.

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AMD to dump ATI brand

Daniel B.
Thumb Down

Who did they ask?

I know that ATI at least sounds like "nVidia's Competition". AMD sounds more like "those guys who make x86/64 chips that aren't Intel", so the brand isn't directly related to GPUs. It would look like VW-branded power tools ... yeah, they do good cars, but it isn't quite their market.

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Iron-on armpit BO stench-filters 'ideal for modern lifestyle'

Daniel B.
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Actually, sweat stinks

People who have some dietary habits, or smokers, will have a distinct unpleaseant odor. Heavy drinking will also cause smelly sweat as well, and if the drinking stuff was of dubious quality, the smell will be unbearable.

That said, "right now" stink from a hard day's work is much more bearable than "yesterday's stink". That particular brand of stink will be more pungent, and noticable from even a couple of metres away. To those gits, TAKE A SHOWER!

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Drunken employee pops cap in server

Daniel B.
Joke

How to kill a process

Hey, this guy finally found out the true multi-platform implementation of kill -9 -1!

I got reminded of an incident with our campus enrolling system and a load of TIMEOUT messages. It lead us to start quoting Pulp Fiction, and damn, those lines might have even been the actual dialog:

Drunken Master: Where are you from?

Server: [Operation timeout]

DM: Do you speak english in Timeout?

S: [Timeout]

DM: Say TIMEOUT again! I dare you! I double dare you motherf***er! SAY TIMEOUT AGAIN!

S: [Timeout]

>BANG BANG BANG BANG<

And thus, the $100K server dies....

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Pentagon confirms attack breached classified network

Daniel B.
FAIL

MLF, Multiple Levels of FAIL

There's a large amount of smelly stuff here. How the hell would a military computer run Windows at all? But this is only the tip of the iceberg. The military is supposed to use NIPRNet and SIPRNet, for "regular" stuff and classified stuff respectively. These networks are practically separate from the civilian internet, which means that this malware probably exposed a huge hole in these networks. WTF?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIPRNet

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BBC adopts El Reg units

Daniel B.
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Happy

Looking at the wrong place

It's on the first picture's footnote. :)

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Java lobby lowers Android and iPhone defenses

Daniel B.
Boffin

Better to just go down the RIM road

The Blackberry OS is much easier for software development; while it is Java ME, the RIM framework expands and fills in all the Java ME gaps. This will probably be Oracle's main Java Mobile income source, as it is the only one where the platform isn't sucking. Android ... well, if Oracle can get them in line (instead of destroying them), that might be a cash cow as well.

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Take-Two Interactive loses fight for Bioshock.com

Daniel B.
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English 101

[Bracketed] words are used when doing direct quotes to change words, or add extra words on a direct quote. This is done because usually the quote might refer to something that is not in the text, so you have to add that context for the quote to have any meaning at all. For example, you can have the following paragraph:

Andrew Ryan built Rapture as an Ayn Randian utopia. By 1960, it had been ravaged by civil war, while he remained locked down inside his own office.

If I want to do a direct quote from this, I would have to do it this way:

"By 1960, [Rapture] had been ravaged by civil war, [...]"

As you can see, I substituted it for Rapture.

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Secret X-37B space plane lost by sat-spotters for 2 weeks

Daniel B.
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Megaphone

Learn your geography

There are 5 continents (six, if you count Antartica) in the world, which explains why there are 5 rings in the Olympics logo.

America

Asia

Africa

Europe

Oceania

Anything smaller is usually referred as regions or "subcontinents". Like North America, Eastern Europe, Central Asia...

Unfortunately, the USA chose to have a really long name, and "UnitedStatesian" sounds too long & ugly, so they took the "American" moniker for themselves. The perversion of this causes the Monroe Doctrine "America for the Americans" even more funny; its original intent was that the Triple Entente didn't interfere with the new American countries, the double entendre has been that the US wanted to take over the entire American continent.

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Tools and rules buffed for Microsoft's iPhone challenger

Daniel B.
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AppWorld

Blackberry also has the AppWorld, Android has the Marketplace. While I know that some rooted Android handsets can run cracked versions of apps, the BB doesn't have this problem. The advantage on their quasi-open model is that you can sell on the AppWorld, or simply sell it anywhere else if you want to. This gave me the advantage of buying apps even when AppWorld wasn't selling me apps; Mexico was a "free app only" region until recently.

While I can't attest for AppWorld figures, I do know that a couple of apps sell really well, even outside of the AppWorld store.

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