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Cloudy, with some rain in the immediate future
Posts by Paul Crawford
5659 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Mar 2007
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No change in US law, no data transfer deals – German state DPA
Volvo to 'accept full liability' for crashes with its driverless cars
Tuesday 13th October 2015 07:39 GMT 
Re: What ifs
EVERY article ever written on El Reg about driverless cars, someone in the forum pops up with "who's going to pay for it if/when they crash"
I do. And now we have a car company saying quite unambiguously that they accept the blame for faults in their car design or manufacture, and that is a great step forward (subject to getting country laws to accepts such a thing).
As other commentards have pointed out, an autonomous car will almost certainly out-brake a human driver in any obvious impact scenario. Though how well they will deal with odd cases, loss of communications (doh! stupid idea...) and anticipation of kids, etc, playing at the roadside is another more difficult question to be answered.
Finally, can we please have proper audits and standards for car software? It is shitty enough we have cars recalled due to potential hacking via in-car entertainment (e.g. Jeep) and not shutting off (e.g. Ford) but having full control of all aspects of the vehicle offers far more opportunities for a BSOD than so far (e.g. Toyota's "unintended acceleration").
Google's .bro file format changed to .br after gender bother
Vodafone joins calls to pry Openreach from BT's hands
Thursday 8th October 2015 21:09 GMT
Virgin (no longer owned by the beardy one) bought over past telcos coax networks, they have laid very little since.
It costs real money to do so, and there is not profit in that when there is no universal obligation on them to do so (and bugger-all for openreach putting in fibre outside of VM's areas).
Now even EUROPE is slapping down ICANN in internet power struggle
ICANN: Just give us the keys to the internet – or the web will disintegrate
4K catches fire with OTT streamers, while broadcasters burn
Porsche-gate: Android Auto isn't slurping tons of engine data, claims Google – but questions remain
Thursday 8th October 2015 07:21 GMT
Re: All cars have split CAN buses
That sounds sensible. But what happened with Jeep's hacking via entertainment system? Seems someone was not thinking security through at all.
As I have commentarded before, its time that in-car hardware and software was audited for this sort of thing and the results published ncap-style so you can choose to avoid dumb/misled designer's results.
EU desperately pushes just-as-dodgy safe harbour alternatives
Phone thieves to face harsher penalties for data theft
Tuesday 6th October 2015 22:20 GMT
Re: Irreplaceable photographs
The only way this law makes sense is if the criminal then goes on to use/abuse the phone's data.
If your phone is nicked that’s not good, but if there is no violence/injury its only a phone. If you have irreplaceable data on the phone that is valuable then you should not deserve any more compensation (or the scrote any more punishment). After all it could easily fail or be wiped by some botched upgrade and you would get bugger-all back from the EULA even if it were generally dismissed by a court.
Surface Book: Microsoft to turn unsuccessful tab into unsuccessful laptop
Edward Snowden denies making a deal with the Russian secret service
Tuesday 6th October 2015 18:17 GMT
Re: Interesting comments here
Oh I don't know, Europe has plenty of trolls, and not just under Scandinavian bridges doing a bit of goat-bothering.
Just put up something with a political or religious slant and they come out of the woodwork. Logic and reason are not required, in fact, really take away from a good rant.
What is money? A rabid free marketeer puts his foot in lots of notes
Sunday 4th October 2015 13:01 GMT
Re: Gold Standard
Sensibly used fiat money allows for better management of the economy as Tim points out, but if gov are stupid then gold is a buffer to stop that.
So what is best? Maybe if we stopped any index-linking of politicians pensions, or better still linked them to the economy as a whole, we would see a bit more prudence...
Ten years on: Ronnie Barker, Pismonouncers Unanimous founder, remembered
Ex-Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch sues HP for $150m+
You lucky devs: It's Microsoft Office 2016 ... and VBA lives on
FATTIES have most SUCCESS with opposite SEX! Have some pies and SCORE
Tear teardown down, roars Apple: iFixit app yanked from store
Arabic-speaking cyberspies targeting BOFHs with crude but effective attacks
Diskicide – the death of disk
Monday 28th September 2015 08:14 GMT
Re: "post-dedupe"
As soon as folk start talking about compression or de-dupe, they are up to something, and that something is usually a lie.
Compare RAID-protected capacity & cost. Note the IOPS difference, then decide.
Not all work loads benefit from compression or de-dupe to make the extra CPU load and/or RAM usage worthwhile, so leave that to the customer to see if there is some advantage.
Will IT support please come to the ward immediately. Weeeee have a tricky problem
Get on with it! Uncle Sam's right-hand man schools ICANN powwow
Saturday 26th September 2015 08:07 GMT
Re: Unprofessional. Irresponsible.
Yes - probably best option is to nuke it from orbit.
Start again, new board, rules that stop them plying silly buggers, and if they are OK in a years time then job done. After all, most of the Internet would function perfectly well without ICANN, certainly for the time it takes to wipe and re-install.
Controversial: The future is data integrity, not confidentiality
Friday 25th September 2015 09:10 GMT
Re: @Pete H
Firstly a passport is optional, you only need that to travel abroad. Same as a driving license, you only need that to drive. Now most folk will want both, but you can live well enough without them.
Secondly it is not so much malice I fear but incompetence, and that said incompetence could seriously screw you up when everything depends on the ID/database being correct. If its wrong, how do you go about correcting it? Who will pay for losses resulting from such errors?
Friday 25th September 2015 07:17 GMT
UK problems with ID cars
The most fundamental issues with the ID cards in the UK come down to two issues:
1) Becoming a non-citizen without one. So if anything happens (you lost it, or the gov screws up) then instantly you might lose the ability to do anything or get health care, etc, because now you now have to prove you are a citizen.
2) The asymmetry of the power. Basically the gov can fine to £1000 for failing to update your detail, can use or abuse the data (e.g. sell it to insurers, etc) as they want. But if they fuck up you have basically no rights to sue them in return (even if you did have that right, the asymmetry in legal resources makes that difficult).
If you look at Estonia they have a very different approach, not the database-state that our gov was wanting to create where the ID was simply to help them. In Estonia the ID card and systems have been created to provide you, the citizen and voter, with advantages.
Just note the law where you can't be pestered to provide data the gov already has, and that you have a right to see who has accessed your data.
Blighty's Bloodhound 1,000mph rocket car unveiled ahead of record attempt
So how do Google's super-smart security folk protect their data?
Friday 25th September 2015 07:01 GMT
Re: Yes, password manager
A password manager is a great idea - except when its web based, as you don't control that. Oh and of course if it is software on your machine, and your machine is pw0ned and you have not realised it. Or you have to you another's machine, which may be pw0ned.
Convenience trumps security each time. Probably what we should be going for is a more universal 2FA system so you have one physically isolated dongle-like random number generator that you can register with your password, so gaining access to one or the other is not enough.
NASA rover coders at Intel's Wind River biz axed – sources
Thursday 24th September 2015 20:16 GMT 
Sad to hear
At one time the main argument for paying for software was you got knowledgeable and experienced support from folk who had made those mistakes years ago and would not do it again on your watch.
Now that is simple an expense to be gotten rid of to shore up some CEO's stupid purchase losses elsewhere.
We saw the future: Apart from the bath apps it looks like the past
Thursday 24th September 2015 20:12 GMT
Re: Very common
No if the cable is too long you can do any of the following:
1) Place the appliance further away if it is useful.
2) Coil up the cable, possible with some form of cable tie to hold it neatly in place.
3) Cut the cable a little too long[*] and put a new plug on it.
Easy really...
* We all know a cable cut to length will be too short.
Penny wise and pound foolish: Server hoarders are energy wasters
Thursday 24th September 2015 19:41 GMT
Yes, Windows as such is more expensive. But the overall cost comes down to what you need to run and how much effort you are willing or able to put in to it.
Most readers of El Reg who don't have much legacy Windows stuff will be happy to run various servers of all sorts to do the job, and much cheaper than cloud solutions. Other do need Windows and maybe that is the cheapest solution for either local hardware or cloud provisioning.
On the other hand, a lot of SMB have no real tech support and the cloud suits them in both style and cost. Think web email, document collaboration with Google Docs or Office 365.
And then we get on to data sovereignty and what happens if you decide not to pay suppler #1 any more...
Thursday 24th September 2015 19:37 GMT
Re: The reason why some businesses are still running P4s
Our experience of P2V converters is mixed, my old home machine (W2k) worked perfectly after I did a bit of file system re-arranging and had enough external HDD to direct the output to. Another machine failed, but that might have been due to the odd/legacy drivers that were not uninstalled first.
I suspect old systems are find with VM emulation, so long as you go for a low enough starting point. Also you can try/wipe/try again with greater ease. Overall I have been really impressed by the VMplayer as a tool to preserve old flaky Windows software and set-ups.
Official: North America COMPLETELY OUT of new IPv4 addresses
Russian Tor network-wrecking effort takes bizarre turn
India to cripple its tech sector with proposed encryption crackdown
CHEAT! Volkswagen chief 'deeply sorry' over diesel emission test dodge
Monday 21st September 2015 15:57 GMT
Code audit time?
Considering this case of VW (and no doubt others) lying in such test.
Toyota with unintended acceleration (and a few deaths) due to poorly design software
Ford with cars that would not shut off.
Others like Jeep with crappy security where in-care entertainment could fiddle with braking, etc.
it seems it is high time that on-board software was treated as something to be subject to an independent audit to establish that it is not cheating in test (that any "saving features" really work for normal driving) and that safety and security is taken seriously.
Crash Google Chrome with one tiny URL: We cram a probe in this bug
Sunday 20th September 2015 16:42 GMT
Re: "Opera 32.0 which is based on Chromium 45"
Tried this with Chromium 37.0.2062.120 Ubuntu 12.04 (281580) (64-bit) (version, out of date, supplied with Ubuntu 12.04) and no problems. Guess this bug was introduced since then?
Same test for Firefox on this machine (40.0.3), no problems.
Same test for older Opera (12.16), also no problems. Tried new Opera, it lacked most of the good features of old one (the "turbo" proxy server is its only benefit) so went back. If I need more up-to-date support I have Firefox or can fire up VMs with other choices.
SCREW YOU, FEDS! Dozen or more US libraries line up to run Tor exit nodes
SAP CEO McDermott loses AN EYE, almost his life in horror plunge
Thursday 17th September 2015 09:15 GMT
Re: Wow. Minor accident, massive consequences.
I think "freak" is more accurate than "unfortunate".
Still, a sobering thought as to how an apparently minor incident could be so bad. Guess its up there with folk who die having tripped and fallen on dishwashers with the knives packed pointy-end upwards.
Uber is killing off iconic black cabs, warns Zac Goldsmith
Wi-Gig signals are bouncing off the walls, can't settle on the sofa
Should take down mean stay down? EU’s Big Internet quiz leaks
Monday 14th September 2015 16:38 GMT
Take-down distinction
There is a major difference in the nature of Google searching (as it covers everyone's web sites) and YouTube (where Google run the site).
As you rightly point out, it is quite practical for YouTube to perform at least some basic fingerprinting of files to see if they match known copyright works and then apply some sane action (e.g. if its a fraction of a work, its probably 'fair use' for commentary or discussion but if most of the work then its not).
However, it is another matter altogether to apply the same reasoning to web search results as the BPI, MPAA, etc, would like. For example, if a copyright work has a very generic name like "Pixels" then we see how stupid the automated take-down notices are:
https://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-group-hits-indie-creators-for-using-the-word-pixels-150808/
Even though such notices are supposed to carry financial penalties if incorrectly used, somehow they are not being applied.
Jeremy Corbyn wins Labour leadership election
ALIENS on CERES? Nope – it's just dwarf's tucked away MOIST BITS
Sign of the telly times: HDR shines, UHD Blu-ray slides at IFA
Yahoo! won't! fix! emoticon! exploit! in! death! row! Messenger!
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
