Posts by Boris the Cockroach

Encryption

is a tool just like the screwdriver on my desk.

On one hand , I can use it to replace the oil return pipe.

On the other hand I can leap screaming over the desk to my 'colleague' opposite and stab him to death with it

Does that mean we need to ban screwdrivers? Just in case I take the second option... in which case , how to I fix the first option?

Challenge your MP (if he/she back it) and tell them to transmit credit card data/personal data in clear plain text over the internet.

Its about the only way to get them to think about it....until the whips get to them with "back this or a back bencher ye shall forever be"

Even Aircraft

autopilots will fly the plane into the ground if you let them.

All it takes is for say the guide slope beacons to be off and the plane wont know what to do... thats why we still have meat sacks in the cockpit because hopefully they'll know what to do and are paying attention.

It does'nt matter how good the tech on a vehicle is, if the guys in charge of said vehicle are'nt paying attention to what its doing.

Hence passing signals at danger on railways... or a korean* airlines plane landing short of the runway or this accident.

You're the meatbag in charge.. pay attention to whats going on.

*I think it was korean.... may have been another east asian airline

The birds

Got their comeuppance

Old friend told me this... They had a air filtration system that sucked a lot of air(and dust) out of the factory

To save money during winter the air was re-circulated via the return fan and duct work so that the heat did'nt get away... and during the summer the vent was changed over to dump hot factory air outside and suck cool air in.

On this day, it had been in winter mode..... and then a bright spark says "Lets cool off a bit" , walked to the control panel and hit the change over switch.

And the the vent changed over.

We think the pigeons were roosting there because they had got used to the noise.

10 seconds after change over it began snowing inside........ then they noticed it was'nt snow.

So whenever you're scraping bird poop off electrical equipment/your windscreen...... that factory had revenge for you

I guess

the ransomware gang hit a russian company judging by the response*

The rest of the time the FSB goes 'meh'

*or failed to pay the bribes on time

My own

Experience with virus are limited to 2

1 was contained in an email from a trusted friend..... sadly outlook excess used internet exploiter to render the preview pane..... and thats my system pwned (format c: cured it)

the second was picked up from some random website and was rather clever

The actual virus payload was a string of data, each byte rotated right 1 bit, and some javascript.

First thing the script did was reserve memory, then rotated left 1 bit each byte of the payload.

Then linked to syshost to deploy said payload

I cant see any anti virus program stopping the first part, but the thing that gets me is that a user level application can run random scripts that can make changes to the system. this is down to m$'s bad design of the OS nothing else.

It is that that makes such a good market for all these 'anti-virus' programs even though they can only alert you to the fact your computer has justed been pwned

And its no good saying 'linux is better' because if Linux (or OS/2 or Amiga OS or whatever) achieved the market share that windows has, then they'd be under attack by the malware boys

Perhaps a simpler solution would be to give computers to the people that actually need them, and typewriters with a document scanner/displayer to the other 95% of staff.

A lot of you are nearly

there with the solution to the NHS's IT woes

It does need a top down approach to IT... however the approach should be in "Defining the data stored by the NHS"

eg Patient name, address DoB, GP details etc etc etc

Then specify that for example a consultant needs to pull up a patients GP record, the system can then see the GP's system and recall the data from there

I've had experience of the NHS systems not being able to do a simple thing like that when needing treatment.. the local hospital did a whole series of tests (including a psyche test....the 'professional' doing that ran out of the room screaming about the darkness after 15 mins...)

Then I got transferred to another hospital who wanted to spend another week doing exactly the same tests because they could'nt talk to my local one...(loud protests from the patient about people too lazy to pick up a fucking phone sorted that :) )

having got the data definition , its upto the hospitals and GPs to buy/rent/make the best implementation of that standard.

As for the other problem with the NHS , the lack of staff , that one is even easier..... TRAIN SOME jeez (and cover their costs while in training too )

Theres nowt wrong

in retro gaming

After my most played games of the past year have been Team fortress 2 (came out in 2007) and missile command (came out in 1981)

Admittedly missile command is on my phone and provides a very welcome distraction at work for whatever is going on the meeting I'm supposed to be paying attention to(something about cost reductions and expenditure... also makes a change from playing bullshit bingo with the chief inspector)

But its hard work when the boss turns round and asks "Anything to add Mr Cockroach?" and I say "fuck...my last city just got nuked"

Am I reading this

right?

The sort of coding that would get a FAIL mark in my assignment

But maybe it helps understand m$ and its failings.... somewhere , on a managers PC , theres the same sort of code claiming its 1995, and also claiming we dont need more than 640Kb of memory..... or netscape or some free OS called Linux....

It will be the year of AI

translators.....

Well actually it wont but its nice to think an AI could do a better job of translating the japanese manuals for our machinery into english than the current lot of Russians who speak neither langauge.

And as for craft beer..... if you like cloudy beer with bits in... save yourself some money and brew it yourself

And if you and your friends survive the experience of drinking it , you can always sell it to a bunch of bearded hipsters in checked shirts....

Anyway... have some music to accompany you on your trip down the highway..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ9V5cRSOPg

Geek? really?

We're not the problem here.... blah blah blah the IT world keeps the information spinning around and around.

I tend to think of us geeks as 15th century printers.... someone gives us 15 shillings and 4 pence and we print out 20000 copies of 'death to the king!" (of course we'd work on the words a bit)

In the 21st century , we're the people who come up with the tools to let someone else post "death to the king!" and have 14 000 followers all like the message.

In both cases the king turns up at our front door and has us all executed. then executes as many people as he can catch. (which is why most printers in the 15th century based themselves in another country then printed "death to the english king"

As for inheriting the earth, I rather enjoy my job as dark lord of the robots, partly for the power, but mostly because I'm lazy and would rather not have to do any actual work.

Still in 100 yrs time we'll be back to the old ways due to over population and a carrington class solar flare

I so want this

not for myself but for the alledged production engineer sitting opposite me

Sneak over while hes off for a day, pair it with his smartphone, then replace his desk phone.... and let the mischief begin.....

Damn sure the boss will see the funny side of making him use a fisher price toy phone... as will anyone else..

What about

Winnie the pooh

Are discussions about him banned as well?

When you look at china you see the future of the internet for the rest of us

Identifying end to end

encryption.... hmm

OK I boot up firefox.... and login in to my online bank account(very unlikely as I dont have one)

My password and account info are encrypted and sent to the bank ... who then encrypt the response.... and so on and so on until the session is finished and I log off

Next I boot up a custom version of IRC(remember that?) my chat is encrypted and sent to the IRC server who then relays it to the people I'm talking to.

Will this new snooping software be able to tell the difference? will it be able to tell apart what data I am sending if both programs are using the same encryption algorithm? and more to the point, will the powers have to obtain a warrent to be able to snoop on you rather like they have to if they want to intercept and open your mail?

And finally who gets to decide what harm the social media(farcebork) is causing or is not causing..........

Further training needed

I suggest el-reg's own BOFH does it

I can imagine the invoice

3 duracell 'D' cells

1 roll of carpet

1 bag of quick lime

Hire of a van for 6 hrs

Hire of a woodchipper

2 hrs traveling expenses

Oh and

Printing out a sign saying "DONT OPEN ATTATCHMENTS ON EMAILS UNLESS YOU WANT THIS TO HAPPEN TO YOU"

I'd love

to work from home.

Sadly my neighbours are rather against it due to the noise of the air compressors, the disruption to have 3 phase supply put in.... and the minor annoyance of a 5 &1/2 ton machine tool coming through their ceiling....

Thats not to say there are aspects of the job that can be done from home, the programming and design work for one. but when you need to be on-site at all times to deal with any problems that may happen (tool failure/machine failure/mangler failure) then its not sensible to be a 40 min drive away .

Its

dust on the lens caused by venus being in conjunction with Mars during sunset being seen through large amounts of swamp gas

Now look into this while we erase your memory

So long as

it does'nt listen into prisoner-lawyer conversations..........

The US justice system is the best justice system money can buy, where a man can be found guilty because the cost of being found innocent will bankrupt him....

Black friday season for

me runs all the way upto new year...

Lets face it , on telly now its nothing but xmas adverts interspersed with "DIY cremation" and "over 50s pay for your DIY cremation" ads

Hint: never watch daytime TV while depressed... especially after that failed breathe test has locked you out of your iShiney gadget(and house... and car)

Anyway.. have a smiley for the music vid

Change needed I think

Quote

"Microsoft's long-suffering unpaid testers "

Should really be changed to

"Microsoft's long suffering customers"