* Posts by David Hicks

1235 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Apr 2008

iPad TWO: What, already?

David Hicks

After hours of peering at SSL hex dumps

I wasn't thinking very metaphorically. So sue me!

David Hicks

Why is there what appears to be a razor ad?

In the middle of the story?

Weird...

So Apple finally caved and are putting a forward facing camera in the new one?

Well let me be the first to say DUH!!!

This form factor is perfect for video calling, they missed a trick with the first model. Unless of course it was part of the plan all along...

New iPad 2! Does all the shit you assumed the first one would do!

Sony expands legal offensive to more PS3 hackers

David Hicks

Boycott affect them? Maybe not

However if I cease to give them any of my money, I know I'm not funding this bullshit.

So it would be nice to see this behaviour boycotted out of existence, I'm well aware that will never happen.

It's enough for me that I'm not helping them harass people and destroy ownership rights.

Microsoft re-org: more code, less death by PowerPoint?

David Hicks

Holy Crap!

A big corporation promoting the technically literate, and what's more those from within instead of taking part in the usual "Musical Execs" game.

Colour me amazed.

Anonymous pwns security firm that probed its membership

David Hicks

For all that it's mostly an army of me-too morons

It would appear to have a very competent special forces unit as well, most likely made up of disgruntled and amoral black-hats with proxies and botnets all over the place.

Piss them off at your peril, it would seem.

Newest PS3 firmware hacked in less than 24 hours

David Hicks
Linux

@Cameron

Sorry, sarcasm doesn't always come across well on the internet.

I was protesting that no, they're not good, they don't let you do what you want with your hardware at all, and that this sucks.

I wouldn't have such a huge objection to the whole thing if they released an easy way to run an alternate OS, from the ground up, so at least you could use the hardware in the way you wanted. Instead they do their damnedest to make sure you can't run your own stuff on there at all.

David Hicks

Nowhere? Really?

So that's why they release that open edition of the system software?

No PSN but run what you like?

Or even bootloader documentation so we can put linux on it and be done with it?

Sure Sony are telling you what to do with it, and trying to prevent you from using your hardware as you see fit. At every turn.

Marry Microsoft, analyst tells Nokia

David Hicks

Jaysus....

Nokia were once the driver of the phone market. The only way to ever get back there is to start driving it again. For that they need maemo/meego.

It's that simple.

Signing up with MS would be the last straw for a lot of people. Nokia always did things their way, and their way was great. The last few years have seen an explosion in the number of models they sell, all very similar and all equaly behind the curve. Make something new, pretty, slim and meego based. Please.

World shrugs as IPv4 addresses finally exhausted

David Hicks

How would that help?

Unless they're moving to IPv6 then you'll still need an IP address whether it's dynamic or static!

Archos 101 8GB Android tablet

David Hicks
Linux

Finally, something in a decent size!

All the other android tablets seem to have come out in 'not much bigger than a phone' or 'too big for your pocket but not big enough to be useful' sizes, this one actually looks the right size.

The camera on the front is perfect because the 'killer app' for these things has got to be video calling via skype or similar.

That it's missing 3g is no great shame, and the price is significantly less than apple's too. May actually have to look into this...

UK.gov braces for Anonymous hacklash

David Hicks
FAIL

Legitimate protest and crime

"Legitimate political protest involves no crime."

What on earth are you on about?

If the laws are bad then legitimate political protest can certainly involve crime as currently defined. Look at the civil rights and suffragettes movements. Look at all sorts of things.

I'm not saying it's the case here, but sometimes you have no choice but to break the law in order to make a legitimate protest.

Or are you one of those that thinks direct action is always wrong and that laws should be changed for the better through the democratic protest?

In which case.... ROFL. The very idea of democratic change for the better directed by the people! I've rarely heard anything so damned hilarious!

Scareware mongers cough up $8m to settle fraud charges

David Hicks
Flame

Fraud? Settled?

How the F*CK do you "settle" a fraud charge. After scamming hundreds of thousands of people out of money there should be jail time, total asset seizure and a good faith effort on behalf of the government to return the money to the people who were deferauded.

Not a fine and a promise to be a good boy from now on.

Jesus christ...

UK tech retailers are rubbish

David Hicks

Bust?

I thought PC world and the likes were more likely to go bust because they're losing so much money.

Even the 'normal' folks don't like them any more. It's now common knowledge that they're overpriced, their stuff is behind the times and they don't know what they're talking about.

Buying from an established online firm (and there are many) is every bit as safe.

Israeli firm readies pocket-friendly desktop PC

David Hicks
Linux

Linux on ARM is not new

I've been running it for a good 5 or 6 years now. It supports dozens of devices and multiple processor variants.

Not to mention the millions of Android devices out there in the world.

Sorry to say it, but that's rather an ignorant comment...

Samsung N350 dual-core netbook

David Hicks

Dual core good

Battery life - bad but not terrible

Hard drive instead of solid-state storage - lame.

Apart from the new processor, things really haven't progressed much since the eee901, nor have the prices dropped.

I don't care if you're in the "make 'em cheaper" or the "make 'em faster" camp, some real progress on either of those fronts would be good!

The Last Airbender up for nine Razzies

David Hicks

Vampires Suck....

Actually does deserve to be on the list because it was as slow and bad as the films it took the piss out of.

The main actress does a *fantastic* Mary-Sue (sorry, I mean Bella) Swan impersonation, to the point where "Vampires Suck" is a close contender for being actually as painful to watch as "Eclipse"

End of the line for ID cards

David Hicks
Big Brother

See you in ten years

Maybe 20.

But it'll come up again, oh yes, because the people behind the scenes still want it, and politicians always seem to cave to them in the end.

In some ways the credit crunch is a very good thing as there seemed to be no other way there was ever going to be a check on government profligacy or invasion of privacy.

Computacenter joins cloud club

David Hicks
Flame

How is this new?

Haven't you been able to outsource your email needs for two decades now?

Seriously, screw "the cloud"

Nokia C7 smartphone

David Hicks
Linux

C'mon Nokia! Change the game!

And whilst you're at it let's have Meego punted into centre stage eh? Between phonezilla and chipzilla you'd think there would be something worth selling by now!

When one oligopoly screws another

David Hicks

Not a truly free market

"If there really is gross profiteering going on, then vendors will appear who are able to.undercut exiating retailers. If they *don't* appear, that tells you that gross margins may be good, but that nett margins aren't."

Part of the problem seems to be that parallel imports by retailers are either illegal or otherwise prevented, probably through some perversion of IP law (Remember Lik-Sang in the UK anyone?)

So if the wholesalers are gouging, and if you try to buy from another country you get the law pointed at you.... what is there you can do?

Adobe (finally) makes it easier to delete Flash cookies

David Hicks

Better Privacy, Adblock Plus and Cookie Monster

Firefox extensions, people should use them. Better Privacy allows control of LSOs, Cookie Monster lets me control normal cookies and ABP lets me control what content my browser loads.

This set allows me to have some confidence that I'm in control of the information being stored and handed out by my computer.

For instance, there's no need for facebook to know when I'm visiting other sites, yet they do because of the facebook buttons you now find everywhere. Solution - facebook content and cookies are blocked outside of the facebook domain.

LSOs are deleted on closing the browser, most sites don't get to place cookies at all and I don't retrieve or run behind-the-scenes javascript from google or doubleclick.

As a result the web is a faster, cleaner experience.

Archos 43 16GB Android PMP

David Hicks

Sounds great

Now what sort of 3G sigal does it get?

Oh I see, it's not a phone.... doesn't cut it for me then, device convergence is the way to go at that size, IMHO.

Western Digital My Book Live Nas box

David Hicks

Amazed at the transfer rate

As I have a WD sharespace and it can barely manage half that. They must have finally put a decent processor in the thing, because the sharespace hits the CPU limit when chucking out 24MBps, and that's using ftp. Samba and scp are even worse.

DARPA working on eyes-in-the-back-of-your-head hat

David Hicks

I could have sworn I've already seen

... glasses with wing mirrors.

World+Dog says 'no thanks' to 3D TV

David Hicks

Where's the content?

I bought a 3d tv months ago. Besides Monsters vs Aliens that came with the tv (and doesn't work in a PS3), where's the content?

Go into a BluRay shop and you just can't find anything 3D. There are very, very few PS3 games available in 3D. To drive a 3D tv from a PX you need a bang-up-to-date nVidia card and even then it dowsn't work for everything.

People will buy as and when 3d is no extra cost and there is actually something to watch on the damn thing.

Gifts for the Geeks

David Hicks
WTF?

I'm sorry but ... a USB endoscope?

Holy moley.... why?

Also zero points for guessing what this will be used for in reality.

SGI forges overclocked servers for Wall Street

David Hicks
Boffin

X86 not the answer perhaps?

Doesn't the Power architecture clock much higher these days?

Google Maps for Droid phones becomes a LOT better

David Hicks

Sod the roaming charges

Roaming charges or no roaming charges, being able to use a GPS system when you can't get a mobile signal is important for it to be really useful.

Well, important to me because sometimes, just sometimes, I leave the city and end up lost in places with no network.....

Apple iPad vs... the rest

David Hicks
Thumb Down

Perhaps the smartbook could have worked

If, instead of showing them off at CES and the like for several years in a row, one or two were actually released.

Yes, I know there's the Toshiba AC100 now, but it's too little and too late, they should have been out in '09 when the manufacturers were proudly showing them off.

As for the iPad - is it the only 9-inch tablet so far?

The others seem small by comparison.

Asus Eee PC 1015PEM

David Hicks
Linux

Agreed

The only netbook I'd be in the market for now would be a revamped 901.

9 (maybe 10) inch, a decent amount of solid state storage, 2+ GB of RAM, nVidia Ion GFX, decent battery life. I can cram linux on afterwards but would prefer not to give money to MS.

Yeah, the 901 was and still is a fantastic machine. I've replaced most of the parts in mine over time so I now have one with 2GB of RAM, 68GB of fast solid state storage and a replacment wireless card and camera so it's now MacOS X compatible :)

UK Man cops to £500,000 iTunes royalty scam

David Hicks

500,000?

For 6,000 downloads?

83 quid a pop? Good lord.....

Grand jury meets to decide fate of WikiLeaks founder

David Hicks
WTF?

YES

Of course they're supposed to go and solicit information. Get it any way they can, it's called journalism.

You think investigative journalists just sit and scratch their arses until someone drops all the info they need on their laps?

David Hicks
Flame

If any of this corruption and dealing is news to you

You were probably inadequately cynical in the first place.

Humanity and its leaders are as corrupt and tribal as ever. You only have to read all the people who attack Assange's character or rant about national security to realise that a lot of folks still worship authority and power structures, and anything that upsets the alpha monkeys upsets them too.

If these people didn't behave like little emperors and didn't classify anything and everything as a matter of course, we wouldn't need wikileaks. But they do, they behave like power-drunk arseholes, using OUR money and OUR mandate, without considering that they should ever be responsible to us.

I hope when Assange does meet his sticky end, ior gets himself disappeared, that more people will wake up and smell the bullshit.

WikiLeaks.org resurrected in US of A

David Hicks
Flame

That's a mighty convenient assertion

People will die if we reveal the dirty games governments play!

LOL.

It must be hell living in fear like you, constantly wondering which nut-job is going to push the button this week.

The truth is that more open government, more accountable government with less secrets, would have to behave better. Yes, there is a need for secret communication between ambassadors and central government, there's even a good case for espionage. What there's not a good case for is the sealing of anything and everything, for decades. because it might cause someone some embarrassing, or it might reveal that the way our governments run things does not live up to our ethical expectations.

Yes, I'm sorry, I do have a moral code, and anyone getting my vote needs to demonstrate at least a significant overlap with that.

To be able to cast my vote responsibly I need to know what's going on, unless there is an immediate and compelling security reason not to. Most of the stuff released by wikileaks does not meet that criterion.

Or are we just supposed to vote for people on the strength of what they say and how they appear?

Are we to continue to be treated as children by those in power?

And if so, what is democracy but a game used by the empowered way to put down revolution?

Grey marketing is great - if you're the importer...

David Hicks

It's Lik-Sang again...

It's sickening that companies can source stuff from all over the planet, taking advantage of materials, labour and tax regimes as they see fit, but when someone else notices a business opportunity in a similar vein, they get sued.

Just more proof that the western world is in thrall to big business.

There does seem to be a way around it though - set up a website in the foreign country, but aimed at the UK market. Surely that can't be illegal yet?

Visa approves wireless payment chip

David Hicks

Ummm...

As far as I know Chip & Pin hasn't been compromised, and I used to write Chip'n'Pin transaction software so I'm fairly well acquainted with the cards and their standards.

The only attacks I've read about are either hilariously impractical or rely on legacy support for the magnetic stripe.

I know, I know, new technology is scary (and I have severe doubts about the wireless system if it really is as quick as it's made out to be) but EMV is pretty secure.

Mozilla vows Google 'Crankshaft' riposte

David Hicks
Badgers

I still think too much goes on in the browser

Yes, you can do some neat stuff now, but on the other hand javascript leads to massive amounts of bloat, pages that load horrifically slowly as scripts and content are pulled from a huge number of different servers, not to mention new and innovative ways to track people.

I don't use noscript (yet) but javascript loaded in from third party sites is not allowed in my browser.

I miss the days when the web was a dcocument display tech...

Anonymous attacks PayPal in 'Operation Avenge Assange'

David Hicks
Flame

They have as much right to do this

As the governments of the world have to take my money and kill in my name.

None whatsoever.

Most coders have sleep problems, need 'hygiene and care'

David Hicks

I wouldn't like to extrapolate from anecdotes

But I 'suffer' from the same. Give me a block of time off work and I turn pretty much nocturnal in only a couple of days.

Not that I actually like it that way, waking up late afternoon with most of the day gone and then staying up all night at the computer when the rest of the world is long asleep, it just seems to be what I gravitate to. I've always had trouble with mornings and get most of my best stuff done when everyone else has gone.

I've worked with others like me, but I've also worked with the opposite - talented coders that are in at 7am every day, bright eyed and bushy tailed. Freaks!

Maude: Gov contracts 'made my eyes water'

David Hicks

Quite the opposite

The right has always been the home of small government, it's the left that are associated with economic and legal control-freakery.

I don't ever think the damage of the last labour administration will be undone, but anything to get away from the "Nanny knows best" years by making government more transparent and accountable is a good thing.

If the conservatives could shake some of the cow-towing to big business and the pandering to religious interests, they'd be about perfect in my book

David Hicks
Pirate

I think my honesty and deceny may have run out

After informing them twice.

I'd have been consulting my own lawyer to see what my options were and the likely outcomes at that point.

Wiseguy ticket scalpers used botnets to outwit Captchas

David Hicks
Flame

Bastards

Arseholes like these are the reason that tickets sell out ten minutes after they go on sale, and then immediately appear on ebay and other sites.

Hanging's too good for 'em.

PS3 jailbreak seller hits back with firmware downgrade

David Hicks

If running unsigned code on a client...

"If the security on a PS3 is compromised and it can access PSN unfettered, that represents a threat to the PSN security and any threat to that is a threat to the security of my financial transactions and information held within PSN."

If someone else running unsigned code on a client machine can expose your personal or financial data then Sony have dropped the ball and deserve to be sued for negligence.

It's that simple. If you're any sort of IT professional then you ought to know that relying on client security in a situation like this is a recipe for enormous, embarrassing and costly failure.

As for the rest -

"people who think that their actions have no consequence. Just like Geohot though that his breaking into the hypervisor had no consequence. Yet it did, it resulted in the removal of OtherOS."

Yup, what a wonderful reaction from Sony, someone finds a way of modifying the hardware to gain hypervisor access so everyone loses OtherOS. Except of course that PS3 slim models had no OtherOS anyway and it looks for all the world like Sony were looking for any excuse to drop it. Either way, it's not a proportionate response and is questionable in terms of legality (see ongoing lawsuits on OtherOS, not that I have any faith they will come to much).

Geohot was in the right, IMHO. Your blaming him for losing OtherOS is like blaming a free-speech advocate for the resulting government clampdown after they speak up.

"Downgrading your firmware back to a version prior to these is great and all, but things move, games get released, new firmware is mandated."

Sure it is, but much new firmware doesn't add anything and the games simply check a version number, this can already be spoofed. Games that genuinely require new features will probably be supported in time too, through the use of custom firmwares and further exploits.

"The PSN is Sony's network, not yours, the firmware is theirs, the encryption keys are theirs and the stolen service key that was cloned to allow the jailbreak exploit is Sony's too."

Actually, that specific instance of the firmware, within the limits of copyright, fair use and other relevant laws, is mine to do with as I please. Well, it is in my book, Sony would probably disagree and they can probably afford enough lawyers that anyone actually looking to do anything with their firmware ought to be careful.

And the exploit doesn't rely on a clone of anything, it's an exploit that mimics plugging and unplugging a few USB devices to overflow the stack and then inserting code in just the right place to get it executed. It may have needed a service jig to find the exploit, but the exploit itself doesn't rely on any copyrighted stuff.

This downgrade stuff may indeed be based on a stolen or 'borrowed' service jig, nobody knows yet as it appears to be all hype.

I don't necessarily disagree when it comes to the PSN, it is Sony's network to do with as they please and they may choose to boot people off that they consider to be pirates, or who have the ability to run unsigned code and could be running bots, cheats, trainers or whatever else.

However your reasons not to want compromised systems on the PSN are unbelievably dumb. Sorry, but they are.

Personally I really like what happened on the PSP - custom firmware arrived that allowed you to boot into homebrew mode, which Sony could detect and not allow network stuff to run, or into original mode which would get you online but not allow hacks.

And the reason I attacked you character was because you seemed genuinely angry about people gaining access to their devices and genuinely gleeful at the idea of retribution from on high. By a huge corporation, on hobbyists. You seem to delight in the idea of authoritarianism and that's usually not a good thing in terms of character.

David Hicks
Linux

Why is there so much bile in your post?

Really, your words drip with bile. If you don't wish to do this, why all the hate?

To address some of your concerns -

1 - Firmware 3.41 was current up until a couple of months back. 2 months doesn't make a game 'classic' in my opinion, nor that of the gaming shops.

2 - You can already run some games that rely new firmware on 3.41

3 - I disagree that running the games I bought from the hard drive or running homebrew is pointless

4 - This is a question of ownership of a machine I bought, not some mission to harm Sony. It's MY computer. I will run whatever I want on it.

5 - Some of us have better things to do with our time than spend it playing online anyway. Perhaps you ought to get some IRL friends, it might help with the anger issues you seem to be having.

David Hicks
FAIL

Errr, no.

3.42 reliant games can already be told to run on 3.41 and 3.15. I'm sure it won't be long before 3.5 games can be made to run on 3.41.

As for PSN access... well it works with 3.41 and the hack right now. So FAIL on you, 'freetards', as you so delightfully put it, will not have to mess around flashing things back and forth.

Also, who gives a crap about racing games? Most boring genre after those dumb flash games dressed up brain as brain exercise.

NY youth makes $130k selling real(-ish) white iPhone 4s

David Hicks

Competitive?

Well, if you're the only person in the business of white iPhones, sure, you're only competing with yourself and can sell for whatever you like!

Cloud Engines Pogoplug Pro DIY cloud box

David Hicks
Thumb Up

What's the processor?

I have a sheevaplug which is great, but firstly it's a couple of years old now (and there are better chips available) and secondly it's on the other side of the planet.

So what are the actual specs here?

I'd love to hack debian linux on to it....

Content producers should chip in for mobile internet costs

David Hicks
Flame

Isn't it fair?

No it bloody isn't!

I pay you a fee for a number of GB a month, and I expect to get that delivered. If your infrastructure can't cope you have no right bitching about it and shouldn't have sold me the data allowance in the first place.

Here's a hint, the BBC, Google et al, they all pay for their net access too. Everyone pays their provider for access to the net and they get just that, net access. That's how the internet works.

If you can't afford to provide your customers with the bandwidth they want (and PAY FOR) then raise your prices and improve your infrastructure.

This is nothing short of extortion.

Software engineer blogs own Starbucks wiretap

David Hicks

nonsense

My other half wouldn't take being dumped over facebook, please.

And my mates would just think I was either drunk or had been hacked.

Taking FB too seriously is the main problem.

David Hicks

Can't log in to the account

Amazone require an https login to actually buy anything. Not sure about what happens if you have 1-click turned on.

And if facebook can affect my credit rating then, frankly, I can do without one. I don't operate on debt anyway.