* Posts by Chris King

1153 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Feb 2009

Hot Potato exploit mashes old vulns into Windows System 'sploit

Chris King

"Exploit takes a long time to cook Windows, but gives hackers a menu of evil options"

So how would you like your Windows Zombies - mashed, boiled or fried ?

(Oh, and keeping it foody, Apple punted out a load of security & bugfixes overnight)

Eighteen year old server trumped by functional 486 fleet!

Chris King

What, no PDP-11's ?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/19/nuke_plants_to_keep_pdp11_until_2050/

Friends Reunited to shut down. What do you mean, 'is it still going?'

Chris King

Spiralling around the plughole for several years...

The first warning sign that your social networking site is in decline is when it changes ownership. That's when everything starts to change, and the original "buzz" that attracted you to the site disappears as the new management tries to monetize their new asset. The effect increases with each change of ownership.

The second warning sign is when they start taking the dates off everything - postings, user profiles etc - because they don't want people to realise that the site is dying on its arse and most users cleared off years ago. FR did that back in 2008, so it became impossible to tell when someone last logged in - and as people just created new accounts when they got locked out of Hotmail/Gmail etc you couldn't tell which profile was which. When I pointed this out to FR, they told me "What's your problem ? It's free to contact anybody now !"

Which brings me onto the third warning sign - user support is reduced to monkeys reading scripts and sending out canned replies, the original super-responsive-and-helpful folks having been replaced years ago. (This assumes they didn't walk out first in disgust at management stupidity)

Like everyone else, I'm amazed they survived this long given that Zuck stole their dinner money years ago.

TalkTalk outage: Dial M for Major cockup

Chris King

People on TalkTalk who cant use their phones to talk are called what?"

Mimes ?

I'm now imagining a TalkTalk user doing a Marcel Marceau "Bip the Clown" impression down the phone for a 999 call...

Put your private parts on display if you want to keep earning a living

Chris King

The BrownCloud...

...sounds more like a bout of explosive diarrhea to me, but also a good description of some of Web Two-Point-Doh systems out there.

Chris King

"Don’t get the wrong idea: I have not been auditioning for a raunchy IT-themed gonzo sex vid."

So, no plans for a sequel to "Salmon Days" then ?

Self-regulation can address issues that arise in the digital economy, says Airbnb

Chris King

Yeah, right...

Self regulation can be a "more effective way" of addressing issues that arise in online markets than passing new legislation, Airbnb has said.

In other news: Hen-house security outsourced to foxes, farmer "surprised" at sight of blood and feathers.

Skype now translates in real-time into seven languages

Chris King

Watchdog says yes to BT's EE takeover deal. Shrugs. No 'significant' harm in it

Chris King

No 'significant' harm in it...

...for WHO ? The wonks at the top ?

Server retired after 18 years and ten months – beat that, readers!

Chris King

Before I forget, the previous holder of the "Father of the Network" title was a Sun 3, which got the "I AM 20" badge before finally being replaced by a Linux workstation.

Chris King

That's not unusual for a VAX. We had a 4000 series that was installed in 1992 and was finally decommissioned in 2013 - no doubt there are older systems out there still providing service.

Optimus Prime goes under the hammer

Chris King

Wipe off Michael Bay's autograph...

...and the Camaro's value goes up further ?

Engineer's bosses gave him printout of his Yahoo IMs. Euro court says it's OK

Chris King

He set up the account for the employer's use - so they most likely shared the account, and therefore both had access to saved chat logs. No need for any covert surveillance there.

Chris King

The burning question here is...

Who actually owned the Yahoo IM account ?

http://www.romania-insider.com/human-rights-court-rules-against-romanian-fired-for-sending-personal-emails-during-working-hours/162939/ suggests that he set up the IM account for the employer, at the employer's request, for the employer's use.

Chris King

Re: I put on my robe and wizard hat

"Hey babe, do you want to see my +6 Staff of Sexual Gratification ?" is not a valid chat-up line outside of a MUD.

Come in Internet Explorers, your time is up. Or not. Up to you

Chris King

Enterprise Mode

If you're stuck with IE8-era apps (especially ones with ActiveX controls that won't run on more recent versions of IE) and you need to move to IE11, Enterprise Mode might be worth a look.

(Sorry, this isn't available on the "Home" versions of Windows, but Pro/Enterprise/Ultimate versions all have it)

Cops stuff Mumbai thief with 48 bananas

Chris King

Re: Reminds me of

"O"-level/"A"-level chemistry used to be so much more interesting, in all the ways you could poison yourself, blow yourself up, set yourself on fire or just dissolve/stain that god-awful tie.

I used to have an "A"-level chemistry textbook from the early 70's, which contained some, shall we say "intriguing" recipes that would probably get it labelled as a "terrorist's cookbook" these days. Especially the bits about TNT and Phosgene gas.

Many of the reagents mentioned in the book had long since been removed from the labs (sometimes by firemen wearing hazardous chemical gear !) or replaced by safer alternatives.

I no longer have that book, but I do remember that it burned with an odd-coloured flame when I stuck it on a bonfire !

Chris King

Re: What would the UK version be?

"Okay sonny, we've got Exhibit A, now LICK the wall clean !"

Chris King

Re: Ripe or green?

Well, they made sure the thief had a crappy day... Quite literally !

Chris King

Re: The Mumbai plod.

I'm reminded of that episode of Red Dwarf, where Lister has to feed Kryten raw coffee to sober him up...

Thief: Please sir, I cannot eat any more of these bananas !!

Copper: Two. More. Bowls.

Chris King

Re: Bananas ?

Ever read the "Agent Picolax" story ? Try and keep a straight face while reading this...

http://singletrackworld.com/2009/02/the-picolax-thread-returns/

blu-tone – 2007-07-18 10:22:11

I realised too late what it was that they already knew only too well, the epicentre was behind me.

But this was no pantomime villainit was

KRAKATOA’S BIG DRUNK ANGRY BROTHER

And he’d come to kick the living shitt out of me . . . .

RIGHT NOW !!!

TBC

Chris King

Re: Bah!

But is that going to flush them all out, or just the crappy ones ?

200 experts line up to tell governments to get stuffed over encryption

Chris King

Cat Flap

The politicians are still talking about backdoors ? They're probably thinking more along the lines of a cat flap, one of the "smart" ones that only allows your own cats to enter and leave at your whim.

But what happens when that flap gets busted ? It's going to allow a lot more than their own cats to get in - we're talking about other cats, small dogs, large rats/mice, birds, whatever.

Not to mention thieves who can use that open flap to grab unsecured keys and open the door fully.

Star Wars BB-8 toy in firmware update risk, say UK security bods

Chris King

Why worry about making BB-8 swear ?

R2-D2 must have been a real potty-mouth, because everything he said was bleeped out.

Longing to bin Photoshop? Rock-solid GIMP a major leap forward

Chris King

Re: The gimp sucks

Doh - I'd forgotten it was in XAP !

(I wonder if 2.10 will be pushed out the door before Slackware-Current becomes 14.2 ?)

Chris King

Re: The gimp sucks

You have to compile it yourself as it's a preview, it's not the actual release. Unless you're using Slackware, then you will never have to compile GIMP.

If you can't work out how to build a particular package, someone else probably has. They haven't got a 2.9 package yet, but it will happen once the package maintainer gets round to it.

Juniper Networks planned upgrade kicks down some services

Chris King

It's not the first time...

...They've had other long outages like this in the past for website upgrades.

Swiss try to wind up Apple with $25k dumb-watch

Chris King

Time Will Tell...

That "dumb" watch will still work for many years after you bought it.

Even if your Apple watch lasts five years before the battery dies, it will eventually end up on The List Of Stuff That's No Longer Shiny. If it's listed on that page and it breaks, game over - no soup^H^H^H^Hhardware support for you. Let's not even get started on software/firmware.

Oh, and have you seen how much they charge to replace the battery if you're not in warranty ? Ouch.

Wi-Fi standard could make Internet of Things things even easier ... for hackers

Chris King

Re: Wasn't it bad enough already?

"And you'd want to connect them to your LAN why exactly? Is there a name for this particular insanity?"

It's probably buzzword-laden gibberish that translates to "Oooohhh, shiny."

BT and EE, O2 and Three: Are we in for a year of Euro telco mega-mergers?

Chris King

Re: Quad play is overrated

"The killer might be a MVNO that roams across 2 or more networks though - if, Sky or anyone could offer that it could become compelling as quad play."

Roaming MVNO's already exist, but they're expensive compared to the ones that don't - so they're unlikely to become part of a "pile it high, sell it cheap" quad-play package.

Chris King

Re: DOH

"Virgin's mobile offering is as an MVNO, using EE's network."

If the BT-EE merger goes through, will Virgin suddenly find themselves as a MVNO on a (now much-bigger) competitor's network ? That's not a healthy position to be in, especially if/when the contract's due for renegotiation - as anyone who had a Mobile by Sainsburys SIM will tell you.

GCHQ mass spying will 'cost lives in Britain,' warns ex-NSA tech chief

Chris King

"Spy on them and keep them happy with pornography and alcohol."

Except they're looking to filter porn, and they're about to tell us to cut back on the falling-down juice too.

No, drone owners – all our base are belong to US, thunders military

Chris King

Maybe they need to follow Dogbert's example...

http://dilbert.com/strip/1989-05-18

Kiwi judge rules Kim Dotcom can be extradited to USA

Chris King

"Newton reported that the hearing was delayed for a few minutes because a stapler malfunction"

Was somebody tacked to a desk, screaming "HELP ! HELP ! STAPLER MISFIRE !" ?

(Can't find the appropriate Dilbert for that one)

Software engineer sobers up to deal with 2:00 AM trouble at mill

Chris King

Re: If not on-call, just don't answer

When leave and/or TOIL piles up and you're in a "use it or lose it" situation, that can focus management attention somewhat...

Me: I've just checked my leave calendar, and I've worked out that if I don't start taking leave this afternoon, I will lose some of it.

Boss: But it's the last week in August, you surely don't have over a month's worth of leave to take ?

Me: I do, and that calculation takes the five-day carry-over into account. Here's my leave request, see you first week in October !

CIOs, what does your nightmare before Christmas look like?

Chris King

Halle-bloody-llujah !

Someone actually gets it. Now, can we also get someone to teach the ikkle firsties in Comp Sci that:

(a) Embedding your credentials into something that you subsequently stick on PasteBin is a BAD idea, and

(b) The slumbering DBA inside me wants to hurt anyone who uses "SELECT * FROM ..." in production systems.

'Unauthorized code' that decrypts VPNs found in Juniper's ScreenOS

Chris King

They probably won't care anyway

ScreenOS 6.2 is already EOL, 6.3 has EOL extended to 2021 along with some of the hardware platforms.

I had lots of grief with their low-end SRX kit as well. Oh dear, this new version of JunOS won't run on your 512Mb SRX100 and licencing the High Memory Option to turn on the other 512Mb already in the box won't save you either. Would you like to buy an identical SRX100 with a 2Gb DIMM in it to replace it ?

Lettuce-nibbling veggies menace Mother Earth

Chris King

What, nobody's made the obvious "Vegetables are what my food eats" comment yet ?

Help! What does 'personal conduct unrelated to operations or financials' mean?

Chris King

Re: Gross Moral Turpitude?

More likely copying another prof's work and passing it off as their own. That's almost a hanging offence, or at the very least they won't get invited to the departmental Christmas party for a few years.

Chris King

Re: Where's Tom Sharpe when you need him?

Not without a seance, he won't - he died a couple of years ago.

Chris King

Recreational pharmaceuticals detected in bloodstream

Well that would explain some of the things that came out of Sequent... You know a Unix is bad when your next machine runs HP-UX and feels sane by comparison.

Windows XP spotted on Royal Navy's spanking new aircraft carrier

Chris King

Re: how is this news?

I would have given you a pass if it had been a bit more jokey - but Win4War is certified until 2025 or something equally ridiculous.

DEC supposedly made a similar deal with Uncle Sam for VMS back in the early 90's, and that was for something like 25 years. No doubt Compaq (and later HP) had to honour that deal.

Microsoft to OneDrive users: We're sorry, click the magic link to keep your free storage

Chris King

Re: The Problem Seems To Be Both Simple And Predictable.

Apparently Microsoft didn't have the brains to realize that there would be a meaningful number of people who would take advantage of the "unlimited" offer in ways that never occurred to them.

It would not have taken much foresight to have foreseen the inevitable outcome and so avoided this problem.

To be fair, this "unlimited" stupidity isn't unique to Microsoft, but surely people should know by now that they're effectively signing a blank cheque when they offer anything unlimited ?

No matter how high they set the bar before such an offer becomes a financial millstone round their necks, someone is bound to take the piss - like the guys hoarding 76Tb. If they're on Office 365 Home, that's like hiring a honking great NAS for just £60 a year - and if the sub was Office 365 University, make that £15 a year. Even with the economies of scale that Microsoft enjoys, that's just not sustainable.

Chris King

Re: Cloud - Isn't it such a lovely, comfy place to put stuff...

The free services have been dropping like flies lately, and some of the pay-for services have closed down. Wuala shut down last month, Golden Frog's Dump Truck shuts down on Saturday. Even the big boys like Dropbox are shuttering ancillary services, and Microsoft are resorting to stupid tactics to keep their costs under control.

At the end of the day, you're putting your data on someone else's computers and storage, and sometimes those computers/storage can cease to be available for any number of reasons. If you're relying on a free service, someone else pays the piper and you don't get to choose the tunes.

Chris King

Bah

Clawing back freebies and making people jump through hoops to keep them ? Not cool, Microsoft...

National Crime Agency: Your kid could be a nasty interwebs hacker

Chris King

The NCA says...

"We don't want parents to prematurely terrorise their children."

That's our job.

Mozilla: Five... Four... Three... Two... One... Thunderbirds are – gone

Chris King

This cannot end well...

Look what happened with Penelope - sorry, Eudora OSE.

Cyber-terror: How real is the threat? Squirrels are more of a danger

Chris King

Re: Cyber attacks are demonstrated.

"If a squirrel can manage that, just imagine what a platoon of suitably indoctrinated IS recruits might accomplish by immolating themselves on our power lines"

Would chewing through power cables allow then to achieve martyrdom though ? I'm now imagining a bunch of loons in Tufty costumes climbing substation fences...

Chris King

SCADA kit with an unpatched, default OS install that was never intended to connect to a network. I saw this happening with VAXes over 20 years ago, and as good as VMS was back then, it still had occasional nasties in the TCP/IP stack - UCX, Multinet, TCPWare, it didn't matter.

Chris King

Re: It's all about the blinky lights

Squirrels also cause havoc in electrical substations - they like to snuggle up to the big warm buzzy thing, but they only get to do that once and usually trip the breakers after getting 25+kV where 25+kV isn't meant to go (i.e. any part of the squirrel).