* Posts by Version 1.0

5376 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jun 2009

Alleged SIM swapping crypto-crooks cuffed, iOS app snooping, ad-fraud botnets, and more

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Are Internet users part of a "Criminal Enterpise"?

While I've been a firm supporter of free access for all to the Internet for years, I'm starting to think that it's a lot like frying bacon in the nude these days. Yum, nice crispy bacon, oh damn another spot of hot oil just landed!

Leaky child-tracking smartwatch maker hits back at bad PR

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Re: "Is it worse to have a 0.01% chance of the kids watch being hacked"

but it must exist in a safe form - and the chances of that happening reliably are vanishingly small. You are far better off teaching your kids about the risks of the world and that most of the time it's easy to avoid them ... when I was a kid I would take off after breakfast and be all over the countryside until late afternoon ... than I'd return home and wait for my mum to walk me across the main road. My parents never knew where I was - on vacation I'd climb cliffs, run parkour-like in the 60's over all sorts of places - it scares me now to know what I did but as a kid I didn't care, I just knew not to break a leg when the tide was coming in. Kids are a lot smarter than adults.

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Re: "But, at this stage, this security is not 100 per cent available"

Has anyone ever built something that can not be hacked? Let's return to hourglasses .... oh wait, someone heated it and pulled it a little and the hourglass is running slow - it's been hacked!

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Re: "regular" people wouldn't be able to do it, and if they did, it didn't really matter.

Sure, but is this actually happening? Yes it's a problem but what's the actual immediate risk here? Is it worse to have a 0.01% chance of the kids watch being hacked or a 0.01% chance to the kid getting lost in the wild woods? Are the risks even this balanced?

Personally I think any parent would be dumb to rely on technology to maintain a kids safety but given that the parents almost always know where the kid is and the chance of the watch being hacked is quite small then this is just another bit of shouty internet junk.

Life is a risk ... get used to it.

German competition watchdog tells Facebook to stop combining user data without consent

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Re: "Facebook's position is that once they have the data, it's their data"

Exactly - this is the way the world works these days - They all say, "We will DEFEND YOUR RIGHTS" ... but they make sure that your rights are always compromised in the small print to generate a few billion in their pockets. I'm starting to suspect that Google, Facebook et al will be all standing together against the wall when the revolution comes.

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Thumb Down

It's mine, mine, mine!

Facebook's position is that once they have the data, it's their data, not your data - you have no rights to their data.

Accused hacker Lauri Love to sue National Crime Agency to retrieve confiscated computing kit

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Re: Representing himself

You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Lovely website you got there. Would be a shame if we, er, someone were to sink it: Google warns EU link tax will magnify media monetary misery

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Re: Google news aggregation

No - Google shows you what it thinks will benefit their advertising revenue - OK so this is politically neutral but you're only seeing what they want you to see.

Only plebs use Office 2019 over Office 365, says Microsoft's weird new ad campaign

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Re: 10203

Supercalc please ... I once ran an entire corporate accounting system (including state tax calculations) on Supercalc .... then they "upgraded" to Quickbooks which crashes every January and tell you that it can be fixed by buying the current version.

Sure, you can keep Grandpa Windows 7 snug in the old code home – for a price

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Re: "it would have been inconceivable that one may need to switch off or restart a device"

I run a Windows 95 system for compatibility testing and maintenance - it's notable that it boots up as fast as the W10 system but shuts down cleanly way faster. And in general operation, running applications, the 486DX system is not much slower than the W10 i5 boxes.

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Re: Redmond

Don't worry about the mud, when the Cascadia fault pops off, everything in Washington State will be scrubbed clean.

Website programming? Pffft, so 2011. Python's main squeeze is now data science, apparently

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Re: Confused

Everyone I know is using Python in biomechanics data analysis - a lot of old code has been rewriten ... I must admit I'd forgotten that it was once used for web sites.

Things that make you go .hm... Has a piece of the internet just sunk into the ocean? It appears so

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Re: El Reg interview time?

It sounds like the registry is completely automatic, needing no maintenance and just sends him a cheque every few months ... and it shut down because a bill didn't get paid or some certificate expired etc etc. It would be a good story for El Reg.

Fujitsu pitched stalker-y AI that can read your social media posts as solution to Irish border, apparently

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Since they are watching "social" media ...

How will this "no border" idea work with all the laws that NI insist they have in defiance of the laws in Ireland and the rest of the UK? We'd probably see more NI citizens arrested for considering an abortion than for smuggling anything. "You can't have any borders but we're going to keep our borders."

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Re: WTF?

In Ireland you can already get into trouble for posting a picture in social media with a vehicle license plate number visible.

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Re: Technological Solutions

Is being signed up as an El Reg commentard going to count in Fujitsu's eyes? Darn it, we're all in trouble - no more Irish vacations and maybe we'd better stay away from Gibraltar too.

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Re: Definition of "hard border"

And we all know how well that worked out don't we ... if we get a hard border then all the pubs in Birmingham will close ... no customers any more.

Hey, UK.gov: If you truly spunked £45k on 1,300 Brexit deal print-outs, you're absolute mugs

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Good point - had the government done the printing then they might have been asked to consider the environmental impact, but by outsourcing it they don't have to worry about anything.

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It was outsourced

Like everything else these days they hired a private company to do the job because "outsourcing saves money" - but it doesn't, it always costs more and the extra money ends up in your friends pockets. The function of government is help your chums make money - watch all of the cabinet retire in the next few years (regardless of what happens) and get well paid jobs with industry and media organizations ... oh wait, it's already started hasn't it Boris?

London's Met police confess: We made just one successful collar in latest facial recog trial

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Join the Insane Clown Posse

So will we now see clowns arrested because their makeup defeats the AI?

Not cool, man: Dixons spanked over discount on luxury 'smart' fridge with wildly fluctuating price

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Re: DFS

Looks like they just jumped on Expedia and other hotel sites for their "Only one room left at this price" fakes.

Original WWII German message decrypts to go on display at National Museum of Computing

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Joke

Is this legal?

I thought the EU had data security and protection laws in place that forbids the disclosure of private information?

Whatever you've got to say about Google, it can't hear you over the sound of it banking $85m a day in pure profit

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Re: Who is paying?

Anyone advertising is paying every time your fat fingers try to close an app and hit the advert instead ($$$) or your mouse drifts off to one side hit an advert pops up ($$$) ... plus those little cookies mean that Google can sell the Advertiser a "user specific" advert ... ($$$).

Ad-tech industry: GDPR complaint is like holding road builders to account for traffic violations

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Re: How we view this in the USA

So if someone walks into your house and they proceed to steal everything and kill you, and your children, then you think that's OK because you said, "Welcome"?

Thanks for all those data-flow warnings, UK.gov. Now let's talk about your own Brexit prep. Yep, just as we thought

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Re: Brexit updates ...

I'm not complaining, just observing ... there's no point it trying to assign blame because everyone involved is incompetent - the fact of the matter is that the UK has always been run by the old boys network of public school chums and they have no clue. All the politicians involved are squabbling over who gets to run the country, none of them give a damn about the consequences of their decisions.

Personally, I think that the Brexit concept was quite reasonable but it has been pushed by idiots who have no idea that if you are going to jump off a cliff then it's a smart idea to make sure that there's a big pile of mattresses at the bottom. You can't jump off and say, "Don't worry about it, we'll figure it out" when you're halfway down.

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Terminator

Brexit updates ...

Anyone here subscribed to ‘Brexit’ updates on GOV.UK? The email advice just comes pouring in ... and tells you nothing except that everything will (or will not) change - the simple fact is that after two years of negotiations and planning, nobody actually knows what's going to happen in eight weeks time.

But the Brexiters insist that all we have to plan for the unimaginable.

El Reg - please a new icon for these debates, perhaps a unicorn?

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Re: a second *binding* referendum and cancel the madness that is Brexit.

But we vote for politicians all the time and we're allowed to change our minds (and votes) every few years ... are you saying that in your world this isn't democracy?

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Re: Time to have another public Brexit vote?

"the real court jester in the whole stuff-up is David Cameron" - The vote worked out very well for Cameron, he was able to leave the building and get lots of lovely new job offers ... while leaving Theresa May with the job of washing the Brexiters toilet paper in the hope that that we can resell it to the world afterwards.

What's that, Skippy? You want a taste of Windows 10 19H2? Oops, too late

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Please quit complaining

You're only lusers in Microsoft's view of the world, just little data points - you can bitch all you like but nobody's listening. Anyway, Windows 11 will be released in about 18 months to boost the share price again - that's the only thing that matters these days.

Tedious Service Bulletin: No prizes for guessing which UK bank's services are DOWN for business users

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Maybe the time has come to put it out of its misery?

Come on, this problem has been going on for less than two years now and I'm sure they'll have it all fixed by the end of March - it's not a bit deal, everyone will be fine.

That's the standard response to problems these days.

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Re: Calling Watson!

I'd send them a copy of The Mythical Man-Month ... OK, I know the issue is web development here, not a new OS but essentially the problem is the same ... putting a new system in to replace the old one that worked fine without really understanding how the old system worked.

Siri, how do you wipe that smug smile from Qualcomm's face? Apple wins patent skirmish with chip nemesis

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Re: re: In short, it's a big, expensive mess

It's just SNAFU again - I've given up being pro or anti any of these things - I just want the idiots on all sides to quit. Patents were a good idea and very effective once upon a time until everyone modified and "improved" them in a effort to get more money for themselves ... pretty much like Brexit I think. Patents these days are a disaster ... we all know it but they keep filing for more because they are profitable.

Year after being blasted for dodgy security, GPS kid tracker biz takes heat again for leaving families' private info lying around for crims

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Facepalm

This is normal

Companies make money by selling more crap - it doesn't have to be secure, reliable, or even really work well - it just has to look good and have a sweet marketing policy ... won't someone think of the children, parents - you must buy this to keep your kids safe, you would be a monster if you didn't care about keeping your kids safe!

Boss: "Great Marketing guys! sold another 2 million last month!"

Tech: "Er, there's a security issue ..."

Boss: "Fire that sod, we're going to lunch with the marketing group - triples all round"

I'm a crime-fighter, says FamilyTreeDNA boss after being caught giving folks' DNA data to FBI

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Please read the T&A, don't just check the box.

In the world these days I'd have been more surprised if the company wasn't sharing the data with the FBI but while people will run around like headless chickens saying that this shouldn't be happening and that the other wing (left and right) is to blame, folks signed up for the service and nobody ever said that everything would be kept secret. "Sharing" ... look the word up in a dictionary.

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Have the FBI shared their DNA database with anyone?

UK spy overseer: Snooper's Charter cockups are still getting innocents arrested

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Re: Not Entirely Sure

"Austerity" is coming home - I know the May is promising everyone more money now that austerity is over and you'll never see any of it.

UK's ICO slaps £120k fines on Arron Banks' insurance biz and Leave.EU campaign

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It was probably an accident - I don't think Cameron was doing anything during the Referendum campaign expect planning his vacation in France afterwards.

Texas lawyer suing Apple over FaceTime bug claims it was used to snoop on a meeting

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If only the reporters at The Sun had known about this ... I bet they are all kicking themselves now.

Bringing the Houzz down: Home design website tells users to reset passwords after copping to breach

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You learn a lot about security when you get hacked - it's a good education. On the other hand, getting hacked is so common these days that stories like this are a lot less interesting than reading today's weather forecast.

...They'll be coming back again, those nasty grumbly grimblies, and they're climbing down your chimney, yes they're trying to get in. Come to take your money – isn't it a sin, they're so thin ...

Global server motel, with a supermarket in the parking lot, banks $10bn profit from $233bn sales (Yes, it's Amazon)

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$233bn in sales

Some of that will be completely new sales but the majority of the sales used to be made by local companies who employed local people and paid local taxes. No local employment or cash for the local economy any longer, it's all leaving the country. The Bezos Bunch are getting richer and we're getting austerity.

Irish data watchdog to Facebook: Hang about, what's all this about a WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger merger now?

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I'd guess that the EU (and therefore Ireland) is going to keep on at FB's total lack of user data protection, but the UK is going to let it slide ... too many other things to worry about these days than regulating FB.

Brexit-ready BT sits back, watches profit rise in CEO's swansong quarter

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Unhappy

"It is too early to estimate the size of any potential impact"

Absolutely, but the problem is that not knowing is having a big impact and it's starting to look like we may not know for a lot longer. Yes, working with, and being in the EU, has it's issues - but watching the Conservative parties (sic) and the Labour parties (sic again) run around in circles seems a lot worse. I'm starting to think that we'd be better off jumping off a big cliff once than just getting kicked off a smaller cliff every bloody week for years and years.

Boffins debunk study claiming certain languages (cough, C, PHP, JS...) lead to more buggy code than others

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Re: One more time.....

I think you've missed the point of the article!

Sure, it's not a compliment but back in the 70's we could say these things and laugh at ourselves.

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Re: It's "What's the best language" all over again

These days I agree, but when you see minimal code and verbose comments then it's a sure sign that they started writing Assembler - I did.

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Re: It's "What's the best language" all over again

Years ago when I was hiring programmers I always but the ones with Latin in their language skills at the top of the pile. If you have been taught Latin at school then you have your foot in the door for programming - weird I know, but it works.

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Re: It's "What's the best language" all over again

Right - and when your tools are not very good you have to really work hard to make a good product and a lot of us old folk did that ... e.g. If you need to read the keyboard then you wrote a routine to do that, the first version was almost always polled and it worked but dropped characters occasionally so you went back and wrote an interrupt handler to catch all the characters - and then you found that using the arrow keys generated more characters faster and the buffer overflowed, so you made the buffer circular and larger. And what you learned going through this process paid off later when you wrote the printer handler.

Coders today don't go through this painful process - I think this explains a lot.

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Happy

Re: One more time.....

It's A good programmer can write FORTRAN programs in any language - I used to put that in the header of all my PASCAL programs back in the 70's

What's Farsi for 'as subtle as a nuke through a window'? Foreign diplomats in Iran hit by renewed Remexi nasty

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Re: "researchers pointed to clues such as the use of Farsi language in encryption keys"

Government offensive attacks are certainly possible but I've noticed for years that when we start doing business in a new country it takes only a couple of weeks before the spam and infection laden attachments start arriving from that area. In poorer countries a lot of copies of Windows are old, unlicensed, and not running any AV software - our agents may be using good systems but their family and all their friends are using cheap stuff and I suspect the majority machines are infected at least once.

If you are in a swamp than the Alligators are a problem, but it's the Mosquitoes that bite the most.

Worried about Brexit food shortages? North Korean haute couture has just the thing

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Pint

Re: I think we'll be OK

LOL - sure but when it's the only thing on the menu it suddenly looks pretty good.

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Re: "Are people _really_ saying that 'supermarket shelves will be empty"

" a simple trade agreement with the EU" ... note that they've been working on a simple trade agreement with the EU for two years now and with a couple of months left the entire parliament is running round in circles screaming that everyone else is a damn "remainer"