And if that doesn't work
(and maybe even if it does) Sprint will just add the money it needs onto customers' bills, as an accident.
Posts by Swarthy
2412 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2009
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Hard-up Sprint rents out Hz
More than half of people on UK counter-terror biometrics databases are innocent
Thursday 26th May 2016 16:03 GMT 
Of course they keep the biometrics
Why wouldn't they? After all, the subjects came to the attention of the police, which means that they are guilty of something. We just don't know what, yet.
And soon, the coppers will have enough evidence to pin something on them connect them to a crime that hasn't been solved and is hurting their quota numbers validates their suspicions.
Microsoft won't back down from Windows 10 nagware 'trick'
Thursday 26th May 2016 14:56 GMT
Re: I feel left out....
Windows 7 and greater knows when it is running in a VM.The GWX software must detect that VM and not allow the upgrade.
Yes, most viruses can detect a VM and refuse to run, mainly to keep security researches from reverse engineering them and writing anti-virals.
I guess MS copied that code as well, when they were writing the malware-like behaviour for GWX.
German boffins smash records with 37km wireless spurt at 6Gbps
Pointless features add to browser bloat and insecurity
Pastejack attack turns your clipboard into a threat
Microsoft bans common passwords that appear in breach lists
Insure against a cyberwhat now? How the heck do we crunch those numbers?
Tuesday 24th May 2016 17:26 GMT 
This may help goad security upgrades
If it comes down to spending a million now, or two million later if when there is a breach, most corporates will opt for the latter. If it comes down to spending a million now, or having your premiums hiked by 100K per month, I can see some CFOs actually agreeing to splash out on security upgrades.
UK distributor Steljes goes titsup
Troll seeks toll because iPhones work
US Telecom beats up FCC over investment
Tuesday 24th May 2016 11:16 GMT 
Threats of scaled-back investment forgotten
Apparently, they also forget promises (and contracts) to increase investment when they get what they want. So history tells us that what ever happens, the Telcos will do what they were planning to do.
Kind of like politicians: what comes out of their mouths has no relation to what will happen.
Oculus backtracks on open software promise
Google Chrome deletes Backspace
Friday 20th May 2016 14:00 GMT
I used to use Backspace all the time
But I did not know about the mirror key stroke for it (Just learned about Shift+Backspace from Orange Skydiver below). I started using Alt+Left/Alt+Right for back and forward because that is better UI design. I still use backspace when back-tracking over several pages though, one keystroke and no hand spreading.
I don't think losing focus in a form is people being less than clever, or not losing it is a matter of being clever, I think it's a matter of how sensitive your touchpad is and where you rest your hands on the laptop keyboard. I never had a problem on a desktop, but I had some problems on a laptop until I changed the sensitivity, and moved my resting arm position.
Reavers! Google patent would affix pedestrians to car hoods
Africa poses for 7,000 snap mosaic
CIA says it 'accidentally' nuked torture report hard drive
Boffins achieve 'breakthrough' in random number generation
Thursday 19th May 2016 12:35 GMT
A good start
Now, take the number of files on the computer and use that number as a seed.
Then XOR the "random" number from your method with the "random" number from the files, and you have a decent random number. Even better: you can use the XOR result as a seed, and that should be an acceptably random result.
Dark net LinkedIn sale looks like the real deal
GM crops are good for you and the planet, reckon boffins
Wednesday 18th May 2016 15:54 GMT
Re: we're scientists, we know what we're talking about!
Actually, Thalidomide may be making a comeback as a chemotherapy addition. It is still an unparalleled anti-nausea drug.
But yeah, I do wonder why the pre-approval testing didn't show the fetal effects, were mice/pigs not susceptible to the damage, or was that part of testing "streamlined"?
Wednesday 18th May 2016 15:54 GMT
Re: Well DUH
Some crops *naturally* put pesticides (and herbicides) into the soil, and a lot more food crops are positively saturated with neurotoxins (Look up the nightshade family of crops). This is not the result of "a salmon humping a corn cob"; this is the result of plants trying to not get eaten, and to reduce competition for soil nutrients/space/sunlight. Coffea Arabica secretes caffeine into the soil around its roots, in addition to being toxic to a large number of warm blooded species, caffeine prevents the germination of seeds - it is a pesticide and herbicide. Peach pits are quite rich in cyanide, so that animals eating the peach will not eat the seed, but rather drop it somewhere it can sprout. We are not doing anything that nature has not done to some extent in some species before.
As to getting fish genes into crops: Fertilizing crops with fish guts + Horizontal Gene Transfer = (possible) Salmon genes in corn. If this hasn't caused a problem in 2000+ years, I doubt that a more focused effort with improved testing will bring the world to an end.
Wednesday 18th May 2016 15:50 GMT
Re: Genetic modification has been done since a long time ago
Selective breeding and gene manipulation are not the same thing.Errm, It kind of is. My favorite anti-GMO rant was when a person informed me that there are "SIX kinds of grass DNA in corn! Human beings don't eat grass, there should be no grass DNA in corn!"
..Except that corn (and wheat, and rice, and millet, and sugarcane, and...) are grass. When maize was first being cultivated its corns were no bigger than wheat heads, and wheat heads were not much larger than the seed clusters the grass sprouts when you don't mow your lawn.
But by dint of gene manipulation (cross breading, selective breading, culling, etc - Gene manipulation with a machete, vs a scalpel) we have "heritage" varietals of maize that have corns over 10x larger than "nature intended".
Having said that, I am cautious about GMOs. Not because of the crops themselves, but because Monsanto is almost as evil as Nestle - they make 1990's Microsoft look like a non-profit charity for widows and orphans.
Adpocalypse 'will wipe out display ad growth' by 2020
Curiosity find Mars' icecaps suck up its atmosphere
Friday 13th May 2016 15:30 GMT
Re: More information please...
axial tilt + elliptical orbit = uneven distribution of solar flux.
The way Earth is tilted, along with our elliptical orbit means that the southern hemisphere gets a bit more warmth. We are at perihelion during the Australian summer (when the south of the planet is tilted towards the sun) and at aphelion during the Northern summer.
Aussie wedges spam javelin in ring spanner
Friday 13th May 2016 15:23 GMT
Getting stuck in a ring spanner (box wrench)...
may just about beat out the 13 steel rings. I highly doubt that the rings were heavy-duty drop-forged tool steel. Spanners are made out of stern stuff: think about how easily they round off bolt heads, and how little damage they take in exchange. Add to that, the weight of one dangling off the danglies, and this is a truly cringe-worth experience.
But it serves as a reminder (for those that need it) to keep your tool away from the tools.
UK.gov pays four fellows £35k to do nothing for three months
Dwarf planet intumesces before astronomers' gaze
Google kneecaps payday loan ads
Ireland's international tech sector bumps up against language barrier
Wednesday 11th May 2016 16:11 GMT
English would be the worst possible candidate. Being a creole language with rules that contradict each other, and exceptions to all of the rules (including this one), English is very difficult to learn. One word is derived from German and is pronounced <one way>; this other word is derived from French/Latin, and is spelled similarly/the same but is pronounced <completely different> and a third word, probably derived from Greek, is pronounced like the German word, but is spelled with no letters the same.
E.G: "He wound the bandage 'round the wound." and this.
Wednesday 11th May 2016 16:03 GMT
Re: Esperanto?
Exactly! It's a real language; but as there are no native speakers, we will all be on the same playing field. If we were to standardize on English or German (or goodness forbid, French) the native speakers would have an unfair advantage over the rest of Europe/the world.
Esperanto or Loglan would put everybody at the same level of disadvantage.
Blocking ads? Smaller digital publishers are smacked the hardest
Wednesday 11th May 2016 14:10 GMT
"Incentivized" - yech!
Having said that; we, as consumers of stuff, are further "incentivized" towards ad-blockers by the recurring theme of "malvertisments". Yes, large ads are ugly, video ads are obnoxious, tracking for targeted advertising is creepy, and I value my bandwidth and my privacy. I can live with that (-ish) for good content.
What pushed me to ad blocking was the fact that I can get the computational clap from reputable sites because their ad network was compromised slinging ads with more malice than most.
French duck-crushing device sells for €40k
DARPA wants god-mode attribution platform to pin and predict crime
Monday 9th May 2016 14:36 GMT
Re: Ignorant media writers
On the other hand, DARPA and Skunk Works are both examples of skunk works.
How to evade the NSA: OpSec guide for journalists also used by terrorists
Revealed: How NASA saved the Kepler space telescope from suicide
ICANN in a strop that Intel, Netflix, Lego, Nike and others aren't using their dot-brand domains
Another failed merger, Carly? Ted Cruz to bring in ex-HP boss Fiorina as running mate
30 years on, Chernobyl wildlife still feeling effects of nuke plant catastrophe
Facebook: 1m Tor users
'I hacked Facebook – and found someone had beaten me to it'
Friday 22nd April 2016 17:01 GMT
Re: I'm not quite buying the "previous security researcher" story
I'm thinking the "previous researcher" may, in fact, have been a semi-current researcher who was trying to use the FB employee logins to get further into the FB system and claim a larger (2-part?) bounty. Orange, upon seeing the malware, did not follow the same strategy, and procured the prize by publishing prior to the previous penetrater.
BOFH: Thermo-electric funeral
Big telco proxies go full crazy over cable box plan
Monday 18th April 2016 13:20 GMT
Re: Dear Digital Citizens Alliance:
Well, that's a simple explanation: they closely guard your data because it's commercially valuable, so it only goes to "partners" that pay for it. If you get a third-party box, then the third-party could get that data, and then the CableCo won't be watching over your data to make sure it only falls into the "right" hands.
Ergo, (some of) their profits your privacy is at risk.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
