Hope he wears asbestos clothing then :)
Posts by AndrueC
5086 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Aug 2009
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Network driver issue shaves 12 more hours off Microsoft's '365' infrastructure, and yeah, it was Exchange Online again
Tech support scammer dialed random number and Australian Police’s cybercrime squad answered
Friday 6th November 2020 16:00 GMT 
Details of FCIB’s secure environment were not disclosed, but the Force has revealed that the scammer was told that there had been a security breach on their computer and was asked to open a Windows command line, visit a dodgy website and then download something called “SupRemo.exe”.
Wow. That's some smooth talking by the police there although I'd have thought they had an official download URI they could suggest rather than relying on something dodgy. Talk about turning the tables on the criminal :)
Methinks there's a grammar mistake or typo in that part of the article :)
Finding remote working a bit of a grind? Microsoft staffers feel your pain
Friday 23rd October 2020 16:28 GMT
I've never been a people person (I have the social life to prove it) so for me it's actually a relief not to have to deal with people in person. And I don't miss the commute back home which could be annoying and frustrating. I do miss the morning commute though as I left early enough to avoid traffic and I do like driving.
It would be nice once we're passed this to have an office meet up every other week but I'm very happy working in my spare bedroom. Got an oil heater ready for winter so that I don't have to heat the entire house during the day.
There's not been many good things to from this damn' virus but my working arrangements are one.
UK state of the Internet report: Virgin Media 'fast', BT's PlusNet last
Wednesday 21st October 2020 20:39 GMT
Re: There's a huge issue here
All speed tests are flawed in that way. They only tell you the characteristics of the link between you and a server that you will never use for anything else.
Running a speed test every couple of days is good for general monitoring. Learn what the results look like and you can spot things going on. When you first switch to an ISP running one at different times can be informative. If certain times of day show a dip that means you're with an ISP that is running a hot network. A good ISP will provide the same throughput 24/7/52.
And a speed test that will do single threaded and multi threaded tests is essential. Multi threaded tests can hide issues since by their nature they max out bandwidth. A good connection has multi and single threaded results looking much the same:
Peak hours and my connection is running fine. Couple of dips on the single threaded test but nothing of significance.
Wednesday 21st October 2020 18:16 GMT
I used to be with PN but as their technical support degraded I got fed up of the struggle required to fix the issues. They were fine (fast and low latency) for a year at a time then you'd get a couple of months of shite and a major fight to get them to fix it.
Then there's the whole IPv6 thing. They rebuilt their network and rather than it heralding a new IPv6 compatible era it killed off the beta programme because the new network wasn't compatible with the test servers.
So I jumped ship for IDNet. Fewer reasons to talk to technical support but when I do I get sensible responses, problems are taken seriously and fixes put in place in a few days.
Oh and they've supported dual-stack IPv6/v4 for many years now.
UK test-and-trace coronavirus data may be handed to police to nab those who aren't self-isolating as required
Monday 19th October 2020 18:00 GMT
Re: And who is surprised?
There is no right of free speech in UK law, and never has been
Actually there has been for the last 22 years. (albeit with some restrictions) thanks to the ECHR.
"Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers."
That's on the UK statute books. It'll still be on them even after Brexit ;)
UK's National Audit Office warns full-fibre rollout strategy is leaving rural Britain behind. Again
Saturday 17th October 2020 09:51 GMT
Re: Moving goalposts
but I have never managed to find a clear answer whether the stats relate to people who can definitely get the quoted speeds, or just theoretically can get the speeds because they have an FTTC connection.
Whoever publishes the result should tell you that. The NAO PDF lists its sources as an appendix. From that I'd conclude it's a mixture of real-world and estimation which seems reasonable. There's not normally much inaccuracy in any of these figures but there are always a few outliers such as yourself.
As regards your cabinet - BT did not connect you to that cabinet when FTTC became available. Your line has always been routed that way ever since your house was built. It's unfortunate but the cost of re-routing your cable to a closer cabinet would be too high (potentially many thousands of pounds). BT have re-routed cable runs in some cases but they don't do it very often.
Saturday 17th October 2020 09:39 GMT
Re: Moving goalposts
It depends who's doing the testing and why I suppose. I'd think that network planners and architects would rely on observed speeds because that's reality. Accountants and marketing departments would probably use availability because that's what can be sold.
But the market shows that most households do not want the fastest package available to them. The idea that there is significant pent up demand for Gb services is currently a fallacy. There is pent up demand for something decent in some areas of the country (those unable to get at least 40/10 I'd suggest) but for at least 90% of the UK population 'adequate' seems to be fine and FTTC is meeting that requirement at the moment.
My feeling is that most households currently have no real need for anything better than 100Mb/s and a lot can (and do!) get by on half that. Quite a lot might in any case be being throttled by their use of wifi.
Friday 16th October 2020 16:41 GMT
Re: Moving goalposts
If everyone ordered the best package currently available to them we'd probably be in the global top three for speed. That would likely spur our CPs into even more investment so we could be number one soon after.
However most people don't want to spend more than they have to (and preferably less) so tend to go for whatever package is 'good enough'.
Former antivirus baron John McAfee collared, faces extradition to America on tax evasion, securities allegations
If the Samsung Galaxy S20 Fan Edition doesn't make you a fan, we don't know what will
Sunday 4th October 2020 08:28 GMT
Re: Digital watches
Damn. Now that I've just criticised wanton consumerism I've found out that Casio have finally produced a red version of my current G-Shock.
Sunday 4th October 2020 08:16 GMT
Re: Digital watches
G-Shocks can go about ten years between battery changes.
My first G-Shock is nearly that old and seems fine. I just checked it (I keep it on a windowsill out of direct light) and it claims to be fully charged. I replaced it a couple of years ago because someone warned me that the LCD screen wouldn't last much longer. My current G-shock is analogue to avoid that problem.
To clarify what I was trying to say: I wasn't trying to denigrate digital watches. Just likening the mobile fad to that of the digital watch fad and wondering if/why people still get excited when a new phone is released.
Saturday 3rd October 2020 12:27 GMT
Um..it's a phone. It also has a camera and the ability to render web pages at a barely useable size. Just like my S10 and the S8 before it.
It's like digital watches all over again (I lived through the 1980s). Does anyone still care about these things?
Offer me a unit with an easily replaceable battery (like you used to) and no bloatware and I might be interested. But not at anything over £100.
UK privacy watchdog confirms probe into NHS England COVID-19 app after complaints of spammy emails, texts
IT guy whose job was to stop ex-staff running amok on the network is jailed for running amok on the network
Monday 28th September 2020 20:19 GMT
Re: 5 years?
If you are a multiple offender of minor crimes (no felonies) your bail will probably be less than $2000 so unless you are so poor and friendless that you can't come up with the $200 for the bondsman you won't spend more than a few days in jail.
Quite a lot of people on a low income would struggle to come up with $200 I would imagine. And even if they come up with it - what kind of country makes their innocent citizens pay to regain their freedom?
Meanwhile in the UK almost everyone(*) would be released on police bail within 24 hours and - aside from occasionally having to check in at the local cop shop - would be free to get on with their lives as best they can. That's because they would be innocent and we believe that innocent people should be free.
Oh and if the charges are dropped or you are acquitted it's pretty much as if it never happened. There would of course be a record of your arrest but it wouldn't come up on most searches so unless you're trying to find employment for a particularly sensitive position it wouldn't matter.
I don't claim that the UK is perfect but on this particular issue I feel that we have embraced 'innocent until proven guilty' to a far greater extent. You don't normally get treated like a criminal until a court has actually convicted you.
(*)Under some circumstances the police might ask for an extension. If the crime suggested a significant future threat to lives or property you could be held until trial but that's fairly uncommon and has a legal time limit of 182 days.
FYI: Mind how you go. We're more or less oblivious to 75% of junk in geosynchronous orbits around Earth
We're not getting back with Galileo, UK govt tells The Reg, as question marks sprout above its BS*
Let's go space truckin': 1970s probe Voyager 1 is now 14 billion miles from home
Bad apples: US customs seize OnePlus earbuds thinking they're knock-off AirPods
NASA is sending two small hand-luggage suitcase-sized spacecraft into the void to study binary asteroids
Saturday 12th September 2020 17:54 GMT 
Andre Norton had an entertaining series about Janus. It wasn't just an Asteroid in her books though :)
With a million unwanted .uk domains expiring this week, Nominet again sends punters pushy emails to pay up
Thursday 3rd September 2020 15:03 GMT 
I have a .me.uk registered. Does this mean I should expect a begging/warning/threatening email from Nominet when they eventually realise that businesses don't care?
Back when I registered my domain .me.uk was actually more expensive than .co.uk and I could never decide if that was funny or stupid.
You Musk be joking: A mind-reading Neuralink chip in a pig's brain? Downloadable memories? Telepathy? Watch and judge for yourself
Trucking hell: Kid leaves dad in monster debt after buying oversized vehicle on eBay
Saturday 22nd August 2020 16:38 GMT
Re: Unlikely story
Yup. My CCs are paid in full by direct debit every month. Still very useful because a)Section 75 of Credit act and b)It's not my money being taken when defrauded.
I don't want scrotes being able to siphon funds out of my bank account but if they want to steal my CC issuer's money it's no skin off my nose. I'll just strike the bad transactions off my statement and pay what's left.
But using a CC to borrow money? Hell no. I don't want or need it for that.
Bored binge-watchers bork beleaguered broadband by blasting bandwidth: Global average speeds down 6.31%
Tuesday 4th August 2020 14:46 GMT
Re: "Overwhelmed"? "Broke"? Really?
I can’t help but feel we should be praising their engineers/teccies who kept this all going (despite years of poor manglement), with only a slight dip in performance which the vast majority won’t have even noticed in practice.
Especially for the bargain basement prices consumers are prepared to pay. The profit margins on being a residential CP are pretty small. It amazes me that UK telcos can justify any kind of upgrade programme. I've long assumed that BT only does it in order to retain the value of their local loop in the face of the mobile onslaught. Basically 'upgrade or become irrelevant'.
Tuesday 4th August 2020 13:07 GMT
Re: The death of broadcast TV?
AndrueC How long till they have modify their plus boxes to make the ad's unskippable?
The only change they've made in that respect over the last almost-twenty-years has been to implement skip-30-seconds, making jumping past adverts easier. Admittedly it took many years before they finally did it (had to wait until Sky Q was released) but the evidence is that Sky are fairly happy to allow their subscribers to jump over adverts.
What the other broadcasters who use their platform think I don't know. A lot of them don't have adverts on their catch-up service although that might be because it's easier to just make the original source material available without trying to insert adverts. Whatever the reason in a lot of cases the best way to avoid adverts altogether is to use the corresponding catch-up service so it doesn't seem like most broadcasters are bothered.
UK national debt hits 1.46 Apples – and weighs as much as 2 billion adult badgers
Aw, Snap! But you should see the other guy – they're in dire need of a good file system consistency check
Thursday 20th August 2020 14:19 GMT
I used them for 14 months around 2013 and they were pretty good at getting me between Banbury and Birmingham. There were a few issues but most seemed to be caused by sad individuals foisting their terminal unhappiness onto us commuters. My only gripe was that I liked to use Snow Hill (it being quieter and also the terminus) and if anything went wrong the service went no further than Moor St. On a couple of occasions that meant a mad dash from Snow to Moor via the shopping centre.
And is there anything worse for a commuter than getting an SMS at 1530 telling them there is a problem with their train?
But I was only once seriously late. They had to lay buses on one evening and I was nearly an hour late arriving home. But most of the time they ran a very punctual and pleasant service.
I was damn lucky though. I was made redundant the same week that there was a landslide near Leamington Spa. That must have been a very unpleasant experience for my ex-fellow commuters.
50%+ of our office seats are going remote, say majority of surveyed Register readers. Hi security, bye on-prem
Thursday 20th August 2020 09:48 GMT
Been working from home since lock down start and loving it. We already had two team members out of office (one emigrated to Canada, the emigrated to Wales). As far as I know our team is still fully productive. Maybe even more productive (I know I am). I don't think we'll be asked to come back in I will refuse anyway. It makes no sense driving 20 minutes to an office and back each day.
I doubt they'll kick up a fuss but tough luck if they do. I'm more than close enough to retirement to flat out refuse.
Brit bank Barclays probed amid claims bosses used high-tech to spy on staff, measure productivity
Monday 10th August 2020 19:23 GMT 
And only recently the boss changed tack and said he wanted staff back in the office. I thought when I read it that sounded like the attitude of a typical blinkered boss who wants to micromanage his workforce.
He added: "We want our people back together, to make sure we ensure the evolution of our culture and our controls, and I think that will happen over time."
Now we know what form 'our controls' take.
NASA to stop using names like 'Eskimo Nebula' and 're-examine' what it calls cosmic objects
Congratulations Peebles. Felicitations Queenzieburn. Openreach is bringing you FTTP (yes, they're real places)
Tuesday 4th August 2020 15:09 GMT
And for those who doubt what I say, this from the latest VM figures:
Virgin Media M100 38.7% of speed tests Median speeds 28.3 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up
Virgin Media M200 48.9% of speed tests Median speeds 108.5 Mbps down and 10.3 Mbps up
Virgin Media M350 11.8% of speed tests Median speeds 185.2 Mbps down and 32.4 Mbps up
Virgin Media M500 0.6% of speed tests Median speeds 387.9 Mbps down and 35.6 Mbps up
Virgin Media Gig1 <0.01% of speed tests Median speeds 387.9 Mbps down and 35.6 Mbps up
So most of their customers are happy on the lower tier packages. Over a third are happy on the lowest tier. Also worth noting that VM periodically closes the bottom tier and upgrades customers for free. Also worth noting that apparently only a third of people who can get cable choose to do so. Two thirds either don't want a fixed line or else are happy with what BT can offer.
FTTP is needed for future proofing not to satisfy demand.
AI assistants work perfectly in the UK – unless you're from Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, Birmingham, Belfast...
It's been five years since Windows 10 hit: So... how's that working out for you all?
Thursday 30th July 2020 08:30 GMT
Re: Over the years
It was a shame about OS/2. I used it during the Warp years and it was a great host for DOS and Windows development. If a VDM crashed you just started another and it was impressive how much low level stuff it supported - it even virtualised ATAPI calls.
The only thing that let it down was the WPS. Very powerful, true, but prone to locking. I used to have to ask a colleague to Telnet in and reset my shell now and again.
Thursday 30th July 2020 08:26 GMT
Meh. It's stable, doesn't interfere with my work and I can do everything I want on my personal laptop. I still dislike the clunky 'fat finger support' UI and the Start Menu searching algorithm is crap.
But overall it's okay.
Edit: Oh and I forgot my mail/media server. Running on relatively obscure hardware (A low power AcePC) it just sits doing its thing 24/7/52.
MI6 tried to intervene in independent court by stopping judge seeing legal papers – but they said sorry, so it's OK
IDE like an update, please: JetBrains freshens IntelliJ, adds improved GitHub integration, Java support
Wednesday 29th July 2020 10:23 GMT
Would be nice if they'd move a bit quicker to resolve the long running performance issues that afflict its VS integration. It's sad just how much faster and more responsive VS is with R# disabled. Unfortunately as of yet VS is just a bit too annoying without R# but it's getting better. As it stands it's a case of choosing the lesser of two evils.
What the duck? Bloke keeps getting sent bathtime toys in the post – and Amazon won't say who's responsible
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
