Posts by 0laf

This action is only against those individuals/businesses reselling pre-configured devices which access copyrighted material. And even then it'll only be effective against those who sell within the EU using legal channels.

It's not going to do anything to stop these boxes being sold from outside the EU (i.e. China) and it is still legal to configure these devices as an individual to stream copyrighted content.

Sky has never appealed to me since the price just isn't good value. I've got Prime and I'm considering NetFlix as well. Most people I know with Sky are paying more like £50 a month and they all talk of dropping it all the time (although few ever do).

Mars' gravity is a fair bit lower than earth, would that not effect these dropstones any anything other artefacts from falling objects?

Don't be a cvnt and there won't be a problem

But then for the hacking to have any influence there has to be dodgy dealing to be uncovered.

As a novel proposal how about having elected members that aren't dodgy crooked bastards for a start.

By not being a crooked bastard you run a good chance of rendering Russian hacking ineffectual.

Home users that want a tablet to consume have one or more, and cheap ones are not much worse than expensive ones.

Business users that want a tablet to consume have one too or more likely they're using a large form phone or phablet.

People that use computers to create content have had a tablet relalised they're shit for that and gone back to using laptops or desktops.

We're seeing renewed interested in thin light laptops. And I note that Google's flagship Pixel Chromebook has gone back to the square screen format of old. Fantastic, are manufacturers realising that the old 3:2 screens were much better for working on documents than feckin letterbox screens? I do hope so. I've been resorting to using an ancient HP to do actual work on because the screen is far better suited to documents.

No problem

My mate works on it, I'll ask him what the hold up is.

I think they've had him folding up large paper aeroplanes to fill out the hangers.

Maybe it's because the companies are phenomenally incompetent at carrying out changes (or Openreach is, but it makes no difference to the customer).

Certainly was for me. 6 weeks of downtime for a line with no technical errors.

Test run?

Those locks and controllers are bound to be in thousands of hotels globally. Maybe they're just testing before automating the process to get some real cash rolling in.

I wouldn't be surprised at all to see a backlash against IOT eventually. But it's still building up before it crashes and burns.

Pac-Man is eternal. My 6yr old son discovered it a year ago and loves it, my 71yr old mother loves it too. IT doesn't need to be a 3D driven 4k production to be entertaining.

RIP Nakamura-san and long life and happiness Iwatani-san

Real money?

I know a few guys making decent money from cyber security contracting but they are very highly qualified people with experience in very high places. But even they are not really earning all that much (£60k maybe). Possibly within London you get more, who knows, that place it its own little world anyway. The story average seems very high compared to real life.

I'll be doing my CISM shortly and have been in information security (which is wider a remit than 'cyber' although since it's not in the CEO cool book it's counted as a lesser thing) for more than 10yr. All in public sector so the pay is obviously shite although the conditions suit me more than money right now.

In 'cyber' recruitment it doesn't matter if you have any experience or can actually do the job in a meaningful way, just buy the right exams and learn to to talk the visionary BS that HR love and your in.

I'm only doing CISM for job insurance, does nothing to help me day to day in fact the course is so bloody basic it should be an embarrassment to the provider (CISSP is the same).

Top boffinry.

Knowing someone that is going through the horrible process of skin grafting something like this will make a huge difference to those people who need it. It's not just for burns either.

I'm surprised I'd expected Google to be using Chromebooks or some form of Chrome-desktop for all their in-house stuff.

Not really a shock is it

And this is why (amongst other things) why I tell Dropbox to bugger off when they keep phoning me to tell me how wonderful their product is for business and it's sooo safe for personal data and sooo compliant with the DPA. Except when it isn't.

As I recall...

This whole argument is about how the US Gov went about seeking access to the wanted data and not really about the access itself.

The data would be made available to the USG if they used the already established process of an international warrant. But they didn't want to to do that they wanted MS to supply directly.

[sigh]

I had call to switch on my old Nokia Lumia 920 the other day to possibly give my mother as a spare phone. That WinPho User Interface was/is bloody brilliant. I was in seconds able to resize the icons from my old multitude to 3 large buttons of the few things she would use.

The phone was too heavy though.

I've an iPhone now, the UI sucks although the compatibility and app range is excellent. The opposite of WinPho.

Targetted?

They're not the target, the public sector isn't likely to pay up so I doubt these particular cretins are targeting the UK public sector at all. They're just collateral.

It just so happens that there is no training budget for anti-phishing until after it's happened a few times.

Not my writing, but quite appropriate

The following was circulated on the intertubes at the time...

"I would like my pudding now nurse. And then I think I'd like to... write... something... I don't remember what."

Standing in the corner, he waits. The sand slowly flows, but it nears its end. The old man still glows, as thousands of threads spread away from him.

SQUEAK.

I AGREE. IT IS A SHAME TO SEE HIM THIS WAY.

SQUEAK.

NO. I DO NOT KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN.... BUT I CANNOT WAIT TO ASK HIM HOW IT ALL ENDS.

The old man looks up, through them at first... and then he sees them. For once, the smile on the hooded figure's skull is genuine.

"I... I remember you. The anth... ant..."

ANTHROPOMORPHIC PERSONIFICATION.

"Yes, that. We knew each other?"

ONCE. AND WILL AGAIN, SIR.

He so rarely said it, and these feelings... remembering his young apprentice, and beloved daughter. The beautiful child they have.

"There... is a girl, yes?"

SHE IS SPEAKING TO THE AUDITORS, SIR. THEY ARE UNWILLING TO LISTEN.

"Well then. You know what they say, two things you cannot avoid. Taxes and..." He looks into the fiery blue eyes, and becomes aware.

SQUEAK.

"Quite right. Is it time already? I have so much left to do."

YOU HAVE GIVEN ALL YOU CAN SIR.

"No, not cancer. Alzheimers."

I AM AWARE.

"So, where is the boy? I remember a boy."

CARRIAGE ACCIDENT.

"Ahh. Never much trusted cars. Or horses."

THEY GET YOU WHERE YOU WANT TO GO.

"Must I?"

SOON. BUT WE MAY SIT HERE AWHILE.

SQUEAK

DO YOU HAVE ANY BISCUITS?

"No. Shame really."

YES.

"Is it truly turtles?"

ALL THE WAY DOWN. I HAVE SEEN THEM.

"Ahh. I would love to see it. Perhaps a small trip before?"

IT WOULD BE MY PLEASURE.

"The light is slower there... and there's a monkey...."

ORANGUTAN. SAME PRINCIPLE.

"Yes... will they remember me?"

SQUEAK.

"What was that? I could not hear you."

HE SAYS WE WILL, SIR.

"I never much liked the trouble people had with you. You seem like a nice fellow."

I HAVE MY DAYS.

"Don't we all?"

SOME LESS THAN OTHERS.

"Is it quick?"

YES. AND I BROUGHT THE SWORD. CEREMONY DICTATES IT.

"Ahh. How about a cup of tea?"

I WOULD ENJOY IT. DO YOU PLAY CHESS?

"No. how about checkers?"

And so they sat, two old friends regaling each other, though the old man could not remember all of the details, the cloaked man and his rat filled him in, when it was needed.

- by Nick Mogavero

Says you can when you can't

I wasn't mis-sold but when I moved house all providers said that they were able to offer fibre speeds. Half way through he sales process they said "sorry the fibre cabinet is at a capacity would you like to buy boggo broadband instead?"

CRTs

They used CRTs because that's all they had for dressing the sets. But you can see in some shows (ST TNG is the one I can remember best) the start of tablet computer type ideas with non-functional props and their flat touch panel LCARS controls. But where they needed something to work and change they had to use a CRT coz that's all they had.

The set dressing budget wouldn't extend to replicating imaginary tech.

Customer experience

Wot's that then? Better hold music.

Customers are just as bad, they don't want security on the front door because it takes them an extra 2sec to get into their account.

Banks don't want to makes things secure either becasue it costs money and it pisses the customer off as in point 1.

The Tesco hack was pretty significant, it that won't change things a jot then pretty much nothing will. Maybe a nice 2% turnover fine from the GDPR but even then...

Nothing new here

All manufacturers have been fudging their cars to perform well in the tests, it's just that VW have bee caught out with their software which blatantly detected when it was on a rolling road and made very large changes to the way the car operated (dumped a big load of pig piss into the exhaust I believe, much more than it did on the road).

But they're all at it in some way. Plenty of cars are now advertised with a disclaimer that the mpg is a lab figure. If anything they're getting worse not better.Of my last 3 cars the oldest two I could beat the lab figures by a small margin, that latest one claims 69mpg and I can't get any more than 52mpg.

Motorbikes (not sure about current ones) used to have a flat spot in the power profile of the engine and that was mapped in to the point in the rev range where they did the noise testing in the lab.

Was Kia not sued in the states for misrepresenting mpg figures recently as well and Fiat was allegedly making people sign disclaimers when they bought their TwinAir engined cars that they wouldn't sue when they found out how bad the real world mpg was.

The sad thing is that the lab tests are driving cars to be made which get great mpg in the lab but much worse real world mpg that more powerful and allegedly polluting cars.

Up here

North of the wall all state schools are run directly by local authorities which (should) mean proper backups are in place and any ransomware attack is doomed to be an irritation rather than a disaster.

I've heard some real horror stories from guys in the south about free schools i.e. IT run by the pupils. I wouldn't be shocked to find out some of those schools has paid up in ransomware attacks.

Smaller independent schools are probably at much greater risk as well.

Love a good pr0n investigation

Especially when it's someone high up.

I had to fix the PC of the MD of a car dealership which was riddled with bugs and running slow. Turned out he had a predilection for an particular anal sex website which was downloading crap onto his PC. He being the boss, machine was cleaned up and nothing said.

another senior manager within another company was investigated when her laptop started showing popups for shemale and granny pr0n. I had to investigate and found out she'd let her teenage son use the laptop at home. Would have liked to have heard that conversation when she got home.

Used to be good, suck now

Had been with Plusnet without problems for quite a few years.

Moved house and opted to stick with them for 'ease'.

They in conjunction with OpenReach made an utter fanny of the whole process taking 6 weeks to turn on a working phone line. They were obsessed with the idea that I wanted to keep my number, but I didn't, I was moving exchange and knew fine well I couldn't keep it. This got to the point that I was practically having to manage the installation myself.

I was promised a refund of the downtime and a months rental back as compo. I've had nothing. Raised a complaint. The reply was effectively "see your connection is up now, hope you're happy. If not go to CEDR". Haven't been arsed to follow it up yet and I'm probably too late, but I'll be buggered if I'll stick with them when the contract is up.

Good enough security

Ok it's not true 2FA

It can be compromised.

But in the real world does this not still give an appreciable increase in security in a relatively convenient way?

So ok lets work on something better but don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Take a raik based approach and it might well be that for you, for now, SMS authentication works just fine.

Regular updates on consumption

I've found this neat little trick that tells me when I'm using too much energy. I read this little bit of paper or an email that arrives every month or three with a number on it. A 'Bill' I think it's called.

If the number starts to make me cry then I'm using too much.

More seriously with all my appliances fairly well rated, all, my house insulated as much as I economically can, my incandescent bulbs changed to energy saving ones and switching stuff off when I'm not using it WTF else is a smart meter going to tell me to do.?

Or rather is the power company getting me to pay for a way to let them get rid of meter readers and having a way to disconnect me remotely?

Copper

I like copper, copper works. Copper doesn't decide to stop working because the wind changes from east to west.

Be like copper.

mud

It's going to be like mud rock is it not. They'll need to mine for that water.