* Posts by VinceH

3483 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Nov 2009

Facebook chokes off car insurance slurp because – get this – it has privacy concerns

VinceH

"Some people already think we're a bit "odd" for not having accounts, and it's been a battle getting schools to continue sending paper letters home, but it's definitely worth it"

Wait!

What?

Your kids' schools try to use social media for letters to parents? Why are they so bloody stupid? This is no better than companies who seem to want to advertise their Facebook presence rather their own website. At the very least, the school could use email - if the issue is one of reducing costs, then a simple email would do the job. (Just so long as they use a proper tool that's not going to make it far to easy to use CC instead of BCC)

VinceH

Re: Expect Faceboook to sell the same service soon...

Yup - coming RSN, no doubt: A new API to allow paying companies to access their [potential] customers' posts, or perhaps to invoke certain searches/analyses of the posts and return the results.

The IoT market will grow through cannibalisation, says Tech Mahindra

VinceH

"Less blue-sky thinking, more 'is this profitable needed?' needed"

Fixed.

'Every step your anti-theft tracker takes – I'll be watching you'

VinceH

Re: sigh

"The PITA hassle of forgetting something important like keys / wallet once tends to focus your mind so you do not do it again!"

In addition to which, if you consistently put them in the same place, it becomes muscle memory.

Graduate recruitment site exposed 50,000 CVs sent to Virgin Media UK

VinceH

Re: This is embarassing

"until we start seeing directors held accountable"

Although it's not for issues like this, it appears El Gov are taking a step in the right direction - they're going to be doing that when it comes to dodgy cold callers: Government clamps down on nuisance call crooks

All we need now is a bit of mission creep.

Accountant falls for sexy Nigerian email scammer, gives her £150k he cheated out of pal

VinceH
Joke

Obvious joke is obvious

"Lisa Johnson, who emailed him X-rated snaps and asked for emergency funds."

Pictures, or it didn't happen.

VinceH

Re: Does he really deserve jail?

"The issue is not that he was scammed, the issue is an accountant who deliberately lied to his client, causing them to lose a lot of money. Accountants are in a position of trust, it's a job requiring scrupulous honesty."

All true, of course.

However, given that he asked for the money as a loan (albeit lying about the reason, as you say) and the client was also a friend, I'm wondering about the nature of his report to the police. All the article says (and the source article doesn't expand much beyond it) is:

"When he asked for another £35,000, Ridpath's friend drew the line – and called the police when the accountant refused to pay back the money."

I wonder if that report was along the lines of "My friend has conned me out of all this money..." or more along the lines of "I'm concerned that my friend is being conned, and I've been caught up in it and may have lost all this money".

What the accountant did was still wrong - but if the report was closer to the latter I can't help but wonder if the police then saw him as low hanging fruit.

VinceH

"He sent the Nigerian guy an email requesting a photo for identification and specified that to ensure authenticity he should hold up a sign while being photographed. The sign had a large arrow pointing at the subject and stating... "I AM A TOSSER". Remarkably the photo was duly taken and sent back."

419eater.com is a site (one of several, IIRC) where the results of doing this sort of thing has been published since the internet's Jurassic period. They have a 'trophy room' for publishing such photographs.

What will happen when I'm too old to push? (buttons, that is)

VinceH

Re: Oh, Alistair...

Saw this the other day.

And did you visit the link in the poster?

I just did. I feel that I have missed a point somewhere.

VinceH

Re: NooooooooMannnnnnn!!!!!!!

"I love all that guy's stuff."

Ditto - he's still putting out new stuff, and I'm still buying it.

But on the subject of feeling old... We Have a Technical dates from around 37 years ago! =:o

VinceH

Re: When you get older

Remote controls for TVs etc seem to be gaining a silly number of buttons (and presumably functions behind them - though some just double up as different ways to do the same thing) that never get used.

I bought an Amazon Fire Stick recently, and the remote control is refreshingly simple (though with some TVs it isn't needed; the equivalent controls on the TV's remote are passed through).

VinceH

Re: Not being old

Toltec's valid point notwithstanding (though most decent TVs will detect there's no signal coming in over HDMI and go into standby mode), most of the above is down to the designers either prioritising form over function, or simply not giving enough thought to how the user interacts with the device. IMO.

Fruity hacking group juiced by Microsoft's October patch parade

VinceH

DIY website builder Weebly was secured feebly

VinceH

"LeakedSource also mentions [....] that it's aware of 58,848,226 users' records from Modern Business Solutions and 22,534,984 Foursquare credentials. The latter breach was in December 2013, but Modern Business Solutions was popped just this month."

FTFY!

But what I actually wanted to comment on was this:

"As ever a sound response to the state of utter insecurity in which we find ourselves is to employ a password manager, not re-using passwords and only using discrete passwords and credentials for the services that expose you to financial loss."

It's also worth thinking about per-site email addresses.

When I started doing that, some time in the Bronze Age in internet terms, it was so if I received spam to any given address I'd know which site leaked the address.

Over time it's evolved from simply their_name@my_domain, and is instead based on their name, but not with a fixed, discernible pattern, and will be at one of a number of subdomains (which reduces the number to migrate if necessary). And I now consider it to also be an element of security - albeit by obscurity: a leak might reveal my details for Site A are this_email and that_password; but my details for Sites B, C, D, E, F, etc. won't match either.

Verizon: Data center sale going nicely. Yahoo! bid? Not so much

VinceH

Optional

"Verizon's lawyers had their first meeting with Yahoo! brass yesterday to discuss the breach of a half billion Yahoo! Mail accounts and how the incident will affect the $4.8bn acquisition offer."

Start with the original offer of US$4.8bn. Discount it by US$10 for each account affected by the breach.

Is this the worst Blockchain idea you've ever heard?

VinceH

"Is home taping still killing music?"

I don't know if it was home taping, but when I was forced to listen to some modern crap recently I concluded that something had killed music.

Kids today are so stupid they fall for security scams more often than greybeards

VinceH

Re: This senior citizen (old man) ....

"Also, I've been reading El Reg for so long that I've turned into a misanthrope with a bunker mentality."

I was already one, but these days I'm wondering if my bunker should be in a bunker.

Yahoo! hides! from! financial! analysts! amid! email! hacking!, privacy! storm!

VinceH

Re: One question

It's one meant to sound sincere and thorough, to be used in particular when the results of not giving a flying fuck about looking after users' data have caught up with you.

Think virtual reality is just about games? Think again, friend

VinceH

Re: "I felt so alone"

"may spoil the story being told."

I also think that the framing is important to ensure the viewer actually follows the story. Consider this example from the article:

"Kaelan describes how in one film a new character is introduced out of shot by shouting a comment to those you are watching. People naturally turn to see where the sound is coming from, and then follow the actor's movements as he walks toward the rest of the cast."

What happens if the viewer doesn't turn their head? I can easily imagine the ability to choose what to look at - what to concentrate on - has the potential to distract the viewer from the narrative.

I'll file this away along with 3D, as Yet Another Silly GimmickTM.

VinceH

Re: Head Mounted Gadgets

"Same with 3D TV, which was sure to TV manufacturers tried to convince us would be the Next Big Thing, until but people realized it was a gimmick to try and get everyone to replace their perfectly good TVs and that wearing cheap plastic sunglasses to watch a movie at home wasn't quite what they wanted to do."

FTFY!

Pair programming – you'll never guess what happens next!

VinceH
Coat

Re: the coding equivalent of design by committee

"I imagine having to explain every single line of code written, as it was written, to someone hovering at your shoulder would be intensely irritating."

"And conversely, sitting at someone's shoulder without access to the keyboard [...] would also be incredibly frustrating."

Both of these are problems that have already been solved.

German regulators won't let Tesla use the name 'Autopilot'

VinceH

Re: Assistopilot

How about, er, "Driver Assist" ?

More than half of Androids susceptible to ancient malware

VinceH
Paris Hilton

Re: So the source article mentions "MXPlayer Pro"

The third option - I think - but it's easy to be confused by an article which seems to say most Ghost Push "infections come from malware-laced installations" then goes on to say that "Ghost Push spreads through pornographic websites and deceptive advertising".

Perhaps it's both, or the deceptive advertising is for malware-laced installations of otherwise legit packages. Or something.

I don't have time to read the source article this morning, so I'll just stick with being slightly confused on this one.

Paris because she could be getting a headache due to the confusion, and there's even a question mark.

Email security: We CAN fix the tech, but what about the humans?

VinceH

Cloud-based email

Throw in the fact that cloud-based email services are growing and you can see potential for greater damage if businesses don’t act." ... "“The risk with cloud-based email is the same as one of its major benefits - it's easily accessible from anywhere in the world,”

So cloud-based email is basically... email, then? More specifically, if that "accessible from anywhere" bit refers to more than just new emails, it's IMAP?

VinceH

Re: Preview email in plain text only

Agreed - I send in plain text, and I interleave my replies with quoted material as appropriate, rather than reply at the top.

What amuses me, though, is that I sometimes get replies to long, complicated emails from clients who use HTML and normally top post, but who clearly see the need to reply in a similar manner to the way I do when replying to them. They still use HTML, but insert their replies at appropriate points in the email, with a note at the top along the lines of "my replies are in red below".

New dogs trying to teach themselves old tricks.

Buggy Excel patch panned

VinceH

Optional

“Microsoft Excel has stopped working”

I'm not entirely sure if the word 'Excel' is needed in that sentence.

Carders bag stylish sack shop Vera Bradley

VinceH
Facepalm

Optional

"They made off with customer names, expiry dates,"

Wait! What?

So this company - and now the hackers - know when their customers are going to die?

Without new anti-robot laws, humanity is doomed, MPs told

VinceH
Terminator

Optional

"Just because we're decades away from seeing real robo-killing machines..."

...doesn't mean we won't see one tomorrow if it travels back in time to kill the mother of the leader of the human resistance.

PC sales sinking almost as fast as Donald Trump's poll numbers

VinceH

Re: I for one will never buy a Windows computer again

"Still on Win7 for now but I won't be upgrading."

Ditto - although in my case it's back on Win7, rather than still on it. I've been using Windows 8 for a couple of years because of an urgent purchase, but I finally went out of my way to buy a laptop with Windows 7 Pro on it a short while ago.

That goes along with a desktop PC that I bought over a year ago, but only recently set up, and which is running Linux Mint. (It came with 8) - and a brand spanking new Windows 7 desktop PC that arrived yesterday.

So I can use the Windows 7 laptop when out and about at clients where I need Windows, the Windows 7 desktop PC at home when I need Windows, and the Linux Mint desktop PC at home for everything else. As an added bonus, I intend to install Mint on one of my old laptops so I also have a laptop to take out and about with me when Windows is irrelevant.

Previously, all my PC stuff was on a single Windows laptop, which was therefore under heavy use - so that spread of machines should reduce any given machine's workload and, hopefully, enable them to last that much longer into the future.

No, software-as-a-service won't automatically simplify operations and cut costs

VinceH

Re: HR and marketing types have learned not to to send their best people to liaise with IT...

"Best people" is just PR-speak for "least worst people"

Internet of pills plan calls for drugs to tell you when to take them

VinceH

"Unless you are particularly absent minded, does this not indicate that your health is not really all that high of a priority?"

I'm often complimented on my very good memory - but when it happens I always find it odd, because I know that I'm terribly absent minded, especially for 'trivial' things. The purpose of the pills is not trivial1, but the process of taking them is.

That's me, though. Others may have different excuses.

"Please note, I'm not having a go at you in particular here,"

Understood entirely - and I'm pretty sure that before I was ever taking tablets on a regular basis, I wondered the same thing about others.

"but many of the comments here seem to indicate that potentially life saving medication really isn't in the forefront of the minds of the people it's supposed to be saving/curing/alleviating."

Again, it may differ for others, but in my case the problem that some of my medication addresses could indeed prove fatal if not kept in check - but the thing is, I'm okay with it. I don't want to pop my clogs, but if it happens, it happens. *shrugs*

1. The one at night is for high cholesterol, the two in the morning for high blood pressure. My high BP, when it was discovered (a few years ago, and the first time I'd been to see the doctor in many years) reached 240/140.

VinceH

"The Register hates* to hose down oddball Internet of Things enthusiasm but feels bound to note that the breathless announcement of the idea doesn't explain how an E-Ink screen on a bottle or package is more effective than notifications or vibrations delivered through a phone in a patient's hand."

Even that doesn't work for me. I'm on three different pills, two to be taken in the morning and one at night. Originally, I set daily alarms on my phone to remind me - but if I was busy or whatever, the fact that I still had to take the tablets would slip my mind.

My current system is: When I take my pills in the morning, I place the strip for the evening pill on the base of my desk lamp. That serves as a reminder at night to take that one, and when I do it'll be when I'm shutting down, so I then place the strips for my morning pills on the keyboard, which in turn serves as a reminder to take them when I sit at my desk in the morning - at which point I place the strip for the evening pill on the base of my desk lamp...

I find this is the ideal approach for me, and I forget far less often than I used to. However, it's still not perfect - if I don't use the desk lamp at night, I don't notice the strip I've placed there, so I forget that night and, as a consequence, the following morning.

But it does mean the damned things remain in sync, though, so I can refill the prescriptions at the same time without ending up with a surplus of any of the pills.

Building IoT London: Still working on your pitch?

VinceH

Re: So...

Is the Marianas Trench in Mordor? If not, I'm not sure it's the right place to destroy it all.

Crooks and kids (not scary spies paid by govt overlords) are behind most breaches

VinceH

“Blaming state hackers has become like a ‘dog ate my homework’ excuse,” he added.

Quite. Like I said two weeks ago, claiming hacks are state-sponsored is the new black.

Smash and grab PoS pwners ready with pre-Xmas malware update

VinceH
Coat

Re: How long exactly?

I should think you did after buying mince pies!

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Spotify serving malware, no escape from reality

VinceH

Re: Yet again

"and advertisers wonder why we all use adblockers and hate adverts."

Would ad-blockers have helped in this case, though?

I don't use Spotify, but I assumed it uses its own software, rather than run in the browser - hence these malverts launching the default browser.

(Mind you, I also assumed the adverts on Spotify would be audio ones, much like you'd hear on commercial radio stations - and I must clearly be wrong about that, so what do I know?)

Never explain, never apologize: Microsoft silent on Outlook.com email server grief

VinceH

Re: Naughty El Reg

"Have you been nasty to Microsoft again!?"

No, that's just another of the ways Microsoft are trying to channel Apple.

My Nest smoke alarm was great … right up to the point it went nuts

VinceH

"It raises doubts about whether this smart home tech is such a good idea."

Not for me it doesn't. Those doubts were already there - this just helps affirm them.

What's not to love about IoT – you can spy on customers as they arrive

VinceH

"Anyone getting into a hospital, connecting to the guest Wi-Fi network or penetrating your firewall could easily discover a medical device and connect to it."

The solution to that is nothing to do with IoT and everything to do with not having the guest Wi-Fi network connected in any way shape or form to anything other than the bloody internet!

"Detect the licence plate of this individual and whenever they’re coming into your hotel, your bank, this is about customising their experience… making sure we can charge them for parking, as well as just generally track them."

FTFH.

"this is how IoT video surveillance can trigger the right workflow."

There's the magic word, right there.

Has anyone seen my tinfoil hat? I need to add some more layers.

VinceH

Re: "you will not generate the right outcome,” he thundered.

"Since when is secure data the wrong outcome?"

He accidentally used the wrong word. He meant income. Income for those able to access and monetise all that lovely data.

‘You can’t opt out of IoT’: Our future is the Rise of the Sensor Machines

VinceH

Re: The dystopic future we've seen in Cyberpunk movies

Those one way trips to Mars are starting to sound a lot more appealing.

Good God, we've found a Google thing we like – the Pixel iPhone killer

VinceH

Re: Uh... what?

"Have you ever tried using an Android phone without a Google account?"

Yes, sort of.

You are 'locked in' for the purpose of downloading [your] apps from the Play Store - so what I did was sign into my Google account to initially download the apps I use. There's no way to then sign out, so I then simply removed the account from the phone*.

If I ever want to download another app (or if I need to update an existing one), I'll have to sign in again, which is fair enough - but I'll then sign back out by removing the account again.

So it's a partial lock-in AFAIC - although my reason for doing it is pure tinfoil-hattery because of Google's slurpy reputation.

* Edit: To clarify, I say initially, but in practice, I only decided to do this a couple of months ago (ish) - so that initial period ran from when I bought the phone until then. So far, however, running without being signed in has not been a problem.

Sudden explosion in reports of exploding phones

VinceH

Re: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Does that mean Apple will be suing Samsung again?

VinceH

Re: IT Crowd

HTH

UK will build new nuclear bomb subs, says Defence Secretary

VinceH
Mushroom

Re: Extreme

So the UK is going to nuke the IoT and possibly GCHQ?

If that's your line of thinking I suspect Mrs May would also be a target, but it's generally believed a nation's military should aim at targets in OTHER nations :).

She's sure to go abroad at some point.

Brit ISP TalkTalk scraps line rental charges

VinceH

Re: FFS not scrapped

"Not having phone from Virgin will likely only save you £8 so if you have been charging whoever £18 you have been ripping them off. Virgin can charge what they like for packages with phone and packages without."

You can argue that having the phone line means I'm getting a package discount - that's fair enough.

However, the phone line rental is separately itemised on the bill, making it easily quantifiable - and even if the bill did show the discount, how much should they get and how much should I get? It wouldn't be fair on me if they had the whole discount against their £18 while I get squat against the rest - the lion's share of the overall bill amount.

An amount, I might add, that includes Virgin Media's top tier broadband, which the other party also uses*.

So IMO to say I'm "ripping them off" is more than a little unreasonable.

"Your 'someone else' should be using VOIP and just paying call charges likely less than Virgin."

I agree, and it has been suggested - but it is what it is.

* Along with various other (non VM) online things I pay for as well.

VinceH

Re: FFS not scrapped

"My Virgin package is £24.49 plus £17.99 line rental, £42.48. If that dropped by any amount I would be happy. I wouldn't really care what BS they came up with to justify that decrease."

I'm a Virgin cable customer, so the telephone line rental is irrelevant to the broadband - I don't need a telephone line for that. (Therefore, for Virgin cable customers, I imagine this new ruling doesn't actually apply, but having not read much about it, only heard about in passing, I don't know the full details).

I do, however, have a telephone line because while I don't need the phone, someone else in my household does - and they therefore reimburse me for the line rental and any calls they make.

If Virgin follows the flock to sound competitive, and craftily rolls that line rental into the broadband price, the other person will gain £17.99/month, and I'll lose £17.99/month. The only price drop that won't result in me being out of pocket will be £17.99/month.

I could argue the toss, but the counter argument will be "there's no line rental charge" - and strictly speaking, they'll be correct.

VinceH

"Do these new packages come with a new contract for existing customers?"

Almost certainly - hence the strong arm tactic of threatening increased prices for those who 'refuse to sign up to the new deal'.

VinceH

Re: Interesting timing ...

"so a TT no-line package sounds just the ticket."

Where have you been for the last couple of years? I didn't think any of the trips to Mars had happened yet!

BOFH: There are no wrong answers, just wrong questions. Mmm, really wrong ones

VinceH
Happy

I've only just read it - so it's brightened up my Monday before I've even set off for work! :)