Posts by big_D

Re: So you've missed out the big detail.

You've never seen how the Beltway bandits in Washington work then, have you?

Re: “Why I went to federal prison,”

You should watch re-runs of L.A. Law...

But I find this a good thing, if it can help stop other people making stupid mistakes, I'm all for it. The prisons in the US are already overcrowded.

It isn't necessarily "limiting" one in software. For example the workstation cards use certified OpenGL and OpenCL drivers. They are expensive to create and certify and therefore justifies some of the extra price of workstation cards.

Re: But... but...

You can, Robert Koch Institut (the German equivalent of John's Hopkins in this crisis) has open sourced the code.

Re: No consent for data sharing in the first place

I don't know how the UK DPA has implemented GDPR, but in Germany you need to sign a form saying you have been informed of how the company will be handling your data and that you give them the right to pass on that data to named third parties.

Case in point, my doctor was on holiday yesterday, so I went to his locum. There I had to sign a data protection sheet, that stated that they would store my data and hand it on to my health insurance NPO and my normal doctor. Without that, they couldn't store my data (and therefore I wouldn't be able to have a consultation).

We are starting to use Teams at work. Part of the process is that all employees have to sign a waiver that they have been informed that their name will be stored in our Microsoft cloud as username and firstname, forename, but not other information will be used, and that that information will be visible to other Teams users, including external Teams users who they communicate with.

Without the waiver, they cannot have access to Teams. Several employees won't sign, so they can't use Teams.

Re: "Cortana’s incarnation in a Harman Kardon smart speaker will end"

Exactly, this is the problem you have when you try and put IoT in goods not designed for that - cars, industrial processes, speakers, white goods etc.

The products are expected to last, probably, a couple of decades and the tech stops working and either makes the product unusable or a security risk after a couple of years.

I'm still using my radio alarm from 1989. It still does its job. Our 2017 smart TV has already lost its "smarts", because Sony stopped delivering security updates last summer, so I removed it from the network as a security risk. Even worse, my daughter and her friend bought a Sony smart TV for Christmas 2018, Sony stopped updates and things, like Amazon Prime and Netflix, actually stopped working in October 2019.

We have both just stuck a FireTV Stick in the back, but that is the last time that I'll buy a smart anything. I'll buy a high-quality, non-smart device and cheap, disposable "smarts" where they are warranted. That way the high quality product will run for a decent lifetime and the smarts can simply be replaced when support stops. I'd rather replace a FireTV Stick ever 3 - 4 years than a smart TV every 18 months!

Re: Not The Only Issue

The problem can be anywhere, different drivers, a different version of a bit of software (one auto-updated, one didn't or has an older version that can't be updated).

Re: Outlook 2010

I am using Office 365 current branch at home and at work.

Both were working fine after the update yesterday - local Exchange, Exchange Online, Outlook.com and IMAP accounts connected. I guess we were just lucky.

Re: A sad day

And how many backdoors has Cisco removed over the last 2 - 3 years, after they were discovered by security researchers, not by studying the source code?

Re: SoftBank bought a goose that lays golden eggs...

Yes, groups like SoftBank aren't interested in sustainable business models, just as much return as they can get in the short term, regardless of whether it kills the host in the long term.

Re: Math + logic does not equal the hysteria

You are forgetting that those who are infected, but don't die in hospital, whilst being treated for COVID-19 are not counted in the official figures

Re: Another non-event distracting us @big_D

Again, here, only corporate devices are allowed to be used to access corporate email.

Re: Trumpery

Huawei allegedly has patents on a lot of 5G technology that is ahead of the competition.

They may have started off by ripping off designs from Cisco and co 2 decades ago, but they invest a lot of money in their own R&D these days and are ahead of Ericsson and Nokia in many areas, especially antenna design, AFAIK.

I'd had access to all the backend source code and had actually listed all the places I could find, where they had unescaped SQL queries, but they just didn't want to listen.

I then tried a few simple things to show them that it was a problem.

In the end, I just decided that a DROP TABLES was the most obvious way of getting my point across. A permanent DOS attack, as it were.

I just use the charger from my previous phone... /shrug

Re: Independent...

It was mainly screen replacement stuff and most phones were out of warranty anyway, or the replacement by Apple was 4 - 5 times the price of the locals, plus you have to send your phone away for 2 weeks to Apple, whereas the locals will usually fix it over night.

Re: Depends on the "boom"

Where I used to live, in Bavaria, and where I now work, in Lower Saxony, we get regular supersonic training flights from the local Luftwaffe bases. It keeps the dust from settling on the rafters.

Re: Great....

A lot worse, in fact. The CANBUS was not designed to be attacked from outside and the manufacturers started throwing things like wireless sensors for tyre pressure at it. As long as the ignition is on, the car is vulnerable.

Yes, you have to be in close proximity, but you can still take over the car.

With the extension of diagnostics etc. being shown on the infotainment system, the problem got worse. No security, no firewall between the CANBUS and the "radio" (which should be read-only, but only in theory, if you can hack the infotainment, you can write to the CANBUS).

Some newer cars haven learnt from past mistakes and some now include a rudimentary firewall between the CANBUS and the rest of the car, but not all and it is obviously not retro-fitted to older vehicles.

I'm looking for a nice classic car, no EFI, no onboard computer, just boring old mechanical bits that are easy to repair and replace and can't be hacked - other than with a hacksaw.

Re: Loaded words replaced by euphemisms

Not if you also don't go and delete the original meanings from the dictionary.

I often find words that don't make sense to me in classic literature and I go and double check the word and see that it used to have a different meaning. I like that challenge to what I know, I am always expanding my knowledge.

Re: I was suspected of Dyspraxia...

Try learning a foreign language with it. In German, it isn't any easier: die Legasthenie.

I have mild dyspraxia and dyslexia. A real pain for somebody who spends all day writing. I've taught myself to cope with it in most things and generally have to re-read everything I write 3 - 4 times. One of the things I hate with the Register forums, I'll come back after an hour and find I have written total nonsense, despite re-reading it, but I can't correct it.

This is assuming that a) there is such a thing as Google, when you do this b) you think about looking in /prod/<pid> etc.

In the middle of the night, in a time before Google or other major search engines, you were left to your own devices and what you could remember from reading the f'ing manual.

Re: Office 354 services.

No, no slip. El Reg decrements the name by 1 every time MS / Office 365 has an outage...