Posts by clanger9

Re: There may be some good out of it

“I thought when a Time Machine partition was created on a Mac, it had to be converted back to HFS+“

Correct. But you can still create new backups to APFS. You just can’t convert an existing HFS+ Time Machine volume to APFS.

HOW THE FUCK WAS THAT NOT PICKED UP IN TESTING?

Indeed. More examples:

- The account list page is titled "holding list" (yep, in lower case).

- The pages are trying (and failing) to load resources from internal test domains.

This is pretty basic stuff that even cursory testing would pick up.

I'm sure there'll be plenty of blame to go around, but it does look like they went live with software that wasn't sufficiently tested. On the up side, the website is more-or-less working again now, so hopefully they're over the worst...

Re: How does an FM radio "save lives"?

I get all that. Before the storm hits, mass SMS messages may be more effective (as is done for tsunami warnings). After the storm hits (when comms are down), how does an FM radio help?

Re: 80mile range?

@Commswonk good question, because it's not obvious from the manufacturer literature how they solve the "heating problem".

I have a PHEV and it appears to have both a ~2kW heat pump and ~5kW resistive heating. The heat pump doubles up for air-conditioning duty in summer. Add in headlights, rear demist and heated seats and it can be pulling 8kW before it turns a wheel. That sounds like a lot, but it's still pretty small compared to the power needed to drive it along (max power on mine is 108kW, average is more like 20-30kW at speed).

The heating system makes for a nice, toasty warm cabin in winter (you can even pre-heat the cabin before you set off if it's really cold), but it does reduce battery range. My car manages 40+ miles in the summer on battery power, but this will fall to 25 miles or so in the winter (on a 10.5kWh charge). All because of the heating system. Granted, I can put the system into "eco" mode to save energy, but hey life's too short...

Different manufacturers seem to have different ways to solve the heating problem. I believe early Nissan Leafs only had resistive heaters, which aren't as efficient as a heat pump. I don't know how Tesla do it - they've got 85kWh+ to play with, so maybe heating efficiency is less of a concern...

Re: using liquid helium or liquid nitrogen, which is expensive.

It's not the the cost of the liquid nitrogen. It's the cost of keeping it liquid!

The energy (currently) needed to keep even a high-temperature superconductor cool is more than the energy that is lost by a normal conductor. Add in the extra cost of the superconductor itself and that's why we seldom use superconductors to transport electricity.

Yes, you're right (and I already grok all of that).

However, the article seems to imply that they will add your WhatsApp mobile number to your Facebook account profile - something FB has nagged for for years and I've always resisted. No means no, right?

I realise/accept/hate the fact that *they* are able to identify "me", but I will also be very pissed off if they add my mobile number to my FB account without asking.

Re: Possible attack vector?

I has a quick check with a clean install of the TeamViewer client. There is no need to set up a TeamViewer account. First of all, it asks if you want to set an "unattended access" password. Hmm: I wonder if some people set this on first install with a memorable (possibly re-used) password and then forgot about it? This is clearly a different password to the TeamViewer account password (which is what you use to log in to the service if you set an account. It has 2FA etc).

Next screen implies remote control is now possible with a 9-digit ID (presumably set by the TeamViewer servers) and a 4-digit PIN (presumably randomly set by the client). A quick look with Wireshark shows it opens an SSL connection to integratedchat.teamviewer.com every 5 minutes - presumably to announce its presence to the TeamViewer servers. It defaults to allowing "Full Access".

Nothing looks obviously insecure, but that "set unattended access password on install" combined with "default allow full access with 4 digit PIN" suggests that there are a couple of ways a default installation might be compromised.

I agree with psychonaut that you seem to need the 9-digit ID to connect (rather than just an IP address as I said earlier). Perhaps someone found a way to get that ID from the TeamViewer servers? Or maybe you can just try random IDs with a brute-force on the PIN until you get lucky?

Re: Excellent

Sure, you can try to air-gap. Enforce it all you like.

But you can't stop there, you have to assume it'll be breached and watch for the breaches.

I've lost count of the number of times I've heard "it's secure, we have an air-gap". Yeah, right.

Re: Energy in = energy out

Max efficiency of an i/c engine is only around the 30% mark. Efficiency of a typical i/c car (from fuel to forward motion) is ~15% (when I last checked - maybe a bit better these days). There's still plenty of scope for improvement...

Re: Publicly owned business

This is the nature of nationalised public services. They are uniformly awful. The socialist ideal is fine but when it hits the buffers of reality it all falls apart. Like every socialist ideal.

Counter-example: Vienna's public transport system. Fully integrated tram/bus/rail. Cheap. Everything runs on time, regardless of the weather. The tube runs all night and there's a fill-in night bus service that can get you to more or less anywhere on the network at 4am if you don't mind waiting around. They regularly extend the network with major construction projects through densely populated areas and these projects seem to mostly run to time and budget. And it's state owned, using the 'silent owner' approach described above. Like in London, public transport is seen as a strategic asset for economic wellbeing of the city, not something to make a quick buck from.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiener_Linien

I don't know how or why it works, but it does. Heck, it's not even inefficient: 900 million passenger journeys and 8,000 staff compares favourably with TFL's 2.4bn journeys with 28,000 staff!

Re: KeePass Cross Platform Synching

Yes: 1Password does subscription-free cross-platform self-sync, with the password vault stored in a place of your choosing.

No vested interest (other than being a happy customer). Sure to be other options out there.

Re: Please explain this.

I think it's trying to say:

"We will keep a history of all connections by default. We will trawl this history whenever we feel like without a warrant and if we find anything interesting, we'll get a warrant to look at any new content"

So, it's storage of connection records and access (on demand) to new content. Historic content is not stored by default, but you can put a warrant in place and then just hit "Save".

As someone said above, goodbye end-to-end encryption...

Re: DNS and SSL - flawed proposal?

Yes, but they also keep saying that the purpose of this legislation is to enable them to establish who is talking to whom. If that is indeed true, I don't see how a FQDN gives you that.

There must be something else being legislated here.

Re: Fuel tank rated to 10,000psi

"whereas a fuel cell can offer over 90%... "

Hate to break it to you, but fuel cell conversion efficiency is actually much, much less than that: about 30%, not 90%.

The 90% figure you're quoting includes the waste heat (for CHP schemes and the like). Yes, fuel cells are usefully better than an internal combustion engine, but not by much.

Sadly, end-to-end process efficiency for H2-powered vehicles is "a bit pants".

Just look at all the cooling ducts on the BMW's i8 fuel-cell prototype. That tells you everything you need to know...

Re: Wrong targets

> So, why are we told that it's ok to bring in mass surveilance for one problem, but not for more serious ones?

Simple. Terrorism threatens politicians' well-being. Car accidents threaten yours.

Re: Google Scripts

Try Ghostery. It seems to block the Google tracker without breaking the site (mostly).

Re: Note the free 5GB service has now gone

Update: Amazon seem to have reinstated Personal Docs - I haven't signed up to the free trial, but it's working again.

Cock-up rather than conspiracy I guess. Yay for customer service, at least they fixed it within a day.