Posts by phuzz

Re: Was that an anechoic chamber?

If they were in there all night, they were probably playing music really loud to stay awake.

Re: Yep.

"As with cryptographic keys, you cannot make something impossible to break/crack with brute force."

Yes, but the difference is, you can't make a safe that will take longer to break into than the entire age of the universe.

Re: So what?

No no, it's more important than 'national security'. The security of the telco's profits is at risk!

As everyone knows (and if you don't, you soon will citizen!), profits must come before people. It's written in the constitution, in that special section that you don't get to read because you're not rich enough.

Re: Malware infections on PCs and Mac are so passé

Apparently some people don't use ad blockers.

Did you know that there's ads on Youtube too? They're really annoying, to the point where I'm surprised that anyone watches anything on there without an ad blocker on.

Disable auto-updates, miss the SHA-2 patch from last year, try and install a random update manually, and then complain that it's Microsoft's fault it fucked up.

Sounds like a fun time.

Re: Perhaps I misunderstood but ...

"Enigma machines were mechanical and, presumably, later variations on the theme were electromechanical."

Enigma machines were electro-mechanical. Each of the code wheels was full of wires, and each time it turned it changed what was (electricially) connected where, thus scrambling the input.

To be fair, everyone stole Nazi tech and scientists. All the cool kids were doing it.

Re: How long would it take

As you climb it would get easier, because the higher up the corporate org-chart you go, the less time they'd have for such 'pointless fripperies' like robust passwords.

By the time you reach C-level they'll be running unencrypted wireless because 'their time is too important to waste typing in passwords'. From what I've heard of stock traders they wouldn't want encrypted wireless getting between them and their next bonus payment.

Re: Move along ..... nothing to see here !!!

I don't think the side of my computer has ever been screwed shut all the way.

I might give one of the thumbscrews a half turn to stop it rattling, but that's the limit.

Re: 3.6Mb download, copy, paste, read

"Gee I wonder how many silent alarm messages get sent to various governmental authorities when anyone asks for the book at the local library?"

Knowing librarians, none.

Re: "We decided on a global fallback"

As an example, older APC power distribution units like the AP7921 have a web interface that can only do up to SSL3.0. So my only choice is to either leave them http only, or keep an old copy of IE around to access them. Because yes, I have almost locked myself out of them before by enabling HTTPS. Ours are on a separate management network though, so we can leave them on http only without worrying too much.

(Here's the list of ciphers it supports, read it and weep: DES [56 bit], RC4_MD5 [128 bit], RC4_SHA [128 bit], 3DES [168 bit])

Re: "Forget the Oscars"

Why did you bother even starting to watch films if they're obviously not your cup of tea?

I don't enjoy football, so I don't go to matches in order to leave in a huff at half time.

Re: How things have changed...

As we all know, catching 100% of bugs is a tall order, even if you throw hours and people at it, but it was this bit that worried me:

Fortunately, the team noticed that second error while reviewing the code following the first, and uploaded the fix prior to landing.

They spotted the error whilst in flight, which presumably means they weren't specifically looking for it, and they certainly didn't have a lot of time to find it, which implies it was a pretty obvious bug.

It wasn't some really subtle bug that 'only happened on flight hardware when the moon is in the third quarter and a subroutine had run within the last hour but not cleared etc. etc.' This was a bug that someone managed to spot while the craft was in space, presumably not while specifically searching for it. This was a bug that should have been picked up by someone before that rocket ever launched, indeed, before that code was ever uploaded to the spacecraft.

That's a management problem, not a software one.

Re: And contrary to "expert" advice ...

Windows got a lot better at dealing with an unplanned shutdown when they shifted to NTFS as the default file system. FAT doesn't cope with power loss nearly as well, and EXT2 had the exact same problems.

Of course, there's still a slight difference between a hard shutdown (eg, by holding down the power button on a modern machine), and a complete power loss, because at least with a shutdown, there's still power to the harddrives which prevents problems with a head crash.

Re: !!!

All of those aircraft (indeed, all aircraft) require maintenance after flight, even if it's just a quick checkup.

Numbers on military aircraft are hard to find, but for the B-52 I found a source from 1957 saying that after 25 flight hours (or three flights), it requires a post-flight check, which takes 12-15 man-hours, not including the pre-flight checkup. I suspect BUFFs take a bit more looking after these days now that they're all fifty years old or more.

Re: Well duh!

"You think you should get paid if you don't turn up? What kind of a job are you used to?"

One that pays sick pay and holiday, ie a salaried job.

Just tried to login today, and it whisked me straight to my inbox, with no password or verification code requests, which is weird.

The only emails in there were from Yahoo, telling me about things like Yahoo groups that they've switched off.

Re: a digital Fort Knox: impenetrable to only a very few special people.

Reading Ed Snowdon's autobiography, it doesn't sound too hard to become a sysadmin at the CIA.

Re: BoatyMcBoatFacepalm

"just how hard WOULD it be for AWS containers to be made 'secure' by default, so that the devs would really have to balls it up to leave them open."

They are now, but they only introduced that about a year or so ago (iirc).

"TBH, I'd 'settle' for the 2k PCM as it's more than I get now, also if you are at sea, there isn't a lot to spend the pennies on, it would be a great way to save, and see the world."

My brother works at sea, but doing survey work rather than crewing. He still enjoys it (and gets paid well), but I know how much he dislikes not being at home for so much of the year. It's basically as bad as shift work, but you don't even get to go home between shifts. There's certainly IT jobs at sea, although you'll have to be an all rounder. If it's something you're interested in, give it a go!

Re: AI with worker drones

As I've said before, if we're going to leave Europe we should do so properly, and tow the whole country down to the Caribbean.

I'm sure all of our ex-colonies would be delighted to see the mother country again, right?

Re: one direction

If you have a Dvorak keyboard you don't need a password to lock access to your computer, because no one else will be able to type on it anyway.

Re: If Trump puts US troops in Russian hands...

"1) UK shares info with US on the current keys for Galileo.

[...]

3) Galileo is compromised. EU pulls the security keys"

Erm, I'm not sure you understand how cryptographic keys work.

If the ESA revoked the UK's keys, then all that would happen would be that the UK could not use the precise PRS part of the Galileo system. All the other EU countries will have their own indevidual keys, so they'll be fine, and the public Galileo signals will still work (which when combined with the public GPS and GLONASS signals will still be plenty precise).