* Posts by Pen-y-gors

3782 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Oct 2010

BOFH: Halon is not a rad new vape flavour

Pen-y-gors

Re: This was a particularly good one

@Peter Gathercole

I just wish more bosses would read them.

Noooooo.....trade secrets!

Yeah, if you could just stop writing those Y2K compliance reports, that would be great

Pen-y-gors

How many?

I'd be curious to know how many Y2K compliance reports they actually received in the last ten years.

Brit hacker admits he siphoned info from US military satellite network

Pen-y-gors

Re: Only a piffling $628,000?

They should be paying him $628,000 as a pen testing consultancy fee.

Just like knotted-up headphones: Entangled photons stay entwined over record distance

Pen-y-gors

Daytime?

"Next step is to get it working during the day"

I love it!

Facebook has a solution to all the toxic dross on its site – wait, it's not AI?

Pen-y-gors

Nice try...

Muting my cynicism filter for a moment, sounds like a nice try. But whether they are using badly-paid humans or AI, how quick and easy will the appeal process be? Particularly with AI checking images, I can see images being wrongly classified as trrrrst and an account being closed, and it then taking several weeks of complaints and 'the computer says no' before you, may, possibly get your pictures of your pet naked mole-rats restored.

How does this AI image matching work? Obviously it has to be a bit fuzzy, or all the nutter has to do is tweak the colours or do a bit of cropping to alter it. But how fuzzy? Does that photo of Brenda tapping the new Sir Thingumy Whatsit on the shoulder look too like a beheading shot?

Samsung releases 49-inch desktop monitor with 32:9 aspect ratio

Pen-y-gors

Re: weighs 45 pounds

Stuff the practicality...this thing will surely be a big babe magnet! 49" will really impress. Anyone with one of these on their desk must be really serious about their work as well - although what's the betting it's only the boss gets one, who uses it to play solitaire and surf dodgy websites.

Banks could be stung for €5bn under GDPR, screams latest report on industry readiness

Pen-y-gors

Re: Regulations != better security

I'll see your few million and lower you half a million.

Pen-y-gors

Trackers?

There was another story today about bank sites having a lot of third-party trackers, grabbing data. Wouldn't those count as a data breach, unless the user had given specific informed consent - which I somehow doubt! Even Adblock Plus doesn't stop them all without a bit of guidance.

BAE accused of flogging mass-spying toolkits to assh*le autocrats

Pen-y-gors

Re: "It works with keywords"

...I must stop replying to myself...

Actually kudos to BAE for persuading them to buy such an unbelievable crock of brown stuff. It may well have had some clever bits in it, but "typing in an opponents name" ain't one of them.

I wonder, did they also buy any of those clever hand-held bomb-detectors that some British guy was flogging a while bag. The ones that couldn't detect anything?

Pen-y-gors

"It works with keywords"

""[It] works with keywords. You put in an opponent's name and you will see all the sites, blogs, social networks related to that user.""

By 'eck, but that's a bloody clever bit of software! So I just type in "Ali bin Mohammed" and it not only knows which one I mean, but can link it to his El Reg user account where he calls himself "Princess Alice", and his Facebook a/c where he's "Mad Gordon III"

Kudos to the software engineers. I wish I had their brains.

BA passengers caught in crossfire of Heathrow baggage meltdown

Pen-y-gors

Re: manual backup

The days of baggage handlers chucking individual bags into the hold are, I believe, generally long gone. Isn't most stuff containerised these days? And people go to the aircraft down those funny stretchy tunnels - how do their bags get down to ground level? And when would they all be weighed so they know the correct overall weight?

Pen-y-gors

Re: Baggage load

Possibly a bit simplistic - I suspect they have a very complicated automatic system that can route many thousands of pieces of luggage onto approximately the right flight every day. If something in that system goes ffut then switching to a manual handwritten system would be no small job. It's a lot slower for a start. And then where do the horde of humans come from to read the handwritten labels and carry the bags to the aircraft?

Banking websites are 'littered with trackers' ogling your credit risk

Pen-y-gors

Re: I think we need to know...

Someone needs to check up on the EU data protection rules - if UK banks (or banks operating in the EU) are colluding in leaking personal info to third parties they could be in very deep and expensive doo-doo.

Labour says it will vote against DUP's proposed TV Licence reforms

Pen-y-gors

Re: N.I.

@wolfetone

"I don't think, however, that the Tories/DUP will be voted in to power (as parliament have to vote on whether to accept the governments programme via the Queen's speech)."

You misunderstand the situation - if Mayhem offers an attractive enough bribe to the DUP then a majority in Parliament WILL vote to accept the programme. That's what a 'confidence and supply' agreement is all about. She'll only lose if some of her own backbenchers rebel. <FX> flying pigs, hell freezing over etc </FX>

Pen-y-gors

Re: @Pen-y-gors

@David Nash

No problem - just register multiple accounts and you can give me a dozen up-votes. The Russian trolls do it on all the news sites.

Pen-y-gors

N.I.

The DUP are in government in the North (sort of) and they've already done a good job of turning the place to shit (£490 million?). It's only power-sharing that's kept them on the leash, and since the Tories are now the DUPs little friend Stormont won't be starting up again soon. Which leads to Direct Rule from London. By the Tories. Who will be told what to do by the DUP.

Have we got enough troops to spare for all this...?

Pen-y-gors

Amazon and Netflix?

The success of Netflix and Amazon streaming services shows that subscription-based media can and does work.

How true, every evening I'm glued to Amazon watching their local and national news. Their coverage of important Welsh events is unrivalled. And the hard science documentaries like Horizon on Netflix are hard to beat.

We need a written constitution and it needs to include something to guarantee public funding for the BBC. But having said that, WTF don't they sell iPlayer licences globally?

Uber culture colonic cleanses CEO Kalanick

Pen-y-gors

Women on the board = more talking

I know it's not what he meant, but it's possibly true...

Women on the board might actually talk about an issue rather than silently rubber-stamping whatever they're asked to. NB to Uber Board - that would be a good thing.

Fear the dentist? Strap on some nerd goggles

Pen-y-gors

The march of technology

I suppose it's a step up from the mobile hanging from the ceiling at my dentist many years back - and soothing pictures on the walls.

Neither were much help when he accidentally drilled into a nerve. His response "Don't worry, pain is good for the soul" was even less help.

Five Eyes nations stare menacingly at tech biz and its encryption

Pen-y-gors

Just the spies?

create a piece of software that could be sent to an individual's phone that would allow spies and russian and chinese criminals direct access to the device and so enable them to bypass encryption protection.

FTFY.

Would this be the famous NSA that has never ever ever leaked any of it's code, exploits and data to the wide world?

Pen-y-gors

Privacy of a Trrrst?

Turnbull told Parliament: "The privacy of a terrorist can never be more important than public safety – never."

I don't think anyone is suggesting that, although there may be a different view about the privacy of an alleged trrrrst. But even more importantly I think a lot of people would say that the privacy of everyone in a country and their freedoms under the law are more important than limited public safety. Millions died in wars to make that point.

Oh snap! Election's made Brexit uncertainty worse for biz, says BT CEO

Pen-y-gors

Latest El Reg Brexit opinion poll

Some weeks ago I posted the results of some very rough evidence of opinion on Brexit based on the response to various flagrantly pro-Remain postings on this esteemed organ (Fnar, fnar - he said 'organ')

At the time of the referendum up and down votes were split about 50-50

A few months ago up was leading down about 2-1

It's now more like 4 or 5 to 1

Does this reflect (as that 'nice' Mr Heseltine has recently suggested), that public opinion is now swinging strongly against the whole daft idea? Obviously commentards aren't particularly representative of the population at large (we're much too intelligent and have absolutely no social skills), but it's an interestingly trend.

Pen-y-gors

Re: Abs Bullshit: "ultimately get to a situation where the whole of the country is fibre.”

Aluminium?

When I was having some problems with ADSL2+ the engineer told me there was a bit of Aluminium between me and the exchange that was causing trouble with speeds over about 10Mb, but he'd put in a request to get it replaced, and I believe that went ahead. (He may well have been bull-shitting of course!) I suspect their willingness to replace things depends on whether it's 20m or 20km!

Pen-y-gors

Re: Stability, certainty?

buy=> by

I need a new set of fingers...

Pen-y-gors

Stability, certainty?

Not difficult:

1) ditch May and the Tories

2) ditch Article50

3) Try and repair the damage already caused.

4) preferably buy next Wednesday.

Hundreds stranded at Manchester Airport due to IT 'glitch'

Pen-y-gors

FFS!

"Switch it off and on again" is a complicated procedure and should only be carried out by people who really

understand what they're doing. Do NOT switch off power to the building to change a lightbulb.

Two leading ladies of Europe warn that internet regulation is coming

Pen-y-gors

But Angela has a working brain...

...and a Physics PhD, so probably won't be insisting that the maths of encryption is un-discovered.

Interestingly, article in the Grauniad notes that Tory MPs are spending a lot of time on Whatsap. Isn't that the encrypted messaging system that trrrrsts use?

We're not saying we're living in a simulation but someone's simulated the universe in a computer

Pen-y-gors

And the day after they finish running that lengthy simulation...

Oh shit....is that meant to be a != on line 22716, not an == ?

Watch out Facebook, Google – the EU wants easy access to your data

Pen-y-gors

And how does this help?

How does giving the fuzz direct access to encrypted data in 'the cloud' help them, assuming the encryption keys are only available to the client?

Cabinet Office minister Gummer loses seat as Tory gamble backfires

Pen-y-gors

Re: Well look on the bright side

Well, the really bright side is that governments with wafer thin majorities tend to have a high attrition rate.

Hopefully the opposition will refuse any 'pairing' arrangements, which means that every Tory and DUP MP will have to turn up for every vote, just in case all the opposition decide to.

Stress-levels for Tories start to go through the roof.

And on important votes they'll be wheeling MPs in on trollies from Intensive Care so they can vote (it's happened before).

Popcorn time...

Pen-y-gors

Don't frighten me...

I read the headline and for a moment I thought that wee John Gummer, he of the mad-cow burgers, was back in the Commons.

Please don't do that...

DUP site crashes after UK general election

Pen-y-gors

Re: Conservatives + DUP = IRA?

There's some serious cognitive dissonance going on in the DUP (so, what's new)?

They want a hard Brexit.

They don't want a hard border to the south

They don't want a 'border' with Great Britain.

So, how will they stop those horrible Polish plumbers and Lithuanian chefs flying into Dublin, hoping on a train to Belfast (no passport checks) and then onto the boat to Liverpool (no passport checks). Ain't gonna work...

Pen-y-gors

Irritatingly smart-arse comment

People are talking about Mayhem's pride and 'hubris' - jolly good word that. But I'm minded to dig out a lovely old Anglo-Saxon word to describe her (no, not THAT one) - ofermod. It was only used (I believe) in two contexts in Anglo-Saxon poetry, once to describe the action of Byrhtnoth at the Battle of Maldon in 981, when he allowed the invading Danes to cross a narrow bridge onto the mainland to meet his army (rather than picking them off as they crossed). His army was hammered and Byrhtnoth was killed. 'Ofermod' was used to describe his over-weening and fatal pride. The other use of the word is to describe the pride of Satan before his fall!

May be we now have a third use!

Pen-y-gors

Re: "with worrying links in the past to certain violent extremists. "

<ulster accent>

Yet another typical stereotypical bit of something-or-other put out by the MSM! What do you mean 'ulster' accent? There's no such thing - can't you hear the difference between Ian Paisley and Martin McGuiness? Seriously, there's a world of difference between the accents of Donegal, Derry and Belfast.

I remember having slight troubles with the accent of one of my Irish teachers in Donegal. Lovely woman, but very definite Derry accent. She was trying to explain how to pronounce something, but rather than using standard phonetics she tried to write 'English' words that sounded the same. Okay until she wanted to get an 'eye' or 'aye' sound (in standard English) She wrote down N-O-W pronounced 'Nigh'. Works fine once you get used to it!

Pen-y-gors

DUP?

Oh that will be good, a strong and stable minority Tory government propped up by a bunch of people who make UKIP look moderate, balanced and cuddly, and with worrying links in the past to certain violent extremists. Enough is enough?

Pen-y-gors

how often is there a full house in the Commons?

whenever there's a minority government!

Tech can do a lot, Prime Minister, but it can't save the NHS

Pen-y-gors

Prescribing

Agree about pharmacists and other variations. Our practice has revamped the diabetic care - previously you saw a diabetic nurse who did various checks and chat, but then you needed to see a doc for general review of prescriptions etc. Now they have a lower grade person who checks feet etc, then a Nurse Practitioner does the main review, who is allowed to prescribe, so doc's time saved. Pharmacists should be allowed to do repeats (within limits).

Appointments are still a problem. Phone up in the morning and you'll get a same day appointment. With whichever doc is on duty. And you can't make an appointment a week or to in advance for a convenient time. It's same day or nothing - even for non-urgent things. Bit silly really.

We'll just have to pay more taxes.

White-box security webcam scatters vulnerabilities through multiple OEMs

Pen-y-gors

Why, oh why?

I'm sure some of these gadgets are useful, but why the fcuk do they always need to be connected to the Interwebs? CCTV is very useful in a shop or even a home, but why do you need to be able to access it from Australia or Russia? There are cases for remote access, but it shouldn't be the blasted default. I had an argument with a colleague about getting a new EPOS system for our little shop recently - she liked the one which she could access from her phone. Why??????

Pen-y-gors

Re: Sounds like they use the development process outlined by "The Dead Kennedys"

a bowel of rice a day.

A bowel of rice a day's quite a lot. The large intestine is, what, 22ft long?

Rustle up a privacy research project and ICO queen Liz will see you handsomely rewarded

Pen-y-gors

Gimme, gimme, gimme...

How do I apply? £100K for a bit of waffle sounds like an excellent use of my time. And I'll need to do comparative research into privacy rules in Bali and the Maldives.

Break crypto to monitor jihadis in real time? Don't be ridiculous, say experts

Pen-y-gors

Re: What about privately agreed crypto between private parties?

What's outstanding about this is that it makes the same, if not more, sense than AManFromMars's posts...

So true, thinking of which, haven't seen him around here recently. Anyone know what's happened? Has the medication finally started working?

Pen-y-gors

Re: Did I miss a law being passed

Google translate. 2 seconds. :)

Ah yes, but do you trust Google translate? Perhaps it's Welsh code....

Pen-y-gors

Re: What about privately agreed crypto between private parties?

" Athenaeum spacewalkers wind-god gemsboks skatoxyl technicalness"

Okay, 3.30 on Friday then. Mine's white with no sugar please.

Pen-y-gors

Re: Sorry for repeating myself but...

If you've agreed the code in advance, nothing can crack it.

Pen-y-gors

Re: Did I miss a law being passed

Damo! Mae e wedi dysgu ein cyfrinach. Lladdwch e nawr!

Hyperloop One teases idea of 50-minute London-Edinburgh ride

Pen-y-gors

A luddite writes...

From a techie point of view it's all cool and neat, even if the economics may be a bit iffy.

What concerns me is the overall social impact and the tendency it will have to encourage more conurbations around the limited number of stops. People have been moving into cities for centuries for a variety of reasons, some of them good at the time, but we now have the potential infrastructure to reverse that trend. Why on earth should El Reg journos (or anyone else) have to spend an hour or more twice a day travelling to or from a job? Why do more than a handful of people need to travel from London to Edinburgh (or wherever) at high speed? Skype is even quicker, and no rubber gloves at the terminus! Explore your own neighbourhood before travelling to the ends of the earth to lie on a beach and read a book. Learn to savour the journey as part of your holiday. A hyperloop (or even a tunnel) to Dublin would be nice and fast, but I enjoy a few hours relaxing on the ferry.

What was that thing about the soul travelling at the speed of a trotting camel?

Pen-y-gors

Re: Total travel time?

@Pete 2

I reckon the main use of this would be for freight, not people.

Why the heck would freight need to get from London to Edinburgh in 50 mins? Ice-cream without refrigeration?

NSA leaker bust gets weirder: Senator claims hacking is wider than leak revealed

Pen-y-gors

Re: I like Russians. I could support rapproachment

We're entitled to a government that is for America first, last and always.

One problem with that attitude is that you end up very isolated. No other country (sorry, no other sensible country) will want to trade with you as they know you'll try to shaft them on any deal. No-one will trust your word when it comes to international agreements because they know you'll tear them up if you think it's in your national interest.

Please Mr Trump, get on with building your wall all around the USA, and throw away the keys.

Japanese cops arrest their first ransomware-slinging menace – er, a 14-year-old school boy

Pen-y-gors

Arrests

Expect more arrests soon

Of the really nasty perps in Russia or wherever?

Don't hold your breath...

Class clowns literally classless: Harvard axes meme-flinging morons

Pen-y-gors

Re: The one good thing about social media...

"I appreciate humor [sic], but there are so many topics that just should not be joked about,"

I don't think so - really there are very very few, but context, timing and audience is everything. Often joking about bad things is how people deal with them. There's a world of difference between laughing at someone's problem and laughing with them. The Maltesers ad?