* Posts by Voland's right hand

5759 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Aug 2011

Report: NSA hushed up zero-day spyware tool losses for three years

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Jesus wept, what a bunch of idiots

The fact that they have not seen them for more than 2-3 weeks pretty much means that they got into the hands of a state level actor which has assessed what they got and has assigned it to "special ops duties only". So while they have been in use ever since they were lifted, the use was so selective and rare that they did not see them. Further to this, there is a significant likelihood that the tools and exploits were reverse engineered and used differently (hence not picked up by whatever monitoring tools NSA used).

If it was your usual "darknet numpty" the tools would have been for sale in a week.

They should have declared a "situation brown pants" within 2 months of losing exactly because they did not pick up any traces. As a result, they were used for 3 years for selective special ops only (probably in a re-engineered state) and dumped on the Internet as a "Компромат" only once they have outlived their usefulness.

LG uses sucky logic to force Dyson admission its vacuums suck badly

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The original saying is: "Nothing sucks like a Hoover".

I have one, it is actually pretty good, if you regularly clean all filters. Its cyclone is a joke - it basically does not settle any of the smaller dust so it all ends up on the filters anyway.

Pretending to be a badger wins Oxford Don 10 TRILLION DOLLARS

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Re: From Junior to Senior Pinocchio

Did they interview Tony Blair one thousand times to get a statistically significant sample?

Game over: IANA power-grab block pulled from Congress funding bill

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Re: I'm confused...

Democracy stinks... but we have not come up with anything better.

Similarly, ICANN stinks, but we have not come up with anything better. An attempt to do so will pretty much hand the Internet to the UN on a plate at some point in the future. That, in turn, means that it will be handed down to the Telco oligopoly at the ITU to manage and you are pretty much guaranteed to be charged for long distance web site browsing on a per minute basis.

Virgin Media costs balloon by MEEELLIONS in wake of Brexit

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Re: Another Illustration of the Fact...

Why the hell is any employer trying to tell its employees how to vote?

Depends on the nature of business.

Example 1 - your business is European Patent law (as my SWMBO) and the company will close doors within a year of the execution of a hard Brexit due to key functions moving to Munich. No need to recommend the employees how to vote - just state the f*** fact (as the company she used to work for at the time actually did - they are one of the very few I know who were honest about it).

Example 2 - your business is automotive production and falling back to WTO tariffs means that it just stopped being profitable so in the event of a hard Brexit you will close the factory and bugger off to Romania to build them there. Again, no need to recommend employees how to vote. Clearly stating the fact instead of manifesting proverbial Far Eastern politeness by lying in their face that "the company has a continuous commitment to its workforce and manufacturing base in the UK". Just to be followed by serving the reality cold and with a vengeance several months later to the PM.

Example 3 - any of the high tech companies with Eu HQs in UK. Telling the employees that in the event of a BrExit the local UK profit base is insufficient to sustain the HQ and the company will no longer be able to claim the UK HQ, Support and R&D functions as a vaild pre-tax business expense on Eu income. Again, no need to recommend the employees how to vote. Unfortunately, lying about commitment to the great local [Cisco | CA | Oracle | Microsoft | etc ] workforce was preferred. All of this while at the same time sharpening the HR long knives (and some of it already being executed).

That, however, is different from telling them how to vote. It is telling them what the real effect would be and being honest about it. In the case of Virgin media there is no excuse for what they did.

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Re: They are a media company

Most likely that as well as cable equipment. The pound went down quite a bit for a while, so if there were payments due for either, they got royally screwed on the exchange rate.

Lenovo denies claims it plotted with Microsoft to block Linux installs

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Re: I just got...

I have a GeForce GTX 770 in an older AMD desktop

That combination will also work, but it is extinct today. You get Nvidia _ONLY_ in Intel nowdays and _ONLY_ with Optimus tech bundled if it is a mainline vendor because Intel forces the issue on that one for them to get a discount. That is definitely in the Your Mileage May Vary zone.

IMHO the old GTX 770 will probably run a bit hotter with nouveau compared to nvidia + Powermizer set to the dynamic frequency setting. It will however work and it will not melt. The difference compared to a modern laptop from a mainline vendor with nvidia GPUs is that they _WILL_ melt unless you have the dynamic frequency on. In fact they will melt with either nvidia or noveau unless this is enabled. The guilty party is the Intel Ultrabook clusterf*** (sorry spec) which specifies geometry which makes proper discrete GPU active cooling (as needed by the chipset at full blast) impossible. While a discrete GPU laptop in theory is not compliant anyway, they are usually top of the line models in a line-up where the lower ones are ultrabook compliant (and thus eligible for volume discount on Intel chipsets). As a result, they inherit the deliberately crippled thermal design.

So you have to thermal manage via frequency throttle which nouveau does no have. You get that only with the binary driver and only if it works correctly and has magic incantations in xorg.conf

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Concur

Even if there is an agreement, it is hidden behind 7 NDAs and there is a no way in hell that a lowly sales drone in Worst Buy has seen it.

I think the other hypothesis mentioned on this discussion - that the machines suck bricks or melt if they are not run this way is more plausible.

As far as giving the customers an option to disable, that may not be an option, especially on a laptop if the laptop does not have the thermal design to run in the "melting chipset" normal mode. As far as the vendor is concerned running it this way should be prevented as it will result in a warranty claim.

The ultimate guilty party is actually Intel - for designing something that does not work properly and for being a complete and utter *** as far as driver contributions to the linux kernel.

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Re: I just got...

Are AMD's any better for Linux?

On a laptop - infinitely better as far as thermals, video and performance. I have 3 laptops in the household - all AMD. Battery life is quite often not stellar though. So shell out for a spare battery day one (you can still do it for most AMD models, their batteries are removable till this day, no ultrabook stupidities).

As described elsewhere there are some really nasty shenanigans going on with integrated Intel chipsets so they are a no go area. Nvidia will melt on a laptop if you do not use the binary driver. The Nouveau open source driver thermal management is inexistent. Getting the binary driver to work, however is dependent on UEFI and firmware settings. There are machines where you simply cannot get it to work - it will not recognize any available displays.

Behold the fruit of your techie utopia: A $43 San Francisco fog-infused martini

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special "fog catcher" machines that condense the water vapors out of the "marine layer"

Should be "smog layer". Granted, we are not in the late 1960-es, the air quality has improved. It still contains quite a bit of nitric acid, H2SO3, hydrocarbons, soot and other wonders. This is valid even for what is brought from the ocean too as a lot of that was taken there just 3-4 hours ago by the evening breeze.

I would not drink that even if they PAID me. Granted, I am probably not the target audience...

Wi-Fi Alliance publishes LTE/WiFi coexistence test plan

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This means even more vicious crack-down on mobile router software

This most likely will result in an even more vicious crackdown on mobile router firmware so that WiFi behaves exactly as regulated, expected and tested by FCC and other regulatory authorities.

Zuckerberg to spend $3bn+ to rid world of all disease by 2100 (Starting with Facebook, right?)

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Re: Try paying some fucking taxes...

My exact thought. The taxes which f***book _SHOULD_ have paid by far exceed the paltry robber baron handout to charity.

She cannae take it, Captain Kirk! USS Zumwalt breaks down

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With this tonnage...

15 K tons was the "BattleShip Threshold" in the Versailles piece treaty - everything above that was a battleship.

That is one extremely obese Destroyer...

Lethal 4-hour-erection-causing spiders spill out of bunch of ASDA bananas

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Did someone ID the spider

I am wondering, did someone ID the actual spider.

There are plenty of other species which can end up attached to fruit and veg in a shop.

Greybeards beware: Hair dye for blokes outfit Just For Men served trojan

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Well... That is expected

You are part of the el-reg's intended audience. So am I (one day, on one of my holidays, someone will call animal control that there is a stray silverback on the loose).

You are not part of "Just For Men" intended audience - that is 3 floors up, sales and marketing and the floor above them with the boardroom.

Victoria Police warn of malware-laden USB sticks in letterboxes

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"Not trust unmarked"

Hehe... Next "campaign" will have Coca Cola or McDonalds emblazoned on them and come attached to some fake marketing promo.

Will US border officials demand social network handles from visitors?

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So what if I do not have one?

I do not have a f***book account, I do not have a Tw*tter account either. I am considering deleting the LinkedIn account as well, though for now I am just keeping it dormant.

Does this make me a terrorist(*)?

* I know where we stand per UK law. I am officially in violation of section 57 of the UK Terrorism act of 2000 - possession of materials usable for terrorism. The material in question is the content of my brain - I studied Chemistry and have an MSc from the days when the Chemical Weapons course was freshly renamed to Toxicology (and still had the old content, thankfully sans the lab part), I have worked for several years with radioactive materials in a Mol Biol lab and have done my chores growing viruses and "interesting" bacteria and meddling with their DNA. And of course - 20 years of career in IT including security after that. That violates all applicable UK ThoughCrime statutes outright - you 're not supposed to know that.

Microsoft sues Wisconsin man (again) for copyright infringement (again)

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Re: Security?

I have ~ 50 keys from my last job for Windows 7.

The story is: a laptop comes from Lenovo, Dell, etc and is _STICKERED_ with a basic level Windows license which has been PAID at OEM rate to Microsoft. This license is NEVER used as it is immediately imaged by corporate IT with the corporate image which is different license since XP and is activated using the corporate key.

If you copy the key off the sticker you can activate an image downloaded from MSFT. I needed to do some experiments with VMs using consumer builds in my previous job, so our IT guy just told me - copy yourself a few.

IMHO, this cute extortion racket should have been terminated long ago - it is a form of fraud - you are being double-billed for goods you do not use. In any case, these are the keys which form 99% of the trade in activation keys. Microsoft has created that problem for itself, but it is so addicted to double-billing customers that it cannot get itself off that needle.

What's Chinese and crashing in flames? No, not its economy – its crocked space station

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If memory serves me right, Salut-7 did not go down in a controlled fashion either.

Pluto's emitting X-rays, and NASA doesn't quite know how

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My exact thought

Somewhere, on an observation vessel's bridge in the shade of a dwarf planet in an obscure solar system way in the middle of nowhere in the Galaxy backwater: "OK, which retard forgot to turn on the additional shielding on the main reactor. So much for the cloaking technology, the locals have noticed us".

RAF Reaper drone was involved in botched US Syria airstrike

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Re: "Non Enemy Troops"

Who told you only Assad uses Barrel Bombs?

I cannot be arsed to look it up now, there was a cute photo-essay in the Graunidad showing opposition weapons workshop where they were welding propane gas bottles to the solid fuel rocket engine off a Grad missile. Cute. Stunningly cute. Average range under 1km. Precision - utterly useless for any military use. Now, lobbing it into the middle of the Sunday market, bonus points if the market is in a Shia, Allavite or Kurd village, that is an entirely different story. But you know, the celebrated freedom fighters do not do that. At least so we claim (unless a clueless journo catches them when they are doing it and does not know what picture did he take).

I am not going to elaborate on what exactly can you put in a gas bottle if you do not cut the head off (so you can fill it with solid explosives). If you leave as a "gas bottle" it opens a ... err... a whole universe of opportunities for terminating the neighbours.

By the way - there is f*** all way to distinguish between a barrel bomb and one of these. The effect is the same. If a plane is in the vicinity, the plane is blamed, though quite often it has nothing to do with that - it is just the opposition groups settling scores and blaming Assad (not that he does not do it - he nowdays has better weapons courtesy of his Russian and Iran friends).

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"Non Enemy Troops"

That depends whom do you ask.

Based on UK and USA declared intentions and allegiances in this war, that may or may not be the case.

United States Air Force grounds F-35As after cooling kit cracks up

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Re: New Carriers

Pigs fly, if sufficient amount of thrust can be provided.

The F-35 can probably work. If sufficient amount of financial thrust has been provided. The issue is that the amount of "financial thrust" provided may exceed the amount of money available in NATO and Japan.

FBI overpaid $999,900 to crack San Bernardino iPhone 5c password

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You are missing the point

The 1M was paid not because it costs that much and not because it was needed. It was paid for political reasons - so that the figure can be waved in front of conservative politicos as a part of James Comey private war on encryption. See, it costs us this much for just one phone.

Apple's tax bill: Big in Japan. Like, $120m big

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Re: Scapegoats

I would not be so sure.

So far, everybody's else tax avoidance arrangements were found to be nowhere as aggressive as Apple. While everyone was trying to hide some money under the mattress, nobody else managed an effective 0.001% tax rate.

Also, with Apple's dirty laundry now in the open by the Eu, all other tax authorities now know where to look.

World's largest internet exchange sues Germany over mass surveillance

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Re: What am I missing?

USA does not have the European large public peering exchange points. A cosy telco oligopoly of private peerings exists instead. Some members of it have been actively sabotaging any attempts to have public peering points in the USA for years while trying to spread their stinky fud on this side of the ocean too.

There is no need to tap the USA peering points as USA Agencies already has the relevant relationships with the all the members of the oligopoly.

IMHO the more interesting comparison is to LINX. By the way, since when is DECIX larger than the LINX? It used to be smaller (in terms of traffic).

Brexit will happen. The EU GDPR will happen. You can't avoid either

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Joke

Re: Too early to say

Au contraire, examining all the possibilities, ranking them by probability and looing

Fair point. Touche.

We shall be LOOING then. That is probably a 21st century version of the privy council.

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Too early to say

data centres resident in Britain will no longer be subject to EU data protection rules.

This is only relevant if they will have any Eu business. That depends on DPR, taxation, VAT rules between UK and Eu and god knows what else.

Looking at any tea leaves before these are resolved is rather pointless. If the "hard line" of current BrExit secretary is to be implemented, there may be very little business in the first place so nothing to worry about from that perspective. It will be more appropriate to worry about getting that potato picker job in Lincolnshire to replace the evicted Eastern European migrants.

If a softer line is followed we need to see what will be the actual regs.

In any case, regardless of the softness or hardness of the negotiation line, UK-only Datacenter operators of the "physical server" variety are looking at lost business. Business does not like uncertainty - they will move somewhere where they can colocate without worrying about all of it. Cloudy/Virtualized providers who have facilities in both Eu and UK will just see some move from left pocket to right pocket + conversions as their ability to move the processing to the correct location becomes a major selling point.

Audi works with Chinese technology companies to develop intelligent cars

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Re: Audi Intelligent cars.

Wishful thinking. Can they license that one to BMW too (and to Mercedes specifically for Eastern Europe).

MoD confirms award of giant frikkin' laser cannon contract

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Re: When...

No, it is the giant shark putting it to tender. Through intermediaries.

EU ends anonymity and rules open Wi-Fi hotspots need passwords

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Let's step back for a second

When China introduced this as a regulatory requirement a decade ago all Eu and USA politicos joined a howler monkey chorus despising the undemocratic nature of the Chinese approach and how it violates human rights and yadda yadda yadda yadda. Same as the same politicos and media doing a howler monkey impersonation when one of Putin's first moves became installing official taps backed by a legislative mandate into all SPs which fed something (nobody till this day knows what) to FSB. Hoooooooooowl.

So, what are we doing now? We are quietly over time adopting what Putin and the Chinese are doing. The sole difference between us and them is that we are doing it clandestinely, while they are doing it above board. No comment which is more "democratic".

So, let's step back for a minute. There are two ways to look at this.

1. The anonymity of the Internet is an essential freedom.

2. The Internet natural development route is over time to stop being anonymous and the identity of each and every user and device to be known.

Realistically, we are already very close to 2 anyway. The sole caveat is that a few chosen ones like Google and its dear 3 letter associates have your identity (unless you are in a country where you have to identify yourself to use the Internet). Personally, I would love to go back to 1 - it has some essential values for whistle-blowers, emerging democracies, etc. However, the more realistic option is to actually go to a strictly controlled, regulated and legislated version of 2 which is no longer a monopoly of Google and the No Such Agency. And no howlers please.

By the way - as far as the shop owner asking for your identity - it takes half an hour to integrate chilli-spot into either FaceBook or Google or other large 3rd party auth (f.e. in Germany - T-systems). They do not need to take your passport, what the ruling obliges them to do is to ensure you have authenticated somehow in a way which ties you up to a traceable identity. That is technically trivial.

Sports doping agency WADA says hackers lifted Olympic athletes' medical records

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Re: TUE secrets?

For (simple) instance, I take steroids. Doping right? When I say that these are in an inhaler to prevent asthma, is it still cheating

Let's come back to this one.

Steroids - probably no. Other asthma medication like formoterol and other beta-agonists is known to increase metabolic rates.

It CAN be used for doping (no different from let's say the doping use of ephedrine). The only way to track if it has been used for its due purpose or as a doping is to have series of pre- and in-competition tests tracking the quantity. WADA has not even considered this while granting exemptions for dual-use beta-agonists by endurance sportsmen.

By the way, this does not mean that any one of them has used it in this capacity, however they could easily do it. Not any different from the meldonium use by Eastern European athletes. Supposedly for heart conditions. Something for which they _CANNOT_ register TUEs by the way because it does not have FDA approvals so the doctors WADA uses for reviewing the exemptions say no straight away.

By the way - I will keep my opinion about an asthmatic vs a person with a heart condition in a Wimbledon final to my self.

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Re: TUE secrets?

For (simple) instance, I take steroids. Doping right? When I say that these are in an inhaler to prevent asthma, is it still cheating

It may be cheating or maybe not. It should be a matter of the public record that you have been allowed to take specific medication which is dual use (as a medicine and as a performance substance) for a specific medical condition if you are a competitive athlete. The reason for this are the weaknesses in the tests in use.

To be clear - I am not a medical professional. I am a (now ex - gone IT) professional from the area which is used to "prove" all those "allegations" which is Chemistry (I also have most credits towards a second MSc in Mol Biol too so I know how said chemicals work at a molecular level as well).

So coming from a purely professional standpoint, using the standard sampling methodology for an athlete as used today which is 1-2 samples at competition and an occasional random test you _CANNOT_ reliably distinguish between medical and performance enhancement use. The standard tech is chromatography + gas/mass for most steroids + a battery of additional tests including antibodies for various proteins like growth hormones, etc. None of these provides correct quantitative results using a one-off sample. They are qualitative in nature - is the substance present or not.

In order to get a quantitative measurement you need to calibrate them "metabolic rate" tests - you are given a dose of substance X under controlled conditions and the results of the test are calibrated for you based on what you "pee". It also requires much more regular testing.

IMHO, this is extremely intrusive so having the exception LISTED and being asked to move to this regimen only if side observations by _OTHER_ independent medical professionals (other athletes have doctors too you know) is actually the lesser evil.

In any case - WADA is doing none of that, the system as it stands is rigged.

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Re: Keep people's medical records private

Because (2) exposes (1).

Not necessarily. It may expose 1 or may expose the fact that you have found a good enough group of witch doctors to fake 1 so you are allowed 2. In fact, that is 100 times easier in an totalitarian regime where the doctors are just being told to fall in line. It is also inherently unfair and politicised as the "doctor's opinion" can be arbitrarily rejected.

In addition to that, there is the very fine line between the amount of let's say steroids you need to take for a medical condition and the amount you take for performance enhancement. The tests cannot distinguish between the two. They show that the athlete has taken let's say a steroid. They do not show if they have taken a performance enhancing or a therapeutic dose. Looking at some of the muscles being demoed by some of the ladies which are now being leaked up as "exempt" I have very serious doubts that they were taking the therapeutic doses.

So while making "legally entitled to take doping" may expose medical histories, it should be public. Otherwise having a successful sports career suddenly becomes a matter of fabricating a long term medical history pretending to have a "condition" and that is definitely unfair on those who actually try to compete clean.

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Re: Keep people's medical records private

Two different issues:

1. Medical record - that should remain private.

2. Exemption from punishment if a specific chemical is found in testing. I do not see why this should remain private.

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Re: TUE secrets?

See this: http://www.km.ru/joke_day/781353

Caption on the left: MUESLI

Caption on the right: Steroids.

Frankly, the fact that quite a lot of top level USA athletes have successfully applied for "medical exemption" for performance enhancing chemicals should be public as well as all applicants and what chemical were they exempted from.

The "medical" (quotes intended) reason for the exemption may remain private, but the fact that an athlete is openly taking doping, what doping is being taken and the fact that this has been allowed should not be hidden.

Post-Brexit UK.gov must keep EU scientists coming, say boffins

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Re: why not promote science/engineer in UK Education instead?

Science excellence is born in a competitive environment. Competition in education pretty much equates to selection. Yeah, sure, middle class often gets advantage in that and mythical social mobility through equal education for all happens only to few lucky ones (that is still better than none which is the case with the current system). That is the deal, take it or leave it. That is how the education systems works in countries which excel in science relative to their GDP and overall development.

So, now, have a look at what happens in the UK when the prime minister suggests reintroducing selection in education and re-establishing competitiveness in education. Half of the parliament is having a hissy fit.

Well, then any chances of UK promoting science and education as needed for science will be null and void. We will remain in the current situation which is the bombed out university of Aleppo producing better software engineers than any UK university (that is the result of the last year world university computing competition). This will continue until UK learns that competitive environment in schools including _BOTH_ grades and selection is essential for "promoting science".

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Re: Democracy? My arse.

The government is making the outrageous assumption that over 27 of those 28 as well as wishing to leave the EU also wish to leave the EEA and chuck out Johnny Foreigner and furthermore, also want to give up their human rights.

Please share what you are smoking. While smoking cool stuff is only sometimes a crime, not sharing it definitely is.

FREE MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE IS A INTEGRAL EEA CONDITION. YOU CANNOT BE IN EEA WHILE "Taking Control".

As far as EFTA, that train has moved on in the meantime. The Norwegian prime minister was very clear that THERE IS NO SEAT for UK on it. They have signed 20+ trade agreements different from the Eu ones with various countries in the world which will all need to be renegotiated if UK joins. That is going to happen only if Lucifer drives a snow plough.

So, once again, please share what you are smoking.

VW Dieselgate engineer sings like a canary: Entire design team was in on it – not just a few bad apples, allegedly

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Re: Colour me surprised

In hindsight I think the problem was a gradual build up of soot in the EGR valve/Exhaust manifold - strip it and clean this and people claim that MPG > 40MPG can be achieved.

One of these in the tank after each service keeps it there. I tried the Wynn's equivalent, it is nowhere near as effective.

So were Toyota being incompetent, and/or unethical towards their customers?

Neither, they were just licensing that one from Isuzu. They now switched to a partnership with BMW for diesel engines.

By the way, the EGR valve in all engines which use the GM/Isuzu variable EGR tech is computer controlled. You do not need to remove it. You can simply program it not to open most of the time using a suitable ECU map. As they say: "Your mileage may vary". Also, if you do it knowingly, you are technically not road legal. You can of course pretend you do not know it. I did for two years (the previous owner had that map loaded in the ECU). As a result I had consistent 38.5 MPG or thereabouts on a 2007 diesel truck in normal UK driving conditions. It is now down to 34-35MPG as the ECU lost its custom map when the old battery died. While I know I can push it back up to 38.5 and significantly higher power, I prefer not to. The newer 2012+ model no longer has variable EGR and uses urea injection so it runs all the time in high power mode (just injects urea) and at 37MPG+.

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Re: It seem to me

The green mania is a fetish

Not in this case. While painful, the standard was technically achievable using technology available at the time. Personally, I think the standards were a bit too lenient on Petrol and too stringent on Diesel, but definitely not impossible to comply with.

All that was needed was for VW to concede that making the "VP of Engineering" subordinate to the "VP of Brand Development" has produced the expected results and they are behind both GM/Isuzu and Mercedes on engineering and innovation. However, instead of licensing either (or both) diesel emission reduction designs, they decided to cheat on the emissions test.

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Re: It seem to me

they could not design a diesel engine that would meet the stricter US emissions standards WITHIN RESTRICTIONS MANDATED BY MANAGEMENT

Management mandated that they do not use Mercedes urea injection or the GM/Isuzu variable EGR. Though the variable EGR would have fallen short of the delivering the USA reqs. It delivered Eu IV and V reqs and reqs in most other parts of the world at the time. USA at the time was more like what Euro 6 is now and that needs the piss in the exhaust.

Hololens for biz shocker: Surprisingly, it doesn't totally suck

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The GUI (or should it be HUI?)

That sounds interesting. In every European language (except Hungarian) from Berlin longitude eastwards. Very interesting indeed.

Probably quite appropriate too - due to Zuck's fetish about nudity and the corresponding post-acquisition withdrawal of Oculus from the future HUI interaction market this gadget has the high quality HUI stuff totally to itself.

Though, IMHO, it is probably just HUI-evina. Like any virtual reality system that creates a conflict between what you see and what your inner ear thinks you should be experiencing.

IP telephony biz VoIPtalk quietly admits to possible data breach

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Most importantly, they implemented a SP side blacklist

They also implemented a provider side blacklist. So you can blacklist most destinations which run the "charging endpoint" of a VOIP scam.

The way VOIP scams work nowdays is - the scammer registers a toll number in a "friendly" country like Maldives, Nigeria, etc. It searches for PBXes exposed to the internet, then sets as many calls as they can to the number they have created in a "friendly country".

A SP side blacklist drops this dead. If your provider does not have it, I would suggest blacklisting anything except "well known" destination countries/regions for all international calls. Thankfully, the number system is somewhat hierarchical so blacklisting anything that starts with 4,5,6,7,8 and 9 goes a very long way.

One thing I have noted is that while automated scans are done by botnets, if they return something weird, it notifies a human which runs a more extensive break-in attempt. These do not even try to conceal their IPs and the sources where they come from are usually in "interesting" locations around the Middle East. So you can make your own guesses what will the money leached off your PBX used for.

Jeff Bezos' thrusting cylinder makes Elon Musk's look minuscule

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Re: Size and shape!

what sort of payload he's planning to inject into what sort of orbit, if that's the word

New Amazon Prime delivery - warhead to your chosen latitude, longitude and altitude. Delivered worldwide. Make sure that the chosen destination is ready to accept it, otherwise it may be left with the "friendly" neighbours. It is up to you to guarantee that the neighbour will not peruse your 10Mt package.

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I would not be so sure

The same goes for Russians creating a "New Armstrong" or whatever.

Russians are usually quite good on the subject of "credit where credit is due" so I would not be so sure. They just may. You never know.

Though they have to run out of a fairly long list of names themselves: Titov, Leonov, Dzhanibekov, Korolev, Tsiolkovski, Komarov, Tereshkova just to start off with.

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The first stage will be reusable and looks like it will try to mimic SpaceX's vertical landing trick, perhaps even on an offshore barge.

Why mimic? Blue Origin was also designed to land vertically from the very beginning.

Ericsson strikes partnerships with Intel and Google for pay TV

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It does not just exist, it is 95% of the market.

95% of TV and BR OSes are Android of some sort. It is usually stripped to the bone with all the Googly bits surgically removed. Sony is Android - car stereos, BR and TV. Tosh is Android too. In fact out of the big ones, if memory serves me right, only LG was trying something different.

'Jet blast' noise KOs ING bank's spinning rust servers

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130 db can knock you out and disorient you

If you are suddenly hit by 130db siren without any ear protection you may end up in a state where you are not capable to escape the gas coming a few seconds after it. It is like being hit on the head with a mallet.

They are lucky it was just a test, otherwise there could have been a couple of dead bodies in the server isles.

'Oi! El Reg! Stop pretending Microsoft has a BSOD monopoly!'

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Re: Machine Operating System

so instead of booting from the ROM that it undoubtedly should have,

Why? The entertainment terminals in an aircraft are dumb and useless without a network. So rather unsurprisingly, they do network boot to decrease the cost, ensure they all run the correct software revision and make any upgrade as easy as an on/off.

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Re: Linux BSOD on Aircraft?

Linux is now standard on Boeing, not sure about Airbus. Airbus originally was some sort of Windoze, I would not be surprised if they moved to Linux as well.

I flew FRA-SFO on United (11 hour flight) a couple of years back and the crew had some issues with the lighting in the hoy poloy cabin which shares something (not sure what) with the entertainment system. So they kept resetting it for the first 3 hours. As a result the entertainment consisted of watching the Linux boot sequence. Again. And again. And again.

Quite hilarious as I was working on some kernel stuff at the time. So the passenger in the seat next to me noticed that the stuff on my laptop screen looks waaaay too similar to the entertainment system and started asking questions "If I had anything to do with this".