* Posts by Voland's right hand

5759 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Aug 2011

Judge orders Universal Credit internal reviews must be disclosed

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Re: Ah, Iain Duncan Smith

They do.

He passes the tests for signs of life.

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Re: Reality Check

It should be just the only one.

The vampire in chief himself.

Unfortunately, he is as likely to resign as Dracula to go vegan.

Storks bin migration for junk food diet

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This will cause a problem for the storks

Some other day. The buggers are extremely adaptable.

Any source of food - they are there. Like vultures in India and Brazil with the difference that they also kill anything up to a rabbit in size while eating rubbish and carrion when they come across it.

The new all-year-round farming methods provide an alternative food supply to rubbish dumps. There are 20-odd storks walking behind a tractor on average nowdays in Eastern and Central Europe (thanks to much lower use of pesticides). Anything the tractor or combined harvester spooks as it ploughs, seeds, cultivates (or whatever else it does) is terminated on the spot. While they are lovely birds, watching a full size rabbit wriggling speared on the beak is not for the people that have weak stomachs. Neither is the process of it being swallowed whole by the stork after that.

Who'd be mad enough to start a 'large-scale fire' in a spaceship?

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Re: I hope

It will not be anywhere as bad as people think it will be.

A fire in zero G may not even burn unless you set it up in an oxygen enriched atmosphere or support it with electric heating.

The lack of convection is a killer. Any burn will be extremely localized and will "eat" its oxygen allowance nearly immediately smothering the fire in the process.

On earth, convection will take away the products of the burn and bring new oxygen. In zero G there is nothing to do that.

Hotel light control hack illuminates lamentable state of IoT security

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Re: IoT - Idiots or Twats. You choose

Why avoid it. I would love to have a conference there.

Just post the python code to mess with the system on the conference mailing list on the first day.

Then sit back, relax, enjoy the show.

Get lost, Windows 10 and Phone fans: No maps HERE on Microsoft's OS

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It's thought that the current owners of HERE – BMW, Audi, and Daimler – want to concentrate on a mobile operating system that people are actually using. ®

Err... not people. Car entertainment units.

Want to kick butts? Go cold turkey

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Re: Long odds

that the first ten years of cold turkey were the worst.

If you are smoking 20+ a day it takes ~ 7 years for all cravings to go away.

I also tried the lot - pipe, cigars, etc by the way. They are not helping - just another (similarly unhealthy) way to get your fix.

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Bollocks

It took me a year of patches and gum to drop to a point where I could cold turkey. I tried several times before that and I could not last more than a few days.

I was smoking more than a pack a day though. Based on personal experience, going cold turkey is nearly impossible until you have dropped the nicotine dose to less than an equivalent of 5-10 cigs a day. If you are smoking a pack and a half - dream on.

Hi-def ExoMars launch vid lacks volcanic lair vibe

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Why do you expect it to be spectacular?

This is Proton - M. The village bus.

It ain't pretty and half of the engineering in it is determined by the limitations of Russian railways and nothing to do with rocketry, but it "just works" (TM).

Swedish publishers plan summer ‘Block Party’ to thwart ad blockers

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Blocking the blockers is trivial

Just publish ads yourself server side.

Western Digital spins up a USB disk just for the Raspberry Pi

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Re: The price baloons. To what exactly?

Is WD using a proprietary USB connector?

The pic shows standard micro-USB3.0. Or at least something that looks like it.

Isn't the Pi aimed at hobbyists and schools?

Exactly. Only a hobbyist will assemble "My Time Capsule" or "My CCTV system" himself. Spinning rust is still the best means of storing data for both. Yeah, I know, "real" hobbyists are supposed to take a soldering iron in hand and peruse the GPIO interface, everyone else who does not, is not worthy and should be treated as scum. I know, but I disagree - my razzies have no GPIO use at present - they all drive USB peripherals +/- an onboard camera.

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That may get in my shopping list

This is quite tempting to combine a Pi and a drive into a "DIY Time Capsule" to run amanda from the shed. Temptation... Temptation...

It all depends on price, as you end up having to use a USB hub for most Pi use cases anyway, a more power hungry, but cheaper USB drive may suffice. The other issue with USB drives is that Linux has no effective means of controlling the power consumption. hdparm does not work over the USB storage interface. So you are totally at the mercy of the drive firmware as far as spin-up/spin-down and actual drive power metrics are concerned.

By the way - I see a USB3.0 interface on it, while the Pi is 2.0. So the Pi angle looks more like marketing. This is a dedicated external enclosure drive - all vendors now do them with USB onboard to save costs.

Dell plans sale of non-core assets to reduce EMC buy debt

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Is that a buy-then-break-apart job?

Is that a buy-then-break-apart job?

Of course it is.

Former US anti-terror chief tears into FBI over iPhone unlocking case

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FBI can go the legal route

They give the phone to their computer forensics lab (which they have), the lab unsolders the chip (which they can), they run a brute force cracker on the possible PIN combinations (digits only, most likely under 8), which they also can. You can do that on a fat enough desktop for crying out loud.

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Re: Give them the source!

There are random goto statements. See here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/28/line_break_pilot/

The third example is Apple.

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Re: Kind of what I said a couple weeks ago.

They'd hack the hardware, possibly reading the security key

For a 4-8 digit (digits only) PIN? Gimme a break. That can be brute forced on a desktop PC once data is available. It is simply a matter of sourcing the data and it can indeed be done by taking the flash out and reading it off-line.

Shock: Russian court says Russian court is right in slapping down Google monopoly

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Leaving the political background aside

If we leave just the meat of the case it is identical to proceedings being brought in the Eu competition commission which are still dragging on. This one: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-4782_en.htm

There are if memory serves me right similar proceedings opened competition authorities in nearly every jurisdiction on the planet.

The only thing to differ from the Eu (and other) proceedings here is that the case has gotten past the competition watchdog, the competition watchdog has quite rightfully decided against Google, Google has tried to protest in court and the court, once again, quite rightfully, has given it a slap in public.

When the Eu case will finally reach a decision it will not be any different (unless Google defangs the Eu competition commission through the transatlantic trade partnership first).

Microsoft traps and tortures poor little AI in soulless Minecraft world

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It's an ekk.. ekk... ekk... DRINK!!!

British IT outsourcers back Remain in the EU referendum campaign

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It's a double edged sword

Exporting services of UK workers is one edge. Using foreign services instead of UK workers is the other.

When we limit them strictly to Eu, they are significantly smaller than people tend to claim. UK living standard tends to be too high to work well in "providing services from the UK" computation.

The reverse direction is also negligible. Most other Eu countries and even some USA companies with significant Eu presence have moved a lot of what used to be done in India and the far east to Eastern Europe (both in-house and outsourced). It is simply better value for the money for a German company to get things done across the border to Brno in the Czech republic than in Bangalore (despite Czech salaries being higher than starting IT salaries in the UK). Similarly, Amazon has found its "better place" in Romania and Vmware in Bulgaria.

UK PLCs and UK Government have so far not joined that trend. The only large outsourced project with Eastern European labor I can think of the top of my head is the digitization of the library and archives of the Parliament (including the secret sections by the way). Done with Bulgarian labor. The rest of UK outsourcing still goes to India as the tradition (and other "factors") command.

So all in all the effect of in-out on outsourcing will be minimal. In fact, as noted by some people as Eu regulations on data, labor, etc will no longer apply it will become easier for UK companies to ship jobs overseas (and they will).

Dell's Ubuntu-powered Precision Sputnik now available worldwide

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Multiple no-buy flags

Nice, but lots of red flags.

1. Price - major red flag. For that amount of money I you can have both a monstrous 8 core Athlon black edition 4.7GHz desktop/workstation and a perfectly usable low end laptop to connect to it.

2. Intel inside, idiot outside. No thanks. I'd like to have my Radeon as present on A4 CPUs, thank you. Intel is yet to come up with anything that gets even close for predominant Linux use (2D acceleration, font accel, etc).

3. Hell label. Sorry. Dell label on the lid.

Nope, no buy. I had some ideas on refreshing my "travel development" laptop, but its A4 and 16G RAM are still coping with what I throw at it so I will pass this time.

Clear November in your diary: SpaceX teases first Falcon Heavy liftoff

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Re: Potential

Falcon Heavy "53,000 kg to LEO!"

SLS Block 1 70,000 kg to LEO.

SLS Block 2 130,000 kg to LEO

1960s Saturn V 140,000 kg to LEO

While Space-X selfindulgent marketeering w*nk is understandable, can at least El-Reg do not repeat it.

In addition to SLS and Saturn, Energia (in _MINIMAL_ config) could put 100,000kg to LEO. The maxium Vulcan config was not tested itself, but all of its components have flown - Zenits, boosters, core (as part of Energia M and Energia-Buran launches. Its capacity stands at 175 tons to LEO and _THAT_ is the biggest rocket ever designed by man. Compared to that Space-X Falkon-Heavy is still a minnow.

I beg you, please don't back up that secret directory full of photos!

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Unprofessional

Unprofessional, that is all I can say.

There is very little difference between an IT person and a specialist in sexually transmitted diseases.

When the next patient comes in you can (and should) suspect a cocktail of Chlamydia, Syphilis and Gonorrhea. If you are a professional, you will deal with professionally, prescribe the appropriate antibiotics, etc. There are some cases when the individual in question is a threat to the society, then you call the cops. However, for the majority of questions you are _BOUND_ by an implicit oath of silence simply by nature of being a professional, not a witch doctor.

If you are using the opportunity for sh*ts and giggles, well...

How a Brexit could stop UK biz and Europe swapping personal data

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Re: Nice that someone else realized it

The trouble here is that you are preaching to the converted

Not quite. Even the converted (as shown by previous discussions on El-Reg) have not quite thought all of these through. We cannot really blame them for that as we have lived with EU and EEA for so long, we have forgotten what does it mean to be outside it.

When I first moved to the UK 15+ years ago, the country I was moving from was still outside the EU. So I know _FIRST_ hand what is required - the whole drivers license, insurance, taxation, etc rigmarole. I could not buy my first house in the UK as the mortgage provider (hello xenophobic a***holes from RBS) declined to give me a mortgage because I was at a time non-Eu foreign scum. Thankfully, I found a less xenophobic mortgage and insurance provider after that (still charged me extra, but at least I got what I needed).

I also know how much of that changed after the country joined the Eu and I have the basis for comparison of what legislation applies in either case.

All of that is awaiting. Best scenario - massive costs and hassle to everyone who is out. Worst scenario - you outright cannot do business with Eu (that will be the case for some stuff).

Been there, have that T-shirt, do no want to have it again (hence, this is why I keep my Eu passport valid in addition to the UK one).

Compared to all of that, data protection is just that - some spice to make things interesting and interesting they shall become as do we like it or not, the Daily Beobachter and Scum readers are a majority. They will vote Out.

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Nice that someone else realized it

In a Brexit scenario 95% of the legislation governing how a British subject does business in/on the continent is null and void, resulting in fallback to pre-Eu conventions. At the very least - massive pain in the a**e, usually massive extra cost too. Even if Brexit somehow makes British industry more competitive (I doubt that), the extra costs put the overall balance in the red straight away.

Data protection is only the tip of the iceberg and it is a bloody big iceberg indeed.

Even your driving license becomes void in the Eu - it is falback to 1949 International Driving License convention and having to have that abominable piece of paper re-issued every year by a UK post office in the UK (until validity is re-negotiated with every country involved).

British vehicle insurance on the continent (both private and commercial) is null and void - governing legislation are the EEA insurance harmonization directives, so you are back to car green cards and the extortionate costs of underwriting by target country. So yeah... make British manufacturing great again. Jolly good idea, did you realize that it is automatically uncompetitive because of costs of shipment?

Rights to own certain type of properties (on agricultural land) in half of Europe for British subjects are null and void - it is a privilege reserved to local and Eu subjects (enshrined in constitution in some countries). So a British subject will have to register a local limited company _AND_ have sufficient annual turnover through it for it not to be closed by the local tax office. That limited company also has _NO_ double-taxation treaties in force to shield it as all governing legislation on that is Eu level. Leaving individuals and villas aside (they are just lined up for mandatory purchase) - want to ship goods to Europe, think 10 times on how and where exactly establish a distribution center if you do not want an "interesting" bill.

Compared to all of these the inability to handle any data you need in order to sell to Eu customers (even a warranty registration database) is only the icing on the cake and a rather thin one too.

Feds tell court: Apple 'deliberately raised technological barriers' to thwart iPhone warrant

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Re: There Is No Freedom In China

Freedom aside.

It is very simple - no certification, no sale. Apple complied with the requirements to certify its hardware and software for sale in China. It could have chosen not sell there, but it decided to sell a country specific version.

There are no such certification requirements in USA. No western country has them at present.

If FBI wants them, it should go and make them a law same as they have with Calea and various telecoms regs. Until that is the case, any technological measures on the phones and their services are not directly against them. They are simply the last in line of the attackers behind all kinds of crooks, fraudsters and thieves. They are not being specifically singled out as an object of countermeasures.

Behold, Microsoft SQL Server on Linux – and a firm screw-you to Oracle

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Yes and No

The SQL server itself is only half of the story. For each machine running sever you have tens, hundreds if not thousands of clients.

The _MUCH_ bigger part is how do you access it remotely. Ugly or not Oracle can be accessed from pretty much anything under the sun - perl, python, java, various spreadsheets, analytics, etc. The same is valid for most open source databases.

Last time I checked MS SQL, on the other hand however could be accessed from non-MS platforms only via FreeTDS (so there is no officially supported client) and the highest protocol version supported is the one that came out with SQL Server 2008. Any new features in 2013 (not sure what they shipped) as well as anything in 2016 AFAIK are not yet supported.

MP wants to stitch 'digital' misuse laws into one bill

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Re: So can I

No.

You forgot to stick 5 occurrences of digital into your sentence.

Do so and it may end up in the bill remit.

German lodges todger in 13 steel rings

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I suspect a bit of both

They have kit which can cut through way more serious stuff than steel nowdays. You have to have it when dealing with the various space alloys and ceramics which go into the prosthetics and implants.

However, that kind of gear is usually not in A&E (it is only in places where they do specialized surgery). There is definitely a sh*ts and giggles element too and that is on purpose. They want the most ridiculous instances to become famous enough for people not to try it again and create more work for the A&E department (though that usually does not work - people never learn).

Critical flaw in Pidgin, Adium's Off The Record chat lib. Patch ASAP

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Can we have that fast network connection please?

Sending such a message to a pidgin client took only a few minutes on a fast network connection

I was going to comment about it being unrealistic. However a quick back of the fag packet calculation shows under 7 minutes at modern Cable network or FTTH speeds, so the speed part is not unrealistic as it seems. With congestion, overheads, etc - you are looking at 20-30 mins which is not unrealistic. Now, eating 8G RAM on the client without it being "noticeable" is slightly different. That is probably easier to notice.

London cops hunt chimpanzee in top hat

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Re: really?

Come on, his value is not that high either.

Now Tony Bliar, that is a different story. I know whole countries which will pay gladly for the honor of having a taxidermied effigy of a war criminal so they can burn it at the stake.

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Re: Police Alert

No, but I have noticed yet another incident of bananas for questions.

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Re: Apes

They're apes.

If you are you referring to our esteemed Members of the Parliament, you may be overestimating them. Though dunno, we have not tried bananas for questions lately.

Chinese boffins grow new eye lenses using stem cells

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Re: So they've "solvedcd" a problem that does not really exist?

Problem does exist.

You cannot implant an artificial lens in a child until they are at least 4+ years old and the eye is fully formed. Keeping a child blind until then is a major development issue.

I have some acquaintances which have adopted a child which was misdiagnosed as severely autistic and with developmental problems while the real problem was that the 5th world orphanage where they got her from did not pick up a +6 shortsightedness until the age of 4. It is taking YEARS and quite a lot of effort to correct for the first 4 that have been effectively lost.

So even if this never makes it to be an adult treatment its value as a pediatric medical treatment is off the scale.

European commish considers probing Android, again

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Disagree

Paraphrasing Arnaud Amalric: Inquirere eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.

Investigate them all, God will recognize his own.

Airbus' Mars plane precursor survives pressure test

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Tail?

I came to say the same thing

Rutan's signature is not tail - it is tandem or duck wing/control surface arrangement:

http://www.scaled.com/projects/

90%+ and pretty much all "extreme" ones have that configuration.

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Not necessarily

The original is not Rutan - it is Alvin and the other deep sea submersibles. Canopies stop being a realistic solution past a certain pressure differential, especially if you have aero (or hydro) dynamic requirements to contend with.

Checkered window pattern coctail:

1. Pressure differential of 1 bar (or more - for the submersible equivalent)

2. No pressure suits

3. Aerodynamics requirements

Shake with some coffee and serve to an engineer - you will get the same result in most cases.

Sexism isn't getting better in Silicon Valley, it's getting worse

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Re: Dr Sue Black

So how would you react if a bloke gave you flowers?

A better analogy would be coming to work and finding a bottle of my fav booze next to the keyboard. Or a fresh coffee in the morning. Though I do not mind flowers too and I have had flowers left on my desk in the morning (with booze and chocs) - a few jobs back after going at 3am to fix the servers so our colleagues in a different TZ can work.

I know, I am supposed to be a demented, politically correct idiot and assume that this is an "unwanted advance" which I should immediately report to HR and my wife. How about an alternative explanation?

TOKEN OF APPRECIATION. Ever heard this one? Oh, I forgot - that explanation requires treating your colleagues like humans. Not like corporate drones. Yeah, tall order - I know. Goes to confirm my hypothesis that the "wrong" with the industry is not misoginism and sexism. It is sociopathy (regardless of the sexual aspect).

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Re: Dr Sue Black

Can I give you my $0.02.

A society where you cannot give women flowers just because you feel like that without implying a sexual or sexist context because of f**** political correctness is not f**** worth living in.

Some people seriously need to get a life.

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Can we stop this nonsense

Can we stop this nonsense of people generalizing Valley tendencies as if they are the rule of law across the entire industry.

The gender imbalance is _VERY_ geographically dependent and somewhat "part of the industry" dependent as well.

Similarly, try unwanted sexual advances on your Serbian colleague for starters. You will think of Alice from Dilbert as a gentle, kind and caring soul after that. Whatever is left of you.

As far as the workplace going nastier I have a slightly different theory. It is not so much a question of who enters the workplace (it was geeks then, it is still geeks now). It is a question of who is the role model. The "Social Web" role models - the "successful ones" have an extremely strong sociopathy streak in them. That was not around 15 years ago. Sure, you could drown in testosterone and adrenaline on a bad day in the office. The sociopaths, however, were few and far between and they were not particularly successful.

US chap sharpens paradigm-busting scissors

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Re: Phew...

Looking at my hands... I would have gladly paid for this gadget this weekend.

Wire mesh is a necessity in construction (especially in rural parts and third world) as it is the most effective anti-rodent measure. In fact, there is very little first-world to it.

If you ever had to cut it (especially in place while nailing it to rafters) you would have appreciated this invention.

Java evangelist leaves Oracle to save Java

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Re: Please just let Java die...Please!

You took the words out of my mouth.

Read on BrainFuck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck

Read on Java Generics: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/generics/

<<<<Compare>>> <<<<Wheep>>>>

It is a pity Google put it on eternal life support with Android. If it was not for that rather stupid decision (they could chose anything early on - even python), it would have been a niche language by now.

US slaps trade ban on ZTE over Iran links

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Countries do not have friends. Countries have interests

Not sure. This closely resembles (+/- translation) the first sentence of a monologue by Klaus Kinski's character in "The Death of a Dishonest Man". That is probably one of the most vicious satire movies on politics as it is and still valid today. Unfortunately you are more likely to see it in Russia than in UK or USA. Quite hilarious - the Russians used to always show it the night before the elections in the past.

This is one movie I definitely would not mind paying for (if I can get my mitts on an English translation or subtitles).

Microsoft has made SQL Server for Linux. Repeat, Microsoft has made SQL Server 2016 for Linux

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Re: Wow

Just as Apple based OS X on BSD are we going to see Microsoft build a future version of Windows on Linux?

If that happens, hell will become the best place in the universe to perform superconductivity and superfluidics research. In igloos built out of solid nitrogen.

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Re: Wow

Also... Hell just got a whole lot cooler...

Definitely. I just booked an appointment for a pierced eardrum with my GP. The pig squadron from the nearby airbase didn't just take off, they went hypersonic above a residential area. My eardrums still hurt from that....

Looking at the calendar once, twice, thrice - nope it is still not 1st of April.

El avión de papel del proyecto PARIS aterriza en un libro de texto

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Re: Interesting.

niño grande .

Poco niño, poco problema. Grande niño...

Open trucker comms lets Shodan snoops alter routes, tap CANs buses.

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Realtime Embedditis

Embedded software development at its usual best.

One of the reasons the only IoT that is likely to enter my house and vehicles over the next decade is IoT I am going to write myself, outsource to offspring to write instead of me and/or get as open source packages whose source I can inspect.

Car upgrades are postponed too for pretty much the same reason - the household ones are already "Razzie-ed", but with a proper firewall in place and talking back to base via a VPN. As they should.

Yelp-for-people app Peeple is back – so we rated Julia, its cofounder

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Re: A Dollar a Day for a "Truth License"

I'm still not sure what that means but it smells like a bit of blackmail money.

My exact thought. I smell an outstanding arrest order appearing for them shortly in USA and Europe. All it takes is a couple of libel or harassment lawsuits and a no-show both of which are bound to happen.

'You've been hacked, pay up' ... Ransomware forces your PC to read out a hostage note

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Re: One way to scupper ransomware

In a world where you still get Nigerian bank manager emails and Microsoft support scams there will still be someone idiot enough to pay.

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Re: "Eastern Europeans go free"

Exactly - the list of countries that get the red carpet treatment is ex-Soviet Union, not Eastern Europe. So the Czech's are indeed in the post.

Brit firm unleashes drone-busting net cannon

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Re: Crikey

If you generate more than 12lbs per square inch

The muzzle on this is HUGE. There is no way in hell the puny compressed air tank attached to it can generate 12lbs per square inch (approx 1 bar) across an area with a diameter of a shoulder launched missile and more than a meter and a half in length So as far as the current regs go (and are literally interpreted) this is most likely an "airsoft"