* Posts by Jamie Jones

4282 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Jun 2007

Stage fright or Stage light? Depends how far you dare to open your MacBook Pro's lid

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: Another victim of the form factor "diet"

Just like the tablet I'm using now (Huawei) - virtually impossible to hold because of the screen going right to the edge, causing accidental finger presses.

So much so, i still spend more time on my 2 year old 40 quid tablet with a nice screen border, and more comfortable curved case (this thing is so thin, the sides aren't as curvy.)

Lovely screen, poweful as hell, but with the comfortability of a literal slate tile.

Heads up: Debian's package manager is APT for root-level malware injection... Fix out now to thwart MITM hijacks

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: "Supporting HTTP is fine,"

> Supporting HTTP is NOT fine.

Bollocks. Yes it is.

NHS England digital boss in hot water over 'puff piece' written about her future employer

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Robert Longshaft... Whose only purpose in life is to make "Bombastic Bob's" (what is it with all these Bobs?) socialist views seem less wacky!

Ooh, my machine is SO much faster than yours... Oh, wait, that might be a bit of a problem...

Jamie Jones Silver badge
Thumb Up

big_D, yes, fair point. It's that reading your post reminded me of the time we struggled whilst the management blinged!

On a more related tack, it reminds me of those big Flash sites in the 90's that took ages to load and were very slow. Presumably they were demontrated to the "suits" on a fast PC with the files delivered locally, whilst in the real world, most hardware was slower, and connections topped out at 56kbs, though in these cases, I'm sure the developer knew the situation...

Jamie Jones Silver badge

To be fair, developers are more likely to make the most of higher specced kit.

What used to get my goat was when developers were struggling on old kit, and the managers got all the high tech new stuff when all the did was open the odd email now and then...That's when they were actually in the office!

Ever feel like all your prayers go unheard? The Catholic Church has an app for that

Jamie Jones Silver badge
Facepalm

Their icon/logo

It's the Catholic Church... Don't tell me you can't see what that icon on the articles posted app screen shot is supposed to be!

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: No point

Insecure chap/chapess, isn't he/she?

Smartphones gateway drug to the Antichrist, says leader of Russian Orthodox Church

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Isn't it true that many American buildings with over 12 floors don't have a floor 13?

Say GDP-aaaRrrgh, streamers: Max Schrems is coming for you, Netflix and Amazon

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: Really?

GDPR is a European law, that the USA will be very keen for the UK to drop if we want any kind of deal.

Mind you, our own paranoid snooping governments won't be sad to see it go either.

As for the specific comment, well, it's a response to the comment that businesses wouldn't want to lose out on a 500 million audience.. Try telling the brexiters that!

Lords of the DNS remind admins about Flag Day, Juniper likes Watson and more

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: DNS/EDNS Flag Day?

Bind: 9.12.3P1 is the latest stable release, 9.13.5 is the latest preview release, and 9.14 is development.

The EDNS support that they say is manditory has been around since 1999.

What they are removing from new versions are all the workarounds and hacks that they have been using to allow them to work with unconforming servers, as this slows down requests and complicates the code.

Unless you've specifically done anything weird, your DNS install will work fine with no changes needed - as will all the DNS software from the major players released over the last 15 years or so! - Bind has supported EDNS since version 8.3.0-RC1 - released in November 2001!

So, big change, but one that has been going on slowly for over 15 years!

https://www.isc.org/blogs/dns-flag-day/

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: DNS/EDNS Flag Day?

I think most servers will be OK already. It's only any really old ones that will be affected.

Some of the DNS servers I manage are running software over a year old, but all passed the tests without me doing anything special to achieve it.

DDoS sueball, felonious fonts, leaky Android file manager, blundering building security, etc etc

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: Not acceptable

I presumed it was added to allow access to the files from the users other machines, in which case, it was a coding error to not have any authentication.

A backdoor that can only be accessed locally is a big hole, but not much use for the person who wrote it.

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Not acceptable

"An insecure Android file manager app, ES File Explorer, with 100-million-plus downloads, opens a HTTP web server to the local network, allowing any miscreant able to reach the device to download files at will,"

That's not a bug, or an oversight, that's a fundamental coding errror.

I wouldn't trust that author again

Three quarters of US Facebook users unaware their online behavior gets tracked

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: No kidding

Of course we are much smarter in the UK.

I mean, it's not as if we voted to leave the most poweful trading block in the world, is it?

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: Does the fly know it's about to land on shit

.... worst PM ever?

Job done.

Oh, SSH, IT please see this: Malicious servers can fsck with your PC's files during scp slurps

Jamie Jones Silver badge

"> Apart from compromised servers, as others have mentioned, many sites mirror software on untrusted sites, making use of crypographic checksums to check authenticity.

And how does that relate to this article? It's nothing to do with the server serving a file with the wrong content."

It doesn't relate to the article. It relates to this post I was replying to:

"Somebody used scp to securely copy something that he had no way of verifying from a server he didn't trust, and he was surprised by the results?"

To reitterate: it's accepted practice to download from a "server he didn't trust" when there are cryptographic hashes available from a trusted source.

... Not sure how your repeated explanation changes this.

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: You wouldn't get into a stranger's car

"You should never simply connect willy-nilly to a server you don't trust anyway"

I do regularly, so do most people here. You do too, probably.

Mirrors. Software distributions, patch files, src files, distributed on potentially untrusted mirrors - often a mirror is chosen automatically based on geographic position / load.

But the software is protected by cryptographic checksums kept either locally, or on the main, trusted server.

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

Jamie Jones Silver badge

If you're going to write like a smart-arse, expect someone to pick at any holes in your argument!

Apart from compromised servers, as others have mentioned, many sites mirror software on untrusted sites, making use of crypographic checksums to check authenticity.

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

The Large Hadron Collider is small beer. Give us billions more for bigger kit, say boffins

Jamie Jones Silver badge
Happy

Re: Dark matter/energy question

That will never work!

AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile US pledge, again, to not sell your location to shady geezers. Sorry, we don't believe them

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: Yes, they're a pack of liars... "clear consumer benefits"?

Knowing your coordinates at the time is complegly differenf from recording it, keeping it, and sending it to 3rd parties

xHamster reports spike in UK users getting their five-knuckle shuffle on before pr0n age checks

Jamie Jones Silver badge

You don't think the El Reg readers know exactly what mission creep will occur, and what the government will try to achieve?

Maybe, just maybe, the downvotes were due to someone implying that the disgusting acts of a group of people, were performed by a huge group of people the government purposely "filled up" our towns with, and implying that all Muslims are somehow guilty.

Maybe the fact that the irony of him making that sweeping statement, and then moaning for being called out for it (Islam isn't a race, but whatever - he is still making sweeping generalisations about a group) was lost on him prompted more downvotes?

Maybe the next time a gang is caught doing similar, if we forever more talk about the "white english rape gangs flooding the streets", you'll get a clue?

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: Great Britain encapsulates itself not only against the EU, but blah blah

Oh come on, don't turn this intl a "whataboutism"

He's completely correct, and it makes no difference whether he's American or British.

If's not like we don't criticise Trump et al.. How would you like it if every time you critiscised american policy, an american replied "yeah, but what about brexit" - we'd never have proper debates between us if that was the case.

Remember, just like we brits aren't the pathetic corrupt establishment, our american friends aren't either.

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: too totalitarian even for them

The extreme wanking pirates aill be pissed off when they lose their VPN's too!

Medical advice app Your.MD could have been tampered with by anyone, alleges ex-veep

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: Long before apps and cellphones there was the Merck Manual

Take these pills, you'll bs better in the morning.

Begone, Demon Internet: Vodafone to shutter old-school pioneer ISP

Jamie Jones Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Wild West Days

Well said!

Jamie Jones Silver badge
Happy

Re: Wild West Days

Cheers Mr B!

You'll be pleased to know that I don't own a business, so rest easy!

Still, it's not like I was threatening to kick them out on the streets. - I'm sure every demon customer survived relatively unscathed and trauma free!

In fact, if I was selling up, I'd be more concerned about my staff than my customers, and sticking it out would have been worse for them too.

Jamie Jones Silver badge
Happy

Are you that beardie though?

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: Wild West Days

His contracts with his customers were fulfilled. He owed them nothing more.

If I was running an ISP like demon around the time the big telecoms companies (with their networks, money, and other infrastrucure) started to sniff around at the thought of becoming ISPs, I'd have sold out for the fattest cheque too.

The D in SystemD stands for Dammmit... Security holes found in much-adored Linux toolkit

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: It could be worse, we could be running Slackware.

I switched to FreeBSD longgggg before systemd (about 25 years ago)

The whole point of unix systems is the configurability and flexibility. If you're happy running a "blob" with monthly patch cycles, you may as well use windows!

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Whoever doesn't, raise my hands please.

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: This is one reason why I use BSD and Salix

Bootup time was just a pissing contest around the time of windows 7 or 8.

I suppose it matters if your machine crashes alot :-)

Jamie Jones Silver badge
Happy

Re: I guess it's a good time

I only just read your comment, and couldn't work out the context of the quote, and did even click on the wiggly arrow (technical term) to see the parent post, and scratched my head when I couldn't see where the original poster wrote about Firefox start menus, and started to question my sanity, and got reminded to take my pills, and then did so, then did so again, just to be sure, and I can see double rainbows, and now I just read your follow up post, and now i realise i'm not actually any more insane than usual, so instead, now I can laugh at you............

⏩⏩⏩⏩⏩⏩⏩⏩ Points at John and laughs! ⏩⏩⏩⏩⏩⏩⏩⏩⏩⏩⏩⏩

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: what?

Or use an OS that lets you preallocate any ports to specific users...

mac_portacl: https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/mac-policies.html#15.5.4

Jamie Jones Silver badge
Devil

Re: Devuan user here

Me too! -----> Closest icon to beastie!

FreeBSD all the way on my servers, my desktops and my routers!

Senator Wyden goes ballistic after US telcos caught selling people's location data yet again

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: Ticked Off?

I've always used "ticked off" to be similar to pissed off, nothing to do will being told off.

Same for everyone around here... And I'm Welsh, and have been all my life! Maybe it's an english thing?/

Go USA!

You were told to clean up our systems, not delete 8,000 crucial files

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: ZFS and rotating snapshots

I live by snapshots.(though mainly on ufs not zfs)

Amongst other things, I always do a diff of a file I've been editing to make sure I've not accidentally made typos, or injected some weird characters.

No longer do rogue problems crop up that can be traced to a spurious ^Z in the source code!

Jamie Jones Silver badge

All the admins fault

You should never assume that files in the users storage area follow your naming convention, however common it might be in your area of work.

As others have said, it could be .template, or the users initials.

Reminds me of the time a sysadmin at a universty deleted a file called "penis" that contained important research data by some people in the biology department...

Fake 'U's! Phishing creeps use homebrew fonts as message ciphers to evade filters

Jamie Jones Silver badge
Happy

I wanted to upvote you, but no longer am able to tell which button is up, and which is down!

New side-channel leak: Boffins bash operating system page caches until they spill secrets

Jamie Jones Silver badge

ZX Spectrum rulz

Yet another exlloit; yet again, the speccy ain't mentioned.

Just sayin'

More nodding dogs green-light terrible UK.gov pr0n age verification plans

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: Is this the stupidest idea ever?

"Not even close. Here in The Great Southern Land we do stupidity even better, by enacting encryption busting legislation. You Poms are amateurs."

Uk government: "Hold my beer!"

Oz cops investigating screams of 'why don't you die?' find bloke in battle with spider

Jamie Jones Silver badge

When I was in Israel, I was tasked with removing a small spider from the room. I calmly pushed a piece of paper under him, and as I was about to pick it up to throw out of the window, the bastard jumped, almost hitting my face (I was bending down at the time)

That really gave me the willies. Apparently we have them over here too, but I've only ever come across them in Israel.

Spiders that can jump a few feet... Ought to be a law.

Staff sacked after security sees 'suspect surfer' script of shame

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: Whatever Happened to WAP?

Nokia Communicators predated WAP, and had "full" graphic browsing support, as I used to smugly mention to anyone that laughed at one of my bricks.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9000_Communicator#9110

Error pop-up? Don't worry, let's just get this migration done... BTW it's my day off tomorrow

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: took the day off

ArrZarr? I know who you are!

YOU'RE FIRED!

It's a Christmas miracle: Logitech backs down from Harmony home hub API armageddon

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: Logically...with tech ....

If I was doing that to access some external web service, etc. then, yes, I'd expect things to change without warning.

When it's a device I paid for, sitting in my house, I expect the opposite.

If the API itself was causing a security issue, then if critical, maybe they could have closed it down... However, in that case they should have groveled hugely, and said that the disabled functionality would be restored as soon as possible.

But no, they said "tough". They only backtracked because of all the fallout.

So saying "working on making it available in a more supported manner is also the correct behaviour" would be fine, if it wasn't for their initial refusal to do so.

Dutch boyband hopes to reverse Brexit through the power of music

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Why not?

I remember a 20-something being asked why she voted to "Leave" and her reply was "'cos i fancied the guy campaigning".

A guy they asked said "I did it for a laugh."

With the brexit camp full of such high calibre brainiacs, maybe some teen-pop trash will do some good!

Mark Zuckerberg did everything in his power to avoid Facebook becoming the next MySpace – but forgot one crucial detail…

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

There is a database of the location of wifi routers by MAC. And as those databases are updated, it becomes obvious which ones are static.

And on android (at least as far as 5.1 - i've not tested higher) any app could read the MAC of the router the android was connected to. This was without granting special privileges, such as location details etc, in fact it works without granting any privileges at all.

I posted some proof-of-concept code here a while back, after someone accused me of lyng ("'cos someone on stackoverflow said it wasn't possible")

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Re: Good article. Assuming TheRegister is clean with our data.

Donald Trump has said 3924 false things as U.S. president

Of course, there are many, many, sources of this information.

To say that Obama (there you go again with your whataboutism) lied more goes beyond party loyalty, it even goes beyond being Trumps greatest fan. It takes you clearly into cucksville, Tennessee

London's Gatwick airport suspends all flights after 'multiple' reports of drones

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Oh Tinkerbell!

"Tinkerbell81 opined: "You seriously expect us to believe that 'drone activity' shuts an airport down for nearly 12 hours ........ it was raining hard most of the night! Finding the 'operator' would be a needle in a haystack..."

You got it, Tinky, they shut it down for a laugh. They were bored and felt they'd be better if they lost thousands and thousands of pounds, and had to deal with idiot passengers like you moaning.

P.S. Your second sentence justifying the first? It doesn't,

A year after Logitech screwed over Harmony users, it, um, screws over Harmony users: Device API killed off

Jamie Jones Silver badge

Who's device is it anyway?

Call me old fashioned, but when I buy something, I don't expect someone to sneak into my house and alter it, even if they think "they know best"

Jamie Jones Silver badge

I've said this before, but if my 10 year old used the word "remoaners", I'd seriously be worried about his mental ability.