Posts by Captain DaFt 3821 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2007
"Redmond's new Edge browser is not impacted."
I wonder why?
http://m.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/17/microsoft_replaces_windows_10_patch_update_wont_say_why/
Not that I actually believe that, but it does hint that there might be a "Vulnerability? What vulnerability?", as the updates silently churn in the background, type scenario coming.
-"Laws specifically prevent it", namely the Computer Misuse act or your local equivalent.-
Funny old world, innit?
Remotely removing malware, bots and viruses without permission violates the law.
But Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Sony, a million ad peddlers, and any Five Eyes Agency can install, remove, delete, or alter any part of your system without permission, and it's all legal.
Worst they get is bad publicity when caught being blatant about it.
"What? If you want your site to be found by interested parties, 'vanishing' it in search machines doesn't quite make sense."
You know how it used to be done before Google 'sanitised' the web?
Link pages and web rings.
If you were interested in something, and found a site, it was always linked to other sites by these to other, similar sites.
The web was more of a community back then, instead of monetised virtual real estate.
Try joining a web ring* or putting a link page on your site these days, and count the minutes before Google smacks you down.
*Yes, they still exist. Not every site is a slave to Google.
"So he wants Ofcom to send some poor sucker out to cover the entire land area of the UK, cities, villages, fields, mountains, swamps and all, stopping every 100 metres, to measure the actual reception on every network? The phrase 'job for life' springs to mind..."
Odd, to me, the phrase "Can you hear me now?" sprang to mind.
" So Apple are doing the right thing
for the customers and replacing the potentially faulty units.
No class action lawsuit.
Hardly news is it then?"
What makes this news is that Apple has a bit of a reputation for ignoring faults in its devices until the spectre of a class action suit is raised. "Holding it wrong" ring a bell?
So Apple doing the right thing without coercion is newsworthy.
"I shouldn't have to point out things like Typhoon Soudelor or the tsunami that caused the disaster at Fukushima"
Not to mention, take the entire nuclear arsenal of mankind, then compare it to the rather mediocre (In Nature's terms) nuclear detonation our world has been orbiting for a few billion years.
-"for residential use only" in hopes of keeping them tucked safely away from scientific research equipment.-
More fun if they carried the warning in big red letters:
"DO NOT USE NEAR RADIO TELESCOPES - BECAUSE ALIENS!"
It'd certainly make the conspiracy forums even more entertaining. :)
"Obviously no self-respecting trrrst would use his real name when buying online,"
Pick the likeliest scenario:
At Megaware's online software store:
"Hello, My name is Abdul Akabar, noted terrorist. I would like to order this restricted highly sensitive software. Please send it to 120 Bombed out Lane, Hot Spot, Middle East. My credit card number is... "
Or on IRC:
"Dude, 4k484R here, Where can I get a torrent for Restricted Software?"
This crap only makes life harder for normal guys, and amuses the miscreants.
"And the plaintext passwords are hilariously weak – like "david8" weak. The sort of password you wouldn't expect a military or government network to accept."
Seriously? Someone needs their cynicism topped up. That's exactly the kind of password I'd expect.
Other than that, yes, it looks like the kind of list you'd scrape together to look "official".
"Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr; Adrian Leppard, commissioner of the City of London Police; Paris' chief prosecutor François Molins; and Javier Zaragoza, chief prosecutor of the High Court of Spain, said that the current situation is unsupportable"
rant/ Damn straight it is! If the NSA and others weren't so keen to siphon up details of personal lives from all and sundry, without due process or a proper warrant, then very few people would even be thinking about encryption.
Methinks the good gentlemen above should be directing their ire at the Five Eyes, whose abuses are totally responsible for the current mess. /rant
"One fellow bounced a round off an armadillo, through a fence and into his mother-in-law."
That armadillo's aim is getting better, This time he hit the guy that shot him!
"How much impact can a bra-wire really stop?"
Depends on bullet velocity, composition and angle of impact.
Not knowing the details, but based on the report, low velocity due to "rebound" (ricochet), and a shallow angle of impact since the victim was riding by the hunting scene.
Assuming it was a shallow angle instead of head on, the length of the underwire would have helped deflect the bullet.
Plus, bra underwires are tougher than coathangers, spring steel rather than soft steel.
It seems impossible to design any device theses days, down to freakin' light bulbs, without including insecure wireless access.
Is it stupidity?
A plot by the Five Eyes?
Or just plain lazy, "Throw the latest buzz word tech on that puppy and sell it, PRONTO!", mindless marketeering?
Unfortunately, based on History, I actually believe it's the last one.
"How much 'Space Lettuce' would you have to grow to get you to MARS and back?"
I was thinking along the lines of the American Indians' "Three Maidens", Corn, beans, and squash planted together.
Simple, easy to grow, and about as nutritionally complete as vegan fare gets. Just make sure to pack lime for nixtamalizing the corn.
And to make sure the mission succeeds, look the other way when when some astronaut smuggles a pig onboard. :)
"So Tesla are simply following a similar model to Amazon of investing all profits+ into building out capacity, and they get slammed for it. But Bezos can do it for 10 years and still get cheered? What's up?"
But Amazon isn't forcing other automakers into looking at alternatives, nor frightening car dealerships by bypassing them.
A lot of big bucks are invested in status quo, and hate game changing.
Add a routine to the drive's firmware to spin the disks too slowly to lift the read/write head, then have the head scrape rapidly back and forth across the rotating disks. Massive deliberate head crash.
Of course that'd take a decent knowledge of the drive's circuitry, but they are hackable... http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack
"To their surprise, the Bluetooth was broadcasting unencrypted to the controller,"
"The pair contacted Boosted to report the flaw but the company initially refused to believe them, since it was sure that the Bluetooth channel was encrypted."
WTF? The company didn't even know how the product they sold worked?
And just assumed it was encrypted? Mind boggled.
"I can't begin to describe the level of epic fail this embodies."
It's all in the point of view.
For Microsoft, they see this as a win, since it'll give them the massive download numbers for Win10 that they can use to crow about "rapid uptake" of Win10 in the user world.
Never mind it's unwanted, and either goes uninstalled or rolled back if it accidentally gets installed, that doesn't bother them.
You're still using some version of Windows. (Win-win!)
"If I really didn't want to read stories based on a series of semi-moronic unfunny tweets linked together with the merest hint of snarky journalism I'd know better than to read El Reg. FTFY"
No, no no!
El Reg is a series of semi-moronic unfunny posts linked together with the merest hint of snarky journalistic articles.
World of difference!
"had terrible resolition/ immersion,"
I don't think those are one and the same.
I played This game in an old arcade years ago. Primitive wire frame style graphics viewed through a "periscope" with controls on the handles.
Yet it was more immersive than any higher resolution VR game I've ever tried since.
The vulnerability was already known to the bad guys, and the software already developed, waiting for a prime time to use it.
Then when everyone and his dog learned of it via the dump, the attack was speedily deployed or auctioned to someone eager to use it, to get some value out of it before the hole was patched.
What? You don't think the smarter ones keep a warchest of exploits to use for special cases? We already know the spooks do.
"...but then how will the legions of civil servants while away their days, without those halcyon hours spent mindlessly stabbing at [B] and [I] buttons and fighting with autoindentation, you psychopath?"
Put'em to useful work! Are there no streets that need cleaning? No chimneys that need to be swept?
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