* Posts by John Tserkezis

2242 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2007

IBM invents printer that checks for copyrights

John Tserkezis

Why don't they take the Iraqi stance?

You know, create a printer that doesn't print at all, just in case the user tries to print some copyrighted material.

Blocking ads? Smaller digital publishers are smacked the hardest

John Tserkezis

Re: We need a cultural shift towards paying for stuff.

"if you don't want advertising, you need to start paying for stuff."

Nice if payment is an option. Many times (especially mobile) your single and only option is "free" (with ads).

Adobe...sigh...issues critical patch...sigh...for Flash Player zero day

John Tserkezis

"What site that you can't just do without still uses Flash?"

http://circuitcellar.com/

http://www.siliconchip.com.au/ (offers low-resolution image based viewing if you don't have flash)

John Tserkezis

We're way, way past the point of making fun of Adobe creating a bug-riddled mess, should we be actively making fun of web sites who still insist on using it?

Germans set to make schnitzel out of controversial Wi-Fi law

John Tserkezis

Re: The Law of Unintended Consequences

Dunno about "Unintended Consequences", this is something else.

If you create an environment where anyone, whoever that may be, is blamed for the sake of blaming anyone, you're going to see a change in behaviour where everyone is going to cover their arse - at any cost.

Seen this happen in a corporate environment where everyone was looking over their shoulders and not actually doing any work.

FBI director claims that videoing police is causing crime uptick

John Tserkezis

Yeah, it's real inconvenient when you can't beat who you want to be a perp into submission.

Banning computers makes students do better on exams – MIT

John Tserkezis

"including the ease at which students could be distracted by surfing the internet"

Taking away their capability to use Facebook, Instagram, Gmail, IM apps and similar timewasters, creates a surprising increase in productivity.

Not just for school graders either - their middle aged parents seem to be more productive at their jobs too.

Walmart sues Visa for being too lax with protecting chip cards

John Tserkezis

Australia now has a fully-non-signature credit card purchase system, and if you use paywave or simlar (NFC) *and* for less that AU$100 purchases, PINs are exempt.

Although this has changed the usage patterns of credit card thieves (fraudulent purchases are now only <$100) If I had to present a 12-digit PIN for *all* purchases, (most are sub-$100) I'd be rightly annoyed.

Wasps force two passenger jets into emergency landings

John Tserkezis

"Wasps are actually quite useful they hunt a lot of the things we consider pests."

Too bad they can't be trained to hunt some very particular family members that are considered pests.

New Firefox versions will make you activate all new add-ons – except one hacker favourite

John Tserkezis

"The BBC have an html5 beta version of iplayer; http://www.bbc.co.uk/html5"

Then:

BBC iPlayer TV programmes are available to play in the UK only.

And everyone wonders why we pirate so much...

Database man flown to Hong Kong to install forgotten patch spends week in pub

John Tserkezis

"Depends on whether you have a life at home or not."

We were told on a Friday afternoon, that we were to fly out that Saturday morning to the other side of the country (6-7 hour flight one way with a changeover inbetween).

Then again, nether of us had a life at the time, and it was too late in the day to formulate an excuse...

Cops deploy StingRay anti-terror tech against $50 chicken-wing thief

John Tserkezis

Well, I'm just glad that when I go through an airport and have to take off my shoes, it's all in the interest of stopping terrorists, and not the 2-dollar-an-hour no-speaky-engresh TIA agents stopping me from carrying one fucking toothpick.

/FuckingEndRant

US telly stations fling malware-tipped web ads at unsuspecting surfers

John Tserkezis

I'm just waiting for a pro anti-adware websites to be served with malware of this type.

Bet they won't see the irony either.

UK govt admits it pulled 10-year file-sharing jail sentence out of its arse

John Tserkezis

"You couldn't make it up."

It seems you could.

Have a Cptn Cook: VXers learn 'Strayan to plunder Down Under

John Tserkezis

Struth = Holy crap Batman!

Daft draft anti-car-hack law could put innocent drivers away for life

John Tserkezis

Hello Mr Wallnut, from now on, you're going to be liasing only with Mr Sledgehammer.

Good luck with that.

E-cigarettes help save lives, says Royal College of Physicians

John Tserkezis

Anyone's opinion on vaping is largely dependant on one thing...

The size of the dump-truck that reversed onto their front yard depositing a load of cash.

Check the delivery invoice, if it says "Tobacco Industry" your opinion has just been altered.

Heathrow Airbus collision 'not a drone incident'

John Tserkezis

Heathrow Airbus collision 'not a drone incident'

"No evidence of UAV impact, investigators say"

But we're going to blame them anyway, because they're the trendy scapegoat today.

Q. What's the difference between smartphones and that fad diet you all got bored of? A. Nothing

John Tserkezis

I don't think smartphone have reached peak yet. More that they've been underutilised, so other factors like cost become an issue.

It's kinda like buying a modern-day PC and the vast majority use is playing Solitare, or worse, Chess, the game that's rather mature to the point where very low end processors have done a respectable task at beating us at the easiest level...

Way back in another era, I used to have a regular dumb phone (what was available in the day), and palm pilot. With each of their IR communications ability, and the right sofware, I had what one would call a smart phone, just not in one case. I was thrilled to bits even at the time, and was pleasantly surprised the market eventually saw the reasoning and created the then first smartphones.

As above, cost is only an issue if you underutilise your gear. I'm not say you should use your phone for things that don't help you, but there's a multitude of software out there that can make your life easier on the road, don't be afraid to use it.

Net scum lock ancient Androids, force users to buy iTunes gift cards

John Tserkezis

Sad, how very sad.

You know what they say about those who want iTunes gift cards?

They likely own Apple branded equipment.

And that's the saddest thing of all. Shudder.

NASA saves Kepler space 'scope by turning it off and on again

John Tserkezis

Re: Scotty would have fixed this much faster!

"Cheese sandwich with exrea cheese? You unutterable bastard. Now I'm hungry"

We used to regularly ask for a cheese and peperoni pizza, with extra cheese and extra peperoni.

Amazingly, the people taking the order didn't always get that...

Romania suffers Eurovision premature ejection

John Tserkezis

Re: Eurovision is way more than a cheesy competition

"It's not like it goes on for months or people are forced to watch it."

It certainly seems to drag on like months.

Embattled 123-reg flings six months' free hosting at angry customers

John Tserkezis

<i."While working on this issue is our current priority, we have also put a series of measures in place to ensure that this does not happen again in the future."</i>

They sacked the guy who did it?

SpyEye duo behind bank-account-emptying malware banged up

John Tserkezis

Re: But...

"Will anyone get ANY money back from this scam?

I have my doubts.

This begs the question: Where did the money go??"

Penis enlargement treatments. Clearly they need that.

John Tserkezis

Re: Why name the judge?

"THAT is the planet that I am from..."

So you're saying that Uranus has a viable internet connection now?

Exploit kit writers turn away from Java, go all-in on Adobe Flash

John Tserkezis

Re: i like flash

"https://www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/accounts-cards/shopsafe.go"

From that website:

"Please note that ShopSafe requires you to have Adobe Flash installed on your computer."

I have to give it to them. They have the testicles to mention "Safe" and "Adobe Flash" in the same sentence...

Apple assumes you'll toss the Watch after three years

John Tserkezis

Four years is impressive...

...Compared to my bloody Samsung watch that went for a year before the battery fail.

Only batteries available from fleabay were still priced beyond economical repair.

So I went back to my Casio which has been through one battery change in the million years of life so far.

Sure, it lacks a few features, but going on purchase price along with regular battery replacements, fuck that for a joke.

Apple pulled 2,204lbs of gold out of old tech gear

John Tserkezis

Recycling: My big fat hairy arse.

This is for profit making and nothing else. The fact they get some "good" PR out of it is merely a side attraction.

They get the phones for free, the resulting material minus the extraction process costs, equals profit.

Also, beware of recycled plastics. There's a reason they're not widely used, the quality of recycled plastic is by far less, and less strong than the native first-use raw material. So you're limited in where you can use it.

Saving the earth my arse. Unless of course you count the money you made in the process...

South Korea to upgrade national stereo defence system for US$16m

John Tserkezis

Ha. And all this time I thought the South Koreans where slightly more sensible...

Lauri Love backdoor forced-decryption case goes to court in UK

John Tserkezis

Smells like another Snowden adventure to me. Looks like the US GovCo got caught with its pants down yet again, and they don't seem to like that...

Half of people plug in USB drives they find in the parking lot

John Tserkezis

Re: If the people making the OS did their job...

"I'm with this. Why should plugging in a USB stick be dangerous?"

Autorun. An oldie but a goodie. and it only took Microsoft a few decades to realise it was actually a monumentally bad idea.

Meanwhile, Joe Bloggs still has it enabled because they want their CDs to do something when you plug them in. (They'll never EVER let go of that feature)

Till they learn, that is.

John Tserkezis

Re: A good file name

"All you need is a good file name such as "Cutest Kitten Vid" or "owner contact info.exe" and you would probably increase the folly."

Agreed. We spoke about this with some friends who were arguing about how one would get an executable into someone else's computer.

I said you don't have to. Just attach a file called "BigBoobs.exe" to an incoming email, and they're guaranteed to click on it. You don't even have to obscure it.

John Tserkezis

Re: Bah!

"Do you also install Linux afterwards so their computer actually works?"

No, because the users will complain their email attached-exe files don't work anymore.

Yeap.

This year's H-1B visa lottery jammed full in just six days

John Tserkezis

Re: H-1B vs. just send the jobs overseas

"Then there's the often suggested threat to park a cruise ship"

L. Ron Hubbard tried that. Complete with child-boy-servants. You don't have to pay your deciples either, heck, to climb the hierarchy they pay YOU. And you're registered as a religion. Tax haven. Would make the profit margins very attractive. Bonus.

Twitter spends $10m on rights to cover Thursday-night NFL games

John Tserkezis

Re: They've lost the place...

"So the app of brevity is hooked up to the sport with the biggest ratio of inactivity to action there is. 60 minutes of an American Football game contains on average 11 minutes of actual play, and can take up to 3.5 hours to complete."

Good thing then that Twitter got the feed "on a discount". And they still paid too much.

FAA doubles Section 333-exemption drone ceiling to 400 feet

John Tserkezis

"which applies to all drones weighing more than 250 grams"

Oh goodie. That means I don't have to register my paper airoplane.

Google-funded study concludes: Make DMCA even more Google-friendly

John Tserkezis

Google

"Do No Evil".

My big fat hairy arse.

Call the Cable Guy: Wireless just won't cut it

John Tserkezis

"you then have the faff of re-patching stuff when people change desks (nobody with any sense will go to the expense of having enough LAN ports to patch every floor port, after all)."

We did. We had to. The department managers kept moving their people every two bloody weeks. Sometimes just shuffling four guys in a four spot booth.

We weren't to ask why, but just to do our bloody job.

Incedently, WiFi was entirely out of the question due to security reasons, we had millions of dollars sunk in IP apparently, and they were uneasy with it floating around the building, secured or not.

Michael Dell takes $11m pay hit

John Tserkezis

"My heart bleeds for him."

My thoughts exactly. Anyone who says they had taken an $11m pay cut is just plain showing off.

Woman scales Ben Nevis wielding selfie stick instead of ice axe

John Tserkezis

Bloody selfie sticks...

Like I keep saying, nothing good will ever come to those who carry selfie sticks.

Microsoft's bigoted teen bot flirts with illegali-Tay in brief comeback

John Tserkezis

"Now, here's the big challenge for Microsoft: how do you program in a sense of morality in an AI interface?"

Seriously? After Windows 10, you expect any kind of moral answer from Microsoft?

1.5M Verizon Enterprise customer records selling on forum after breach

John Tserkezis

"A trusted seller on a popular but shadowy unnamed criminal forum"

I'm sorry, but has the definition of "trusted" changed recently?

Ever wondered what the worst TV show in the world would be? Apple just commissioned it

John Tserkezis

If my television had an ad blocker, it would be throwing up about now.

Calm down, dear: Woman claims sexism in tech journalism

John Tserkezis

"who hasn't at some point received a photo of their face covered in ejaculate?"

Yeah, I know what you mean, I get emails like that all the time.

Perhaps if I unsubscribed from all those porn sites I might get less.... Oh well, we'll never know...

Six charged for 'hacking' lottery terminals to spew only winning tickets

John Tserkezis

Re: So, what's the charge?

"Taking advantage of someones stupidity may be immoral, but it's not necessarily illegal."

It's only legal if you don't get caught. Ahem.

Monies obtained via illegal means usually doesn't hang around for long. I'm surprised they didn't sic the IRS on them. They don't care if proceeds are still around.

Riddle me this: What grows as it shrinks? Answer: LTO tape

John Tserkezis

Re: problems.

"When you start having robotic arms, the cost of the drive starts being irrelevant, the backup device starts getting really expensive."

Back in the old days, when DAT was king, you would get cartridge compatible drives, where the plastic cartridge would hang off the edge of the desk while the DAT tapes are stacked vertically.

It would start from the top, shift the cartridge up one slot and take the next tape till done, all automagically and cost a reasonable amount. They weren't always reliable (not suitable for a dozen tapes over a weekend).

Last LTO drive I saw had a number of slots for 6 tapes, and it would internally pick the next one. Worked well.

Holy crap was it expensive.

When your data exceeds one tape, things get stupid.

Australia, here's your re-re-re-invented national web page

John Tserkezis

Oh crap. How much did this cost us?

PC World's cloudy backup failed when exposed to ransomware

John Tserkezis

Re: "years of work and important documents"

"If your stuff is important, then the onus is on you to make sure it is available"

That's nice, but many people who DO care, rely on technology they know nothing about, ending up with solutions touting buzzwords like "Military Safe" or some such bull crap.

Is the onus on them to suddenly become data security experts? Because that's what you're expecting...

Adobe will track you across all your devices with new co-op project

John Tserkezis

"Who on earth is this one upvoter?"

Probably some nut who works at Adobe, grasping at straws to keep their company afloat.