* Posts by Crisp

2852 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jan 2012

UK citizens will have to pay government to spy on them

Crisp

Everyone is going to need to start running a TOR relay.

If the government wants information, then I'll give them more information than they can handle.

TalkTalk to swallow £35m ‘financial impact’ after attack

Crisp

"TalkTalk takes the security of customers’ data extremely seriously"

Since when!?!

Obviously this is some new meaning of the word seriously that can only be found in the Urban Dictionary.

GCHQ director blasts free market, says UK must be 'sovereign cryptographic nation'

Crisp

I'm not sure that I entirely believe Hannigan.

"People and business in the UK should use encryption to protect themselves. "

Good. I agree with that. I don't want someone pinching my credit card number or masquerading as me online.

" All the government is saying is information needed for national security and serious crime purposes should not be beyond the lawful, warranted reach of the state when the need arises."

I understand that. But what that means is that the government wants us to have weak encryption that can be broken, or some kind of other method of decrypting the content of a transmission. And they want this method in place without anything that can be described as a "backdoor".

The fact remains that if the encryption is weak, then it can be broken by anybody. If there's a second method of decrypting the content, then that method can be discovered by anybody. The end result is the same.

Einstein's brain to be picked by satellites

Crisp

Unexpected Science

Picture the scene:

You're quite happily going about your day when suddenly...

Unexpected Science!

Ice volcanoes just part of Plutonic pandemonium

Crisp

Re: hummocky

I had to look up that word too :

"Hummocky cross-stratification is a type of sedimentary structure found in sandstones. It is a form of cross-bedding usually formed by the action of large storms, such as hurricanes. It takes the form of a series of "smile"-like shapes, crosscutting each other."

I learnt something new!

UK lawmakers warn Blighty to invest more in science, or else

Crisp

How about free university places for STEM subjects?

At the moment about the only thing you're guaranteed to get after a three year engineering degree is a £36,000 debt.

Drones are dropping drugs into prisons and the US govt just doesn't know what to do

Crisp

Equip each guard with a butterfly net.

This solution wont work. But it will be fun to see prison guards running around with butterfly nets trying to catch drones.

OmniRAT malware scurrying into Android, PC, Mac, Linux systems

Crisp

I've got four of them.

They are adorable little creatures.

Although training them is a lot harder than programming a computer.

Sun of a b... Solar winds blamed for ripping away Mars' atmosphere

Crisp

Re: With a dome is your survival is utterly reliant on a single breakable thing

So we need a double skinned dome! If one of them breaks, you've got another redundant backup to hold the atmosphere in while you make repairs.

Crisp
Boffin

Re: Or, maybe, we could reverse the direction of the [solar] wind..

Of course! Reverse the polarity!

TalkTalk offers customer £30.20 'final settlement' after crims nick £3,500

Crisp

How does Dido Harding sleep at night?

I'm guessing she sleeps fitfully on a big pile of other peoples money.

Biggest problem with virtual reality: It can be a little too real for people

Crisp

Re: "using a small tethered black hole"

Good idea, but why go to all the trouble when you can simply tile the floor in gravity plating?

UK govt sneaks citizen database aka 'request filters' into proposed internet super-spy law

Crisp

They aren't even pretending to hide their snooping now.

What's it going to take to convince them this is a bad idea? Everyone in the UK putting on a Guy Fawkes mask and marching down to London?

UK's super-cyber-snoop shopping list: Internet data, bulk spying, covert equipment tapping

Crisp

I'm sure that this will be just like RIPA

And it will only be used against pedoterrorists.

And we all know how well that turned out don't we....

Music lovers move to block Phil Collins' rebirth

Crisp

Re: Say 'No' to puns based on Phil Collins/Genesis song titles

DavCrav showing his True Colours there :)

Met makes fourth TalkTalk arrest, this time a London teen

Crisp

How much evidence do they expect to find?

I'm no criminal mastermind, but I'd have thought that when the news story broke and people started getting arrested, anyone involved would have deleted absolutely everything that could possibly contain any forensic data.

Hi, um, hello, US tech giants. Mind, um, mind adding backdoors to that crypto? – UK govt

Crisp

You can take my encryption out of my cold dead hands,

See title.

E-mail crypto is as usable as it ever was, say boffins

Crisp

Re: Fuck, what's happened to Alice and Bob?

Murder suicide pact. Eve was devastated.

Crisp

So where can I get your public key?

I'd have thought that the only truly safe way to get someone's public key would be to meet them in person or go to a key party.

NO! Not that kind of key party! This kind of party!

Yamaha unleashes motorcycling robot

Crisp
Go

It's an Evel Knievel Stunt Bike!

Just scaled up.

'Govt will not pass laws to ban encryption' – Baroness Shields

Crisp

So there's no intention to weaken encryption or provide back doors

Except that Baroness Shields says in the next breath "that companies that provide end-to-end encrypted applications [...] must be subject to decryption and that information handed over to law enforcement "in extremis"." blatantly contradicting herself.

The trouble is, any mechanism that enables the government to ask for decryption "in extremis" means that there's a mechanism there to be exploited by other people that might want to see my data.

Oracle's Larry Ellison claims his Sparc M7 chip is hacker-proof – Errr...

Crisp

Re: 18.4 million terabytes?

That should be enough for anybody...

TalkTalk attack: Lad, 15, cuffed by UK cyber-cops

Crisp

The age of criminal responsibilty

Is 10 apparently.

US Army bug hunters in 'state of fear' that sees flaws go unreported

Crisp
Coat

Is this going to be a standup fight, sir, or another bughunt?

When else are you ever going to get the chance to use that line?

TalkTalk plays 'no legal obligation' card on encryption – fails to think of the children (read: its customers)

Crisp

What qualifies Dido Harding to run a major broadband provider?

A degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and a peerage apparently. No wonder she doesn't have a clue about all this new fangled encryption and stuff.

UK MPs have right old whinge about ‘defunct’ Wilson Doctrine

Crisp

Well if those MP's have nothing to hide...

Then they've got nothing to fear surely?

CIA boss uses AOL email – and I hacked it, claims stoner teen

Crisp

What is it about stoners and hacking?

Does smoking pot give people hacking superpowers or something?

After Burner: Sega’s jet-fighting, puke-inducing arcade marvel

Crisp

The music in this game was awesome

I remember getting the demo tape off the front of a magazine for this and on the B side they had the music from the arcade version.

Shocker: Net anarchist builds sneaky 220v USB stick that fries laptops

Crisp
Paris Hilton

I've got a similar device

It's basically a kettle lead with the end cut off and an exposed live wire.

(Why is there no BOFH icon?)

Volvo to 'accept full liability' for crashes with its driverless cars

Crisp

How do these cars cope with motorcyclists?

How do they compare to regular human meat drivers when it comes to spotting them?

LASER RAZOR blunted by KickStarter ban

Crisp

Re: Phew!

I agree. We should hold out for a prototype that's a cut above the rest.

Factory settings FAIL: Data easily recovered from eBayed smartphones, disks

Crisp

Thermite

It's the most secure (and fun) way to erase data.

Tiny Robot Smartphone: Invasion Earth 2016 – prepare to be facially recognised humans

Crisp
Coat

I can't find my phone at the best of times...

I can imagine this problem will only get worse once my phone literally has the ability to wander off.

Pluto's moon SPLIT OPEN by ancient FROZEN OCEAN

Crisp

If the water based lava was under the surface...

Shouldn't it be called water based magma?

Mars water discovery is a liberal-muslim plot, cry moist conspiracy theorists

Crisp

Rush Limbaugh is real?!?

I thought he was political satire, like Stephen Colbert.

MYSTERY PARTICLE BLASTS from Ceres strike NASA probe Dawn

Crisp

Oh no! Not harvest puns!

At yeast you used your loaf and put some thought into it.

What does EU farm subsidy get spent on? Yes, broadband for Irish farmers

Crisp
Boffin

I think bandwidth lake is more appropriate

The Internet is not something that you just dump a load of stuff on. It's not a mountain. You see, the internet is like a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled. And if they are filled, then emptying them would create a lake.

FBI: We unmasked and collared child porn creep on Tor with spy tool

Crisp

Re: I saw this documentary once

The problem with that is the children in that material are real people just like you and me, and they might not want their documented abuse available for perverts to use.

Would you want naked pictures of yourself available to perverts on a register?

Herbie Goes Under Investigation: German prosecutors probe ex-VW CEO Winterkorn

Crisp

Re: he was unaware of the "defeat device"

It doesn't really matter if he says he was unaware or not.

He is the CEO, and ultimately the buck stops with him.

Thousands of 'directly hackable' hospital devices exposed online

Crisp
Flame

That's bloody criminal!

Do they not know or just not care? Either way it's only a matter of time before some radiology machine gets hacked and someone gets a lethal dose of radiation.

It's not like they can plead poverty either. A decent IT staff costs a lot less than one doctor.

Will IT support please come to the ward immediately. Weeeee have a tricky problem

Crisp

I had an interesting case once...

The company I was working for at the time had a large number of old windows XP machines that I was maintaining and one user had an issue where her machine would keep switching itself off.

After looking at the machine and reproducing the problem but finding nothing wrong with the software, I decided to pop the case off.

Spiders started running out from everywhere and the machine was thick with webs inside. By some miracle of engineering the fan was still turning but only just. Anyway, after half an hour with a toothbrush and a vacuum cleaner I finally got the damn thing stable again and handed the working machine back to the user.

Naturally, she wanted to know what was wrong with it and how I'd fixed it. So I told her that the machine was stuffed with webs and spiders. "Oh... is that an internet thing" She asked.

"No." I replied. "You literally had a PC filled with spiders."

NEW ERA for HUMANITY? NASA says something 'major' FOUND ON MARS

Crisp

I'm surprised that no one has suggested Mysterons yet.

We know that you can hear us ...

We saw the future: Apart from the bath apps it looks like the past

Crisp

I was excited about the pinball coffee table...

Until I saw that it was £6,500...

And the pinball bit didn't actually work.

NIST's quantum boffins have TELEPORTED stuff over a HUNDRED KILOMETRES

Crisp

Ping times measured in nanoseconds.

This will revolutionise the gaming industry!

My parents don't know I'm in SEO. They think I play piano in a brothel

Crisp
Coat

Re: Okay...

Enema?

I'll get my coat.

Astro-boffins plan 3D plot of the universe

Crisp
Coat

What's the snow like there?

Apparently the telescope consists of cylindrical reflectors roughly the size and shape of snowboarding half-pipes.

BOFH: Press 1. Press 2. Press whatever you damn well LIKE

Crisp
Pint

A hollow voice says...

plugh!

We are the Knights who code Ni!

Crisp

The Ministry of Silly Languages

Have they applied for a grant?

BBC Micro:bit delayed by power supply SNAFU

Crisp

Re: Why new hardware?

What we need is a programming language based on txtspeak...

Hang on... That's CJam isn't it?

Crisp

Re: Why new hardware?

Have you tried doing any kind of non-trivial development work on a tablet? I wouldn't wish that experience on anybody!