Posts by TheVogon

Re: Of course they won't listen

"you're aware that virtually the only reason we're having a general election now is for strategic and political reasons related to Brexit- right?!"

Rubbish. It's everything to do with Labour being 21 points behind in the polls due to being an ongoing muppet show - and May needing a good excuse to change her mind on an early election after repeatedly saying she wouldn't go to the polls. Very little to do with Brexit...

"4 million, or around 30%, are now classed as poor"

Poor / low income and poorly educated parents have more children. The more low paid workers we let into the country the more this figure will go up...

Re: This goes to show one thing

"Who will be returned in [..] Scotland?"

"This is irrelevant."

No it isn't - the SNP are the best protection the rest of the country has against a socialist Labour government. It's largely thanks to them that he Conservatives are in power now.

Re: This goes to show one thing

"and UKIP are dead."

They are at about 15% in the polls. That's not far off Labour. Not to mention that they got over 4 million votes last general election - that's more than the SNP. I would expect that UKIP will push Labour into third place in many constituencies.

Re: This goes to show one thing

"You actually think Labour could get it's **** together by 2020?"

Nope. Best money I ever spent voting for Corbyn. His legacy should keep the socialist loonies at bay for a good few years yet...

"That's right, but consider they should have also revoked all the access for the remote devices"

Ideally the device substitution would have been spotted, but I think that one would have got past most corporate checks I have seen. What this relies on is that the user also needs to authenticate.

The main failing here is that he was able to know another users admin credentials - and they were not changed

WiFi is not always the only way in. I have been able to plug an Ethernet cable into the back of an IP phone in a (bank's !!) reception area and meeting rooms before and get access to the corporate LAN...

Re: Serial Numbers

"So, anyone who even had half a clue (or even a quarter of a clue) should have known that turning in a laptop with a different serial number would, eventually, ring all sorts of alarm bells"

In theory, yes, but in practice many items go missing, are broken, replaced, etc. It would be unlikely to be an unusual event that would "ring alarm bells" in most environments... In my last environment we had dozens of devices (across tens of thousands) report as missing from the asset database each month.

Also with laptops, by their nature they might not appear on the network for a long time, so how do you know they are actually missing in any brief timeframe?

Re: Conversion?

"Not a stolen hammer. I pick your hammer up,"

When you pick it up, it becomes a stolen hammer...

"There really shouldn't be accessible WiFi that can allow access to production kit. "

It would be pretty useless as a corporate wifi solution if it didn't. In most corporate WiFi solutions, trusted devices with a recognised certificate can connect to the network automatically... Hence why he needed to keep the laptop to get access.

Re: Optional

"There will always be a resistance to aggressive sales tactics like this."

Erm, resistance is futile? Oh, sorry that's Google....

Seriously it will be hard to resist if you simply can't buy the hardware?

As to seeking alternatives, seeing as the most notable deployment of Linux in the workplace in Munich is likely being replaced with Windows after a decade of trying to make it work, I don't think too many CIOs are going to risk that option.

Re: Optional

"If you roll out Windows 10 today, how will you know what the future holds if Microsoft can change the rules at anytime they feel?"

If you don't want to directly cooperate with Microsoft's plans then you can always run older versions of Windows on newer hardware as a VM using Hyper-V Server (which is completely free to use) or as a VM under the newer Windows versions ;-)

"So I suggest the message isn't to a small minority of Windows users, but to very significant proportion of Windows users who are currently running Win7/8 and may well be planning their migration to Win10. "

It's mostly a message to corporates. The majority of home users never update the OS the device came with unless it's free / done for them as per Windows 10.

Re: Let's just get the Horse in front of the Wagon again..!

"I am still able to see where the trouble is actually coming from, and that the arabs didn't start it..."

Quite. Many of the previous Israeli Prime Ministers have been well known as terrorists first...

Re: Not right, but not that strange either

""Profiling is a huge part of border detection. USA, among others, have mastered this to an art form."

Citation required."

See http://imgur.com/akyHXha

Received one of these today:

https://virustotal.com/en/file/380b47a8c82b06b1be1655253259d3935b20c439518e4e5ecec8b12551e969b2/analysis/1491999567/

It pretends to be some sort of document from RBS and asks you in the visible text to turn off protected mode. Not particularly convincing, but I guess it catches some numpties...

You would have to open it AND deliberately turn off protected mode.

If a document doesn't display something I recognise when loaded, no way I would turn that off.

Re: Oddly enough. . . @SotarrTheWizard

So - translating that to something useful - In GMT that's by 6:00pm - so by 7:00pm BST...

Re: Now all it needs is some games ...

Xbox live is way ahead of Sony's PSN though for online play and matchmaking...

Re: Project Scorpio?

"Holiday 2017"

I am reliably informed that's a colonial phrase meaning "Christmas 2017".

Re: Out of sight out of mind

"how much of this no gui choice was prompted by metro junk unveiled in 2012"

None whatsoever. It's about minimal attack surface and minimum install size options...

Re: Soft target?

"Others still blindly believe the dream from the early days of Google, and cannot face what they have become."

Apparently the motto is now "Don't be caught being evil". So they send all the spying data (that is far more personally intrusive than anything Microsoft ever did - and is sold to advertisers) via HTTPS...

"I just wish I could completely turn off Google Analytics and avoid being treated like Alphabet's guinea pig."

Ghostery is available as an Edge add-in....

Re: no edge cases for MS

"If MS want to look at what's installed or even what i browse on this work machine, it is not going embarrass me"

Most of this stuff doesn't apply to business versions of Windows...

Re: I thought

"When did playing some childish game become a reason for making a committal decision that could destroy your privacy and eventually cost you a lot of money?"

Since games were available on computers?

"So with a Pixel you are going to get the most secure smartphone."

Not while it runs Android you are not...

Re: Oh wonderful

"Our currency has plummeted in value, so a net loss overall."

Nope - great for exports - and most FTSE 500 company earnings...And it means the nations debt is lower value, so a net gain...

"We haven't left the EU yet, so you can't honestly comment on the true cost yet."

See above where I make clear what we can comment on.

"The likely outcome is that trade overheads will increase because we still have to renegotiate all those agreements from a position of weakness."

Nope - we have a position of strength - they need us more than we need them. For instance the EU sells more to us than we do them. And all the free trade deals we will do will increase non EU trade.

Re: Oh wonderful

That should read "Not the best analogy..."

Re: Oh wonderful

You can call off the search. We've identified that guy who jumped off a 20 storey building, muttering "so far so good" as he passed each floor...

Not the . A closer one would be someone goes to a casino and bets 5% of what they own on red or black. There is a risk but if you loose, it's not the end of the world...

Everyone said the economy would crash as soon as we voted for Brexit - it hasn't - record highs in the FTSE, outstanding economic growth

All we know right now is we will not be paying the EU billions net each year anymore. We might stand to gain massively from trade deals. We might stand to loose from the EU depending on what is agreed. But we don't know.

What we do know is we are out for sure - once the article is invoked it's not reversible. We also know other countries are queuing up to do trade deals. Hello for instance the 52 nations / 2.3 billion people . 15 trillion GDP of the Commonwealth. Ditto, Canada, the US, India, Australia. Who mostly have forgiven us for forcing "civilisation" on them.

We can look at our status as a global financial centre - and the regulatory advantages that not being in the EU might bring. And the ability to adjust our tax rates for corporates...

We can also look at similar countries that are not in the EU like say Norway and Switzerland.

Re: so much wrong here...

"US "Edison" plugs fall out of the socket if you turn your back on them, or look at them too hard."

Not to mention leaving fugly holes every where...

Also UK 32A Ring circuits are far better tested and far safer than the crappy fused spur model used in the US and elsewhere...

Re: Re:US "Edison" plugs fall out of the socket

", just like those 5 amp sockets in old English houses should (and how many have been without the extra expense of pulling 13 amp wire? I know of at least one house which ended up with underfloor and in-wall heating thanks to a few new sockets being fitted)."

That would be houses that havn't been rewired since 1947....

Re: so much wrong here...

"Is it a rule that folks in Britain and Europe MUST find fault in everything American?"

Well you guys do tend to choose really crappy standards - generally to support some lame US company. For instance NTSC TV (or Never Twice the Same Colour as we call it) whilst most of the world went PAL, CDMA mobile phones when most of the world went for GSM, imperial measurements that most of the world stopped teaching 50 years ago, etc. etc....

Re: and things like chargers tend to have plastic prongs with metal tops.

"And the plug always has half-plastic half-metal live & neutral pins, so if it's less than half out the socket you can't see the metal,"

Since 1984 anyway. Before that they were all uninsulated, and by nice coincidence a UK copper 1 Pence coin fits tightly between the 3 prongs....

Much fun was had in school science labs, etc until they fixed that!