* Posts by DropBear

4733 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Mar 2013

I survived a head-on crash with driverless cars – and dummies

DropBear

Re: I wonder...

Well, let's see - the AI won't be paying for any potential extra repairs caused by not avoiding potholes, but will have been configured by people acutely aware they'll be on the hook for any problems originating in a misguided attempt to swerve around said potholes. Does that answer you question...?

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

DropBear

Re: The 'Powers That Be' like crypto being unusable by laypeople

I'm not all that convinced Google gives a crap about encrypted personal communication - they want to know what they should be advertising to you, and in my experience not all that much of that sort of thing gets talked about in private mail. Do you really boast all that often to your mates "this new Konica-Minolta XYZ-123 is awesome, all my Bahamas photos came out great!"..? Because even if you did that (encrypted), that's not the mail Google is interested in - it rather cares about the Amazon receipt confirming purchase of one XYZ-123 and that other proof of purchase for two flight tickets to Bahamas and back - both of which would be by definition unencrypted...

Why was the modem down? Let us count the ways. And phone lines

DropBear

Re: Modems weren't bad

"WTF is RS323?"

Who knows, maybe it's one of those newfangled 3V logic level modems, so you have to connect it through a MAX3232 instead of the classic ye olde 5V MAX232...

DropBear
Trollface

Re: Luxury

"The only letters we could send were E, H, I and S."

I don't get it - so what stopped you designating one of those "0" and some other as "1"...?!? Sheesh, kids these days...

The only GOOD DRONE is a DEAD DRONE. Y'hear me, scumbags?!

DropBear

Re: Presentation / Ronnie

Hey, everyone knows that in the original version the airplane door shot first so it's all ok...

DropBear

Re: Quick

"Maybe Logan's Run had it right."

As long as you don't mind that Logan himself seemed to have an issue with that, sure...

Yamaha unleashes motorcycling robot

DropBear
Joke

Ah, no - those are just the crop duster attachments...

DEFCON 1 to DEFCON GONE: One of NORAD's spy blimps goes missing

DropBear
Trollface

Re: According to the LA Times it's porkalicious

"Sometimes it's impressive that the west has a brass-enough neck to go sermonising upon corruption to the likes of Greece."

Well yes, they keep it where it belongs - in the lofty realm of People Who Matter; after all it would be an outrage for each and every petty serf - barely above hoi-polloi - to enjoy the same privilege...

We're getting kick-ass at seeing through walls using just Wi-Fi – MIT

DropBear

Re: Hostage breech

Good grief! Just what sort of ordnance you reckon a breech-loading house would take?!?

DropBear
Trollface

Re: What about the perverts?

Well, you clearly don't remember pre-internet BBS-era gifs (not to even mention print-out ASCII pinups...)

DropBear

Re: X-Ray Specs

That would have to be one heck of a MIMO router, if it would have as many antennas as many cables go to that... thing...

DropBear
Trollface

Re: So newfound reasons...

"Sheet metal armour may be unnecessary, you can probably get away with chain mail and a decent helm."

That would be worth it just for the giggles when they try to tase you alone...

DropBear
Trollface

Re: Very actually clever

Can I please see the same test being run again, now with a microwave oven active somewhere nearby...?

Safe Harbor 2.0: Judges to keep NSA spying in check – EU justice boss

DropBear
Unhappy

I guess we'll have to fall back to ye olde "vote with your wallets" scheme, which - considering those who give a s##t are likely a mere drop in the ocean of those who really don't, just as long as they "can get on Facebook" - probably means we're stuck with the "same old, same old" in perpetuity...

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

DropBear

Re: Where are we getting "banning encryption" from?

"Mandatory key disclosure..."

...I guess you know you have a really bad day when you find yourself having to pay that one bitcoin just to be able to prove that it really was cryptowall who ate your disk and you're not just playing the idiot card insisting you really can't decrypt it when prompted to...

DropBear

"At least they're not suggesting backdoors in encryption either, I suppose."

No, they're basically suggesting compulsory key escrow. Is that really any better...?

DropBear
Trollface

Re: So how do you distinguish REALLY good encryption from noise?

"What do you think AES in counter mode is?"

Well, if they're in a good mood they just might allow the AES electronic code book mode...

US Senate approves CISA cyber-spy-law, axes privacy safeguards

DropBear

Re: Bend over, citizens

"In any case, none of this will make any difference."

I beg to differ. It will indeed make no difference whatsoever to current actual practice regarding these matters - snoopers will continue to snoop exactly as before; however, what this does is push further the perception that snooping is an ok (or even virtuous) thing to do, both in political circles and in public view. Granted, the post-Snowden public is not exactly receptive to being snooped on but the general opinion is slowly swaying towards less and less expected privacy already - just compare what millennials think is acceptable to what we old farts think is...

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

DropBear
Facepalm

Re: 4 bits one in 16

Thankfully, crashes these days are so exceedingly rare they would also immediately raise a red flag of nefarious stuff going on.

...oh, wait... (want an instant BSOD STOP error on your PC, in Anno Domini 2015? Upgrade to the latest Steam client! True story!)

WhatsApp laid bare: Info-sucking app's innards probed

DropBear

Re: From my reading of the paper

No, that's a paper. No argument there. Now where's the story?

Balloon-lofted space podule hits 30,000m

DropBear
Joke

Re: Helium balloons

"It's a good job that Helium is such a renewable resource here on Earth"

Pshhh, that's easy - you just make the balloon come back as well, with another parachute...

No, seriously, NASA will fly a probe through Saturn's moon plumes

DropBear
Joke

Re: Anyone...

Shhhh, keep it down! Don't you know they're called "Luminosity-Challenged Monoliths" these days?!?

Russian subs prowling near submarine cables: report

DropBear
Trollface

Re: Oh, and another thing...

"Weren't they having a jolly good time in Afghanistan in the '80s?"

Damn right they did. I should know - I've watched Rambo...

Joining the illuminati? Just how bright can a smart bulb really be?

DropBear
Trollface

It is, but only for the bright enough ones who can find the randomly scattered letters of the invitation in the article text. I hope you're good at steganography...

DropBear

Re: I agree with all of the posts so far (which is a first)

"Neon switches make finding them much easier in the dark too"

Indeed, and I like them quite a lot - unfortunately, they are incompatible with most anything that isn't an old incandescent lightbulb, so they are a dying breed.

So what's the internet community doing about the NSA cracking VPN, HTTPS encryption?

DropBear
Facepalm

Re: Questions

"(n! Factorial)"

Oh dear. Ten to the power 600 _factorial_ is... is... one of those things reserved exclusively for the members of the "Kwisatz Haderach" club... *headasplode*

New Horizons: Pluto? Been there, done that – now for something 6.4 billion km away

DropBear

Re: Spacecraft? Spacecraft.

Upvoted for the Phoenix reference - from the _original_ not the remake, natch.

BYOD battery bloodbath? Facebook 'fesses up to crook code

DropBear
Trollface

"...upgrading your BYOD-wielders..."

For maximum lulz (seeing as how it is Friday and all) do like I did and misread that part as "BYOD-welders". Maybe it's just me but I find the idea of a bunch of corporate suits toting around their own heavy MIG/TIG welders on caster wheels remarkably amusing...

Hackers hit NATO, White House – then aimed at MH17 air disaster probe

DropBear

Re: Did you know that...

"Did you just say he has people filter his tweets?"

No, he just watched yesterday's South Park episode and apparently feels compelled to riff on it... </annoyed>

Anons blow Japanese airports off-course in dolphin cull protest

DropBear
Facepalm

...and once the terrifying attacks subsided, the king gathered his brave men - all visibly shaken but unharmed - and announced that no creature of the high seas shall be harmed ever again, henceforth. Then there was great merriment and they all lived happily ever after.

...oh, wait...

El Reg celebrates Back to the Future Day

DropBear

"...but never mind that. Listen, could you get me a few proper 100W lightbulbs...?"

Bosch, you suck! Dyson says VW pal cheated in vacuum cleaner tests

DropBear
Happy

Re: I bought a Sebo

Well, I bought a... hold on, I never did. I actually use the vacuum my grandma used - I kid you not. It's a Russian "Vityaz" from the eighties trucking on like nobody's business, and since it's textile "bag"-based (actually just a large 'diaphragm' separating the dust container from the motor) I never had to buy anything for it. Not long ago the bearings finally got a bit wonky - nothing a bearing puller and a bit of (elbow) grease couldn't fix. This thing is all-metal, it could probably survive a direct hit from orbit, let alone a few tear-downs. At some point the hose ended up ripping open at the inlet - at which point I gleefully discovered that the spiral wire-spine of the hose is simply jam-screwed into the plastic end-piece; unscrew -> saw off torn end -> screw back in -> bob's your uncle, good as new. As long as it keeps purring like a kitten I don't see why I would get another one...

DropBear

Re: Energy, not power....

"would it not be better to measure airflow rate compared to power used ?"

I kid you not - they already do...

NASA deep space scope serves up EPIC Earth snapshots

DropBear

Re: Nice pics

...you mean like this...?

DropBear
Joke

Re: They would say that..

But, but, but... there's supposed to be some flags on the Moon, and I can't see any in that picture! It's clearly a fake!!!

DropBear
Devil

Re: How small and beautiful

Hardly surprising, really. From that distance and at that scale obviously not all that much detail is discernible - and as we well know, the devil is in the details...

Our intuitive AI outperforms (most) puny humans, claims MIT

DropBear
Facepalm

Oh great - we finally have machines that can do Rorschach tests. Still dumb as a brick, mind you, but now a brick that can be psychoanalysed! Progress FTW...!

Get ready to register your drones in the US – or else

DropBear

Re: How are they going to enforce it?

So basically all you need is a DIY-able cheap-enough-to-be-quasi-disposable non-line-of-sight drone (in 3...2...1...) and you're basically golden.

Lotus F1: 38°C? Sand in your Vblocks? Must be building a data center in Bahrain again

DropBear

"The IT department doesn't have the luxury of choosing between performance and reliability."

Well, that only tends to become a problem when it also has to be cheap, clearly not the case here. As they say - pick any two...

Let's talk about that NSA Diffie-Hellman crack

DropBear
Facepalm

Re: Hard coded primes?

"The reason they felt it was safe was that they didn't believe it was computationally feasible to do what has been done."

...or, to put it differently, they thought security with a single point of failure was worthy of being called security. Proper job, gents!

New Nexus 5X, 6P smarties: Google draws a line in the sand

DropBear

Re: These are not the droids I'm looking for...

"Two suggestions:"

3: You probably could just shove an appropriately tiny USB stick into the phone's OTG connector and have it recognized as a removable mass storage drive (at any rate, the Galaxy S2 way back before the big bang could do it just fine). The exact logistics of connector type/cable/adapter/etc. and actual practicality remain a bit unclear though...

DropBear
Trollface

"Google's latest smartphones, which all lack an SD card slot in much the same way most other mobiles don't, were announced last week..."

Standards body wants standards for IoT. Vendors don't care

DropBear

Re: IOT is a lot of bedroom ideas from unskilled techies

" I'm still struggling to see what the IoT will do for me."

You and everyone else on the planet, including the manufacturers themselves. None of them could even come up with an idea worth stealing, we're all still stuck at the "teasmade, now on the internet" level...

Minicab-hailing app Uber is lawful – UK High Court

DropBear

Re: Watch the taximob shills come crawling out of the woodwork

"If they spend the afternoon blocking the road outside my office again..."

Well, hurt them back where they feel it - perhaps a large printout of a bunch of A4's in the office window, spelling out "RIGHT NOW YOU MAKE ME LIKE UBER EVEN MORE" or somesuch is in order...

Radio wave gun zaps drones out of the sky – and it's perfectly legal*

DropBear

"Why?"

That's easy - so as to immediately avert any ideas you might get about "Hey, I could build one of these too". It's carefully crafted PR-slang to make you think "oh, unreachable for me..."

Microsoft now awfully pushy with Windows 10 on Win 7, 8 PCs – Reg readers hit back

DropBear

Re: That horse left the barn decades ago!

Well yes and no. Ok so they weren't ever properly honourable, but there is such a thing as honour among thieves, ie. "there are certain clients we want satisfied and certain lines we won't cross". Well, yeah, about that - they just did...

DropBear
Trollface

Re: Hardware support/drivers

"didn't support a bog-standard S3-based graphics card"

Serves you right! What were you doing there without a _proper_ Tseng or Trident one?!?

DropBear

Re: Hmmm ...

I figured I'd have the last laugh sooner or later as the XP SP2 user who never connected to Microsoft HQ for any updates whatsoever, like, ever. I'm pretty damn sure I'm still virus free. How are you guys doin'...?

You can hack a PC just by looking at it, say 3M and HP

DropBear
Joke

Re: Hmm.

That's only true for the 1.0 version. Mark II will include patented lightsaber technology, and the photons will stop propagating past half a meter or so from the screen...

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

DropBear
Facepalm

Re: He obviously read my comment on the previous article

A mod of this needs to go on Kickstarter, stat. It should read "USB inverter with 220V output! Plug in your power brick and power your laptop from its own USB port for free indefinitely!" If things go the usual way, the campaign would be at least halfway through before anything happens...