* Posts by David Roberts

1606 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Jan 2007

AI quickly cooks malware that AV software can't spot

David Roberts
Pint

Just link the virus checker to an AI

Game on!

Windows Subsystem for Linux to debut in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update

David Roberts

Windows access to Linux files?

Are we talking lack of simple file sharing, or just lack of direct support of native Linux file system types?

Australia's .au internet registry chair quits amid no-confidence vote

David Roberts
WTF?

Strange tale

It starts with a new chairman getting stuck into the snouts in the trough and then morphs into the organisation being stealthed.

What brought about the change in direction?

Unkind to consider that it might have been the realisation of just how much money was under the table and up for grabs.

"We've sorted out all the bad practices of the last lot. All new and shiny now! Proof? We'd love to but corporate best practice. Nothing to see here, just move along please."

Pre-order your early-bird pre-sale product today! (Oh did we mention the shipping date has slipped AGAIN?)

David Roberts
Windows

Re: Excellent HHGTG reference

Hah!

I spit on your VHS and raise you a Betamax!

BOFH: Oh go on. Strap me to your Hell Desk, PFY

David Roberts
Pint

Masterly analysis

Of the evolution of the office desk.

I have an old style desk in the shed which I hope to press back into service once the Tuit is sufficiently round.

Currently using an aircraft carrier sized multi level Ikea desk where at least half of the surface is unusable behind other bits of kit. Built like a brick walled shithouse though.

Sysadmin jeered in staff cafeteria as he climbed ladder to fix PC

David Roberts

Re: Windows for Worgroups

Arcnet?

Cellphone kill switches kill cellphone snatchers

David Roberts
Alert

Re: Cellphone kill switches kill cellphone snatchers...

We would like to apologise for the minor bug in our latest "kill switch" software.

We advise users to roll back to the previous version.

Standing on a rubber block and wearing gloves.

USA to screen tablets,
e-readers and handheld games before they fly

David Roberts
WTF?

The surprise message is

That they don't routinely scan carry on luggage.

O.K. you don't generally get scanned before getting the bus or train but neither of those is likely to fall out of the sky.

Smoking hot Galaxy S8 and storage sales fire Samsung to flaming brilliant quarter

David Roberts

Apparently some firms

Really are too big to fail.

Wisconsin badgers Apple to cough up half a billion dollars for ripping off chip designs

David Roberts
Coat

Re: Curious

Conversely how do you establish that your really great idea is already buried somewhere in an obscure patent?

As far as I can tell in the USA software engineers patent everything they produce down to trivial levels including any interesting variance of their morning turds.

--> Just hanging my coat up before.....

Meg Whitman OUT at HP ...Inc

David Roberts

Always remember this was not HP.

HP was a skilled and ethical engineering company, enormously respected throughout the industry.

The "HP" of recent years was just a massive Borg of all sorts of once great companies including EDS which at the end was itself another massive Borg of once great companies.

'SambaCry' malware scum return with a Windows encore

David Roberts
Paris Hilton

Autoupdate?

Yeah, I'm cool about having a back door in my router so the manufacturer (they keep good secrets, no?) can overwrite the firmware any time they please.

I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

NB this does seem pretty standard for ISP supplied routers, but then again they don't seem to fix known problems anyway. Looking at you VM.

At least with anything less than W10 you get some notification that an update is pending with a choice of when/if. Much the same if you are lucky enough to still get updates for your phone. How will you decide if you want the update to your router?

Las Vegas locks down ahead of DEF CON hacking conference

David Roberts

Or superglue the socket to.....

........oh, wait.......

Pathetic patching leaves over 70,000 Memcached servers still up for grabs

David Roberts
Happy

Made me look

First written in Perl then rewritten in C. Old school.

Briton admits to router hack that DDoSed Deutsche Telekom

David Roberts

Danny Kaye?

He still around?

systemd'oh! DNS lib underscore bug bites everyone's favorite init tool, blanks Netflix

David Roberts
Windows

Re: Underscore? What is a hostname?

Back when I was a lad the hostname was the leftmost part of the fully qualified domian name.

If your local computer was called wally (the host name) you could refer to it as "wally" in your local domain but had to refer to it as "wally.mydomain.co.uk" from elsewhere.

So I assume (without looking it up) that "wally.my_domain.co.uk" might also be valid?

Or has hostname (as with many other things) been changed to a more "modern" meaning?

David Roberts
Facepalm

DNS Resolver

Or DNS revolver?

Gone daddy gone: GoDaddy offloads its cloud businesses

David Roberts

Partial sale

What is left. Value?

UK ministers' Broadband '2.0' report confuses superfast with 10Mbps

David Roberts

Don't have access to the Internet

Does this include those who don't want access?

Can't be arsed to chase up the figures but a better measure might be households/dewllings with no possibility of Internet connection (fixed or mobile).

'Bio-hacker' embeds public transport ticket under his skin

David Roberts
Windows

Simple explanation?

IIRC the ticket inspectors (been to Sydney, bought an Opal card, used it loads) check that your card is valid by looking at it.

There are some special cards including those for pensioners which give cheaper travel. You have to have a valid gold card to use one though.

Perhaps they don't carry scanners to ID the chip?

Perhaps the physical card has anti-fraud measures built in?

Perhaps I'm just confusing it with the pre-Opal system?

Repairable-by-design Fairphone runs out of spare parts

David Roberts

Printers?

How much would you pay, though?

There is a cost to stocking and supplying spare parts, and when you can get a new "loss leader" for 30-40 UKP to suck you into buying yet more ink the repair would have to be pretty damn cheap.

David Roberts

4 year life?

So just the same as my Samsung Galaxy S3. Dead from a hardware fault and not really worth repairing, because you shell out a load of money and get a 4 year old phone with no OS support in return.

No mention in the article about OS updates either. I trust there is ongoing ethical support of the software for those who still have working hardware.

Microsoft hits new low: Threatens to axe classic Paint from Windows 10

David Roberts

Outlook Express?

Thought that went before Windows Live Mail which is more or less history now.

Kill something, then hire cleaners to mop up the blood if you want to build a digital business

David Roberts
Windows

By the time you get there

DevOps will have been discarded for something more fashionable.

So your systems will be legacy.

Al Capone was done for taxes. Now Microsoft's killing domain-squatters with trademark law

David Roberts

Next up

microsoftsucks,org

Yes, I did check it exists.

Sweden leaked every car owners' details last year, then tried to hush it up

David Roberts
Headmaster

Just me?

"Type, model, weight, and any defects of any and all government and military vehicles, including their operator”.

I wonder what type, model and weight the average operator is and what their defects are.

Burglary, robbery, kidnapping and a shoot-out over… a domain name?!

David Roberts
Unhappy

Murica

Apparently if you are a visiting Yoga teacher from Australia, reporting that an assault on another woman may be in progress is enough to get you shot by Police.

I can't off hand think of anyone less threatening than a female Yoga teacher.

Ten new tech terms I learnt this summer: Do you know them all?

David Roberts
Windows

Broadband

Unless my memory fails me (which it often does) I think this used to describe a modulation technique where a single physical cable carried multiple signals at different frequencies.

However it was redefined by marketeers in terms of speed to avoid confusing people.

David Roberts
Windows

Re: "weaved"

Useage: I weaved it cos i din like it

'Millions of IoT gizmos' wide open to hijackers after devs drop gSOAP

David Roberts

SOAP

I didn't read in the report that these versions of the SOAP libraries were used ONLY in IoT devices.

It would be good to have a list of all the software which relies on the libraries.

Granted that IoT is one of the areas least likely to patch. Given that the pricing does not seem to allow for ongoing software maintenance. Much like the Android mobile phone and tablet market, amongst others.

Disclosure: posting from a Sony Xperia Z tablet which still seems to be going strong but hasn't had an OS update for years.

It would be nice if people who want bug fixes and software upgrades could subscribe to a support agreement. Which should of course reflect the true cost of support. Then anyone whinging that their 10 year old OS isn't being patched for free would have one less leg to stand on.

Amazon may still get .amazon despite govt opposition – thanks to a classic ICANN cockup

David Roberts
FAIL

What is the point

Of having byelaws if there is no was to ensure that they are enforced?

The EPO is another shining example of this approach.

Let's harden Internet crypto so quantum computers can't crack it

David Roberts
Paris Hilton

Public key?

Isn't one of the main features of a public key that it is globally visible and so can be authenticated by a trusted global resource such as a signed certificate?

This seems to be using asymetric key pairs but there is no mention of how each end authenticates the identity of the other.

Unless one half of the asymetric key pair is encrypted using non quantum existing technology?

We'll hit THAT 95% Sigfox coverage target using telly aerials, says WND-UK

David Roberts

Re: Soooo...

My initial thoughts.

However the base station has a Yagi allegedly covered by existing planning laws (thus allegedly avoiding the planning regulations for mobile phone base stations). Nothing about the consumer equipment which will be transmitting to the base station.

David Roberts

Re: Note that "95% coverage by population" Ionica

IIRC the business case for Ionica was based on a successful roll out in countries without an existing infrastructure.

Going up against an established Telco with a virtual monopoly turned out to be different.

This does sound hauntingly similar. South America for previous success?

UK government's war on e-cigs is over

David Roberts
Pint

Psychosomatic?

Just because an adverse reaction to clouds of vape is held to be psychsomatic that doesn't automatically make it "not a problem".

The general concensus seems to be that vaping is not proven to be biologically harmful. However there is a feeling that obtrusive vaping is socially unacceptable in some locations.

From the anecdotal evidence in this discussion it seems that a blanket ban on vaping in public areas such as pubs and restaurants is achieving the desired effect. Undetectable unobtrusive vaping still takes place but the cloud factories are not allowed.

Given that, it seems to be a pragmatic solution.

I am against anything which encourages anti-social people to extend their personal space by pumping out visible clouds of {whatever}. Purely for reasons of personal comfort. It won't kill you is not IMHO the main issue. It will take a long time to break the link in the human mind between all the evils of smoking tobacco and people {not really} smoking a tobacco substitute. It is a very difficult line to tread between a legal ban and effective social pressure.

Whatever the underlying evidence, I am much more comfortable if I am not aware of people vaping.

Drink beer, a legal high ->

Hang on, scientifically it is actually a depressant....

Edit: vaping does need to be regulated to ensure that the liquids remain safe. Just food, drink, drugs common sense.

Security robot falls into pond after failing to spot stairs or water

David Roberts

It doesn't say

How long the robot was missing in the pond before security staff noticed.

So quite some time, probably.

Brit neural net pioneer just revolutionised speech recognition all over again

David Roberts

Sounds similar to the way we work.

Context and hidden cues are important.

One fine example is Peter Kay who does part of his act telling you an alternative lyric to a song then lip syncing to the track. You hear the alternative lyric because your mind and eyes have been given misleading additional information.

Which leads me to conclude that a fine test for this kind of software would be the accurate transcription of pop song lyrics.

Three Microsoft Outlook patches unpatched, users left to DIY

David Roberts
Linux

Explanation point?

Bang! Shriek!!*

* this should probably be exclamation point.

Google unleashes 20m lab-created blood-thirsty freaks on a city. And this is a good thing, it says

David Roberts
Coat

Sexist approach?

Releasing infected males to mate with wild females...hang on.....cold shower....aaahhh....now where was I?

Oh, yes.

I assume that they decided that releasing infected females to waste the efforts of wild males...{sploosh.....damn that's cold.....aaahhh} would be less effective although ISTR that has been tried with other species.

-> hanging my coat up to keep it dry

Linus Torvalds may have damned systemd with faint praise

David Roberts
Linux

Re: praise?

For example "systemd actually sucks slightly less than some really bad bits of init".

HTHHND

Ashley Madison throws $11.2m on the bed to mop up leak affair

David Roberts
Trollface

Confirming blackmail status?

No, no, no that wasn't me.

Somebody else used my name and email address.

I completely refute......

......

.....hang on, money you say?

Well, yes, where do I sign?

Burglary in mind? Easy, just pwn the home alarm

David Roberts
Paris Hilton

iSmart

As in "Ouch. That's gotta smart!"

Beware, sheep rustlers of the South West of England! Police drone spy unit gets to work

David Roberts
Black Helicopters

Back in real life

I've seen a very sensible use of a drone by the emergency services.

Mind you, in Katooma, NSW, Australia.

There is a mahoosive stairway from the Echo Point viewing area down to the valley floor.

Someone was reported to be in trouble near the bottom.

They sent a drone down to check this out before commiting to sending someone down all those 800+ steps.

Luxembourg passes first EU space mining law. One can possess the Spice

David Roberts
Happy

Re: They need more than just this

Goldskins?

User left unable to type passwords after 'tropical island stress therapy'

David Roberts
Paris Hilton

Nailed it in one

I think....

'Help! I'm stuck in this ATM,' writes poor bloke on a scribbled note

David Roberts
Coat

Classic

Man In The Middle situation.

U Vlad bro? Docker accidentally cuts off Ukraine

David Roberts
WTF?

Putting sanctions into context

Apparently (from the report) a lot of those hit just used a proxy to get round the block.

Bite, sanctions, bite..........

Don't panic, but your Bitcoins may just vanish into the ether next month

David Roberts
Coat

Ransomware?

Just SPAM everyone telling them you have made their Bitcoin disappear and demand a Western Union transfer to make them reappear.

Kind of reverse ferret.

European Parliament keen to throw news publishers a bone

David Roberts
WTF?

Only Google and Facebook?

So we can post e.g. Daily Mail links here free of charge?

Struggling to make sense of this.

Do you need permission to retweet a news story?

Or does this just apply if you are charging money to view the links?

It's July 2017 – and your expensive HoloLens can be pwned over Wi-Fi

David Roberts
Paris Hilton

What a big nose you've got!

Oh, wait.....