Posts by gnasher729

Re: Hmm

I once thought about buying a chainsaw. Then I figured out that the things are bloody dangerous when you don't know how to use them properly, and I don't. Therefore I don't have a chainsaw.

Re: Only some are patched

That team of five to support 5% ancient Macs would be more effective if they helped protecting the 95% non-ancient Macs. And consider that these five are either among the most experienced developers that Apple has, or they are newbies who have no experience with these old machines whatsoever.

Re: What happens to the seized coins?

Government will repay the value of the bitcoin at the time it was stolen. Then sell the rest to the highest bidder. Of course they can easily be "cancelled", just throw away the keys.

Re: As someone that actually does this job

Years ago, I read an interesting article about Gerd Falting, German mathematician, Field medal winner, and the guy who proved Fermat's Last Theorem for n < 130,000. He wanted to go to the USA. His German university wanted to keep him. They were not able to pay him half the salary he got in the USA. Not because they didn't have the money, but because regulations made it impossible.

Re: Count me in...eventually

Blimey, so your iPad is 12 years old and not supported with new updates anymore... Is it still working? Does it have a 64 bit processor? Since I'm writing iOS software, what do you think are your chances of convincing me to support a 32 bit processor?

And you are calling it a "first generation" product. Well, there was the A4, then the A5, then the A6, then the A7 (that's the first 64 bit processor), then the A8, then the A9, then the A10, then the A11, then the A12, then the A13, and then the M1 - renamed because they stick it into Macs.

Re: re: In a global pandemic

I noticed that while walking the dog on a cold morning. Surprisingly high number of people wearing masks outside. Most likely yes, because they keep your face warm.

I remember when I was a kid, I had to walk to and from school through meter deep snow, uphill both ways. On sandals, no socks. Of course Y2K was more effort in total. This was more _immediate_ effort, fix it asap.

Re: "remove clickable links in text messages or e-mails sent to retail customers"

Barclays sends me a notification for anything, within seconds. But through iOS push notifications to their app, not SMS, so that should be pretty hard to forge - a fraudster would have to convince Apple that a push notification comes from Barclays, and they would need a token for the combination (my phone, Barclays app) that Apple sent me.

Re: More misdirection.............

Well, RSA as described in my 1982 edition of "The Art Of Computer Programming" is mathematically quite easy (as long as you accept that every prime number has a primitive root), and while not very efficient, would be efficient enough for an iPhone to encrypt or decrypt a few megabytes per second using 2048 bit keys and quite unbreakable.

Re: OK something I've never understood in this case

One of the two of us blatantly misunderstands how this works. If someone can change some code to allow access to someone’s Bitcoin, presumably his own, then hackers can access everyone’s Bitcoin by changing the same code in the same way.

It's also a matter of money. Going to London costs a lot of money, train fare, food... If I look at the numbers, and consider that I pay 40% tax on that number which means the employer has to pay me 66.66%, and then add next year's 15% employer NI contributions, it makes easily £10,000 difference in the money the employer has to spend more so that I have the same amount in my pocket. And that doesn't take into account two or three hours of travel every day.

So if A wants to hire me for 5 days a week in the office, and B wants to hire me to work from home, A has to spend a lot more money for me to take their job.

Re: A small proposal

Couldn’t the signal towers at least in flight paths be programmed not to beam upwards? Like “don’t connect to anything higher than 100 feet”, assuming they don’t build high rise flats in the flight path to an airport?

Re: Not just birds

From my experience with home insurance: They covered everything, except for the thing that broke. If your roof leaks and you fix it before it causes real damage, they don't pay for the roof repair. Happened to me. If a 10 pound part in your bathroom breaks, and water leaks downstairs slowly, causing £5,000 damage before it is noticed, they pay for everything except the £10 part - happened to me as well.

Re: Austism Defense

I thought when someone is autistic, and a woman says "no", the autistic person hears "no" and assumes she means "no". Problems may happen if the woman is not clear. "Maybe another time" is understood as "maybe another time", where I would understand it as "no".

Re: I recognise the story

"I had to organise a course on how to fit a plug on a mains lead for my comms team"

Many years ago I had to take a first aid course to get my driving license. The guy running the course was a professional paramedic with years of training - but had never in his life taken a simple four hour "first aid" course. So when he wanted his driving license, he checked and he wasn't allowed to take his own first aid course because he couldn't be the course trainer and a course participant at the same time; he had to take a course run by a colleague.

Don't tell his future ex-wife.

Re: Cry me a river (of fake tears)

Nonsense. You can sell ads as much as you like. The only difference is: The ISP doesn't know which ads I see (none of their business anyway), Apple doesn't know which ads I see (none of their business anyway), and the advertiser doesn't know who is watching their ad, but they know someone is.

I needed a lawyer once (for advice before acting - that’s the most effective use of a lawyer), and he told me “I’ve won cases that I should have lost, and I’ve lost cases that I should have won; once you’re in court anything can happen”.

To him it would have been entirely reasonable to call the patent case “frivolous” and at the same time take actions to minimise the possible damage. And one billion dollar company I worked for was sued for patent infringement, found a workaround requiring a minimal change, implemented it in all their software, then proudly showed their workaround to judge and jury, and reduced the amount of damages massively because that workaround was so simple that the patent holder couldn’t really claim they had suffered lots of damages.

I had a similar problem with a different solution. Our app maintained a customer list. You could add / delete / edit customers. We got a complaint that customers were mysteriously disappearing. Strange enough every time after adding a customer.

I added the number of customers to the title of the window. So after adding a customer, it would change from say "145 customers" to "146 customers". If you edited a customer, the window title stayed the same. The problem went away. Your guess why.

Re: Hmm

There’s a simple solution: Reunion of NI and ROI. Not that it is something the Brexiters want, and half the people in NI would be unhappy, but it is a simple solution.

My prediction has been for a while that in 20 years time we’ll be living in the United Kingdom of England and Wales.

Re: "first read the fine forum thread until the end"

“Cellphones with cameras”. I had to fill out a “passenger locator form” quite recently. It asks you for a QR code proving you are vaccinated. Guess what QR codes the camera on my iPhone can’t read: QR codes on the screen of the same iPhone. (I also have three QR codes in the Wallet app each proving _one_ of three vaccinations. Not acceptable. The NHS app lets you copy the QR code - not accepted because not enough pixels).

Good news: You don’t need that QR code. Pretty annoying news: Nobody checks you filled out that form.

“Lightning port that is USB-2” - of course it isn’t. All newer iPhones support both USB-3 with a USB-A connector _and_ USB-C.

You see, you go to Germany and tell them this, they will look at you and wonder what is going wrong in your head. You can have an utterly stupid accident tomorrow. Not be able to work, lose your home, your wife gets a divorce because you can't feed her or the children, do you think that is something you want?

Re: Offensive Researchers

Discovery. And when they refuse to open up, anything they don’t say will be used against them. This is a civil case.

Re: Hung Jury!

In UK law at least, intent to commit a crime is not needed, just intent to do what you did. If you intentionally lie to your customers, intent to defraud them isn’t needed.