* Posts by anonymous boring coward

3232 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jan 2015

Break crypto to monitor jihadis in real time? Don't be ridiculous, say experts

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

My point was that for the intelligence services to get good intel they should compromise the devices of the people under investigation. Not ruin encryption for everyone, thus making it obvious to even the most daft murderous lunatic sociopath nutter that those devices cannot be used at all to communicate securely.

The extra threshold of having to do so also makes it less likely that we will all be monitored causally like in some 1984 scenario. (For which our technical capability is now way beyond what was envisioned in "1984".)

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: What about privately agreed crypto between private parties?

You're on May's radar now mate!

Better sleep under the bed from now on.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Said it before.

"That's why I have no problem voting Tory"

Like voting for Trump then?

Don't mind having deluded morons in charge?

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: There will always be a safe place to communicate

"The idea that there is a way to stop secret communications is a nonsense. Playing whack-a-mole with whatever is used now only has one end game"

The concept of not being able to say "enough is enough" and have it work just fine is an impossible concept to grasp for the vicar's daughter.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

If encryption was known to be useless, the potential "terrorists" (in reality: deluded, low IQ, narcissistic, mentally ill scumbags) wouldn't use it, would they?

So: Own goal. Worse than useless effort.

Cuffed: Govt contractor 'used work PC to leak' evidence of Russia's US election hacking

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Dear "The Intercept"

"Retyping a multi-page document can be impractical."

More practical than serving 10 years.

Besides: OCR.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Aren't you going to talk about Sep 11, and the fake moon landings too?

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: "...undermines public faith in government."

If it's going to kill us or harm us, it's probably a pollutant.

If, for example, we spread table salt over the land to the extent that we couldn't grow crops any more, I'm pretty sure that table salt would be classified as a pollutant.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: IQ below 0

She is but one individual. Perhaps she wanted to be martyred by the system?

More alarming is that entire organisations let's single low-level individuals have access to entire massive databases of classified information -transferable onto USB drives, for example.. That truly is low IQ.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

The emails came with a Word document attached containing a Visual Basic script that would run a PowerShell script to slurp information from the victim's Windows PC.

Yeah, about that issue of allowing running of things that show up in the email..

I think I said it was a bad idea around 1987?

I'm sure I wasn't the first to notice the problem though.

Apple appears to relax ban on apps fetching, running extra code – remains aloof as always

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Security is one issue.

Another is modifying previously reviewed Apps to do something different than expected. (Which may be related to security, or just massively annoying, such as draining the battery.)

At least my i-thing stuff doesn't suddenly drain the battery for no apparent reason, whereas with my Android things there is no such guarantee. Apps misbehave on a regular basis -some I can't even kill with blunt force (and just the constant need to monitor their behaviour is a major pain).

Silicon Graphics' IRIX and Magic Desktop return as Linux desktop

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

"When I first used Linux, I set it up with olvwm, and just used the commandline in the little console window to launch GUI applications. "

Yeah. I played around with fvwm a lot.

MS has brought back the need to type things to launch them though, with a start "menu" that is anything but.

Amazon granted patent to put parachutes inside shipping labels

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

You can patent effing anything.

So now the pouch for the parachute has a label on it, and it's patentable?

FFS!

BA's 'global IT system failure' was due to 'power surge'

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Could someone please explain why power should "spike" when, as the story goes, all things were started at once? In my mind there could be a rush of current leading to a brown-out condition.

Perhaps it's a "power demand spike" that is being referenced?

But the idea with these statements seem more aimed at conjuring up images of dangerous voltages spikes entering the system and blowing up things, like some episode of Star Trek, or Space 1999 where CRTs tended to explode.

After a complete power failure, presumably equipment would need powering up in a controlled manner?

That must all be part of the specifications for the system, and should happen more or less automatically. It seems unlikely that all systems would power up simultaneously and overwhelm the supplies?

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Power spikes & surges

Although on a smaller scale, an organ mishap can be very humiliating.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

OK, so something failed. And they didn't have a working automatic failover. I get that. Embarrassing, and the CEO should go just for that reason.

What I don't get is how it could take so long to fix it? It must have been absolute top priority to fix within the hour, with extra bonuses and pats on backs to the engineers who quickly brought it back up again. How could it take so long?

BA IT systems failure: Uninterruptible Power Supply was interrupted

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

it could have resulted in both the battery supply and the generator supply being briefly connected in series to the power bus feeding the racks. That would result in the data centre’s servers being fed 480v instead of 240v, causing a literal meltdown

Sounds weird wired.

Intel gives the world a Core i9 desktop CPU to play with

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Only $1000 if you buy 1000 units?

Lexmark patent racket busted by Supremes

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Epson extortion

I had an all-in-one (HP, possibly) that wouldn't scan a document if it was out of ink!

That POS went to the dump.

How the Facebook money funnel is shaping British elections

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

"We are continually developing our understanding in this area"

Not very quickly, it seems.

Pentagon trumpets successful mock-ICBM interception test

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Was it a test missile from a UK submarine that went west instead of east again?

BA CEO blames messaging and networks for grounding

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Culled from the Pilot's forum...

About that "power surge":

Looks like embellishment of the truth and dramatisation comes easy to this CEO.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

These people aren't suited to thinking by themselves and take any initiatives.

I once was at an airport where my luggage would never reach the pick-up area because the belt was full with unclaimed luggage from some earlier flight (and those passengers where nowhere to be seen).

I asked the staff there why they didn't remove the luggage so the new luggage could reach us. They "weren't working for the luggage handling company".

Of course, the orange-vest people on the other side of the rubber curtains couldn't come out into the hall to remove luggage, so they just stood around waiting for the band to move...

So I and another passenger removed all the luggage so the band could again move, and our luggage could get to us.

And this was in Western Europe. Not bloody USSR.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Cruz has also promised that passengers will never again have such an experience with BA, in part because the carrier will review the incident and figure out how to avoid a repeat.

Is that because the only way such an experience can happen is if this incident occurs in the exact same way again?

Very intelligent thinking by that fantastic CEO. Obviously this has nothing at all to do with having enough of the right kind of people available to quickly identify issues and resolve them urgently. Nothing at all.

Looks like BA has a f*cking politician at the helm -and we all know how well that usually goes.

New 'Beaver' web server has exactly ONE user outside China

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Nice Beaver!

"Just had it stuffed!"

From memory.

What is dead may never die: a new version of OS/2 just arrived

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Win32 applications, only Win32s

"Graphics *drivers* have always been in the kernel (otherwise how could they talk to the hardware?)"

User mode drivers are given access to their hardware. No need to be in the kernel.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Nice for abandonware

"But this came at great costs in terms of stability, functionality and elegance. Which people without an understanding of the underlying reasons behind it - and more importantly, having never tried NT in any meaningful way - quickly assumed was because of "M$" incompetence when writing their "Windoze""

Just because NT was a proper OS, it doesn't follow that Win 95 was OK. There is a reason Ctrl-Alt-Delete is a famous key combination. MS can sometimes do things properly, then the right small group of people work on a project -but as a rule, business decisions trump technical decisions. Just witness the things that never get fixed, because management has decided that it won't be cost effective. Despite billion dollar profits.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

I might give it a go at $9.90, but not at $99.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

I can't make sense of the heading.

Did the author mean "may never die"?

Euro Patent Office staff warns board of internal rule changes

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: "seize private property" ?

Yes. Luckily the UK doesn't have leaching "upper class" scum like that. Oh, wait..

It's a question worth asking: Why is the FCC boss being such a jerk?

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Bigger Government is never the answer

"Seriously, the whole "net neutrality" thing is all EMOTION-BASED KNEE-JERK TOUCHY FEELY CRAP."

I bet anything you can't grasp is TOUCHY FEELY in capitals?

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Personally I have no strong opinions on it?

"or you are very much in favour of it if you are one of the remaining 99% of us"

You forgot: Or you are too dumb to understand what's best for you.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Net not-so-neutral-ality?

Yes, it's pretty simple really. The ISPs would like you to not get what you are paying for.

Windows 10: Triumphs and tragedies from Microsoft Build

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: What carrot and stick approach?

The problem is that the kids like it, and they are used to being spied upon. They are addicted to updates, and having the latest.

They just see the PC as a bigger, more powerful smartphone.

It's a fact that devices become more and more owned by someone else -and the end user becomes more and more helpless. There is power and money in that from the manufacturer's perspective. Lot's of money! Now a BMW owner can't even buy a new battery for his car, for example, because it has to be coded to the car! All electronic parts are "coded" and cost extortionate amounts of money to replace.

Not sure what will happen when I upgrade my son's PC, but I suspect some kind of Windows 10 licensing extortion racket will kick off.

Bright new PC future!

Proposed PATCH Act forces US snoops to quit hoarding code exploits

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

If the vuln isn't exploited, then NSA doesn't have to report the vuln.

If the vuln is exploited, then we'll all know about it and how it works. Then NSA won't need to report it.

Seems like a totally useless bill. What a surprise.

The real battle of Android's future – who controls the updates

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Weird

My LG G3, which came out in 2014, is on Android 6.0 and patch level 2016-08-01.

Doubt LG will bother with any more updates, even though it's very fast and doesn't have some of the issues of their later replacement models.

While Microsoft griped about NSA exploit stockpiles, it stockpiled patches: Friday's WinXP fix was built in February

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Munich city now planning to move ALL their Linux desktops back to Windows

"The city’s human resources department (POR) is particularly critical of LiMux, saying that since 2006 when the POR started using LiMux and OpenOffice, later switching to LibreOffice, that “the efficiency and productivity of the POR-supported workplaces has decreased noticeably” – referencing crashes, display and printing errors."

Yes. We all know that MS systems always work perfectly. I suppose they compared with something else that exists in real life, rather than some hypothetical perfect world?

"LiMux and LibreOffice are “far behind the current technical possibilities of established standard solutions”"

Wonder what amazing possibilities they might be thinking about? Must be one heck of an exiting administrative environment over in that MS world!

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

"More modern"? Huh?

More cool-aid for the reporters?

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: One lesson to be learnt frin this (was Wormable holes)

"We considered that putting a hardware firewall between it and the rest of the network with access to that sole port provided adequate security for the devices remaining lifetime."

What's a "hardware firewall"?

Presumably they are all full of firmware that could be buggy?

Perhaps there are some very simple, and therefore verifiable, hardware firewalls? I hope such things exists!

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Plenty of blame to go around

" in your car analogy, there was a "recall". But lots of customers flatly refused to bring their old cars in for repair or replacement"

First time ever a critical flaw has been repaired by giving customers completely new cars, that are incompatible with their old ones (i.e. replace flat-bed truck with a Mini), and which they also had to pay for. Nice fixing.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Fixed your car analogy

"On the MS side, I wonder how many Win10 they will now sell?"

What? Someone has actually bought it? With real money?

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Plenty of blame to go around

"This is a serious question - would Linux be a better OS in this situation ?"

Where is the incentive to hold back security fixes from Linux users?

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Plenty of blame to go around

"Not sure that analogy is strictly correct. If the brake fault could only be activated by malicious intervention then not many car companies would be rushing forward to correct it especially on vehicles that are 17 years old and well out of warranty."

If it's an internet connected car (just wait 15 years), and it turn's out sending an email to the car can disable the brakes, I'm pretty sure they would quickly hand out patches for free.

They wouldn't sit on the patches, wait for a few deaths, and hope that customers come flocking to buy the fix. (Well, unless it's an american car company, that is.)

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Fixed your car analogy

That's because there are real costs involved. If it's wear and tear it's obviously a maintenance issue. If it is a massive design fault that will make all cars dangerous to drive, then it's an all new ball game.

In the MS case we don't know if NSA has told MS it mustn't release certain patches to the non-supported OSs. This is a strong possibility.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: >> Car analogy...

1957?

Perhaps make your analogies more realistic?

Perhaps a 2002 Merc bus that is used every day to transport millions of people, or some similar analogy?

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Plenty of blame to go around

The main issue is extorting the customer by hiking the price to silly levels year-by-year. Stupid.

Drugs, vodka, Volvo: The Scandinavian answer to Britain's future new border

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: "Neither is the Single Market an invention of the EU"

"It is ambitious to create a protectionist border against the outside world while dumping internal surpluses at below market rates on north africa, driving local farmers and fishermen out of business and creating a huge immigration issue."

Of course! Brexit is in response to the unfair treatment of third world countries! Why didn't I realise that?

rUK will now save said third world. Boris at the front of the effort, naturally.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: What a hassle

The sector has already started adjusting, and will keep doing so. Like everything else in old Blighty things will shrink down to fit the self inflicted reduced market share. Have you purposefully avoided reading the news?

And, oh yes, the situation with NY is this: Before London had the advantage of being in the EU. Now London doesn't have that advantage over NY. Get it?

74 countries hit by NSA-powered WannaCrypt ransomware backdoor: Emergency fixes emitted by Microsoft for WinXP+

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: @sad_loser

More to the point: How did weapons-grade vulns known only by NSA get leaked just like that? That's serious.

anonymous boring coward Silver badge

Re: Risk Management

"Using an OS written sixteen years ago and STILL refusing to upgrade it"

Presumably it's running on some hardware that can't handle later OSs, and has some software that only runs under XP (typically drivers). Why MS can't support it at a reasonable cost is beyond me. One could easily build a large team around supporting XP for the amount of money available, but MS takes the extortionate XP support money and obviously spends it elsewhere. Greed and stupidity in the long run (MS's fading reputation).