Posts by Spaceman Spiff

They may cost me $15USD per month, but I'm keeping hold of my 5 IPv4 addresses!

Gee. This is one of the reasons why I don't buy American cars! THEY SUCK!

I'm sure that Ms. Meg will do well from this operation. Employees of HP - Meh! Good luck folks! I hope your 401K plans are well padded!

I guess the City of Chicago hasn't heard about VPNs? "Hey CofC, I'm not watching Netflix in Chicago. I'm watching it in Backwater Iowa!"

This is what happens when your POS systems run an inherently insecure operating systems like MS Windows. There are other systems, such as QNX, that are much more secure, and provide similar capabilities.

Dang! Even the aliens can't keep their road maintenance up with weather deterioration!

One time pad?

Whoever wrote this article has no clue what a 1-time pad is! In such a situation (modern internet access), you need several factors. First is your actual password. Second is a server provided one time use key that you add to your password. This is still not bullet proof, but better than a single use password sent to your email account, or a normal password that can be hacked. I used such an approach in the 1990's to harden major manufacturing systems. The server would send a one-use salt value that the client would use to help encrypt the user's password. No two communications between the client and server would send the same encrypted text for the password. This is still used by major semiconductor, display, and disc drive manufacturing systems today, 20 years after it was developed. Bruce Schneier would probably tell me that it isn't particularly a strong encryption mechanism, but... :-)

Who'd want to download Dallas Buyers Club? What a piece of unmitigated shit! The studio should pay those that are stupid enough to do so...

I stopped loving Verizon when I was living outside of Boston and they sold their FIOS cable TV service to Comcrap, who quickly removed all of the channels that I got the service for in the first place! I dropped the "cable" service and just opted for the Verizon phone and internet service that I had in the first place...

What planet is he from?

I'm guessing he comes from the planet Forkuall, somewhere beyond the outer fringes of Uranus!

Tout alors!

Give the perp a croix de guerre! Best hack I've heard of all month!

This is part (only part) of the reason why I ONLY run Linux on my systems! Fark Microsoft. Also, I am extra pissed at them that they fired me 2 weeks after they closed the deal purchasing Nokia Mobile Phones, where I worked for 2 1/2 years. No notice. No severance. Yeah, they truly suck!

Look before you leap!

I was dealing with this stuff over 30 years ago, and every time there was something like this, many systems (not mine, fortunately) had serious problems! It isn't the system time that is the problem. It is how applications are programmed to deal with these changes. They need to be designed to deal with these changes so that they continue to do the right thing. If a leap second issue requires a clock to fall back to midnight from 12:01, then applications that have critical events to process at midnight need to know that they already did them, and not do them again when the clock falls back, etc, etc. These are the extreme edge cases that catch a lot of programmers flat-footed.

A ruling that copyright applies to API's would not only bork Android, but most other software development as well when a perfectly legal operation of reverse engineering will become verboten due to copyright infringement. I don't know what the White House is thinking, but then, they probably aren't thinking through the ramifications of this ill-considered stance.

Unfortunately

Unfortunately, the NSA and its ilk don't give a darned about legality in collecting this data. They will do it anyway, and classify it "top secret" so no one gets to see it other than those in the agency. Until the NSA and GCHQ are disbanded in their entirety, this stuff will go on, and there is nothing we can do about it... :-(

Some zombies just refuse to die!

I sold 3-Com their first 100 IBM PC's back in the early 1980's in the Silicon Valley. That is where I met Bob Metcalfe and Howard Charney. When I was working in the Boston area in the 1990's I used to dine with Bob before our IEEE meetings. I doubt he has any financial interest in the 3-Com legacy now, but it is interesting how things roll out!

What dren!

Wasn't that the point of Verizon's FIOS project? To eliminate copper (and the need to power the lines from big banks of batteries)? I got FIOS when it was first rolled out in the Boston area over 10 years ago, and it was great! Internet? Just plug your router into the ethernet plug in the wall. The phone line had its own UPS to handle times when there was a power brownout or blackout.

Then, they stopped deploying it - probably due to the capital costs. Now they want to do it again? One thing about Verizon is that like the weather (if you don't like it, wait 5 minutes), with Verizon if you don't like what they are doing, just wait 5 minutes. They will change their minds!

What law "enforcement" doesn't realize, is that it is asking for magic flooby dust, and it doesn't exist! If you can break into my systems, so can anyone else.

Truth be told, the cops just wanted to get some target practice on a live target. I hope the Northumbria Police have to pay for the value of the cow!

I think this falls into the "no good deed goes unpunished" category! If there is stuff on your internet-facing systems you don't want "discovered", then DON'T PUT IT ON YOUR INTERNET-FACING SYSTEMS!

If I wanted...

If I wanted to live outside of the city and raise my kids in a safe environment, yet I wanted to have an internet business, this would be the deciding factor for me!

This is how you "cook" an election. You disenfranchise those who might vote against you!

Right!

Over my dead and moldy body! I don't suppose they would pay ME for this "privilege"?

I still remember

I still remember my folks taking me to Marx Brothers' movies in the 1950's. He has been a favorite of mine ever since. Over the years, I have collected all the work of theirs (and his) that I have been able to find (and steal).

You can live...

You CAN live on a quid a day, but who would want to? My suggestion is that all MP's or legislators who vote to reduce food benefits for the poor, are required to live a year on the same amount. We'll see how long that lasts!

Nice for theoretical work, but how many of us could afford such gear? Can you embed it in a laptop computer, or tablet? Probably not, at least yet. At this point, one of the better approaches in a practical sense is a lagged-Fibonacci RNG (see http://www.phy.ornl.gov/csep/CSEP/RN/NODE20.html#SECTION00070000000000000000 for details).

Who would have known?

Jeez, who would have known that a banker could be unethical!

Not the first time.

This isn't the first time that an Apple employee has "let the dog out of the house"... It isn't the end of the world!

Sensible

Good, solid advice.

Can you spell stupid?

It's spelled American Airlines. You simply DO NOT use consumer grade gear to run an airplane, even if it is just a glorified manual. They should have been using something like the Blackberry tablets. At least the OS (QNX) is basically unhackable. That doesn't say the software isn't at fault, but even if one application failed, the tablet wouldn't.

And who's fault is it?

Sticking ones head in the sand and repeating loudly "nya, nya, nya" doesn't keep the fascists from taking over the country. Too bad. Too late. You lose!

If you aren't using it

If you aren't using the WiFi on your phone, then disable it! Nomi isn't the only one tracking you via WiFI!

Sounds like quid, not so, pro quo. You get us all this stuff, and we may give you a crumb in return... Not a good deal dudes!

This just so sucks! Petraeus should be the one facing 35 to life in prison, and Manning should get whistle blower protections (if we had any).

Justice?

If this deal does indeed go down the "tubes", I have to think that true justice has been served! So, who will Comcrap try to take over next? AT&T? :rolleyes:

The most compelling

The most compelling security feature to use with Windows is to not use Windows at all!

Time for a change?

Why should Tepco pay a gazillion $$ (or Yen) to Microsoft for another crappy operating system, and have to replace all of their computers as well (48,000 x $1500 USD == $72M USD not including software)? Switch to Linux, and continue using that old hardware until it dies. Switch to LibreOffice - it supports just about every language known to humankind and old MS formats as well. All of that, AND it is more secure!

Cat's out of the bag

Ok, the cat is out of the bag. Now they will have to come up with a new, less detectable attack... Sigh.

Better the devil

Better the devil you know, than the saint you don't?

Yeah, like most people would know when a hacker was hacking a plane's infrastructure? Get real! "Attendent, that man is writing software on his laptop! Maybe he is taking over the plane controls?" Give me a break! I write software on planes all the time. Most people have no clue what I am doing. Am I trying to hack the plane? Not likely. Usually I'm trying to solve a problem for a client or my company.

There are three victims here

#1. The artists and composers.

#2. The public.

#3. Culture.

There are two who win:

#1. Music labels and publishers.

#2. The collection "societies".

Of the latter, neither could give a sh!t about the first three.

It was the Windows that did it your honor!

The problem probably wasn't the Dell, but the Windows operating system it was running! Hopefully one of the bullets hit the disc drive - that will show 'em!

Be careful of what you ask for!

If Google were to block access from the EU to their services (and those of re-packagers such as DuckDuckGo) for, say, 2 weeks, I can guarantee that the villagers would be up in arms with torches and pitchforks to pillory the EU commissioners.

The inmates are running the asylum! What an idiot! One has to presume that he has never heard of the law of unintended consequences... Or maybe they are intended?

Attack of the Killer Roombas! I can just see it now, along with such sequels as "Killer Roombas Eat France"... :-)

Oops...

Actually, that would qualify as a major "Oh Sh!t!" moment. When the full scope of this gets out, HSBC will be scurrying to find a new business to be in, such as dog poop collector!

Just give it up!

Sony, just give it up! That horse has already left the barn, had babies, and now a herd (as in the entire Internet) is chewing on your malapropisms (technical term for damning emails and documents).

Personally, I think Sony's most appropriate saying would be "Just do evil!"...

NO MORE!

All tech conferences should boycott the Netherlands until the Dutch government agrees that this was an egregious violation of the rights of the conference attendees, and to never do that again without probable cause that a specific person is going to do "something bad"...