Posts by Mephistro

El Reg posse prepares for quid-a-day nosh challenge

There is an error in the spreadsheet

In cell E23, to be precise.

Yes, I'm bored. Why do you ask?

Watch out! KILLER HP firmware update bricks ProLiant server mobos

@ obnoxiousGit

"only customers with HP warranty or maintenance will get their servers bricked"

ThumbsUp++ for spotting the irony.

And a side question: Is it even legal for HP doing this? I mean that most BIOS updates address problems already present when the server was purchased. I thought that -in the EU at least- problems present at the time of purchase should be fixed even after expiration of the warranty.

Usual caveats: IANAL, etcetera.

SAVE THE EARTH... give all your iThings back to us, begs Apple

Apple, the Eco Friendly company

That's why they make all their products in a country with such astringent environmental laws as China.

***IRONY OVERDOSE ALERT!!!*** ***CALL THE PARAMEDICS!!!***... [lost carrier]...

Spanish village called 'Kill the Jews' mulls rebranding exercise

@ Number6

"Perhaps the Austrian town of Fucking would also consider changing its name to stop amused Brits from stealing their town signs."

They are already doing that!. They're going to change the name to 'Screwing".

Re: Village?

...and I've yet to encounter anywhere that doesn't have a bar. Maybe I need to explore more!

I'd suggest you to try with Spanish cemeteries. Remarkably few of them have a bar inside, and some of them don't even have one in a 20 meters radius!

Edward Snowden on his Putin TV appearance: 'Why all the criticism?'

Re: Playing with the fire (@ Gray)

"It's probably safe to assume that Snowden was handed a "request" to appear, together with a script containing the question."

Snowden's column in The Guardian, regarding Putin's answers as 'evasive' and 'inconsistent' seems to discredit that hypothesis. I agree with the rest of your post, though.

KILLER SPONGES menacing California coastline

I'm going to patent ...

... a bathroom sponge made with individuals from these new species. They will end crab infestations once and for all!!!

Misco Shared Services Centre drone brands customer 'insane'

Re: Not your average customer

"...and starts quoting the ins-and-outs of british law to a hungarian customer services person."

Of course he quoted British law! It's the only relevant law in this case, as the item was purchased in Scotland and from a company with offices in the UK.

USA opposes 'Schengen cloud' Eurocentric routing plan

Re: Mephistro @ Tom 13 (was @ Arnaut the less )(@ Matt Bryant)

"You also fail to understand that a large amount fo the NSA and GCHQ activity happens as part of the joint intelligence efforts of NATO, whereas the Norks and Chinese only use theirs for suppression."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!

Bullshit!

Re: For a start.... (@ d3rrial)

"A place in China would be Shenzhen (for example) ;)"

"Who cares, Shenzen, Schengen, it's all the same shit."

;-)

@ Tom 13 (was Re: @ Arnaut the less )

"We spy on you, you spy on us. Biggest difference I see is your guys are a bit better at it than ours are. Or at least they haven't outted themselves yet."

Nah, the biggest difference is that no other democratic country has built an infrastructure to allow them to spy on every human being on Earth.

Re: Mephistro Nuno trancoso (@ Matt Bryant)

" Please do explain how that compares with the situation with China, let alone the Norks."

These two nations, like the USA, spy on allies, foes, and everybody else, including their own citizens. Like the USA, both nations don't only perform military espionage, but also industrial and economic espionage. Like the USA, their laws allow them to wipe their backsides with their own citizens rights, not to speak of everybody else's rights. None of these three countries has signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The main difference is that the USA has put in place an infrastructure that allows -or will soon allow- them to spy on everybody, non stop.

"Please stop being so blinkered by your Yank envy"

Yank envy? Yeah, and I also envy East Germany and the USSR, North Korea, and China, and all their perpetually happy subjects. And I should be happy watching while the biggest democracy in the world turns into a full blown dictatorship.*

*: Matt, just in case you didn't get it, the last paragraph is *irony*. You're welcome.

Re: Nuno trancoso (@ Matt Bryant)

"The equivalent would be the US kicking all foreign telecoms operators out of the States"

No. The equivalent would be the US not wanting any of their data to be routed through North Korea or China.

FTFY

Hey, Michael Lewis: Stop DEMONISING Wall Street’s SUPERHUMAN high-speed trading

Re: Re: @ Vladimir Plouzhnikov

But as for rigging the markets with HFT? That just not how it works

One of the possibilities that has been amply discussed about HFT is that it could be used for simulating a 'landslide' in some stocks prices, and also be fooled to believe that one of these landslides is taking place.

A 'privileged party' with access to this technology and a lot of capital has a(nother) great tool for manipulating the markets.

Rigging is done by humans through collusion, disinformation, fraud, social engineering, exploiting or cornering the OTC markets.

Totally agreed, but allowing this technology to 'the usual suspects' -e.g. Big Money- is like allowing the neighbourhood junkies to own UZIS. The synergies between HFT and the other means available to the miscreants are too big to just ignore them.

@ Vladimir Plouzhnikov

"Oh, LOL, now explain what all of these things you just mentioned has to do with HFT?"

If you add HFT to some of the ingredients in that list, you get a nasty broth. Whoever knows the quirks, errors and biases of a given HFT algorithm - no matter whether said errors are unintentional or otherwise - has a powerful tool to perform price fixing and/or related malfeasances. Insider trading? Ditto. The ability to hack some news site so that for a few hours or even minutes it displays false data, coupled with HFT, can give the crooks the financial equivalent of a thermal lance against the fabled free markets.

iFixit boss: Apple has 'done everything it can to put repair guys out of business'

Re: Apple DON'T repair your iThing

Which means that if the failure doesn't allow you to recover and wipe your data from your device, said data might end in the hands of some unknown subcontractor located God-knows-where and working under God-knows-what security rules.

To each his own, Apple is not the only company playing by these rules. I recently had this same problem with an HP fondleslab. The owner chose -very wisely, IMO- to destroy the device instead of sending it to 'repair' and running the risk of giving away all his personal data to an unknown party.

Zuckerberg, Musk and Fake Steve Jobs invest in secretive AI firm

(@ None Such)

"Let's hope this person doesn't need to take Zoloft pills regularly to function."

They want to create Marvin, the Paranoid Android? Funny! Hehe he ... *shudders*

Hey, Glasshole: That cool app? It has turned you into a SPY DRONE

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

No! It's the last remnants of our privacy, flying away in the distance. And about to break the sound barrier too.

I mean, come on, there's not too much room for optimism here, is there?. An 82.3% of mobile computing devices users don't understand how computing devices work. A 79.6 % don't understand the implications of losing their privacy -e.g. giving their personal data to "WIN PRIZES!!!". A 91.2 never read the EULAs before accepting them. *

In a few years, after the creation of several killer apps, a price reduction and a big publicity campaign, the only way we'll be able to keep our privacy is by walking with a paper bag over our heads. And that will probably be outlawed soon.

* Note: All the above statistics were taken straight from my ars magic eight ball, but added one decimal position to raise their credibility. ;-)

EE...K: Why can't I uninstall carrier's sticky 'Free Games' app?

Re: Customer Relationship Management and monetisation technologies

I propose: "Customer RElAtionship Management and Monetisation Technologies"

CREAMMT

Keep your quinoa, hipsters: Boffins back healthy slabs of choc

Re: What chocolate? (@ spermacide)

"Smart ass, you reveal your ignorance despite your over abundance of snobbery.

They don't grow coffee in the USofA."

Please, point me to the part of my comment where it says that the coffee was grown in the USA. Or, for that matter, the point where I say that we grow our own coffee in Europe.

No, Mr. Spermivore, coffee makers in both places import the raw stuff, process it -e.g. by baking it- , package it in some kind of recipients and sell it to retail, who then sell it to the public. The difference is the quality -and price- of the stuff that they import, and the quality of the processing.

A company selling that crap in my part of the World would close down in one year. If American consumers can put up with it, that's their problem, not mine.

Re: What chocolate?

" And seemed to suck all the moisture out of your mouth as well."

Yes, 99% chocolate will do that to your mouth. I usually fix that with a small glass of cold white wine, that blends perfectly with the cocoa. Or, if you are a teetotaller, a glass of cold sweetened milk goes very nicely also.

Other commentards have suggested also using a good whisky, or even whiskey! ;-)

Re: What chocolate?

"And don't get me started on what passes for chocolate in the states"

Related anecdote:

Several years ago a friend of the family came from the States to stay a few weeks with us. As a present, she brought about one kilogram of a classy and expensive American chocolate from a small brand and two bags of American 'top quality' coffee, made from true sackcloth and with several rubber stamps in exotic languages.

The quality of both products was abysmal. Now, in most of Europe we would hesitate to give this American chocolate to cattle, for fear of causing a stampede, and the American coffee would be considered a crime against humanity.

When she left, she -only half jokingly- apologized to us for having brought such crap presents, and she stated that she would have a hard time adapting back to the American stuff.

She visited us again two years ago and told us that she had installed an espresso coffee machine at home, and that she purchased all of her chocolate and coffee from Europe and South America, through the Internets.

Yes, I still remember the chocolate's flavour. It tasted a little like half-burnt cardboard and had bits that looked exactly like dark sawdust. The coffee was simply indescribable. :-)

Every little helps: Dirty MOLE BANDITS clean out Tesco ATM from BELOW

"You may have seen people acting suspiciously on Friday night, possibly covered in soil."

A bunch of guys covered in dirt, staggering out of a hole next to a Tesco store on a Friday night?

Local residents that saw them probably thought it was just another zombie outbreak. Business as usual.

One of the guys had a big tattoo in which a plan of the facilities and the situation of all the special offers for this week was cleverly hidden.

Remember, you read it here first!

Tech giants KNEW about PRISM, web snooping, claims top NSA lawyer

Re: Squirm baby squirm

"I expect these idiots are also the same people who dont lock their bicycle up"

I think they are more like the people that buy a new car and immediately have it stolen by a gang that has hacked into the car maker's systems and planted vulnerabilities and exploits in the car's software. And that gang is backed by a government.

A small percent of customers may know about the issues, and even be able to prevent them. The rest of them are sitting ducks, sold downriver by their leaders.

Re: For once

I would agree with you if lobbying didn't exist. These company have the power and the money to put a lot of pressure on the politicos to change the laws so mass snooping stops being legal.

And I think the reason they didn't go that way is that they were offered a big, juicy carrot in the form of government contracts and information on foreign competitors. Either that or those companies' management can't see further than their noses.

Now they're probably have to pay for the carrot, by losing most of their foreign customers. Payback is a bitch, as they say.

Tor Project claims 'fake' Tor Browser sat in iOS App Store for months

Almost exactly on the spot!

"whether this person as actually developed the browser or was merely impersonated by another individual who wanted to remain hidden."

Replace 'individual' with 'individual, organization or government agency' and you can't get any truer than that!

ROBO-SNOWDEN: Iraq, the internet – two places the US govt invaded that weren't a threat

Re: Google

"How can a company who base their business on monitoring people so they can sell adverts try to relate to this guy?"

There are several differences. You can opt out -mostly- of Google+ or Facebook, but you can't opt out of government surveillance. Google and Facebook are bound by the terms in the EULA, so if they overstep they can be taken to court, with chances* of losing the case and having to pay big $$$ or even have some executives or employees jailed.

On the other hand, if a government agency oversteps, suing them is usually a futile exercise, as they have laws put in place to dodge any responsibilities, and the support of big media, and lots of 'private information' about judges and law makers.

*Small chances, alas.

NSA spies recorded an entire COUNTRY'S phone calls for a MONTH: Report

Re: Place your bets (@ Ledswinger)

"London, then?"

See icon --------------->

Byzantine Generals co-boffin Lamport bags CompSci's 'Nobel prize'

This guy is a genius!

And also has got a sense of humour!

(For those of you, fellow commentards, that -like myself- missed the link in TFA :-)

MH370 airliner MYSTERY: The El Reg Pub/Dinner-party Guide

Re: Facts

You seem to be hinting at something

In my opinion he was pointing to the fact that, for that particular flight, the value of some their passengers -and their knowledge- might be far higher than the value of any inert cargo the plane could possibly lift. He makes some valid points about computer security, encryption and related matters.

And it's not only the Iranians. Several countries in the area could be interested, and even a -well organized-drug cartel could have the means to perform this trick. Totally hypothetical, of course, but also are the rest of the explanations offered in this discussion.

Re: Facts (@ Gorio)

I've been thinking along the same lines. A mass kidnapping of Freescale employees -or other 'interesting' passengers- would make sense for some 'powers' in the area.

Reports say Vodafone to gobble Spanish cable outfit Ono

As a Spanish national and ONO customer...

... I can only say one thing:

AAAAAARGGHHHH!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Snowden: You can't trust SPOOKS with your DATA

Re: Snowdon: Defending Press Freedom...

"You can't make this up."

No need to. Having 'democratic' and 'liberty protecting' western governments helping most dictatorships in the world is a more extreme instance of the same old trick. My enemy's enemy etcetera...

Now, compare what Snowden did - i.e. getting asylum in Russia and making public some info the Russians, in all probability, already knew - with, as an example, the Western support for Shaddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. Compare the ethics, the scope and the consequences.

Lots of shades of grey here, but IMHO Snowden's actions are almost a pure white, compared with what our beloved governments often do.

Space-junk RAYGUN wins Australian government funding

Dual use...

If these lasers can pour enough light to slow down space junk at 300 km., they probably are also able to blind an enemy drone's cameras, or an enemy pilot.

Review of UK data protection: Should fines go OVER HALF A MIL?

While I agree with the sentiment of most of the above posts...

... I don't see such a big problem with fining private companies for data security breaches. If a private company has kept bad security and/or sold private data to other parties, chances are that the shareholders also profited from it. A fine consisting of a % of the company's value would drive home that the shareholders are responsible for the people they approve as CEOs and managers. Of course, said CEOs should also be fined, but if the shareholders get scott free they'll get no incentive for doing things better the next time, and will hire similar scum again for the position.

How a Facebook post by blabbermouth daughter cost her parents $80,000

Re: Make me read a little bit will you

We don't want it, thank you but no, thank you. But don't despair, the Andorran hegemonistic expansion plans are in need of a boost and they'll probably accept any land you offer them. Also, they're far easier to invade if/when they finally decide they don't want it.

Steve Jobs statue: Ones and ohs and OH NOES – it's POINTING at us

It's crap

The artist forgot to put one of the horizontal bars in the € sign, and the $ sign is entirely missing! This isn't the Jobs we all knew!.

MtGox boss vows to keep going despite $429m Bitcoin 'theft'

Re: Ironic

"Whatever your thoughts on the site it was not a Disney attraction."

"Welcome to our newest attraction, the Dope-o-rama!!!"

Re: Death threats - WTF?

"Death threats etc is not how this works - it is business unfortunately."

The problem with that is that Mt.Gox has lots of contacts with a specific subset of business for which death threats and just death are common tools, and no, I'm not talking about defence contractors or insurance companies. ;-)

Upvoted your post anyway because speaking in more general terms I think you're right.

Microsoft: NSA snooping? Code backdoors? Our hands are clean!

Re: Guru here, I SAID A GURU HERE!!!

That's your POV. Mine is that Mr. Schneier managed to tell us exactly what the real problem is, in a single phrase and without breaking any US Law.

Any American company -that can receive one of those 'National Security Letters'- can't be trusted, by definition.

Make cyberwar a no-no equal to nukes, bio, and chemical attacks, says RSA headman

Pure BS of the finest quality

"...saying that RSA worked with standards bodies and had changed its software once the flaw had been found in the encryption technique."

That's technically true. He forgets to mention that they fixed the flaw SEVEN YEARS after it was found.

But he defended the company's support for the pre-weakened Dual Elliptic Curve Deterministic Random Bit Generator (Dual EC DRBG) standard endorsed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology

That's also technically true. But they where paid 10 millions by the RSA to include the bug in their software THREE YEARS BEFORE the NIST endorsed the standard.

Either this motherf gentleman is a true PRO bullshitter or he is employing the best spin doctors available.

Blame the limitations of human language... :-(

Prez Obama cyber-guru: Think your data is safe in an EU cloud? The NSA will raid your servers

Re: the old our nukes are bigger than your nukes argument

"...all data was created by god and right thinking godfearing american citizens should have access to it all"

Thumbs up for the Tropico 4 quasi-reference.

Dear Mr. Clarke:

"If you think passing a law making data localization a requirement in the EU or Brazil [...] stops the NSA from getting into those databases, think again."

If you think data localization in Europe won't cause your operational costs and the risks your operatives incur to increase tenfold , think again.

'Polar vortex' or not, last month among the warmest Januaries recorded

@ flearider

"the rotting vegetation of amazon forest gives off more c02 than we do .."

The rotting vegetation of the Amazon gets -mostly- transformed into more vegetation really fast. Rainforests are very efficient at recycling nutrients and carbon, as long as nobody is burning said forests down. On the other hand, the CO2 we are producing has been trapped under the surface for many millions of years and is being put directly into the atmosphere at a growing rate.

If you really think that a ~25% rise in atmospheric CO2 in the last 40 years* will have no effect on climate, you haven't been paying attention.

* Plus another 25% rise in the next twenty years. If we get that far.

Terrifying photo special: 'Electric Cannon' anal orgasmo-probe in use ... on a BULL

Re: Mamporrero

Porrero is even better.

NASA's orbiting space-broadband probe LADEE beams back Moon snaps

Re: Maybe just maybe (@ Boltar)(@AndyS)

Pfffff... All right, I'll bite:

1. There is drag, just less of it...

From TFA: ...but is one hundred trillionth to that of Earth at sea level – a science lab would consider the "atmosphere" on the Moon to be a pretty good vacuum.

There's A LOT LESS OF IT.

Even if that 'eventually' is years (very unlikely)

So you say. Given the way the probability of collision decreases with the amount and size of the particles involved, this doesn't seem so unlikely, does it?.

2. Mountains. If this theory was true, there would be no dust below the levels of the highest peaks.

Small fallacy here. Not all the particles will impact the highest mountain, will they?

3. Luck...

It isn't luck, it's statistics.

...but how many bits of dust would land exactly in the orbit level which aligns to the speed they have?

All of them, obviously :-D. Now, seriously, with the conditions in the Moon's surface, most meteoric impacts will cause a small fraction of the particles to reach orbital speeds, however short lived those orbits could or couldn't be.

So the orbits would all decay, and the dust would clear.

Unless new impacts were creating more dust, as seems to be the case.

4. If this did happen (which it doesn't), there would also be rocks of all shapes and sizes doing the same. There aren't.

There are. Per the reasons stated above, a fraction of meteorites hitting the moon are ejecta from previous collisions.

If I had to place a bet, I'd say that there is a 'ring' -albeit a tenuous one- of lunar dust and debris orbiting the Moon and another one orbiting the Earth, and that the Moon is clearing a path through them, just like Saturn's moons do.

Re: Maybe just maybe (@ Boltar)

It would have to be ejected on just the right trajectory and at just the right (extremely high) speed to orbit at a low altitude

The lack of a proper atmosphere in the Moon allows for far more meteoric impacts (and at greater speeds) than in the Earth. At these speeds and without atmospheric drag, the probability of a small part of the ejecta reaching near-scape velocities is, in my opinion, very high.

And if it was caused by electrostatic effects, you could expect the dust floating only a few centimetres over the surface.

Re: Maybe just maybe

I'd go with a different explanation. Lunar dust ejected by meteorite impacts, orbiting the moon for years, some of it at small altitude, some of it in bigger orbits around the moon or even Earth. The Moon's 'atmosphere' causes no drag to these dust particles, so they can remain there for a long time.

Devs SLAM UK.gov's JavaScript-astic, 'shoddy' security education website

The privacy angle?

So the UK government has now another easy and convenient method to pwn the computers of the general populace. Great!