* Posts by David Adams

125 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Nov 2007

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Worrying Windows 10 wrecking-ball weapon weirdly wanders wildly on worldwide web

David Adams

Monthly Updates?

"That also likely means that Microsoft will opt not to issue an out-of-band update for the coding cockup, and wait until next month's Patch Tuesday to post a permanent fix for the vulnerability."

Have you not seen the updates for Windows10 recently? They are almost weekly not monthly!

A new patch for 1803 dropped yesterday, 1709 and 1607 were patched on the 18th these are all in addition to the "Monthly" patch that dropped on the 9th.

Dixons Carphone 'fesses to mega-breach: Probes 'attempt to compromise' 5.9m payment cards

David Adams

Re: Half a story

"It is investigating the hacking attempt, which began in July last year.".

But when did the breach finish?

August last year? last week? Makes a big difference

BBC Freesat tech switch zaps HD channels from 'old' boxes

David Adams
Thumb Down

Not promised

From my Panasonic email - "However, I would stress that the above product was supplied to the market to satisfy a demand for HD content availability via Freesat and has successfully provided this. It was also always intended, albeit not promised, that Panasonic would make best endeavours to provide additional features and functions if possible.

It is important to note that such additional features did not form part of any contractual obligation with third parties such as Freesat, or indeed the defined specification of the product ... Currently, we anticipate the provision of an upgrade for BBC iPlayer in September 2011. However, as always, this is subject to the testing required to ensure that it will not be detrimental to the product specification. "

Which means it may never happen.

Drunken employee pops cap in server

David Adams
Thumb Up

Take off and Nuke it from space.

It's the only way to be sure.

Anti-virus defences even shakier than feared

David Adams
Boffin

Definition based detection

Went to an AV Seminar last year and they admitted that definition based detection wasn't working and all AV providers were moving to Behaviour/Heuristic detection.

The downside of this is the extra load it puts onto already strained machines.

If you have a machine that just barely runs XP, AV software running full behaviour detection is going to kill it.

El Reg marks Steve Jobs for termination

David Adams
Badgers

Oh come on!

You just have to redo the picture with telescopic cross hairs on it now.

Search begins on seized Gizmodo journo kit

David Adams
Jobs Horns

"Is Steve is implying bloggers aint journos?"

Of course he is.

See this:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/02/steve_jobs_media/

"Steve Jobs fears Nation of Bloggers"

The big media companies fear bloggers.

Steve can't make money out of bloggers.

By sidelining bloggers he keeps the media companies sweet and whole new revenue streams may magically open up with paid for content on the "iJustinventedanewdevicebutdon'thavetheimaginationtocomeupwithadecentnameforitsoi'lljustcallitanisomethingorother"

ID cards poster girl laments her £30

David Adams
Happy

She also writes for the Jewish Chronicle

This is her article when she got the card

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/24563/angela-epstein-uks-first-id-card-holder

Particularly liked this bit:

"Most significantly, some ventured that as a Jew I must be all too familiar with the sinister wartime echoes of having to prove identity. Why didn’t my skin prickle at the very thought of carrying an ID card?

Personally, I cannot see what there is to lose — and there’s certainly everything to gain. An ID card is a portable, convenient way to prove your identity without having to carry something like a passport with you — which is murder to replace if you lose it."

And i'd just like to add; SuperLOLs

Osborne to 'get Britain working' - except for ID contractors

David Adams
Happy

Thanks,

"where we had crazy 125% mortgages "

Can I just say Thank you all once again for underwriting my mortgage.

UK hot-swaps leaders - Brown out, Cameron in

David Adams
Thumb Down

The bankers knew it was wrong

"the bankers working within that system were doing their jobs, within the rules. "

Bollocks!

It wasn't a good enough defence for the MPs who were caught in the expenses scandal, it's not a good enough for the bankers.

They weren't within the rules.

Operating in a grey area that wasn't explicitly forbidden by the rules is not the same thing as being within the rules.

What they were doing was wrong, but they didn't even have the morals to realise it.

David Adams

This democracy thing is actually quite easy

Seriously, how hard can it be.

it takes 2 minutes to check out http://www.theyworkforyou.com to see what your MP stands for and how they have voted.

Checked mine out, Angela Smith (Labour) and she's never voted against the party on a single bloody issue.

She backed the war in Iraq, she backed the increased anti terror laws, she backed ID cards etc, etc,etc ad infinitum.

Every thing I disagree with, she supported.

So in 2 mins I knew that I couldn't, in all good conscience, vote for her.

David Adams
FAIL

Labour

"and what tricks will the Labour party be playing in the background?"

They won't be, they are about to rip themselves apart again.

Labour were offered the chance to try and salvage a coalition by Gordon Brown and Sith Lord Mandy, but the rest of the party didn't have the stomach to fight for it.

Before the negotiators had even met, half the back bench had come out saying they should just retire into opposition, and the negotiators knew they had nothing to offer as their party wouldn't accept it.

All the Labour MPs and supporters who were saying they were looking at what was good for the country are talking shite. They didn't have the balls to do what would have been really good for the country and decided to look after themselves and put the party first.

The party will fragment again and it will take a few years to pull itself back together.

I just hope the coalition lasts until the Labour party sorts itself out otherwise we will have a Tory majority government before long.

David Adams
Thumb Down

yeah

"Welcome to a future of half-baked weak-as-piss coalition governments..."

Like Germany, just look what their coalition governments have done since the war!

Made the country the leading economic power in Europe, lead europe into a common currency, reunified east and west Germany, rode out the worst of the economic crisis and are now propping up most of the poorer Eurozone countries.

Really weak leadership there then.

The Cameregg plan: Who got what?

David Adams

Scottish tory

I believe he has been made deputy to the Scottish Secretary however.

Jacqui Smith and Charles Clarke shown the door

David Adams
Happy

Glad to see the back of her

although that doesn't look any more attractive than the front.

Good riddance anyway!

Vote Lib Dem, doom humanity to extinction

David Adams
Thumb Up

break up of big parties

Most forms of PR often mean more smaller parties. This isn't neccessarily a bad thing, contrary to what the Tories/Murdoch would have us believe.

If you vote for one of the Main Parties at the moment, you are compromising.

I doubt anyone can say that they whole heartedly believe in everything their chosen party stands for. There is always something you're just not comfortable with.

What this leaves us with, is a system which means that when a party gains power, they assume they have a mandate to do everything they want, without having to acknowledge that not everything they want to do is welcomed, even by their own supporters.

More political parties mean you are more likely to find a party which matches your beliefs closer than the big main parties do at the moment.

This means that you don't have to vote for someone just because you hate them less that the other lot, you vote for who you want to represent you and who reflects your views most closely.

Loads of small parties sounds like a nightmare, and if you have too many it could become a joke, but going from 3 to 6 or even 10 smaller parties will mean that there are enough with quite a bit in common to form a workable coalition government.

Instead of Labour, Lib-Dems and Tories you could have:

Old Labour, Labour, SDP, Liberals, Conservative, UKIP, New Labour

each of which would better represent their supporters.

More representation and more representative representation will give us a stronger democracy.

(Think I'll copyright that!)

David Adams
Unhappy

here we go again

"And you won't be worried or see the point of asteroid deterrent until someone spots the one that'll hit next week."

Even if they do spot one next week, what are we going to do?

It's not possible to predict where an asteroid will impact exactly and with the relatively (to the circumference of the planet) diminutive size of the UK, there is more than enough of a margin of error for it to fall short and hit Russia (in which case the Russians might want to deal with it) or overshoot us and hit the Atlantic (in which case I guess the USA would do something about it to avoid the resulting tidal wave wiping out their eastern seaboard).

Can't see Russia or the USA waiting to let us have a shot at it first can you?

Can we all accept that the asteroid argument is just bollocks please?

And no-one who would want to attack us with Nukes has the facility to do so.

Yes, they may in the future, but a cold war submarine launched weapon isn't the answer to an attack from Iran or North Korea is it.

If a Nuclear launch is detected by any nation, everyone panics. The one thing they won't do is sit and see where it lands before deciding what they are going to do.

If they do wait for us to be hit, how do they know where our retaliation strike is going?

They don't, Russia and China shit themselves and launch against us anyway as it may be an automatic response to an attack, and it could be heading their way.

To launch at us, Iran have to overfly most of Europe so any member of Nato could be at risk not to mention Israel. This will bring about a Nato/US/Israeli response.

Korea on the other hand would have to overfly China, Russia, Canada or the USA, none of whom would take kindly to being in the possible firing line.

If anyone launches at us, we aren't going to be able to retaliate, with or without Trident.

David Adams
Flame

read the comments

"you can expect personal attacks from them, as that's the only way they know how to respond"

Did you actually bother to read the comments?

There is a lot of thoughtful, balanced, well reasoned arguments as to why Lewis' article is a steaming pile of turd not worthy of a Murdoch rag.

David Adams
Badgers

although

"they're not that dangerous because we weren't very good at making them in 1945"

How do you know we're any better at making them now?

The bloody things are probably dud anyway.

David Adams
Megaphone

You don't need to rethink, you know the answer already and it doesn't come from Lewis Page.

The single most important issue facing us in this election is electoral reform.

Once we have reformed our broken electoral system, there will be another election and that is where the other important issues, like these, will be discussed.

(Although I can't see that us having the ability to destroy asteroids is that big an issue!)

The Tories are using every scare tactic they can think of to stop a hung parliament because it terrifies them so much.

David Adams
Coat

Aha, but

"the irony is that the BBC won't be able to report on it because they'd be up in smoke too"

That's why they're moving half the BBC to Manchester.

Election 2010: The sillier options

David Adams
Thumb Up

Shite system

I didn't realise how bad our electoral system was.

Here's a scenario:

All 3 main parties each get 30% of the vote, with the remaining 10% being split between the smaller parties.

out of ~650 seats you would expect Labour, Conservatives and the Lib Dems to get ~200 seats each.

Under the current system Labour would get ~300, Conservatives ~200 and Lib Dems ~100.

How can a party with 30% of the vote share only get 15% of the seats.

So much for democracy.

Pirate Bay dishes up Iron Man 2 ahead of US release

David Adams
Coat

Got to give them credit

It's bloody hard to hold a camera still with one hand when Scarlett Johansson is writhing round the screen in a tight catsuit.

David Adams
Thumb Up

My opinion

Thought it was better than the first.

Never going to win any awards for being ground breaking cinema, but it's a good kick ass movie.

Bit disappointed that half the scenes shown in the trailer weren't actually in the film though.

Suppose we will be getting a directors cut at some point.

Megan Fox not world's sexiest woman: Official

David Adams
Troll

bing?

I think it's a metaphor.

David Adams
Coffee/keyboard

So where's...

... Karen Gillan?

Already replaced Billie Piper in my dreams.

Jesus descends to Google Earth

David Adams
Pint

All I can say is....

... if that's Jesus, he's got a cracking pair of top bollocks on him!

Murdoch newswire sues over 'hot news'

David Adams
Pirate

Google

"so a website C&P's the headlines and posts them on their delivery system ! and Google does what exactly!"

Murdoch keeps spouting that Google are stealing his content, but he knows if he blocks them he will lose huge amounts of traffic to his sites.

You'll probably find this will be a test case and if he is successful he will go after Google next.

He doesn't want them to stop doing it, he wants to be paid for it.

Can we have an Icon for Evil Murdoch please?

Reverse-engineering artist busts face detection tech

David Adams
Welcome

May I be the first...

...to welcome our undetectable new "New Romantic" overlords etc.

Ash cans flights for another day

David Adams
Coat

It's negligence, pure and simple...

... if these countries can't be trusted to look after their Volcanoes, they shouldn't be allowed to have them in the first place.

Police send Reg hack CRB check database

David Adams
WTF?

How???

I say it is a fault of the system.

If the system had called for the data to be encrypted before it was transmitted, this wouldn't have been a problem.*

How the hell can they think that emailing sensitive information, "in the clear", is ok!!!

Obviously as long as they didn't include the password in the email!

Volcanic ash grounds dozens of UK flights

David Adams
Pint

Ain't talkin' 'bout dub.

Singing it to myself as soon as I saw the reference.

David Adams

Electrics

I'm pretty sure volcanic ash is conductive too so it screws up electrics if it gets in.

David Adams
WTF?

No

"...but can't they just fly over/under or around it?"

The Ash cloud is between 6,000m ~11,000m.

A commercial airliner has a cruising altitude of 12,000m.

That's great I hear you scream, we can fly over it!

Except you have to go from 0m-12,000m to get there which takes you right through the cloud.

And as for going around it, have a look at the pictures on the VAAC site http://metoffice.com/aviation/vaac/data/VAG_1271250039.png and suggest what alternate route you would take.

David Adams
Flame

Yeah but

What happens when the "Ash Cloud of Death" hits the transformers @ CERN eh?

Answer me that one!

If a baguette can blow it up, imaging what a load of ash will do

WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!

etc, etc.

Wii Fit fall woman turns into nympho

David Adams
Troll

Might be a troll?

Meh,

where do I join the queue?

Lib Dems demand niceness, ignore technology

David Adams
Coat

Confused now

"If this article, and the Labour one done by her on Monday..."

That really confused me.

Was wondering if Jane was related to John.............

Did a search..............

got it now.

All I can say is You've got balls girl!

David Adams
Thumb Up

Give them a chance

I'm a Labour supporter, but I didn't sign up to any of the things this government has done.

Give the Liberals a chance, please.

Even a hung parliament might help, get Vince as the chancellor, push through their voting reforms and scrap the NIR as a condition of helping either of the other partys.

Bloke threatens BT with giant plywood cheque

David Adams
Thumb Up

Nice

I've got some 8'x4' sheets of Plywood kicking around somewhere.

Apple's iPad - 'Will It Blend?'

David Adams
Coat

More importantly

I think that Blendtec should patent the folding iPad!

It's a cracking idea.

LHC particle-punisher in record 7 TeV hypercollisions

David Adams
Coat

You think that's bad?

"I owe a hundred grand to a badass loan shark that I blew on a stripper named Molly Mounts!"

Tories go nuclear, promise to prop up carbon price

David Adams
Boffin

re: Tidal

"Tidal is predictable, sure. It happens twice a day, at times that depend on the phase of the moon. But you can't rely on a tide happening to occur during the peak load time, every day - it won't"

True, but not strictly correct.

The Tides occur twice a day at any point around our coast, but due to the length of the coast, it is always high tide somewhere and low somewhere else so there will always be a high tide at peak load.... Somewhere.

David Adams
Joke

Re: Northern Children

"Won't someone think of the Northern children?"

If they were still down t'pit where they belong, we wouldn't have this problem in the first place!

LHC boffins crank beams to 3.5 TeV redline

David Adams
Alien

I've seen this before

It's obviously what the Philadelphia Experiment was based on.

Someone from the future got sent back in time and that's how the story started!

Freesat BBC iPlayer beta gets red button access

David Adams
Thumb Down

Not Freesat

It seems to be Panasonic that are holding up the rollout.

Sony are on the Beta and I think Technisat will be in the next week or so.

Those of us who jumped in early with the first integrated Freesat tellys just have to sit and wait.

YouTube: Auto-captions for everyone

David Adams
Coffee/keyboard

New keyboard please.

"1We should note that an instant transcription service has always been available at The Register, by simply selecting "print" on your web browser option menu."

SuperLOLs etc.

Hacking human gullibility with social penetration

David Adams
Boffin

Trust based

The example above is a fine example of a trust based system.

If every level had to verify who you were it would waste time and resources so they accept that, as you have been passed to them by someone they already know and trust, you are legit.

Each higher level assumes that the level below them has authenticated you and they take it on trust that you are who you claim to be.

By fooling 1 low level of the system you can gain access to much richer pickings.

The myth of Britain's manufacturing decline

David Adams
Boffin

It's True

However, when you look around, there are so few firms left, and so many massive factories laying empty.

The only logical conclusion you can come to is that all the manufacturing has gone.

Unfortunately, this isn't the case,

I remember a few years ago when I worked in a steel foundry, there was a survey of all the manufacturing output in Sheffield and we were producing twice as much (tonnage) as during the 2nd world war with only a tenth of the workforce.

It's all down to modern practice, robotics, computers and, at the time, a bloody good exchange rate for exports.

Transformers up for seven Razzies

David Adams
Paris Hilton

Ti-tle

"Only there for the look but is ultimately pointless"

I can certainly see the point of Megan Fox.........

Both of them in fact!

Today is not New Year's Eve - or the end of the decade

David Adams
Unhappy

Please let it be the end of the decade!

This one has been really, really shit.

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