Posts by Paul Crawford

Reg man wraps head in 49-inch curved monitor

Re: Still only 1080 Vertical

I have "only" a 27" 2560 x 1440 monitor and those extra vertical lines really help. If I have the budget/new video card/cleared desk then probable would go for a 40" 4k monitor to get more usable height as much as anything.

Having said that, ANY increase in monitor size is useful, more so than most CPU speed increases* in recent years, and if you often have two windows open side-by-side I can see such a monitor having its appeal.

[*] yes, lets not talk about meltdown/spectre

Mobile World Congress: 5 buzzwords, an homage to Windows XP and a smartphone snorefest

Re: Really?

The ones which completely dominate the market, you mean?

I guess so. They may be dominant but the are not really that good.

Re: Latency? In my self-driving car?

"Rock is transparent to some frequencies."

It also lacks the ability to warn self-driving cars about its presence on the road after a land slide. Same for the lack of rock (AKA pot holes). So this goal of "ability to see round bends" won't apply to the first car (or maybe 2nd, depending on the system) that blindly speeds along safe in the knowledge there are no meatbags driving and hits it...

MIT gives one-star review to Lyft, Uber over abysmal '$3.37/hr' pay

Re: Judge by what people do, not what they say they want.

Tim Worstall's conclusion is interesting:

"It prevents large numbers of people doing what they’d like to do, sell their labour for less than $7.25 an hour. We’ve the proof of this, large numbers of them are doing exactly that when they’re able to, as self-employed Uber drivers."

I am pretty sure they don't want to sell their labour for less than $7.25/h but are doing so either because (a) they have not worked out just how little they are earning, or (b) there is not enough local work (they are qualified for?) to get a minimum wage job.

Either way is sounds a lot like VC-funded "illegal dumping" on the taxi job market.

US Supremes take a look at Microsoft's Irish email slurp battle, and yeah, not a great start

Re: The solution is simple.

"US believes it can access any data stored on systems owned, or under control of any US entity"

So basically that means Windows 10 then as the EULA and design permits data access?

Will be interesting if this comes to pass and the whole of Europe it basically told that using Windows on any internet-connected machine for any personal data is now a breach of privacy laws.

Huawei guns for Apple with Mac-alike Matebook X

Re: Looks good

As opposed the to usual sort that make it look as if you are avoiding eye-contact by always looking "down" below it?

Short of a screen-centre camera, you can't really win...

When clever code kills, who pays and who does the time? A Brit expert explains to El Reg

True, but then who is responsible for setting up the AI?

Really it comes back to the first commentard's point - always hold the vendor responsible, otherwise they have no incentive to get it right and fix bugs as they are discovered.

For example, why should my autonomous car insurance premium depend on the performance of the vendor's AI in crash avoidance? Flaws and problems and financial consequences should stop at the car company in this case.

Re: @ Oliver Jones

That is an interesting but also seriously flawed argument:

1) While parents are not held responsible for their children, companies are held responsible for the actions of their employees in the course of work (which is closer to the vendor/software model)

2) When they are adults (and to some extent before then), children become liable for their own actions and can be punished by the courts. Unless AI has some concept of reget or self-preservation that is not available.

Of course threatening to reprogram its data banks with an axe might just work...

Tor pedo's torpedo torpedoed: FBI spyware crossed the line but was in good faith, say judges

Re: My sympathy meter is broken

These sort of cases are rather worrying. Not that anyone much has sympathy for those promoting child rape, etc, but more that by initially being used for such cases it allows dubious legal practices to be "normalised" for other investigations.

Paedophilia is in many was the new witchcraft: where simply being accused is enough to lose one's job, family rights, etc, and even if it all turns out to have been a case of mistaken identity, etc, you won't ever get your former life back and the tabloid headlines won't be shouting about your innocence. And this is not just a theoretical concern:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/08/disgruntled-brit-plants-child-porn-on-bosss-computer-calls-cops/

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/world/europe/vladimir-putin-russia-fake-news-hacking-cybersecurity.html

So while we all want the police to investigate and prosecute cases of child abuse, they have to do so with great care to establish the integrity of the process is beyond doubt and that they don't go in guns blazing (perhaps literally in the USA) to the wrong house due to some screw up with IP address resolution, shared wifi / weak passwords / etc.

UK.gov's Brexiteers warned not to push for divergence on data protection laws

Re: All thats missing

The "red white and blue" Berxit is so mixed up it is very much turning out a brown Brexit.

KFC: Enemy of waistlines, AI, arteries and logistics software

Re: Have I missed something?

"Just as i finished typing the sentence last sentence it occurred to me: roadworks but then again surely any roadworks could have custom (doesn't have to be a sign) transmitter to inform the car of the rules of traversing any ongoing works."

Again this is not the exact issue, it is the serious disconnect between the claimed ability of AI to deal with the real world that meat-bags do a half-passable job of in order to work for the decades it will take to transition from drivers to robots on the road.

If your AI can't tell a KFC and STOP sign apart, just how good/safe will it be? Even if you think "oh just put up a transmitter for robocars at road works" how will they deal with any other sort of outage/problem that meat bags could deal with by using their (admittedly often limited) intelligence to work around? Finally when there is a a fatal/serious injury crash involving a megacorp's robo car and some lawyer can show such shitty AI discrimination of the obvious, do you think the fines for knowingly unsafe design will be Ford Pinto style or not?

Developer recovered deleted data with his face – his Poker face

"No, it is specifically prohibited to delete . or .. and has been since at least the first version of POSIX."

My comment is not about deleting the current/parent directory, but that it will follow them. For example, try this in your home directory as a non-destructive example:

ls -R .* | grep '\.\.' | grep -v $USER

You would expect it to show you just your own hidden files? But you might be surprised by what is also there when you filter out the obvious (1st grep looks for the double-dot parent style of name, 2nd grep should ignore your own files, but of course it is not just your hidden file it is matching either!).

"rm -rf recurses into mounted directories"

You must also be aware that if the matching pattern/regex includes '..' it will go UP a level and then down from there!

At least the time I almost suffered from that, it was a recursive chmod command on '.*' to change hidden files/directories permissions from my home location. And I did it as myself, so when it tried to go up and down in to all other's home directories the standard permission bits stopped it.

But for the grace of $DIETY go I...

@ Prst. V.Jeltz

The UNIX equivalent command waiting to do this is 'dd', also known as destroy data for an obvious reason. dd can be used to copy whole physical HDD as well as to wipe them be reading /dev/zero (or /dev/random for the more paranoid) as the source of data to write to the HDD.

Just be very, VERY, sure you get the if= and of= options the right way round.

Very slightly less risky but equally odd/comparable to robocopy is the rsync command. It won't by default delete files, but the behaviour in whether it copies/creates the main directory is depended on the trailing '/' in source and destination paths in a way I always seem to forget. So the --dry-run option is always my initial addition until I see roughly what it will attempt to do.

If you haven't already killed Lotus Notes, IBM just gave you the perfect reason to do it now, fast

Re: Thunderbird != Outlook

Thanks for that insight, but all of that is really a feature of exchange I guess, and not of the "email client" as such.

Re: Thunderbird != Outlook

Serious question here: Why is having a calendar in your email client a good thing?

Every time Outlook is discussed this comes up as its main advantage - and I just don't get it. Sure I see that having some good calendar functionality is useful, but its not something I ever see as related to email (reminders being sent to your inbox being the obvious exception).

Facebook gets Weed-whacked: Unilever exec may axe ads over social network's toxic posts

I always want to substitute penguins :)

They would do better than out national football team...

BOFH: We want you to know you have our full support

I tried deleting /etc but it did not make things any better...

LISA Pathfinder sniffed out gravitational signals down to micro-Hertz

Re: PicoHertz?

Indeed, even 1uHz = 11.6 days, 1nHz = 31.7 years period. Of course you could have 800pHz as around 40 years and still be well within advertising standards...

Of course it might also be related to the time-derivative of gravity (units anyone?!) where it may be something like 1pico-g per second or similar.

Long haul flights on a one-aisle plane? Airbus thinks you’re up for it

Re: Single aisle transatlantic is not news...

"Because thats less than the price for me to get a train to London!"

Thanks in no small part to airlines not paying tax on fuel...

GCHQ unit claims it has 'objectively' made the UK a less desirable target to cybercrims

Re: Another outsourcing agency?

To be fair, they do publish some useful guides to making your systems more secure and mitigating some of the more common attack/vulnerabilities. For example:

https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/eud-security-guidance-ubuntu-1604-lts

Dori-no! PepsiCo boss says biz is planning to sell lady crisps

My sordid imagination was profoundly disappointed to learn that "lady crisps" were not any sort of anatomical reference.

Still, good to know that MBAs are providing value to their employers.

OpenWall unveils kernel protection project

Re: I am skeptical

I think the key point is the kernel (in fact, most OS stuff) is simply too big and complicated to be correct. And so they are proposing a much simpler system to look for changes that should not happen as an indication of bugs or exploits being used. It is unlikely to stop the likes of GCHQ/NSA/FSB's best, but it is not a bad idea if it is small and reliable. A bit like Apparmor for additional protection against badly behaved (or compromised) daemons, web browsers, etc.

Of course those in favour of provable microkernels will be gloating at this point, but they still have the problems of (a) lower level faults (CPU bugs, non-proven libraries, etc) and (b) no one really uses them for the sort of big jobs we generally want. That is dominated by Linux (monolithic monstrosity) and Windows (microkernel virginity long since lost).

Morrisons launches bizarre Yorkshire Pudding pizza thing

Re: Obligatory pulled pork?

Is that also on offer from ones those who wave to you from the windows in De Walletjes

Electric cars to create new peak hour when they all need a charge

Re: EV manufacturing costs

It is not the "rare earths" in electronics or big DC/brushless motors that is the non-green aspect for EV, it is the old Devil himself - the battery.

Range issues, pollution on manufacture, recycle issues, risk of fire/explosion on crash - all come down to battery design. Yes it is getting better with time but it is NOT like the "Moore's law" expectations most have for electronics etc. Probably this will improve, but every year or two we hear of breakthrough technology that apparently came to nothing (most likely engineering issues, I don't believe in the "big oil" hiding it conspiracy theory).

Re: problem is real but pretty easily solvable

"At the heart of this, we have blokes (and it is almost entirely blokes) who just don't want the world to change."

No, most of the commentards here are pointing out that we don't have the infrastructure to support a massive EV fleet and unless the cost of that, and the tax "benefit" governments currently reap from car use are addressed, the current advantages of EVs are moot and optimism unfounded.

Yes, they produce little pollution at point of use (ignoring dust from break & tyre ware)

No, they are not 100% green due to the (1) the manufacturing costs and impact of the battery technology used, and (2) because practically no where is fully renewable (without biomass use, obviously) so some pollution is generated elsewhere.

Also the cost - for now EV users are getting big subsidies to promote this, sooner or later that will have to change and EV costs will be higher than current IC figure.

Will we eventually be electric? Probably, but most likely we will have to give up on the idea of everyone having an EV car of their own due to the charging problems (grid capacity, location of charges in areas of terraced houses, etc). Most likely the future will be EV autonomous taxis.

Serverless: Should we be scared? Maybe. Is it a silly name? Possibly

Re: how much will it cost

Not just "how much will it cost?" but also "how long will it continue to work before some numpty at the cloud/serveless/whatever provided decides to change your interface/data structures/supported APIs and break it?"

Ever had the sad misfortune to rely on any Google's forever-beta products? If so you will realise your fancy new product won't last a generation, a century, nor or strange aeons, but 1-2 years tops.

Playboy is suing Boing Boing over Imgur centrefold link

Re: Puh-leeze...

Sir! You can search for ISBN 1452161038 if you prefer to look slightly more innocent.

Until you actually find the book, then your URL history will be mildly tainted. OK, that is "mild" compared to some of the sordid stuff that I allegedly look for...

Unfortunately my favourite purveyor of books (abebooks) seems to be throwing odd web site errors just now. Probably knows my disgusting intentions...

Europe waves through Qualcomm's NXP slurp

Bad news

I suspect that many of NXP's less-profitable product lines will be culled much to the detriment of the electronics industry as a whole.

Who's using 2FA? Sweet FA. Less than 10% of Gmail users enable two-factor authentication

Re: @Cuddles

Quite the opposite - I might have several gmail accounts for various different aspects of my life, I don't want to make it trivial for Google to tie them all together by the one phone number, nor to buy multiple disposable phones for 2FA. Also those accounts are of low value to me anyway.

Red Hat slams into reverse on CPU fix for Spectre design blunder

"Thanks Redhat Intel"

Fixed it for you...

Upset Equation Editor was killed off? Now you can tell Microsoft to go forth and multiply: App back from the dead

Re: Another piece of abandonware.

An example of how users get screwed by MS again. One BIG reason for sticking to a product is the ability to keep updating or re-using existing work, and for the science lot MS has just thrown that away.

Yes, WORD has its own equation editor function now but it is a bit crap compared to the one just dropped and those with many existing documents and papers are now looking at having to re-enter it with all of the typos / bugginess that brings.

WTF were they thinking? Can't they have a format converter that actually works if they are going to do this?

Infamous Silicon Valley 'sex party' exactly as exciting as it sounds

Re: Definitely bullshit.

And the film of the name about his life is well worth watching, if a little odd. The actor who played the Golem was amazingly good at portraying Ian Dury's condition.

Intel puts security on the todo list, Tavis topples torrent tool, and more

Re: Topples Torrent Tool

Lets be honest here, its the main reason I use it...

Smartphones' security enhancements just make them more dangerous

Re: To know != to be

And presumably you could have multiple PINs that unlock the phone in different, possibly partially data-earsing, ways?

Or is nobody as paranoid / devious as me in the outside world? Or do we simply not put such stuff on our phones because we trust them as far as we can comfortably spit a rat?

You GNOME it: Windows and Apple devs get a compelling reason to turn to Linux

Re: Unimpressed by Gnome

Not to mention GNOME's apparent dependency on systemd these days. But as you say, the most annoying aspect if the removal of useful features because some developer would rather cull code than fix bugs.

Do you still get GNOME for other non-systemd systems like Solaris, OpenBSD, etc?

How to hack Wi-Fi for fun and imprisonment with crypto-mining inject

Re: @ Credas

Any of the small coffee shops I visit have no problems, neither do most smaller hotels, etc. Also have not had problems at Edinburgh airport (don't remember details, maybe some over-priced eating places wifi instead of the airport's one).

Also as another commentard has pointed out you can run VPNs over port 443 like https to avoid problems (as I do). I suspect in many cases they are not specifically trying to stop VPNs (except Bonn, where it blocked VPN on port 443 but allowed https to the VPN's web site) but file sharing, etc, so they probable block most ports except the few common DNS/web/email ones.

VPN use

Yet another good reason to use a good VPN on any unknown/untrusted WiFi connection.

And yes, VPNs are not perfect security and also using public wifi is not good practice either, but sometimes it is just the only useful/practical way to get a reliable connection when you 3G, etc, connection sucks (or is charging usurious fees in certain countries abroad).

What is shitty is some places like Bonn airport where the "free wifi" blocks VPN use.

Here come the lawyers! Intel slapped with three Meltdown bug lawsuits

Re: Data breeches

No, those are hard drives. He is just pleased to see you.

Military alliance NATO adopts official hymn

@ James O'Shea

So are you volunteering to spank Angela then?

Woo-yay, Meltdown CPU fixes are here. Now, Spectre flaws will haunt tech industry for years

Re: DEC Alpha

Yes, in its day a great CPU. Wiped the floor with x86 (especially on single-precision floating point maths).

And once DEC was bought by HP they dumped it in favour of the Itanium, because it was clear that Intel's new design was going to be a great hit, eh?

Meltdown, Spectre: The password theft bugs at the heart of Intel CPUs

Re: Hmm, If I was working at a secret agency

Lets face it, the underlying problem is the "need for speed" and the resulting mismatch between the CPU core at ~3GHz and main memory in the ~1GHz and below range. So lets throw hardware at it, millions and billions of transistors to try and play God/quantum by plying out all possible paths within the instruction pipeline.

And they got it wrong. Not massively so in normal terms, but they did not design based on the assumption of bad actors abusing this. Because no one bought hardware that was slow and secure, at least, not the majority of PC gamers or business managers chasing the ever-bloating OS and web browser problems. Make it fast, make it now. Ship it when its half-baked and if we get too many problems then put out a microcode update which users may (or probably not, given the shittyness of many motherboard makers) apply.

Sorry, but in most cases like this it is simple "incompetence" for not really planning high security from the original start because that is not what the boss will get bonuses for.

Judge rm -rf Grsecurity's defamation sue-ball against Bruce Perens

Re: Someone'll need to explain what rm -rf means...

DEL /F /S /Q *.*

(I think that leaves directories though)

RMDIR /S /Q *.*

(On later Windows instead of deltree)

Please don't try this at home folks! More so if you had to ask...

Google Chrome ad-blocking to begin in February – but what is it going to block?

Re: "...including Facebook..." ??

You want the "FB Purity" plug-in just for that sort of shit.

Assuming the best option of simply ignoring Facebook is not possible...

UK, US govt and pals on WannaCry culprit: It woz the Norks wot done it

Re: @ Jonathan Schwatrz

"Bollocks. You are excusing criminals."

So you think that a large professional organisation that uses IT has no obligation to take some care of its own system security?

I take it you would be happy to see banks store your money in a cardboard box under the counter?

No problem with leaving your keys in your car overnight?

Better if airports did nothing to check passengers or luggage boarding the plane you are due to fly on?

Re: @ Jonathan Schwatrz

"Yeah, and people that don't have bars on all their windows are totally to blame when their houses get burgled?"

No. Having "unpatched machines being publicly exposed" is more analogous to having unprotected sex with every lady (or man) of negotiable affection down at the docks. How long would you expect to last before getting a dose of galloping knob-rot?

Re: @ fandom

"What you are doing is a lot like blaming a mugging victim for not knowing karate."

No, more a case of a shop assistant carrying large wads in cash in clear plastic bags, and without any disguise or protection, to the bank every day. Of course they *should* not be robbed, but if they were you could not help but think it was partly due to a rather lax and careless attitude to security.

And then you (or the insurers, assuming they had any) would be asking the shop owner serious questions about their risk assessment and practices...

Re: So,

Bomb? More like blowing hard on a house of cards.

No mention of our American friends providing the exploit?

No mention of the impact being severe due to unpatched machines being publicly exposed?

No mention of a lack of IT funds/staff with authority to sort that out?

Windows 10 Hello face recognition can be fooled with photos

"To be honest if someone has physical access to your machine then you can count it pwned anyway so I don't see the issue here."

There is a difference between 'having physical access' in the sense of time and privacy to open a machine to extract the HDD and/or modify it to inset keylogger or run some sort of DMA attack via Thunderbolt ports, etc, and 'having physical access' as in popping in to an office with a sheet of paper when you have gone to the toilet.

France gives WhatsApp a month to get slurps in order or face fine

Re: So what if they don't ?

As already alluded to by my fellow commentards, the action the French can take is against any company doing business in France. Fine them (i.e. Facebook as well) if they don't pay then no business in France or with French advertising agencies. And money speaks loud and clear in the USA...