Posts by Chris Holt

Happy 23rd birthday, Windows 3.0

Re: Somewhere...

All this time and they still can't get Trumpet Winsock and Mosaic working on WfW eh? They can get rid of that XP, its just not needed...

(HTML5 works on Mosaic, yeah?)

Creative Suite cloud lurch crushes beret-wearers' cost-slash bid

RTFFAQ

The Adobe FAQ covers a lot of this...come on people this isn't the daily mail!

[adobe.com/uk/products/creativecloud/faq.html]

Q Do I need ongoing Internet access to use my Creative Cloud desktop applications?

A No. Your Creative Cloud desktop applications (such as Photoshop and Illustrator) are installed directly on your computer, so you won't need an ongoing Internet connection to use them on a daily basis.

You will need to be online when you install and license your software. If you have an annual membership, you'll be asked to connect to the web to validate your software licenses every 30 days. However, you'll be able to use products for 180 days even if you're offline.

Q As a Creative Cloud member, am I required to install an upgrade to a desktop application when it becomes available?

A No. You are not required to install any new version of the desktop applications available in Creative Cloud. You can continue using your current version of the product as long as you have an active membership. You have flexibility on when you install a new release to take advantage of new product features, if you choose to do so.

The ten SEXIEST computers of ALL TIME

Re: I seem to recall..

I still have one somewhere....they were amazing for 1985 or whatever it was. IR keyboard and voice, when most PCs didnt have anything like that. It kind of worked too, the only only thing that used to drive me nuts was that it would only boot after a while in my loft after a lot of hitting, I never did discover why. Worked fine once it booted once.

Didnt realise they were so expensive, hope I didn't throw it in the skip a few years ago when I moved!

Prepare for 'post-crypto world', warns godfather of encryption

The issue isn't the compromise of crypto

It is that the data is exfiltrated before crypto is applied. Different thing..but a valid point.

It requires a change in thinking for storage - the 1TB file for secrets is the electronic equivalent of what I used to have to do - tie USB sticks to a piece of 4x2.before couriering them

You basically have 3 choices as far as I can tell:

- encrypt the data at rest so if exfiltrated it is protected for the lifespan of the information's use

- separate your networks t o prevent malware/exfiltration, either through airgaps or through one of the emerging content gateways that split workstations from the internet with more clever 'proxy' behaviour

- split up your critical information so it has to be pieced back together

or 4, if possible assume your data is already compromised and manage the outcome so it is not business destroying when it happens.

Nipper's toy train enjoys journey to edge of SPAAAAACE

Re: Dangerous?

If you are that worried why don't you read the youtube video text where he explicitly explains why it wasnt dangerous?! Or take it for the amusing video it is and relax

China throws 3G net over disputed island chain

3G...for all that Internet access

For those pro-China tweets and g+ updates from the local Vietnamese?

North Korea releases first computer game

Come back Outrun all is forgiven

Circa 1986..yes I know. Ask your parents*

(* or, in the case of a lot of people reading this, you are the parents now. Depressing?)

End of days: Possessed POWERPOINT predicts Mayan Apocalypse

Re: Big Bang

Don't forget to grab a bag of peanuts. And a towel.

Ten digital radios to suit all budgets

THREE HUNDRED POUNDS for a radio?

And you still get something styled from the fifties that is either made of bakelite or looks like it is. I mean honestly world, WTF?

Microsoft: 'Update your security certs this month – or else'

Re: @Erika4872

And you seem to entirely miss the fact that self signed are free and companies dont like to spend money on certs if they can avoid it. Most https sites internall are https because someone mandated they should be, but almost certainly wont pay for a proper cert.

Given a lot of apps have a 'or use a self signed cert' option on install that it will generate it on demand I would say that is a lot less effort than a CSR and a cert signing company?

Yes, yes, the Olympics are near. But what'll happen to its IT afterwards?

Re: this is a very unimpressive use of technology

That'll be the kit that is provided through sponsorship. as 70% of the games (*not* the infrastructure, the games) is provided by. Less than a third is taxpayers money and all the network is sponsored (hence Cisco get to publicise their involvement to the reg)

If you read things from the mail, at least google them before putting it onto a proper forum

Solving traffic jams with maths

Re: This is new?

I had a right go at TfL for a junction near Hyde Park Corner (Brompton Rd/South Ken Rd) recently - the three sets of lights there are out of sync and you can only get two cars through at a time.

The response I got is that they are actively managed and its working perfectly.

So apparently it is intentional .. ??!!

For anyone that did CS at Southampton Uni (ECS)

You will remember fondly the project to create a traffic light management system we did...

It was an iterative project where successive years in turn undertook the three modules, which were something like sensor management, traffic management, traffic visualisation.

Each year the best two solutions to the module in question got merged into the main project and byt he time I did it in 2001 it was pretty good.

So this isnt new, its probably more likely that no council could find budget for it

Which was ironic in Southampton, a city with such bad traffic management that even the police jump the red lights at night out of frustration (think basingstoke but with traffic lights not roundabouts)

Barclaycard pay-by-bonk fraud risk exposes Amazon's security

NFC readers can read NFC cards, and in other news Amazon doesnt use CV2

I don't get this...two stories and a link between them that serves only to make the first story more significant?

Lawyers of Mordor menace Hobbit boozer

You can tell the people who havent been there

Its hard to say they are 'making money from the film', it opened twenty years ago!

Its a great student pub but I would very much doubt that the fact its LotR branded is actually drawing people in. I've cenrtainly never gone there because of the particularly strong and not very hobbitish cocktails, its cheap beer and open late, and nicer than Clowns on a friday

And its been the hoobit for a very long time. Its not like it opened on the back of the LotR films.

Also if you rename it, we will still all call it the Hobbit anyway

DLNA blesses HomePlug Ethernet-over-mains tech

I just don't get DLNA, what does it actually verify

Have you tried getting a DLNA compliant TV working to a DLNA compliant PC or a DLNA complaint Xbox360?

Compliant seems to be a purely theoretically accreditation. DLNA does not mandate *how* it interacts (wrt transcoding, compatibility etc) so actually getting it to work is flipping tricky.

So you can still now officially theoretically make a DLNA connection over an IP network just replacing a copper cable with a copper cable using Powerline adaptors?

(I am happy to be corrected if someone has more positive DLNA experiance. A Bravia TV to a PS3 does not count, that is not manufacturer agnostic its Sony-Sony)

Hobbit movie locations using 6km of data cabling

They have 20 boxes of cat5 (305m per box) and 3 sats across two locations

Not exactly ground breaking?

York CompSci student pleads guilty to Facebook hack

Re: Good

While I agree with The BigYin@22:44 you can't go around breaking into sites, hide your tracks, get caught *then* go 'well it was for everyones good'. Its not for everyones good if you don't 'fess up and discuss it with FB but keep it for yourself - thats hard to claim as research

This makes the assumption that he didn't of course. If he did, then FB must have been proper pissed at him

Durban failed: Relax, everyone

Great for the environment...

Those 15,000 return flight to Cape Town/Joburg and the 15,000 transfers across South Africa must have benefited the environment greatly...

Apple posts 'battery fix' iOS update

Doesn't fix the reception issue I have

It seems to poll very infrequently to get reception, or know when it has lost it at least

I managed to get down to the Jubilee line at Waterloo and all the way to London Bridge, and it still had 1 bar. And thats on Three, the entwork which barely has one bar at street level....

Lemmings

DHTML Lemmings

No need for an Amiga ... www.elizium.nu/scripts/lemmings/

I'm sure most people here know that already though...

Team Philippines solar car in self-combustion drama

Is that blood on the wall of the motel or a bizarre pattern?

It looks like you are sleeping in the site of a recent massacre!

Ten... Androids to outshine the iPhone 4S

You can get a 'droid that matches an iPhone....

...and I despise the apple love/apple hate commenttards but this article does nothing to boost the profile of Android

If it had been headed 'A list of nearly-but-not-quite droid phones and also the ZTE' it would have been more accurate.

Why list a number of phones that are the same price as an iPhone but don't compare, and say they are missing x, y or z otherwise they would be great.

I like the Monte Carlo though...thats a totally fair suggestion for people who want a smartphone but dont want to pay Apple prices, ditto the Wildfire, assuming its not unusably slow for angry birds etc

London bus timings mobile beta site spotted

Don't believe that London is ever ahead

We barely have live update 'next bus' screens anywhere. And the ones we have are so inaccurate its unbearable - my H91 goes from 15 mins -14-7-disappeared completely-2-3-4-disappeared again and then just arrives.

if the TFL site just provides this then I may as well just guess anyway!

If it works properly, it'll be a godsend though (like the national rail one, which is brilliant)

UK will obey Euro unisex-insurance rules from 2013

Define fair...Insurance companies *assess risk*

While everyone is complaining about this, remember the insurance compaines do a huge amount of data mining to assess risk. Male/Female, Young/Old, Black/White, London/Highlands etc etc they know what likelyhood is that people will claim. Its a fine art and its not unfair unless you are in the higher risk category with multiple writeoffs and you pay the same as someone who has never had an accident. Its not sexist, racist, ageist, regionist, its profiling and its what insurance compaines *do* - they assess risk.

Hell, some companies change the premium if you are on Firefox not IE. Gender is the least of the issues.

Of course, I don't trust the insurance companies not to blatently inflate premiums for no good reason - how else do they price match? That is the real issue, the EU are just nuts IMHO

Feds shut down poker site

US Law

You are not allowed to offer gambling to users in the US by US law; you must take sufficient measures to prevent this, otherwise directors are arrested by the FBI when they go on holiday to the states (which is probably what happened) (I suppose they could use extradition rules, but its easier to just wait for them to go to Disneyland).

Charges were probably made against said Directors, and Alderney cannot afford to get a bad reputation so the AGCC suspends the license for breaking the rules

Oz alkie gets hammered on hospital hand sanitiser

More effective that rehab...

at least they *all* come out clean...

My coat...the one with empty brown paper bags in the pocket

New York Times takes on Apple-baiting troll

I am in the wrong job

Why when I said I wanted to work in IT did noone tell me to become a patents lawyer.

We both work with IPs I guess......(I'll get my coat)...but the lawyers in this LodSys case on both sides are on a total winner whoever wins. Its going to take years!

Apple breaks location-storing silence

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

"[...]keeping the database it up to date and correcting any errors.[....]An Android device which wants to know where it is will send the local transmitter (Wi-Fi and cellular) identities to Google, which consults the database and, if there's a match, responds with a rough location."

Hang on a minute - is this not the data collected by Street View that was being deleted all over the place, just being updated again as handsets instead of google cars go past?

And please can we nb that this is droid and ios!

Microsoft spends $7.5m on IP addresses

@Marvin - for printers

Fundamental IP understanding fail - IPv4 addresses are routed by BGP and a /24 is the minimum you can route. Also every range needs to be configured (generally) with the ISP and via the likes of RIPE.

So you can't give away IPv4 addresses you have to set them up properly, way beyond the ability of muggles with printers

Just being pedantic.

May promises £63m for cybercrime fight

Re: how to defend against 'cyber crime'

Because of course *all* cybercrime comes from Windows workstation being compromised. None of it at all comes from phishing emails, hacked web sites, fake sites, chip & pin machines, call centre trolls copying card details etc etc

How to 'mislead people' by blaming one element of a bigger problem

---Mines the one with the Ubuntu DVD, the one that makes me invincible

Wikileaks: Berlusconi useless, Pope Catholic

Re: Or, as Eddie Izzard said...

...Assange est sur la branche (because monkeys struggle to hide in trees, too many bananas)

Assange est là-bas. Regarde! Il est sur une bicyclette!

Boffins bring us one step closer to a quantum network

My HEAD is ON FIRE!!

Is this how old people feel when being told about texting and facebook? I totally sympathise now...

Plods scrap crap stealth spy blimp

Those blimps are brilliant in reality

Assuming it is much the same as the one rented in by Scottish police at T in the Park, they are incredible bits of kit. In fact they are so good that if you watch the BBC footage of T what you usually see when you see shots from helicopters is actually the shot (in HD) remotely on the blimp.

The resolution, zoom and stabilisation were eyeopening - we filmed the red arrows display, and followed a small plane doing a flyby for about a mile - we could still read its number - with a noticable breeze outside.

That is of course assuming they use the same cameras. These were the same ones used in big budget filming that are hooked onto helis (I know they were used on Harry Potter as thats the last job it was on when I saw it last year) and cost *a lot* - way more than the quoted budget of the scheme

Of course, a great blimp on a very long leash it wasn't great when the wind got above about f4 as it had to be brought in/lower...

(Before the comments come back, yes it was authorised use of CCTV when not doing filming for the BBC and yes we were all licensed and no we didnt intrude on anyones privacy there)

Coalition tears up net snoop plan's £2bn price tag

You wouldn't bother decrypting traffic from Gmail etc

You wouldn't bother decrypting traffic from Gmail etc

You would go to Google and ask them for logs of who came from x IP at y time, x and y coming from the intercepted data. You then have the user name and get a warrant for copies of the emails.

Simples. Never assume encryption provides complete protection unless only you posess the private key to the data.

Also, encrypted traffic between two points that cannot be investigated (ie between two PCs) is still chatter, and shows that those users communicate (if the two PCs are in the UK and Pakistan, you can be quite sure that there will be interest in the data). You can tell a lot from traffic without seeing what was actually sent.

WTF is... DLNA?

Blame the politics of FOSS and proprietary formats in the past (present?)

From the sidelines you wonder how hard it could be to make one standard for AV streaming and control. However, Sony Apple MS et al worked hard in the early noughties to create their own 'standards' in the hope of inflated licensing revenues, and since loosely apply standards like DLNA and Bluetooth (inc AVRCP).

Something like DLNA should be industry managed and funded, not requiring annual fees that prohibit all but the biggest or most dedicated players to participate. And it should be rigorous enough that it supports a small number of publicly available unlicensed codecs and a simple control mechanism. Microsoft/Apple/Sony would inevitably create their own extensions, but if those extensions were in the form of an XML schema, the DTD would be publically available to allow 3rd party control of some functionality or other that was outside the bounds of normal usage.

But normal usage surely should include the basic ff rw pause controls and the streaming of videos and audio in an agreed format, so you know that any phone that implemented DLNA could stream to any other DLNA device.

Is it too late now to recover from this - where do you go now? *Another* standard?

I had a proper geeky triumph moment the other day when I finally got, after well over an hour, PS3MediaServer to stream to my Bravia TV. God knows how a muggle could have got that to work.

Paris, because we more about how she works(*) than DLNA

(*) edited from what I originally wrote so this could get past Miss Bee

Moms stand firm against antenna madness

Double standards no doubt

You just know they will be the first ones to complain that they get no reception and that the operators are ignoring them because of the complaints that they have made previously.

That the operators simply cannot win is not their problem it seems

BT feathers ruffled over pigeon-based file transfer caper

The pigeon did go through an analysis coop

...having been caught in theavian Phorm trial, so the sender received adverts about bird seed and avian flu jabs for ever....

TomTom drums up upgrade for iPhone app

When have you ever wanted to drive to a photo?

You take a photo as a memory of somewhere you have been - holidays or drunk with mates in the pub...

If I have been there, I generally know where it is. If I have taken a photo of it I am generally not going back there again. And if I am in the pub, its 100yds down the road.

It would be much better if they fixed HD traffic subscriptuion, that I am currently battling with...

That will be all.

Paris - because she *would* probably use it - 'nuff said

iOS jailbreak howdunnit partially solved

Re: android for iphone?

You could just google for android on iphone...there are enough sites about it

Emmerdale shoves jam rags in innocent kiddies' faces

I for one welcome our new j...<stop!>

whoa hang on, thats not an appropriate meme for this thread now I think about it. Neither are playmobil reconstructions for that matter

3D films fall flat

3D isn't a panacea for rubbish films

Hollywood seem to see 3D as an all consuming panacea for cinema sales, ignoring the fact that people did not go to the cinema before because they were not interested in the watching the releases until they hit DVD. 3D has a novelty period, particularly with Avatar, and does make a case for going to the cimena rather than turning to torrents. However, Avatar would have had high sales anyway, if the first major 3D release had been American Pie 324 (or whatever they have to got up to now) sales would have been less of a headline.

Most 3D films IMHO underuse the 3D element, adding depth into the screen and doing novelty effects. 2D -3D conversion is flaky at best

If you want to see what 3D really can look like, watch the Sony 3D Bluray demo for their TVs. It makes James Cameron's 3D effects look like amateur hour.

Council wins motorbike charges case

Re: It's everyone

Of course there are train driving pricks. They are the ones who threaten to go on strike just because .... (insert normal rantting here) ... so don't exclude them!

O2 to step back from unlimited mobile data deals

Tethering

One would assume then that they have no problem with tethering after that, given you have the same limit...? Though the chances ofthat happening are the same as my bacon sandwich lifting off and flying home

Is it possible to measure IT Security?

Totally agree with @Chris Miller

I am in much the same position, and I have spent years providing 'security metrics' along similar lines. However, almost universally the customers (when prompted for opinion) say that they rarely require the stats except to prove that tools are worth the investment, they were defined in a contract somewhere by people in no way familiar with security (ditto networks, servers, applications etc that are defined with metrics). In fact, I have picked up before that contractually there was expectation to *not* detect 99.5% of viruses!

However, as Chris rightly pointed out, the stats of virus detection, spam detection etc not only do not represent the real stance of these tools [1] but also bear little representation of the true security stance across the organisation.

The real problem is that you are trying to index a scenario where you start not knowing if you know every threat and end knowing that you still do not know every threat, thus the index can only be representative of known knowns and not unknown unknowns. That is the nature of the job - risk mitigation - and I too have little idea how to really have a true index on success. All you can do is address likely impact and probability at the end of the day, by all the means that you use currently probably.

--Chris

[1] for this you would need to know the ratio of detected vs not detected, and if they aren't detected how do you know you missed them: you assume that users report every case - does that really work?

Cray launches Gemini super interconnect

Compilation will be fun

Not often you get to type make -j 1000000 legitimately

Thats if make was made with more than an integer argument - "32768 jobs, think we'll be OK guys..."

Paris, because she has no jobs(*)

[* for those who argue, when did 'being Paris' become a job?]

DARPA witchfinder-ware to SMITE America's IT traitors

Only DARPA...

Happy April Fools...no hang on its not...

Only DARPA would actually progress Minority Report - but didn't they see that it is causes feedback loops with the operators?

F*ck you, thunders disgruntled fanboi Apple user

I can't jump because...

'Parachute' is over 10Mb and requires a wireless connection...

TomTom iPhone Car Kit

Can we have a review of the car kit not the app

Was interested to see what the writeup of the car kit was as I have had the app for 3 months and know what it does, but the car kit is new. So was a bit disappointed to see a review of the app in the US with a couple of lines about the car kit.

Does the onboard GPS actually improve the reception? Whats the audio quality like? That kind of thing. And UK based given that we are rarely in SF...

Web firms seek Royal Mail rivals with GSOH for delivery fling

Is this not having the opposite effect to what the CWU desire?!

Surely web retail is propping up the Royal Mail in a time when t'interweb communication, mainly email and IM, have destroyed the postal market. How does the CWU think that disrupting (or even threatening to) the Christmas market will help their members financially and not end up in heavy redundancies?

Maybe its a good time for postal workers to learn to say "do you want fries with that?"