Posts by Neoc

Australia's first public swatting victim a nice bloke

Logic should have been applied...

Why would someone in Sydney NSW text the QLD Police? Makes no sense.

More than likely, we'll find the SWATter was a Queenslander and he texted QPS out of habit.

(Yes, I am a QLDer. QPS = Queensland Police Service).

Kickstarter cup-rattling, light-dimming Internet of Stuff upstart takes on Sonos, Bose

One wonders why El Reg is telling us *now* about a kickstarter that ended over a month ago...

CSIRO claims milestone in solar-powered steam turbines

Heaven knows there's enough sun here in Australia...

Android is a BURNING 'hellstew' of malware, cackles Apple's Cook

Idiot misses the point... on purpose?

I have a couple of servers running Linux, PCs and a Laptop running Windows 7, phone and tablets are running Android and, yes, I have and iPad. One of the original. Whose OS *can't* be upgraded to 6, let alone 7 or 8. Physically CAN'T. And since my iPad 1 still does what I need it to do, I feel no need to buy a newer one. So I am in the 11% running an outdated iOS version. Surprise!

Apparently, the reason most Apple users run the latest iOS version has nothing to do with how easily Apple makes new versions available, it has to do with the facts that most of them will slavishly upgrade their hardware every time Apple brings out a new version. I, on the other hand, am perfectly happy with my old v1 iPad (I keep it for a comic-book reader which is not available on Android) and feel no need to upgrade my hardware. And so do most Android users, who don't feel the need to compulsively upgrade their hardware "simply because".

I know I sound like an Android pusher - I am not (see hardware list above - the right OS for the right job). I just want to point out that Cook was talking bullshit in this respect.

ASUS launches 5-in-1 Android Windows Phone laptop tablet (breathe)

Re: "Who am I?!?!?!?!"

"I'm Jean Valjean!"

iiNet trial killed ISP-content talks, says Brandis

Sooo.... lot's of hand-wringing going on about how to stop Piracy... but no-one's bothering to look into why Piracy is "such a big problem" in the first place. Like stupid release schedules around the world. Or price discrepancies across markets. Or stupid DRM rules that stop me from watching/listening what I want when and where I want.

Cart, horse.

Australia iOS ransom gizmo-snatch OUTRAGE not our FAULT: Apple

End of the world?

"Apple Australia has contacted The Reg..." Surely one of the signs of the Apocalypse?

ET hunter: We will find SPACE ALIENS in 20 years

...what the...?

Two weeks ago, the Pope went on record saying that of course the church would be happy to welcome extra-terrestrial life into the fold. http://global.christianpost.com/news/pope-francis-talks-about-aliens-says-he-would-welcome-martians-to-receive-baptism-119630/

Now we are being told contact with extra-terrestrial life is likely to happen in the next 20 years.

Are we being softened up for something...?

Bitcoin blockchain allegedly infected by ancient 'Stoned' virus

Re: STONED

I still have a warm spot in my heart for the Cookie Monster virus. DOS-based, it would eventually put up a message saying "gimme cookie" and do nothing else. After a while, the message would come back. Again and again, each time with less time between the message until eventually your PC would freeze.

To get rid of it? You typed COOKIE on the command line and it would sanitize itself from your system.

Benign, but fun.

Boffins run iOS apps on Android hardware

It'd be nice

When I moved from an iPad 1 to an Android slab, I found equivalent apps for all my iTune apps with little problem. Except for one - it was (and as far as I am concerned still is) the best comic-book/manga reader around. Unfortunately, the author has no plans to rewrite it for Android. So if Cider does get released, I'll finally be able to completely ditch my ageing iPad.

Supposedly secure Dogecoin service Dogevault goes offline

What did the Doge do?

King Roderick: The Duke. What did the Duke do?

Hubert Hawkins: Eh... the Duke do?

King Roderick: Yes. And what about the Doge?

Hubert Hawkins: Oh, the Doge!

King Roderick: Eh. Well what did the Doge do?

Hubert Hawkins: The Doge do?

King Roderick: Yes, the Doge do.

Hubert Hawkins: Well, uh, the Doge did what the Doge does. Uh, when the Doge does his duty to the Duke, that is.

King Roderick: What? What's that?

Hubert Hawkins: Oh, it's very simple, sire. When the Doge did his duty and the Duke didn't, that's when the Duchess did the dirt to the Duke with the Doge.

King Roderick: Who did what to what?

Hubert Hawkins: Oh, they all did, sire. There they were in the dark; the Duke with his dagger, the Doge with his dart, Duchess with her dirk.

King Roderick: Duchess with her dirk?

Hubert Hawkins: Yes! The Duchess dove at the Duke just when the Duke dove at the Doge. Now the Duke ducked, the Doge dodged, and the Duchess didn't. So the Duke got the Duchess, the Duchess got the Doge, and the Doge got the Duke!

King Roderick: Curious. I... I... hmm? What? What's that? All I heard was that the Duchess had a siege of rheumatism. She's 83, you know.

Facebook-backed spec lets apps link to other apps on mobes

NO!

"For example, a page might include App Links tags indicating where to find an Android app, an iPhone app, and a separate app for iPads, plus another tag that specifies a fallback web URL"

So instead of me deciding (through my preference settings) that I want to use (say) VLC to view videos or flash files, the page will now override my choice and tell me I *must* use their preferred App or else be redirected to a web-page?

I don't think so.

FCC seeks $48K fine from mobile phone-jamming driver

On a separate note...

If it's so illegal for Joe Public to use one, why are they allowing manufacturers to *sell* them to Joe Public in the first place?

Re: Decision time?

@Poopypants: except it would also disrupt the phones of any passengers in a car. I don't know about you, but my wife regularly calls other people when I am driving in order to (for example) let them know we have been delayed, or call a take-out place after work because neither one of us feels like cooking dinner, etc...

Unless you can somehow restrict the technology to drivers-only, it's not reasonable.

Firefox, is that you? Version 29 looks rather like a certain shiny rival

Oh, FFS!

<sigh> Yet another group/company that believes desktop GUI should look/behave the same way as Tablet/phone GUI. Why would I want to waste screen real-estate on finger-friendly icon when I use a keyboard/mouse on my desktop/laptop? And don't use the argument that most laptops have a touch-screen these days: that's because Win8 basically made it mandatory - cart-before-horse time.

By all means develop a finger-friendly GUI, BUT STOP FORCING EVERYONE TO USE IT!!!

Trolls and victims watch Supremes for definition of meaningless patents

You missed one: 2010s' "xxx but in the Cloud".

Re: Dear Reg editors:

If it's good enough for "The West Wing", it's gotta be good enough for El Reg.

Data retention: encryption won't protect you much

Re: Retain *this*, sucker

Erm... no. I gave a presentation on Electronic Security as part of a University course back in *1998*, and in order to provide adequate comparison I also investigated (and talked about) the *physical* options available to Law -Enforcement Organisations around the world. Egads. The simplest one was a liquid which could be sprayed on an envelope or packet which would render the wrapping transparent for up to 15 minutes and then evaporate without a trace. Guaranteed. Only sold to reputable LEOs, of course </sarcasm>.

I listed a few more "physical" attacks on mail, enough to make people realise that anybody *could* listen or read anyone's correspondence if they wanted to.

I can only assume they've come up with better products since 1998.

US mobile firms cave on kill switch, agree to install anti-theft code

"Hi - we'd like to install security software on your phone which will become the perfect ransomware as soon as someone cracks our security in three... two... one..."

NBN Co plans fibre-to-the-basement blitz to beat cherry-pickers

I'm 10km from the GPO in Brisbane, and we're not even on the 3-year list. We use to be, but we got taken off.

IBM Hursley Park: Where Big Blue buries the past, polishes family jewels

"...A visit to the basement of Hursley..."

-----------------------------

"I eventually had to go down to the basement."

"Ah. That's the Display Department."

"With a torch."

"The lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs!"

Ancient Earth asteroid strike that dwarfed dinosaur killer still felt today

Re: Point of order.

<thumps head on desk repeatedly> d'oh. d'oh. d'oh...

Point of order.

"at least three times as massive"

Erm... comparison chart shows the size difference to be 10Km wide Vs 30Km wide. That's a tripling in one direction only. Assuming the asteroids were roughly circular and of comparable composition, then the MASS would be roughly 9 times larger. And thus "nine times as massive"

Not just websites hit by OpenSSL's Heartbleed – PCs, phones and more under threat

Never understood why malloc (and the rest of its extended family) didn't nuke the memory area by default before passing it to whoever asked for it.

'Monstrous' Apple kicked us off iAd, claimed we are its RIVAL – Brit music upstart

Re: Wrong. @ThomH

Note I said "potentially illegal". I do not know enough about the American legal system to make a judgement on whether Apple is allowed to restrict access to iAds because the other product is competing with iTunes. That's why Lawyers charge large amounts of money. For all I know, it's perfectly legal and above board for Apple to have stuck that clause non-competition in the iAds T&Cs.

Then again, it wouldn't be the first time a company has placed ridiculous and non-enforceable clauses in their T&Cs hoping nobody would call them up on it.

Wrong.

Sorry Chad, you've got the wrong end of the stick - we are talking about separate Apple products which Apple is using in a non-competitive fashion.

First product, iAds, allows people to place advertising via Apple.

Second product, iTunes (Radio in this case), allows people to access radio-like music streaming.

Apple is telling people they can't use one of their product (iAds) because it thinks they are competing with it on another product (iTunes). And that's potentially illegal, same as when Microsoft and AT&T were dragged to courts for abusing their monopoly in one aspect of their business to achieve sales in another aspect.

So using your own analogy, if Macy rented promotional placing in their store (iAds) they would not be allowed to forbid Gimbels from renting the space simply because it was a competing store (iTunes).

Amazon stuffs games into Fire TV box: Soz, rivals... WE don't need to make cash on hardware

Fail

"but all of your video is stored in the Amazon cloud."

Considering I rip all of my DVDs/Blurays and place them on a NAS at home for ease of access, anything that stops me from accessing them is immediately written off my list.

Eventually, *someone* will come up with a source-agnostic media player with appropriate plugins for each of Amazon/Hulu/Netflix/Etc... which presents them all in a unified format.

Personally I'm currently using a home-built HTPC with remote, running MediaPortal with assorted plugins (love the TV Series plugin). YMMV. It's not perfect and only handles Netflix so far, but it's better than being locked-in to a single provider.

Does my mass look big in this? Roly-poly galaxy El Gordo more porky than first feared

It's big. Really big. You just won't believe how hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down to the Chemist, but that's just peanuts to Space.

Google asks April Fools: Want a job? Be our 'Pokemon Master'

I actually enjoyed playing the game. There seems to be concentrations of the little tykes - they're not evenly spread around the world. 86 down, 64 to go.

No Notch niche: Minecraft man in rift with Oculus after Facebook gobble

I must admit I *was* looking at purchasing an Oculus Rift (or whatever the commercial version was going to be called). Now, however... There is something about this that is raising the hair on the back of my neck...

GSMA: EU net neutrality reforms are the enemy of business

All their arguments are bull%^&*

Providers are trying to make it sound like they are providing data passage for free.

Bull.

I pay my provider to send data up and down the line.

Provider has reciprocal arrangements with other networks (how good/bad depends on their negotiation skills)

Google/Netlfix/etc also have to enter in such agreements with other networks to get their data from point A to point B.

Basically, Google/Netflix/etc pay *someone* to pass data from their server's to the other carrier's network and I pay *someone* to download said data.

So, to me, most carriers' whining sound like "we've over-sold our capacity and now that people want to *actually use it* we need to find a way to throttle it again".

Bulls hit city streets after alleged Samsung ad shoot hits the fan

That's just a load of bull.

Soliton makes its way across silicon in CUDOS experiment

Kudos to CUDOS.

SACRILEGE! Hitchhiker's Guide game's back ... and it TWEETS at you

erm... no thanks. I'll dig out my old Z-file and fire up an emulator, thank-you-very-much.

Projector on a smartphone? There's a chip for that

"Caltech researchers have demonstrated a chip they hope will one day let smartphones act as projectors."

Really? So what do you call this:

http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/galaxybeam/feature.html

Beam Projector Smartphone

Projection with 15 Lumen DLP (Digital Light Projector)

Your smartphone's built-in projector gives you the freedom to share - to really share - all kinds of contents with your friends virtually anywhere. Stunningly good definition with a gradated throw up to 2 meters away, you can adjust sizing as you wish, up to 50" large - as big as your TVs.

(Yes, yes, I know: there's a difference in the technology used. However, the first line of the article makes it sound like there is no such thing as a phone with a built-in projector, regardless of how it does it)

Squidge-droids maker updates iRobot for SUCK, SCRUB action

NCIS season 3 (?), roomba policed the brass.

Twin GEEKS: NASA studies identical brothers – one on Earth, one IN SPAAAACE

I assume that the earth-bound twin will live in a similar "simulated" environment? Replicated quarters, same food, same training regiment?

Surely, the only variable (as far as possible) should be gravity or the lack of it.

Heinlein, surely?

Roku flashes $50 HDMI TV web dongle at anyone sick of Google's stick

What *I* want...

...is a dongle which I plug in my HTPC which will make all of the above (Netflix, etc...) appear as IPTV channels (or even plain TV channels) in the TV section of my media player. Or as movies in the Movie section. Or as TV series in the TV-Series section. You know, make Netflix/HBO/Other's movies/series appear as if they were stored on a local or networked drive so the media software can parse and integrate them with the rest of my media catalogue(s).

I'd be happy with having to set up the Netflix/Hulu/Whatever accounts via a specialised piece of software to make the rest of it transparent to the media player.

HTML is a sexually transmitted disease, say many Americans

TWAIN

Backronym: Technology Without An Interesting Name or Toolkit Without An Informative Name (take your pick).

Actual: comes from the phrase "never the twain shall meet" (Kipling), since that was exactly its purpose.

New design flaw found in crypto's TLS: Pretend to be a victim online

Bad day for TLS

First GnuTLS, now this.

Apple granted patent for two-faced iPhone with wraparound touchscreen

I foresee...

...a resurgence of the "you're holding it wrong" advice.

Flying fondleslab causes injury after plane hits turbulence

Gives new meaning to...

Turbulent stomach? Take two tablets and call me in the morning.

Passenger jet grounded by two-hour insect attack

Re: Balancing Imbalance

You're welcome, rest of the World.

Oh, and everyone know giant, fire-breathing penguins do not exist. It's the Giant Desert Wallaby that breathes fire to kill its prey.

US Senator lobbies feds to BAN BITCOIN

Re: "the currency helps facilitate criminal activity"

Exactly: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/08/14/cocaine.traces.money/

Turnbull waters down broadband black spot fix promise

So: first the coalition pares down the NBN drastically, then they get a report about it, then they wax lyrical about how it's all going to be fine.

It's almost as if they are following Lewis Carroll's recipe in order: The Butcher, the BAQR, the Candlestick Maker. When do we get to see the Billiard Marker and the Banker? And will the Beaver turn into a Weasel?

SA Plods plonk boots on privacy principles with fingerprint scanners

"(although, for example, if no action follows the arrest, the fingerprints probably shouldn't be stored for long)"

Speaking for QLD, over here you *will* get fingerprinted (via a nice digital scanner if you are at one of the major watchhouses) and photographed when arrested (and possible DNA-sampled depending on the reason). These biometrics are stored in the database for as long as the prosecution proceeds. IF THE CHARGES ARE DROPPED OR IF YOU ARE FOUND NOT-GUILTY all fingerprints, photos and DNA samples related to those charges must be destroyed immediately (the fact they were taken, however, remains in the database for legal reason in case someone questions the proceedings later on).

Caveat :- if you were previously found guilty, your new fingerprints/photos/DNA samples are considered updates of the previous biometrics... which means they stay, even if you are not guilty of this particular crime.

D-Wave wooing universities down under

"Williams said the D-Wave chips' behaviour can be explained with quantum mechanical models;"

I smell cop-out. Now, if he had said "...can ONLY be explained..." that'd be another matter.

Toshiba opens curtains, reveals air-cushioned 5-terabyte terror

@EPurpl3: I can only think that you are doing something wrong with your HDDs.

I have 2 PCs (3 & 5 years old), 2 laptops (3 & 2 years old), and two Fileservers (9x2TB greens and 6x3TB reds, 5 and 2 years old respectively)) at home. I have had exactly zero (0) drive failure in all the years I have used this particular set of hardware; and prior to that I have had one (1) HDD failure in the 20-odd years I have been building my own PCs - it occurred within a week of buying the drive, and got replaced under warranty.

In fact most of the time the PC's motherboard or the laptop itself dies before the drive does (the wife's latest laptop got rebuilt around her HDD after the cat poured coffee over it) - and the drives themselves get recycled as portable drives using cheap enclosures (ex-laptop drives are great for that).

For the record, I prefer WD drives... but that's a personal preference. YMMV.

Bad luck, n00bs: Mozilla to splurge ADS inside empty Firefox tiles

<scratches head>

"Explained as something “designed to improve the first-time-with-Firefox experience”, nine Directory Tiles will appear in a grid on each new Tab. Today, all but one of the Tiles is blank."

<looks at a new FF tab>I have nine tiles, all of them contain links to my most-frequented sites. So: all nine tiles are already there, and none of them are blank.