Posts by Alan Brown

China ALTERED its public vuln database to conceal spy agency tinkering – research

Re: The agent problem

"anyone posting anonymously in these forums complaining about the behaviours of our intelligence agencies is NOT doing so to avoid detection by these agencies."

No, because we assume those agencies already know who they are and if not, will know in about 5 minutes or less.

The only difference between the agencies is that western ones claim they're not doing it. The motivations of the governments might be slightly different but "democracy" doesn't enter much into it except for lip service.

Rant launches Eric Raymond's next project: Open-source the UPS

Re: Who will compile my open source UPS?

"Don't forget there are restrictions on overseas battery shipping, "

Erm... no. Just on the methods.

Unless you're in a country with _very_ restrictive import laws (such as outer bumfuckistan), batteries are the least part of this whole deal.

Re: Cheapo UPS?

"US electric utilities are starting to move residential customers onto Time Of Use billing"

Time of use billing is almost _always_ coupled with a network charge as well.

Here in the UK, my domestic network charge is higher than the energy charges.

Once people start ramping usage around to avoid peak charges you can expect the network charges to go up.

The same will apply to all those home solar panels or wind scams. People think they can make the meters run backwards but they forget there are a bunch of minimum charges built in that can't be undone.

"Also if the idea of home batteries, as extolled by Telsa and their Powerwall gets taken up,"

Tesla's powerwall runs at upwards of 144V. You do NOT want to mess with HVDC as it is extremely unforgiving and you can baste in your own juices for quite some time before you expire.

Re: ATX connector?

"plus a network switch or two? "

Huawei sell battery-backed switches in their campus range.

http://www.router-switch.com/s5700-28p-li-24s-bat-p-15898.html

The datacentre range come with mains or 48V supplies for the same purpose

"And the DSL modem?"

I run mine off the same 12V float-charged battery and distribution fuseboard that's running the security cameras+DVR. The monitoring electronics for the charger+battery has its own network interface and is quite generic, talking to the mains power quality monitoring hardware.

First define the size of the problem you wish to solve, then decide what equipment you need to solve it.

FWIW, 12V-to-whatever buck-converters up to about 20W are a few dollars each at most.

None of this needs a "brave new world" solution. It's all been solved before.

"Having a UPS that replicates the ATX interface is an interesting idea, "

You mean like this?

https://www.sunpower-uk.com/products/ATX-Power-Supply-with-UPS-Function/eNSP3-450P-S20-H1V/default.htm

They've been around for years.

As for the monitor: most LCD monitors run on 12V - guess what this PSU provides?

"That's why I am suggesting that the server manufacturer should provide a built-in UPS function. "

Funnily enough, many manufacturers DO provide that option, however it doesn't really matter where the battery is, it still has to be large enough to ride out the outage and you get to pay a premium for such hardware well over and above the cost of using a UPS.

Of course if you're serious about your UPSes, then you could use a flywheel-based 300kW modular system backed up by multiple diesel generators. They're vastly more reliable than pissing around with battery-based systems (We have about 750kW of such setup, I know of a couple of sites with around 5MW)

There are parts of the world where unreliable power is the norm. Looking at how the issues are solved there would be a lot more educational than gasbagging about how an idealised UPS would work.

IE: Battery based systems are intended to only be used for as long as it takes to get the generators running or to safely shut down - and just like generators, battery chemistry/testing/monitoring/alarming is quite well understood already, so reinventing the wheel isn't necessary.

Just because cheap-arse UPSes don't have these capabilities doesn't mean they're not available.

Incidentally, one of the most common killers of UPSes I've seen has been dirty power from the mains. Just because volts have come back doesn't mean they'll stay back, or that there won't be a 4000V spike coming in. Even in "first world" countries the standards for electrical supply cleanliless are eye-openingly poor. A couple minutes delay before reconnecting mains is a healthy safety precaution and if it shows the slightest instability in that period, pushing the boat out to 30 minutes or more is sensible.

"rig ubiquitous car batteries"

Lead-acid isn't lead-acid isn't lead-acid.

Car batteries are designed to be lightweight and provide _enormous_ discharge currents for a short duration (seconds). The lead plate grids on them are relatively fragile and if you deep-discharge them, or use them as leisure batteries (or UPS batteries), they die in short order. (The plates will sulphate up quickly if left discharged below 80%)

Likewise if you use leisure (caravan) batteries to start your car, you'll get one shot at doing so, then start wondering why the plates are fragmented all over the bottom of the case. These are a better choice for UPS use though.

Sealed mat lead acid batteries are a good compromise for most UPS purposes as they don't outgas unless heavily abused.

If you need large capacity, then deep discharge Traction cells are the way to go, but they're not small or light or cheap and you DON'T want them in the same room as the rest of your power electronics (If they boil, every piece of your wiring insulation goes black. I've seen this after a lightning strike blew up a charger on a remote site) and ideally they go in a completely isolated room with good temperature control, nothing that can spark and decent active+passive ventilation.

In all cases, the float voltage is critical to a few millivolts (and different for each design) Get it wrong and you'll eventually kill the cells whilst spreading acid fumes all over the place.

Anyone who tries to sell you a car battery for standby power applications doesn't have the first clue about what they're selling (or is intending to make lots of repeat battery sales).

It's one of the more annoying things I saw whilst spending time in Outer Bumfuckistan, (you could ONLY get car batteries for standby power purposes) along with selling WD40 as "oil" to people who were wondering why everything kept clogging up with gritty shit and needing a constant dousing with more WD40, but still ended up breaking.

"what's wrong with lead-acid?"

Deep discharge tolerance.

Lead Acid is cheap/cost-effective and will float forever, but discharge them down to 30% a few times and they're toast.

Did I mention they're cheap? The cheaper solution than using better chemistry is usually to just use a bigger lead acid bank. There's a reason telcos still use them.

Too many bricks in the wall? Lego slashes inventory

Re: Worse to come

"Wilkinson have their own brand 'Blox' "

Other countries had their own versions too - NZ Had "Torro", which interconnected and had more interesting shapes but was made of _much_ softer plastic. (It was kind of a cross between meccano and lego, interconnecting with both) - it also pops up in other countries as "LITA Nouvea"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB0JrzvLubg

Re: Worse to come

"in the not too distant future when everyone has access to a 3D printer and can print their own bricks from downloadable designs."

Simple. Sell cheaper than you can print them.

"K'nex models get built, played with briefly, and then returned to the box, never to see daylight again, because of their fragility."

_ALL_ of these kinds of models should be broken up. Leaving built ones sitting around too long stifles creativity.

K'Nex and a couple of the others started out as addons to Lego to do things lego couldn't do.

Those kits are worth having, but the specialist ones are very much a case of "build once" and that's it - which has been annoying me since the 1980s.

Re: Lego...

"Eye watering in other ways when you step on the damn things in the middle of the night"

There are worse things to stand on. Australian power plugs for instance.

Surprise: Norks not actually behind Olympic Destroyer malware outbreak – Kaspersky

" Why did they apparently (according to most sources) meddle or attempt to meddle in the last election?"

Because being a Chaos Monkey keeps things unstable, which in turn means you can stay in power by invoking "big bad world out there"

Sysadmin left finger on power button for an hour to avert SAP outage

Re: Label your servers!

"Dymo lables from office type label guns are useless and will dry up and flake off"

Laminated type labels work well, stick like shit to a blanket and stay put for decades. There are even anti-tamper types, ultra sticky ones for hot areas and ultraflexible types for putting on cables.

At an installed cost of around 6p each they're cheap insurance

Brother and Dymo both make them (I prefer the Brothers) and there are a few others floating around.

Will the defendant please rise? Utah State Bar hunts for sender of topless email

"I'm not going to explain how to spoof but it's how Krazy Kevin did a lot of his mailing list attacks back in the 1990s."

I will explain one thing:

No passwords needed. No special hacking techniques. Just an ordinary mail client and you can do it from anywhere, not needing to "break in" to any particular server.

There is NO concept of security in email systems. There _may_ be security protocols in place for accessing any given server but the entire setup is wide open to abuse at its core. Everything we've attempted in the last 25 years to deal with this has been a kludge sitting on top of the fundamental problem. All you need to know to breach access into almost every mailing list on the planet is the right way to type your name.

"Sounds like something only a BOFH will do!"

For most mailing lists, this kind of injection is so trivial that a BOFH wouldn't bother. I'm not going to explain how to spoof but it's how Krazy Kevin did a lot of his mailing list attacks back in the 1990s.

Auto manufacturers are asleep at the wheel when it comes to security

Re: "...can pick up the signal from keys..."

"If the researchers have identified a make and model of vehicle where they're using RFID relying on just the tag's SN, then name names and inform the Insurance industry. Such cars would be immediately recalled and lawsuits would fly."

Renault, 2006. It happened, recalls didn't and neither did lawsuits.

Re: "A direct causal link is difficult..."

"There is a particular make and model that is currently the target of choice as all you need to do is break a side window, plug your dongle into the ODBC socket, start the car, and drive off. A few seconds max."

Just say it: BMW - this one is well known and old hat.

Thefts involving electronic replication of the remote keying and "keyless" (ie, no insert and turn) pushbutton start ignition systems are the new normal. This started about 15 years ago with high-end Mercedes, etc and has been spreading. Renaults were proven vulnerable about a decade ago but noone wants to steal and export a Renault (Renault's response was to reduce the range of the electronic entry and keyless ignition systems to less than a metre, not to beef up the security)

Manufacturer "upgrades" of keyless system crypto are 20 years behind the attacks. Manufacturer defences of the internal comms systems' security is even worse than that.

Re: "A direct causal link is difficult..."

"then the increase in thefts would be disproportionately focused on certain makes and models of vehicles,"

Go look. It is.

In particular, high end vehicles loaded with electronic control and access systems are being increasingly targetted. Up until recently thieves were conducting targetted burglaries (and in a few cases, armed home invasions) to get the ignition keys but such vehicles are increasingly being stolen without the keys being touched.

"I'll stick to my bike or an old car thanks."

With a 40kHz emitter pointing out the back?

Re: What motivation car manufacturers ?

"Why would they do that?"

Because car makers have been misrepresenting the risks and vulnerabilities to the insurance industry.

Violent, powerful wind that lasts 100s of years. Yes, it's Jupiter, not you after a Friday night curry

Re: Think it would be wonderful if Arthur C. Clarke was right

"I know that even today diamonds aren't remotely as rare as De Beers would have you believe"

They're extremely common, but 99.99% of the ones mined are only fit for industrial abrasive use - and it's cheaper to manufacture that than mine it.

Apparently DB destroy 50-90% of the gem-quality diamonds found (depending on the size range). The cartel has been slightly broken by russian and canadian producers but de Beers executives are still facing arrest warrants in the USA.

"The police on the other hand , cant catch a chav breaking into your greenhouse even if you give them HD cctv of the event."

They also can't stop you posting that HD cctv to a few social media groups. The only way the chav in question can get it taken down is to be identified and there are DPA exemptions for recording of crime.

Re: the huge pressures involved

"The argument goes that as the sun sparked up the lighter material was blown further out in the solar system, leaving the heavier stuff closer in."

That argument assumes Jupiter formed where it is now - which is unlikely.

It also assumes planetforming didn't really get going until after the sun lit up, which is also unlikely.

Yes, when the sun fired up it blew the light gasses out - pretty much to the Oort cloud.

Iron is one of the most plentiful elements in the universe thanks to its position in the fusion table as the star destroyer. I'd be surprised if any planetesimal didn't have substantial proportions of the stuff and even the gas giants started out as rocky worlds before they grew big enough to start being gas brooms.

Europe is living in the past (by nearly six minutes) thanks to Serbia and Kosovo

Re: 240/230/220V

My UK line voltage is 252V - kettles boil quickly, but light bulbs don't last long.

Re: For those who wonder...

"Another reason why large conventionally fuelled power plants will be needed along with renewables."

Apart from the factor that renewables can't supply the entire required load anyway?

Re: For those who wonder...

"AC and DC are equally efficient"

Not for HV transmission. Skin losses start factoring into long cable runs, DC uses the entire conductor and for very long AC runs the transmission line starts acting as a radiating antenna to ground (reactive losses)

On the other side of the equation if you get a breakdown anywhere along the line, AC arcs are generally self-extinguishing, whereas a DC line might need a shutdown to quench.

HVDC are also more immune to solar flares, but you can mitigate that on AC links at cost of using 2 transformers instead of one.

When you run lines underwater the AC problems are multiplied in spades and they also become a problem to some extent in tunnels, but the transmission ones under London aren't long enough to matter.

Re: Mains powered clock

"WWV Time Signal"

Yes, there are 4 such standard transmitters in the EU.

But even in the USA, the long term stability of the 60Hz mains is higher than any crystal oscillator, whilst being cheaper than WWV

Hansa down, this is cool: How Dutch cops snatched the wheel of dark web charabanc

Re: Diddiums

"So in all, Police spent a LOT of time, resources to take down what two admins and a few dealers."

The drug problem is primarily about profit. As are the other illegal activities.

Drugs are an easy one because they're extremely cheap to produce, whilst the prohibitions make them extremely expensive to purchase. Treat addiction as a health issue and you'd make more headway.

Trading in stolen goods is much harder, but also tends to be bulky. Some of the other stuff like dealing in various forms of human suffering is going to be extremely hard to nail down.

Re: Fake news

The really funny thing is watching these ficticious dutchies doing this all at the same time. Have you ever tried to grow a tulip whilst cycling?

UK data watchdog raids companies suspected of 11 million nuisance texts

Re: SMS Spam is still a thing?

"But I've never received real spam SMS from third parties, here in Germany. Maybe it is a cultural thing?"

Cultural yes - inasmuch as german law enforcement has been known to go and kick in spanish doorways to nail down SMS spammers.

And to make sure the penalties actually stick.

Re: Prediction...

"At which point their spouse is listed as the director, and the cycle continues."

It's actually a good thing if they do that as you can start handing out jail sentences when it's detected.

For all we know, aliens could be as careless with space junk as us

Re: The detritus civilisations leave behind

"This might be made more complicated if they set off salted bombs "

Salted bombs are more-or-less a way of ensuring that an area is uninhabitable for decades/centuries.

I suspect that they're more of a science fiction plot device playing on unreasonable fear of radiation than an effective one. Little Boy had around 40kg of uranium. Only 0.7g was actually converted. The rest was vaporised and dispersed on the wind, which is what would happen to anything like cobalt unless you used several tens of tons of it and that's kind of hard to mount on the end of a missile or carry in a bomber.

Re: Assumption detected

"And one species' pollutant may be another's breathing mix"

The indicator of life in a planetary atmosphere is likely to be an unexplainable oxidising agent - on the basis that these can generally only exist if something is maintaining production.

Oxygen is the logical one but there are other candidate gases and even if the life isn't air-breathing it's likely that such gasses will build up anyway. (eg, diffusing from oceans into the air, as probably happened on Earth)

The oxygenation of our atmosphere was definitely a case of the statement above, being a byproduct of plant activity and highly toxic to just about everything that existed at the time (causing the first great extinction).

I'd be happy if we picked up possible life signatures. Even assuming a CEB would be visible around any exoplanets, the odds of a spacefaring civilisation being within the range that we've seen exoplanets so far seems pretty unlikely. We can (so far) only detect exoplanets out to about 600 light years and the galaxy is over 100,000 light years across, so searches are par with being in a large dark room with a feeble flashlight only able to illuminate things a couple of feet away, looking for a black cat.

Suspected drug dealer who refused to poo for 46 DAYS released... on bail

Re: Ex lax

"Do you guys not have ex lax over there?"

Force feeding it to him would guarantee that any charges he faced would be voided and the people responsible for the action would be facing serious jailtime themselves.

It's funny that the country with a constitution guaranteeing a bunch of inalienable rights is the one which regards breaching them as acceptable for certain classes of people.

Re: London gang nominal?

> In Canada it's "Known to police."

>

> A clever euphemism for "he's never been arrested, charged, or convicted of any crime, but trust us, we know he's a criminal."

On this side of the Atlantic, it's someone with a criminal record, or a long arrest sheet or someone who keeps showing up associated with known criminals and their activities.

Such people are the first stop when searching for stolen goods, as a f'instance.

Re: Lamarr, Lucky to be alive

"And numerous others."

Too many people have been reading Papillion. :/

Re: London gang nominal?

"WTF is a 'London gang nominal'? "

In some countries they're known as "prospects" - associate members not yet fully blooded.

Re: Ah well...

"force-feeding bananas "

A tiny amount of phenolphthalein on the water would have a more decisive effect.

Just don't overdo it. My chemistry teacher at high school claimed that when _he_ was a lad someone doctored the teachers staffroom coffee urn one lunchtime, resulting in virtually the entire staff spending all afternoon in the karzis and some needing several days off.

(This was the same chemistry teacher who blew a hole in the bottom of the school swimming pool whilst demonstrating the explosive properties of "around a pound" of sodium wrapped in newspaper....)

Does Parliament or Google decide when your criminal past is forgotten?

Re: Going back in time to modify history

"1) What happens if your writing a biography/history of someone/some event in 10, 20, 50+ years tine."

This is where it gets interesting.

If NT1 is who I think it is, his Wikipedia page makes only passing mention of the case despite over a billion dollars being involved and doesn't even mention his conviction. And if not, the fact that someone involved in a case of that scale can already get it censored is concerning.

Re: Operation of Rehabilitation of Offenders law

"There are two key tests"

There's another one. RoO only applies for the first conviction. It's a "one use only" item.

Someone with a history of offences can't have them covered up.

WRT the politician there are also public interest issues to be taken into account and a convicted perjurer in public office would have a great deal of difficulty suing anyone who pointed the conviction out for defamation no matter how much time had passed.

There are two politicians I can think of who got their convictions as a result of trying to shut up newspapers. Their perjury sentences will never disappear from public view due to the seriousness of what they attempted to achieve.

Re: If this goes against Google

"It's been said several times that the original news sources are not threatened with deletion"

Except that they were threatened and it was found by the courts that they were fully entitled to keep the articles online.

It was only after failing to get the articles taken down that NT1 went after Google.

Bear in mind this was a substantial fraud with a large number of victims and not only was NT1 convicted and sentenced but his conviction was upheld on appeal.

This is _NOT_ a trivial case of an old drunk and disorderly or someone who was acquitted.

NT1's beef is that people find his financial crimes history online and then decline to have financial dealings with him, presumably in the same line of work (I would too, given the scale of the crime ).

If he'd gone into another line of business then it'd probably be regarded as irrelevant but a convicted fraudster almost by definition is one of the worst types of sociopath and very few of them feel they deserve whatever punishment was handed out.

Blaming someone else in the company is pretty much standard operating procedure for a fraudster when they can't flat out deny things and his evasiveness on the stand should be noted. This is not the behaviour of a clean set of hands.

Sacked saleswoman told to pay Intel £45k after losing discrim case

"Nest question ... WHO HIRED THIS PERSON ??"

The same one who appointed an incompetent female as executive director of a local district council.

The council has made some Epic Fails recently. She stated in a public meeting of a bunch of pissed off residents that this was down to all issues being handled through individuals' email addresses and as such things could be easily overlooked.

When I started asking questions about role accounts or a trouble ticketing or issue handling system, the response was "What's that?" - and when I explained, got a look like I'd just grown several extra heads.

If she was a man, she'd likely have been gone the next day.

Re: Overpaid Commissioner

"How the hell do you manage to overpay someone 32 grand based on a percentage of a sale and not pick it up before it reaches their account? "

Commission is paid when (or even before) the invoices go out.

I know of one case in New Zealand of an insurance salesman who as a parting present fabricated a number of bogus life policy signups, collected commission on them and then legged it out of the country before the company realised they'd been gypped.

I knew him from school and knew he'd been in a number of dodgy dealings including a few fraud convictions. How the hell he managed to _get_ a job with a reputable insurer, let alone take them for a substantial amount is still a mystery.

Re: I feel you are vindicated as well

"I couldn't prove whatever she said to me in a mtg room as her response."

Spycam pens are useful for this kind of thing.

Ofcom to probe Three and Vodafone over network throttling

Re: Rules

"We only have 78,000 full time soldiers, not that far ahead of Eurocrat staff numbers..."

Throughout UK history, the British Army has never been larger than the Prussian police force, let alone any European army. (except maybe Belgium and Luxemburg)

It's one of those things that makes British colonialism look odd compared to other countries' history of colonialism. There were never large permanent military presences in any british colony.

ESA builds air-breathing engine that works in space

"vacuum of space"

Which one would that be?

A vacuum is generally regarded as starting when at the level where air molecules stop colliding with each other but that's still a few million per cubic metre.

The one at ISS altitudes is far better than _anything_ we can produce on the ground (and yet atmospheric drag is a substantial problem)

The one at GEO altitudes is a bit better than that (Earth's atmosphere is generally regarded as existing out to around 1000km, despite being more-or-less vacuum above the Karman line.)

The one in "interplanetery" space is a bit better still, but it's still inside the sun's atmopshere by some measurements.

Re: Look on the bright side ...

Nuclear fusion reactions are easy to produce. The Farnsworth Fusor is one example.

The hard part is getting more energy out of the building than went into the building.

They've only just managed to break even on energy in vs generated in the chamber after 40+ years of trying, let alone getting a profit on energy out of the chamber. As any electrical engineer will tell you, until you get over unity on the entire site you don't have a viable power source.