Posts by Candy

Feds tell court: Apple 'deliberately raised technological barriers' to thwart iPhone warrant

Free Speech argument.

As a corporate entity rather than a person, does Apple have any protections under constitutional protection from compelled speech? IANAL but I would have thought not.

Dell offers sweet, sweet, free honeypot tool to trap hungry hackers

If this works as advertised, it will be incredibly useful.

Honeytokens are going to become a necessity for enterprises using AD. Which is basically everyone. (Cue howling from the 1% that "Never let the Beast of Redmond loose on their iron." News flash: You're an almost insignificant minority. Active Directory is pretty much ubiquitous.)

For example, in recent versions the telltale signature of Mimikatz has been removed so that, without honeytokens or behavioural analytics, this kind of credential theft is very hard to detect.

Definitely one to examine and, if it works well, this could become an essential part of the AD security toolbox.

Crypto connoisseurs: Curl up with Princeton's 300-page ode to Bitcoin

Coursera offering

I've followed the Coursera unit that is linked to and found it to be a very useful primer. Definitely puts the "book" on my reading list.

Fired Norse Corp CEO blames the media

Threat Information Tool

And nary an acronym in sight...

How many Surface power cords are a fire risk? 2.25 million in the US alone

Definitely worked straight away for me and filled in the address from my existing profile. There's a profile update link on the for by the address. Perhaps you need to change the region to Europe and the country to UK on there?

Replacing those cords...

I have a few "qualifying SP2 Pro and SP3 Pro machines.

It was a doddle to complete the registration process for each one. MS have confirmed the cords are dispatched so I expect to get them in a few days. No replacement is needed for any (non-Pro) Surface or for the Docking Stations.

There is NO return program. They advised me to dispose of the existing cords and there is no provision for return.

The tricky bit was getting a replacement cord for the additional power supplies I had bought. There seems to be no simple process form this and it took me about 45 minutes on the phone to get it sorted.

El Reg nips down to the Hewlett You Inn?

Fair play.

To you and to HPE. :)

ROBO HCIAs erupt from Atlantis. Thankfully it's not Rise of the Machines

The rest of that rack...

In my experience, most of the single rack in a ROBO environment is filled with comms equipment. A couple of U for all the compute they can eat is probably a good fit but the price is still a bit steep for most.

Surface Pro 4: Will you go the F**K to SLEEP?

and the Pen now comes “free”?

The Surface Pro series has always had a pen bundled with it. The Surface (non-Pro) doesn't.

Why Microsoft's .NET Core is the future of its development platform

Re: Yes yes

Um... Visual Studio Code?

It's not full on Visual Studio but it is cross-platform, free and fairly adequate...

Furious LastPass fans fear password wrangler's fate amid LogMeIn's gobble

Another for the chorus.

Having been royally f-, er, done over by LogMeIn in the past, I am also not leaving anything I use in their control.

By choosing to move, I will at least have more than 5 days notice to either cough up or find an alternative. LogMeIn are neither forgiven nor forgotten.

"Fool me twice" protocols engaged...

Devious Davros, tricksy Missy and Dalek Clara delight in The Witch's Familiar

Dalek variants

Nice to see plenty of Daleks from across the ages. Definitely saw a Special Weapons Dalek and at least one I can't put a finger on...

WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

'JESUS FOUND ON MARS' – now obvious demons are from Venus

Yet again citizen observers have spotted something odd on Mars – this time what appears to be a messianic figure in a long flowing robe sitting in a desert.

"It looks like Jesus, partly covered by a laptop." said practically everyone. The messiah seems to have fingers on a raised right hand but opinion is divided about the presence of a thumb...

Global spy system ECHELON confirmed at last – by leaked Snowden files

Fascinating.

An excellent article. More like this, please.

Windows 10: Buy cheap, buy twice, right? Buy FREE ... buy FOREVER

It's all about the developers

My take on the free upgrade to W10 is that it will give the Microsoft Store enough customers that the developer community will see it as a viable way to make money.

The Universal Apps thing may even get the Windows Phone App Store full to overflowing with Apps people actually want/need. Which lifts out one of the big ticket barriers to WinPho adoption.

It would certainly lower the bar to corporate adoption as there would be a mobile version of pretty much every desktop app. (Yeah, alright, even I can't take that seriously...)

Biometric behavioural profiling: Fighting that password you simply can't change

There are interesting user cases...

Coursera have used biometric profiling of the way people type for years as a way of verifying that the same person that registered is the one taking various online tests.

Happy birthday, Amiga: The 'other' home computer turns 30

The Amiga ushered in a new age of special effects for TV

The combination of a couple of dozen Amigas and Video Toaster gave us the first large scale application of CGI into mainstream TV. In 1994(?), Babylon 5 blew us all away with the quality of the effects the were able to generate.

Hark, the Hacking Team angels sing, it’s not us who’ve actually sinned

It wasn't illegal...

...so, therefore, it was ethical.

Really?

A company that helps others hack into IT systems has its IT systems hacked. Only one of those is a criminal act, apparently.

I'm guessing HT haven't got any customers in Germany...

We tried using Windows 10 for real work and ... oh, the horror

Waiting for SP1?

That may not work out so well for you.

MS claims that there will be continuous updates like those we have become used to on mobile platforms. Yes, there is a LTS version but it comes without a whole ton of stuff including Edge.

It remains to be seen how often installer ISOs will be released for the non-enterprise versions so perhaps, just perhaps, you could wait for a few of those to roll by? Or the odd security rollup?

But features will not be dropped by waterfall delivery in the way that they have in the past.

Service Pack? They don't need no stinkin' Service Pack.

Apparently...

Americans in Europe like using Wi-Fi calling, Ericsson discovers

About that O2 App.

It's appallingly bad. And only available in beta. And then only to business users. (At least so the app itself says.)

It misses calls, drops messages, has terrible voice quality and has a mediaeval interface.

Apart from that, it's fine.

Google I/O FORTRESS: Sold-out dev conference is in LOCKDOWN

Badge + Bracelet != 2FA

Applying one factor twice isn't two factor authentication.

Google App Engine Java sandbox is leaking, say researchers

The biter bit.

So, if you don't respond quickly enough to satisfy a third party that you are taking action on a bug, the details get released. No negotiation.

Sound familiar, Google?

Microsoft and Oracle are 'not your trusted friends', public sector bods

Licensing audits

So, leaving aside the "FOSS Good, Everything Else Bad" drum beating for a moment: What I see here is that organisations can expect to be audited on their use of licenses every 4 or 5 years. (Oracle 25% in the last 20 months, MS 33%+ in the last 20 months.)

Bearing in mind that between these audits they effectively pay on an honesty basis, how is that unreasonable?

I've been through a few of these audits over the years. Yes, they are a pain. Yes, the tools provided are terrible, most especially the MAPS Suite. But the worst part by far is the arcane nature of the pricing and licensing itself. Oracle: I'm looking harder at you here. But not by much.

If the rules were clearer and simpler, there wouldn't be such large discrepancies following some of these audits. There's always going to be cases where incompetence or taking-the-piss lead to massive under reporting of licenses in use but mostly people want to pay what they are supposed to.

It needs to be easier to be honest...

Satya Nadella, Year One: Has Microsoft's new CEO cut the mustard?

Hololens: Longer than a year to develop.

Microsoft have said publicly this device is the result of a development strand that has been in progress for around five years. It grew as an offshoot of the original Kinect pitch which kicked off as a project around seven years ago.

BITE that APPLE if you want to escape the Android garden, Microsoft

Why back only one horse?

Leaving aside the fanboi v. fandroid vibe and the apparently flexible app capabilities and platform requirements for a moment.

Can anyone point me to the bit of the article that makes clear why MS shouldn't pursue revenues from both of the market leading mobile platforms? How does it actually benefit from dropping one of them?

I accept that it will make differing levels of revenue from each but that seems to be the only argument put forwards here. Why can't MS make money from both?

The Shock of the New: The Register redesign update 4

Favicon

This update is much better. Especially the re(a)d links.

On browsers where I have a dark theme, the favicon is pretty much invisible. Perhaps a circle around the vulture and the edges transparent?

El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

Images too big.

It's difficult to really assess the redesign when there's a fundamental flaw for me. I have to scroll down a whole page to see any text in any article. The images are massive. Thumbnails, please. Really. Please?

Glasgow boffins: We can now do it, Captain. We DO have the molecular storage power

Oh, WOE is, er, them.

So they've invented a new kind of memory but what exactly defines 'write-once-erase'?

Happy 2nd birthday, Windows 8 and Surface: Anatomy of a disaster

Windows and Surface?

Consider me puzzled....

I know that both Surface and W8 are now 2 years old. But the article is anatomy of why Windows 8 hasn't blazed a trail through the heavens. Not much about Surface at all. Or RT.

So, in essence, this is yet another where MS went wrong with Windows 8.X article. Or did I miss something?

Scientists skeptical of Lockheed Martin's truck-sized fusion reactor breakthrough boast

Re: Size

"Did I read it wrong?" Yes, I think so. They are talking about "fusion reactors the size of a truck" where the reaction is "contained in a vessel the size of a business-jet engine". The one within the other.

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

NSFW

Please ask Mrs Detail to leave his "below" alone...

VMware announces compulsory bi-ennial VCP recertification

As a contractor, the big change here is that I can finally see VCP as a viable certification route. Taking physically present courses (and paying for them) is a massively expensive way to extend your CV as an independent.

Finally, I can get certification for the expertise I've developed over the years without the whole thing seeming like a money pit.For reference, I have certs from several others including M$ and Cisco.

The value of these certs for me is as door-openers for interviews and, on that basis, it was previously difficult to justify any of the VMWare certs relative to extending the others.

Home lab operators: Ditch your servers ... now!

Labtop

I dismantled my physical lab last year and now run it all on the Windows 8.1 implementation of Hyper-V on a lappie. Much as in the article, it's good enough and, having installed a second large mSATA SSD for the lab VMs, I can continue to use the laptop as normal for day-to-day use.

With a slightly more modest rig (16Gb RAM), I can certainly spin up seven useful VMs running various Windows Server apps.

My lab isn't for constant 24/7 use. It's for standing up certification labs and sand-boxing solutions before chasing Ops for a grown-up environment.

Effectively, this is for free. And its good enough. This seems to be a theme recently...

Surface Pro 2 dim screen of death snafu STILL happening after patch

Feeling left out...

A quick chat around the office and we're feeling somewhat neglected. Not only are our three Surface Pro 2 users all unaffected by the issue reported, they aren't being hounded by either of the iPad owners.

What should we do to get our piece of this action?

We do make the Blackberry user sit in a draught, though.

BEAM ME UP... twice: No local storage on Transporter Sync

Re: What does it do then?

You connect your existing external USB storage to the Sync.

The issue is that it was originally marketed as being identical to the original Transporter but without internal storage. The website has changed now to subtly indicate the lack of Library compatibility.

Bjork, 500+ novelist pals ask UN for 1 bill of digital rights to RULE 'EM ALL

Writers, huh?

Have we really arrived at the point where, from a list of 501 writers, Cory Doctorow is one of the three worthy of individual mention?

Shoot me now...

Keeping warm in winter the el Reg way: Setting a NAS box ON FIRE

This article (and others like it) are a major factor in my remaining a regular Reg reader. Well done.

Damn. Does that make me part of an identifiable demographic?

Sick to death of Xmas? Try these explosive gift ideas

My Little Pony...

The ever-amusing My Little Pony Abattoir. Funny when it was on The Young Ones 30 years ago. Still funny now. :)

Microsoft bans XXXXBOX gamers for CURSING in online combat

This is a change that I'm all for. I hope that they really do make a stand on this rather than grabbing a few headlines and then quietly letting it drop.

SUPERSIZE ME: Nokia unveils Surface rival and 2 plumped-up phablets

SD Card slot

Finally, a decent WinPho device (the 1520) with decent MicroSD support. Hurrah.

Lumia 2520: Our Vulture gets his claws on Nokia's first Windows RT slab

Re: Windows RT

"They" aren't. _Nokia_ (not yet owned by MS) are evolving their product line up from WinPho to an RT device. Irrespective of your opinion of the merits of RT and WinPho, it's a logical choice for Nokia at this point.

For them it makes a lot of sense: Got a Lumia? Want a tablet to go with that? Here you go...

LIVE, my beauty, LIVE! Nokia revives dead phone with LIGHTNING powered Frankencharger

Weird Science

I wonder how many (if any) of these wonderful side projects will survive the journey to the centre of the Borg?

In case of LOHAN flight emergency, gobble THIS Iridium-Arduino sandwich

Problems with REHAB? Simple: Remote Emergency Launch Activating Panic Sensitive Equipment.

Google's Street View cars venture inside TARDIS

Marvellous.

'Clippy' coup felled by Microsoft twitterati

Isn't it time to reboot the oh-so-far-ahead-of-it's-time-and-that's-why-it-failed Salmon Days? Or, perhaps, more than a decade on, at least make the existing vids available for download.

'Weev' appeals AT&T iPad hack conviction

"The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has teamed up with law professor Orin Kerr, internet attorney and EFF fellow Marcia Hofmann, and Weev's trial lawyers Tor Ekeland and Mark Jaffe in filing an appeal with the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals."

One can only assume that Larry Lessig was not available...

Microsoft's murder most foul: TechNet is dead

I, for one, have just had a "free and frank exchange of views" with my Microsoft TAM. She definitely understands that we are not happy.

Whether that will register anywhere within MS, I doubt. But I feel a helluva lot better for having got it all off my chest...

Can Jonny Ive's new 'iOS Vista' SAVE the BBC's £100m BRAIN? Yes!

Re: At least get his name right

Abnormal message content due to Missing Point error. Please recalibrate for satire and retry.

'Fastest storage in the WORLD' plugged into mighty boffinry Cray

MTBF

The cynic in me wonders how the failure rates across those twenty thousand drives will stack up against what is "expected." Thinking about it, I don't think I've ever seen figures like that released...

Report says #Facebook #to #adopt #hashtags

You say that like drivel is in short supply on twitter. Or social media in general...