Posts by Phil Rigby

Ransomware Trojan locks up infected PCs

This probably sounds dumb, but...

...if software can take over a machine like this and lock it out, then Windows is so badly designed/flawed it should be pulled from market until it's fixed. I'm not talking about some badly behaving app, but a piece of malware that can be this incredibly destructive (from a user perspective)? Think about it, if the lock on your front door could be so easily circumvented you'd send it back for a refund or the manufacturer would do a recall.

BTW what versions of Windows are affected? Is Vista vulnerable to this? What exploits does it use? Are machines that are patched and up-to-date still affected?

UK gov sets rules for hacker tool ban

Typical UK Government

Ok so by the same line of reasoning, if I run 10 people over in my car does that mean the manufacturer is to blame?

Damn, I'm glad I moved to the US.

Paris Hilton icon because... well, just because.

Plunging player prices to reveal Blu-ray vs HD DVD winner?

What will the superstores push?

Another thing is that in the US Wal-mart are really pushing Blu-Ray quite hard at the moment (Xmas rush and all that), and as Wal-mart own Asda, expect to see them doing the same thing. Once a big chain superstore starts pushing a format, everyone who goes into the store will see the stands and pretty lights and think "oooh that's nice". Plus, the names alone - Blu-Ray sounds so much cooler than HD-DVD (the same letter 3 times in a 5 letter acronym?).

In the 80's it was 8-bit computer wars... in the 90's it was the browser wars... and now we have the digital media wars :-)

I'm not really sure about which format to go with, but I'm beginning to lean towards Blu-Ray. Pointless until I get a new telly though.

Paris Hilton icon because... she probably looks good on DVD.

Sony posts PS3 DivX firmware update

Tsunami time

With all the cockwaving going on, there's probably a Tsunami headed for Taiwan or someplace now (chaos theory).

Paris Hilton because... well, cockwaving I guess :-)

Canadian runs up $85,000 mobe bill

What did he download?

How much "high bandwidth" content can you download on a cellphone based modem? It would be what, a 33.6K data rate? He's hardly gonna get a full-length movie in a realistic amount of time... and yeah, we can blame it on him being Canadian.

Paris Hilton icon, because her Sidekick was hacked so easily :-)

Microsoft folds-in Multimap for '$50m'

"expand our platform business beyond the UK and globally"

Beyond global? Is there a space editiion in the works then?

Paris Hilton icon because that's the kind of thing she'd say.

World's Dumbest File-sharer megafine gets DoJ thumbs-up

Do as I say, don't do as I do

All the people in here who say "shouldn't of done it, got what she deserved" - I bet you've never downloaded anything illegal? Or used a copy of a Serial Key to activate some software? Have you been and/or are you 100% totally legal at home? VHS tapes legally can't have recordings on them older than 14 days (if memory serves) so cut the crap - everyone downloads something they're not supposed to. Next time it could be you that's caught, then you won't be saying "ooops, my bad" you'll be saying "leave me alone, I was only sharing a few tracks!!!"

Frenchman calculates 13th root of 200-digit number

@Sheep

He did say "estimate". Not an exact count.

Plus I don't see the point of what he did. Yeah it's clever, but then so is installing Vista on a Mac. Clever to do, looks good, but no real point to it.

I read somewhere a while ago that (apparently) the average person only uses 1/3 of their total brain. Maybe this guy has tapped into the 2/3 of his. Or something. I guess it's like when you look at the motherboard of your PC - you can see spaces and holes for components that aren't there... and you wonder what you'd get if you put the components in... umm ok, I'll get my coat.

Now for the icon of someone who hasn't even tapped into that 1/3 of her brain.

Smut vid outfit sues PornoTube

Rick is right

If it wasn't for "adult entertainment" and music, I'd probably never touch P2P. But it's true, I do think porn has driven the development of the internet far faster than any other one subject material could.

60% of the net is porn... 35% is illegal... and the other 5% isn't worth bothering with :-)

Media player users beware: more vulns ahead

Try mplayer

mplayerhq.hu - open source, Windows version, own codecs...

I guess there'll be 100's of 'skiddies out there now downloading "maliciously crafted" Paris Hilton videos. But then again, anything with her in it is malicious... I always feel like I've been infected with something after seeing The Simple Life.

Win 2000 anti-virus products fail independent tests

@Rik - Safe Sites

There are such things as safe sites. You cannot possibly tell me with a straight face that every possible site on the net I visit could be/has been compromised. Fair enough, there is a slight possibility that maybe a site could possibly maybe have been ha><or3rd at some point, but to blanket-cover all the net and say that is simply wrong.

Part of these security issues you allude to is down to SysAdmins not knowing how to secure Apache. Or IIS. (But IIS and security in the same sentence...)

I'm not going to go down the Windows -v- Linux -v- Mac route, but in the 4 years I've been on Linux I've never had a virus. Yes I go to warez sites, porn sites and P2P (hell I am a guy after all) but I don't worry about it. I don't have to. I use fake email accounts, anonymizers and an OS that (so far) can't be easily exploited by malicious code that I inadvertently download.

Bottom line is, if you must use Windows, get AVG or Sophos installed and a decent malware package and you'll be ok. If you switch to Linux/Mac, you won't need to worry about it for a couple of years more.

@Jarno - safe site

No such thing as a safe site? Over 2 billion web sites, and all at risk? I don't think my bank website is (I mean theirs, not a phished one). My web site at home, on my own server seems pretty safe right now. El Reg is usually ok... ibm.com is pretty good too.... shall I go on?

Rare bug blights Lotus Notes

Notes RULES, dumbasses

I'm a 10 yr PCLP certified Notes/Domino administrator and I can tell you after seeing just about every package going, Notes outshines the lot. Nothing can compete with it. It's solid and reliable. If you have issues with it, it's because you don't know what you're doing.

I've designed and built over 100 installations and managed infrastructures with 30,000+ users on it. It's rock solid. Exchange -wishes- it could be as good.

As for the admin rights thing - v6.00, 6.01 and 6.02 (I think) did need local privileges but that was fixed and has not been an issue since early 2005. I suggest you upgrade.

Nasty PDF exploit runs wild

@Stiles, @Stu Reeves

Where's Richard Stallman when you need him? :-)

Google updates desktop for Linux

I'm not any of those!

@Ex Pat -

I'm not spotty, sweaty, fat, nerdy or anything else. I have the pleasure in life of using Windows, Linux, Mac and VM installs. My home OS of choice is Linux simply because I don't have to worry about viruses, Patch Tuesday or MS secretly updating my machine when I don't want it, or have even disallowed it but it happens anyway.

At work I use Mac - I'm a recent convert - and I have to say it's true, stuff does "just work".

Linux isn't perfect but it -is- better than Windows and anyone with any half-decent technical skills should be able to realise that.

On the original topic, I have a decent directory structure to so I know where to find my resume and my pr0n without Google helping me :-)

Britney's wares exposed online

Who is worse?

Kinda off-topic, but how bad must she really be when the best choice for the kids is to be with K-Fed....

Terminator will be back in 2009

Possible storylines

As someone who got the comics 15 years ago, Terminator v Robocop was a plotline that interested me... but so did Aliens v Predator, and we know how that turned out :(

Oh and Arnie can't be cloned as a Terminator, because in the first movie Reese told Conner that the first series of Terminators had rubber skin and were easily spotted...

Oh God, I'll get my coat.

BOFH: You think you know a guy...

Logo

Yeah I think the logo was for the BBC, therefore the Beeb range of computers.

A beeb with 32k of ram, Winchester floppy disc drive and a copy of Dare Devil Denis - can't go wrong :-)

Or POD, the educational game - trying to see how many rude words he could understand.

France blames China for hack attacks

Can be seen from outer space?

The Great firewall of China, cool :-)

Boffins flick Quantum vacuum switch from suck to blow

Car insurance

For all the American readers, should make for some more amusing Geico insurance ads - a cockney flying gecko (geico.com for the Brits and yeah in the tv ads he's got a Cockney accent)

US law firm cleared of robots.txt DMCA hacking charge

robots.txt

If you want to keep information away from people, isnn't it better to remove it from a public-facing server???

UK gov rejects Cliff Richard's copyright extension

Second class citizens my arse

Just how much money are they making on a record that's 50 years old? I can't imagine it's more than a few quid per year. Give me a break.

Satnav driver's car totalled by train

WTF?

Ok, so she stopped, opened a closed gate, drove onto train tracks, then stopped again. Yeah I can totally see how the SatNav is to blame for that. Ever heard of an A-Z?

MS fixes Vista iPod corruption glitch

Get what you deserve!

If you buy something from Dell with Vista loaded on it - and spent "years fixing buggy computers" as written above, then you deserve what you get. I've never bought a machine for myself from a supplier - I always build my own, that's why I know EXACTLY what I'm getting when I power it up.

Also why do you need a RAID array at home??? To protect data in case of failure? Kind of ironic really...

China fails to ban nude web chats

Blind spot?

Is that before or after you visit the chatroom? :-)