Posts by David Nash

After huffing and puffing for years, US senators unveil law to blow the encryption house down with police backdoors

Re: stupidity out of ignorance or avarice

It's not at all unreadable.

Although there is an interesting spelling of "intents and purposes".

Someone got so fed up with GE fridge DRM – yes, fridge DRM – they made a whole website on how to bypass it

Re: Advertent FUD

And vice versa, although the scaled-up kettles and everything else is a pain, if you grew up with the taste of hard water, soft water is not nice to drink.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes: UK man gets 3 years for torching 4G phone mast over 5G fears

Re: @ Iglethat & "since hes proven that hes a gullible idiot"

The only planets that change shape, "much like the moon" are Venus and Mercury, because they are between us and the sun, also "much like the moon". The shapes seen are explained by the fact that they are round "much like the moon".

The other planets we can see (yes I have several telescopes and have verified this) are always seen as round, because they are.

Contact-tracer spoofing is already happening – and it's dangerously simple to do

Smishing warning

I got a warning from Three in the form of an SMS telling me to click an anonymous-looking link to get more info.

Re: This is not how security works

Exactly....they've confused false positive with false negative.

Even if it is obvious when you're talking to a real professional, it doesn't mean that it would be obvious if you are talking to a scammer.

Quibi, JetBlue, Wish, others accused of leaking millions of email addresses to ad orgs via HTTP referer headers

Re: URL referral should be talked about more

Passing on the referrer as the *page* you came from is one thing, but passing on the full url including personal stuff like this is more than some might expect.

So how do the coronavirus smartphone tracking apps actually work and should you download one to help?

Re: Good for data-less phone plans

It seems that many people don't wear watches these days because they think it's quicker to get their phone out and view the time than tilting their wrist. These people may not agree that this kind of device is useful as you said.

But these people probably would just use a smartphone app.

My issue with this is that I don't leave Bluetooth on all the time.

Ofcom waves DAB radio licences under local broadcasters' noses as FM switchoff debate smoulders again

Re: Why National for a station called "London Live"

The actual quote from the article is " 1.47 per cent of the UK's total potential viewers"

and I read "potential" as "London".

Marriott Hotels hacked AGAIN: Two compromised employee logins abused to siphon off 5.2m guests' personal info

Agreed, I received one of these and wasn't sure if it was genuine, due to the varied domain names used.

It would not be unexpected to receive a phishing email claiming "click here to see if your details were compromised"

It's time to track people's smartphones to ensure they self-isolate during this global pandemic, says WHO boffin

People do need to think for themselves a bit, not just say "anything not explicitly prohibited is a good idea".

The way the virus was escalating through Europe at that time meant it was a stupid idea to travel for such a non-essential reason.

Google reveals the wheels almost literally fell off one of its cloudy server racks

Re: Why bother?

Both.

You do work by transferring energy to the rack, kinetic to get it moving, and potential if you are lifting it, even 1mm.

It's worth noting that the SI unit of both work and energy is the same thing, the Joule.

Also not a physicist so please correct me if necessary.

Stuck at home? Need something to keep busy with? Microsoft has 115 ideas – including an awful SMBv3 security hole to worry about

Re: Imagine a user...

Users are not normally aware of the OS as a separate thing.

It's just "the computer", "my stuff", and "the internet". And the second two are overlapping.

Grab a towel and pour yourself a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster because The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is 42

DNA in Birmingham

I met Douglas in a bookshop in Birmingham when I was a student. He was there with co-author Mark Carwardine for a signing of Last Chance to See. A group of us from the RAG society heard he was there and decided to go down dressed in suitably menacing attire and flan him with a plate of shaving-foam, as was the habit back then, as part of the charity fund-raising we did.

To his huge credit he was well up for it and afterwards signed my copy of the book "with deep hatred and resentment".

Your phone wakes up. Its assistant starts reading out your text messages. To everyone around. You panic. How? Ultrasonic waves

Re: Stupid millennial pranks

The Castle Defense...defending against the terrifying attack known as "knocking on the door"?

Artful prankster creates Google Maps traffic jams by walking a cartful of old phones around Berlin

Re: Knew it.

To be fair, all you have to do is think "how does Google know there's slow traffic here?" and the answer is pretty obvious.

Microsoft: 14 January patch was the last for Windows 7. Also Microsoft: Actually...

Re: it's all curable, and worth it

Ditto wifi got broken on Win 10 by a driver update.

Fortunately I know how to roll it back. Others may not have been so lucky.

Apple sues iPhone CPU design ace after he quits to run data-center chip upstart Nuvia

Of course a deposit is a loan

Loans and deposits are the same thing but the parties are the other way round. And no, not all deposits pay interest but that's down to the specific terms of the deposit/loan, as are the details of where how much can be paid back and when.

Why is the printer spouting nonsense... and who on earth tried to wire this plug?

Re: DIY Electricians

Upvoted to compensate for downvotes - nothing wrong with asking a question if you don't know the answer and would like to be educated.

UK parcel firm Yodel plugs tracking app's random yaps about where on map to snap up strangers' tat

In Other Words, the Isle Of Wight.

BBC tells Conservative Party to remove edited Facebook ad featuring its reporters

HIGNFY

Since you stopped watching it a long time ago, how do you know it's not funny any more?

Not being funny when you stopped watching (whenever that was) doesn't mean it isn't sometimes or regularly funny.

'Ethical' hackers say: It's just hacker. To be one is no longer a bad thing

It doesn't matter what the origins or "real" meanings are, to the media hackers are bad, and so the term needs the "ethical" label when they are not.

Similar to how the media redefined Troll to mean bully.

Can't you hear me knocking? But I installed a smart knocker

Re: Well that was a waste...

1. RTFA

2. Ask the product designer, not the end-user

3. That would have spoiled the story. By the way what's the difference between an "apartment" and a "flat" in your world? In mine, apartment is an up-market (or left-pondian) word for flat.

4. RTFA

5. I wouldn't bother reading any more of SFTW if you don't get satire.

UK ads watchdog slaps Amazon for UX dark arts after folk bought Prime subs they didn't want

Re: Prime is evil..

Prime is actually quite good and useful for some, it's just these sales techniques that are evil.

Margin mugs: A bank paid how much for a 2m Ethernet cable? WTF!

Re: Adelphia

Oh cable TV company...I thought it meant HDMI cable seller

So we're going back to the Moon: NASA triggers countdown by firing up spacecraft production

Re: Party-Pooper

The Earth can take care of itself really, what we're really messing up is the atmosphere that supports human and other life. If we kill ourselves, the Earth won't really care, it will carry on regardless.

The moon doesn't really have anything to take care of in those terms.

UK Supreme Court unprorogues Parliament

I'm finding it all rather entertaining!

Remember that security probe that ended with a sheriff cuffing the pen testers? The contract is now public so you can decide who screwed up

Re: Pentesting

Their job was to test security, not to break in without getting caught. They did their job very well. They guys who caught them passed the test.

HP printer small print says kit phones home data on whatever you print – and then some

Re: validation

on the subject of validation - why oh why don't they write these things to ignore trailing spaces?

I KNOW my email address (or my phone number etc) doesn't have a trailing space but my predictive keyboard inserted it..just ignore it!

Snoops can bypass iOS 13 lock screen to eyeball your address book. Apple hasn't fix it yet. Valid flaw? You decide

Why?

It's probably not that you would want to change the "To" field, , rather it just drops you into the standard sending text dialog, where changing the "To" is a normal feature.

Facebook: Remember how we promised we weren’t tracking your location? Psych! Can't believe you fell for that

Re: iOS & Location Tracking

What are you confused about? That's the whole point of the article.

Apple programs Siri to not bother its pretty little head with questions about feminism

A "Holly" personality would be a nice option for these devices. Not that I use them but it would make it more tempting.

Whistleblowing saboteur costs us $167m bellows Tesla’s accountant

Re: Are you f**king kidding me?

"Fast charging stations are for the development version of electric cars. Production electric cars will have easily replaceable battery packs constructed to a universal standard."

That's the sensible solution but it doesn't seem to be the actual case. As far as I know, no production electric cars have this type of battery pack nor are there places to do so.

Unfortunately the focus, in the UK at least, seems to be on increasing charging points rather than changing to replaceable batteries.

GIMP open source image editor forked to fix 'problematic' name

Re: "aping whatever the Windows equivalent looks like"

Closes alright for me.

I never understood the complaints about the GIMP UI. I guess it's Photoshop people annoyed that it's not identical.

Can't bear to part with that well-worn copy of Windows 7? Microsoft might let you keep it updated an extra year

Just because something is old, doesn't mean it needs to be replaced.

This. Upvoted.

What is it with hosting firms being stonewalled by Microsoft? Now it's Ionos on naughty step

Not the first time

The same thing happened earlier this year too. Ionos resolved it but it took a few days.

My MacBook Woe: I got up close and personal with city's snatch'n'dash crooks (aka some bastard stole my laptop)

It was the OP that mentioned life, not the reply.

Researchers peer into crystal ball to see future where everyone's ID is tied to their smartphone

Re: Brainwashing campaign

and in some countries when you pay with contactless you still have to enter your PIN too in any case.

One person's harmless japery can be another's night of LaserJet Lego

Re: ORLY?

"I've seen people daily use a link in an email they got years ago rather than make a shortcut or bookmark."

A link in an email *is* a shortcut!

You can't say Go without Google – specifically, our little logo, Chocolate Factory insists

Re: I don't see the value in Go.

"I dislike the verboseness of Java and C#; to me a sign of developer incompetence"

You start by suggesting that verboseness is a feature of those languages but then say that it's because of the developers.

Which did you mean?

I don't have to save my work, it's in The Cloud. But Microsoft really must fix this files issue

Re: As it is traditional to pick apart these stories

The problem is a lack of basic computer literacy like the whole concept of files, folders, saving, applications, desktops, icons and so on.

In the early days when only experts used PCs, everything had real manuals, but it seems that the more everyone else has to use them and the corresponding need for more manuals, the fewer we get, if any.

And there seems to be an assumption of basic understanding that users don't have.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean Google isn't listening to everything you say

"Unable to help with sex."

"neither of us were actually speaking during the preceding minute or so"

So what were you doing?

Suspected dark-web meth dealers caught by, er, 'using real address' when buying stamps

Re: Not worried about drugs

Despite you putting quotes around it, that is not a correct quote from the article.

Here is the actual quote, pasted from the article:

"a suspicious large plastic tote bag"

ie. it wasn't that having a bag was in itself suspicious. But it was "suspiciously large"

I don't know what the size limit is for a bag not being suspicious!

Bonkers British MPs rant: 5G signals cause cancer

"Scientific" evidence

Is there any other kind?

If it's not "scientific", it's not real evidence.

Re: "Is there any evidence that electromagnetic fields can affect the behaviour of animals?"

I don't think that the Earth's magnetic field counts as *electro*magnetic, does it?

Maybe it does, seeing as E and M forces are aspects of the same EM force,

But I think the MPs are concerned about RF not EM in general.

And they are still wrong.

Samsung reminds rabble to scan smart TVs for viruses – then tries to make them forget

Re: ahh tvs

When the term "flat-screen" first started appearing it was referring to the front of the tube being less curved.

Then when actual flat screens came out, it began to be used in that sense.

Now all TVs are "flat-screen" unless you are talking about an ancient CRT.

But still various media use the term as a prefix, usually and bizarrely to denote some form of luxury, eg. when complaining that prisoners have "flat-screen TVs".

Hmm, actually I think I've seen new curved screens in the shops now, so maybe "flat-screens" is coming to mean "old-fashioned"?

Oblivious 'influencers' work on 3.6-roentgen tans in Chernobyl after realising TV show based on real nuclear TITSUP

Re: Small point

Never heard the "Keith" bit before either.

IT pro screwed out of unused vacation pay, bonus by HPE after judge rules: The law is a mess but it's still the law

Sick leave?

Being sick is not "time off" in the usual sense. You can't help being sick and limiting sick time and counting it like holiday is immoral. By all means require doctor's notes and the like for more than a couple of days but to have an allocation of days when you are allowed to be sick makes no sense.

Also encourages people to pull fake sickies because they think they're entitled to them.

Re: They fucked with Milton's red Swingline stapler.

Why quote the actual truth when some made-up anti-BBC half-truth will serve your presumed purpose better?

What the BBC defended was the right to make provocative jokes about battery acid and indeed stated explicitly that they were "not intended to be taken seriously"

They did not defend a battery acid attack as your comment suggests.

It's official! The Register is fake news… according to .uk overlord Nominet. Just a few problems with that claim, though

Re: I am tired of you bringing up Trump for no reason.

How is a movie review "news", fake or otherwise?

If a reviewer is wrong about the origin of a term, then they could be genuinely mistaken or perhaps a bit dim (I don't know who wrote the review you mentioned, so no accusations).

In any case a review is opinion and I don't see much scope for being fake unless it outright lies about what the movie depicts.

Uncle Sam wants to read your tweets, check out your Instagram, log your email addresses before you enter the Land of the Free on a visa

Re: Hello darkness, my old friend

I have a facebook account that I never use and I don't remember the last time I logged in. Maybe less than 5 years, maybe more. If I log in to check, does that count as "using" it?