Posts by Jon Smit

Pulling down a partition or knocking through a door does not necessarily make for a properly connected workspace

Condemned

I bought a long empty house in the Welsh valleys and arranged for the leccie man to reconnect and the old slot meter, the day we moved in.

No chance, he said after a couple of minutes looking at the old wiring. The old stuff didn't have an earth and was lead sheathed. The newer wiring was mine detonator cabling, nicked off the NCB.

Fortunately he called early in the morning and I was able to purchase the necessary bits and bobs to enable to house to lit and powered by rather a lot of cable sockets, connected to a new fuse board. We lived like that for almost a year, waiting for a council improvement grant to come through.

For every disastrous rebrand, there is an IT person trying to steer away from the precipice

Re: I had more success …

Outside of Benny Hill and Mr Bean, do Americans understand what they're watching?

Billionaire's Pagani Pa-gone-i after teen son takes hypercar out for a drive, trashes it

Rracing Point F1 team

Lawrence Stroll, another billionaire, bought a F1 team for £90m, so his son, Lance can continue to race around the world. Lance recently wrote off a his car at 150mph plus, due to a tyre blowout. Not his fault, but bloody expensive all the same.

As things stand the team's car is among the top 4 cars in F1. Despite that, Lance still trundles around in midfield and isn't showing the ability to win a race, unless there's a massive accident affecting all of the better drivers.

Oh, the team is nicknamed Tracing Point, because they are racing an exact copy of the Mercedes F1 car of last year.

Salon told to change ad looking for 'happy' stylist because it 'discriminated against unhappy people'

Wouldn't it be nice

To meet a happy taxi driver.

Life with Amazon's fitness band: Upload your half-naked pics to see how fat you'll look without exercise. You now sound stressed – relax!

Guaranteed

They'll be filling the Amazon 'wank bank' with them selfies.

Worcestershire's airborne electronics warfare wonderland

Not one word

about Robert Watson-Watt, who actually invented RDF.

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

London tap water tastes bloody awful and using a filter helps remove the chewiness, they also reduce the need to descale kettles every couple of weeks. The scum from limescaled tea isn't attractive when you've become used to soft water in another part of the UK.

Brit MP demands answers from Fujitsu about Horizon IT system after Post Office staff jailed over accounting errors

Correcting balances

What are the legalities of "... remotely accessed accounts to correct the balances, unknown to the sub-postmasters..."

What kind of person does that and never says a word when hundreds of post masters are being prosecuted?

Re: Any chance

Is it necessary to remind you and other Cummings socks that he and his wife, also took and collected his child from the local hospital while both of them were suffering from the virus. Apparently neither of them told the hospital they were ill.

Due to privacy constraints, the hospital has not been allowed to give details about the incident. We will never know if Cummings spread the virus during his trip to a cottage that apparently doesn't officially exist.

A real loch mess: Navy larks sunk by a truculent torpedo

Can't beat this

I heard about this years ago and assumed it was made up.

There was once a single tree in the middle of the Sahara Desert, some 250 miles away from any others. It had survived for 300 years, until a drunk driver happened along.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-most-isolated-tree-in-the-world-was-killed-by-a-probably-drunk-driver-5369329/

Who's going to pay for Britain's Aunty Beeb to carry on? Broadband users, broadcaster suggests to government

Re: April Fool

Everything keeps on increasing, like Sky, who have led the complaints about the BBC licence since they first broadcast.

The BBC coss £3 a week, Sky at least treble that, before paying extra for every sport they show.

Microsoft's Bill Gates defrag is finally virtually complete: Billionaire quits board to double down on philanthropy

There's nice

He's gone from taking with both hands to giving with one.

In tribute to Galaxy Note 7, BBC iPlayer support goes up in flames for some Samsung TVs

Re: DIY

Pray tell the masses how this works? We ain't all nerds.

Firefox armagg-add-on: Lapsed security cert kills all browser extensions, from website password managers to ad blockers

Firefox - fur coat and no nickers.

Not so long ago No Script stopped working without warning, when Firefox was 'upgraded'. From next month Mozilla have decided to block more addons at short notice. I've lost count of the number of addons that have been blocked overnight, the majority of which have never been replaced. Practically every upgrade has cost usability, and list of bugs that have never been fixed gets longer and longer.

Mozilla boasts about the addons available, the way things are going, there won't be any, which will solve the problem of finding any that work on their site.

Easter is approaching – and British pr0n watchers still don't know how long before age-gates come into force

On the top shelf.

Does this mean the UK government

is the first to issue a Wanking Licence?

Aussie engineer accuses 'serial farter' supervisor of bullying, seeks $1.8m redress

Vegans around the world

Will be watching the outcome of the appeal with clenched buttocks.

TV piracy ring walks the plank after Euro cops launch 14 raids and shutter 11 data centres

That's created

A hole in the market. Give it a month and it'll be filled.

Hackers cop a FILA thousands of UK card deets after slinking onto clothing brand's servers

Par for the course

I've given up attempting to tell owners they've got malware running on their sites. Might as well be talking to a brick wall in most cases.

Protip: If you'd rather cyber-scoundrels didn't know the contents of your comp, don't apply for a Pakistani passport

It's doesn't take Einstein

To work out why and why this department of Pakistan government was hacked.

Facebook blames 'server config change' for 14-hour outage. Someone run that through the universal liar translator

Took your time over this

Scooped by the BBC 24 hours ago.

UK cyber cops: Infosec pros could help us divert teens from 'dark side'

The usual defence

Used by kids who are caught is claiming to be autistic or somewhere on that spectrum. How do the police go about creating friendships with people almost incapable of expressing themselves and living in a world of their own?

Password re-use is dangerous, right? So what about stopping it with password-sharing?

2 part Authentication - more data slurping

Twitter is currently collecting the mobile phone numbers of it's users. How safe is that info with them? They're not allowing any accounts without phone numbers, so sod 'em.

UK Parliament roars: Oi! Zuck! Get in here for a grilling – or you'll get a Tower of London tour

Cue the Custard Pie

The Dirty Digger slipped away when the Custard Pie Pillock turned up, don't be surprised if he reappears with a Get Out of Questioning Pie for Shorty.

Facebook's login-to-other-sites service lets scum slurp your stuff

Failbook slurping from Tesco Direct

There's Failbook scripting running on Tesco's site picking up data on what you buy and logins. It's running if you use Failbook or not. WTF is Tesco getting out it, when they've got complete access to the same data?

Great Western Railway warns of great Western password reuse: Brits told to reset logins

Re: No email here

If I hadn't seen this article, I would have no knowledge of this data breach. Not receiving an email isn't good enough and yes, they are damned.

No email here

And unable to access site to change password, as there's "service error".

Not good enough.

You'll like this: Facebook probed by US watchdog amid privacy storm

So why does the Daily Mail run a Facebook script?

Anyone going to the Daily Mail website will automatically run a Facebook script, even if they are not a Facebook user. What is that script doing, has anyone checked.

The Daily Heil isn't the only website that runs a Facebook script. I believe Facebook are slurping up data from all over the place, whether they have permission is another matter.

Uber's disturbing fatal self-driving car crash, a new common sense challenge for AI, and Facebook's evil algorithms

Uber video has been altered

The road where the accident took place is very well lit. Other videos are available showing there was no problem with visibility at the time of the incident.

Cambridge Analytica CEO suspended – and that's not even the worst news for them today

No Script shows Facebook scripting all over the place

As a user of No Script, I'm aware that huge numbers of websites want users to allow Facebook scripting. I'm no programmer, but if I've got that crap running in the background all the time, Facebook must be collecting usage data from me, despite me not being on Facebook.

Perhaps it's time these sites, who are mostly belong to media companies were told to stop this practice.

Uber hopes to butter up Brit transport chiefs with lots of lovely data

What next from Uber?

Will they promise to take passengers 'south of the river' ? My brother saw a black cab in Greenwich earlier today. It must have been a cuckoo.

There are river crossings east of Tower Bridge and most will use them, rather than get tangled up with the mess around the City.

Brit retailer Currys PC World says sorry for Know How scam

Also offer free software that never appears

I bought a laptop from Currys just before Xmas. Supposed to come with free software from Intel. I'm still waiting.

Russian anti-antivirus security tester pleads guilty to certifying attack code

Re: Huh?

Virus Total is a honey pot ?

Millionaire-backed science fiction church to launch Scientology TV network

I know where it won't be seen.

Is scientology still on Germany's shit list ?

Will their transmissions be checked for subliminal messages?

NRA gives FCC boss Ajit Pai a gun as reward for killing net neutrality. Yeah, an actual gun

Re: This isn't tone deaf - it is purposefully intended to threaten death

There was me and rest of the world knowing they kept out of Switzerland because that's where Adolf and his mates hid their running away funds of looted art and gold.

Re: We have the clueless leading the blind...

The standard of driving allowed in the USA is so piss poor, the British government does not allow their driving licences to be exchanged for British ones.

'Bitcoin heist' shock: Cops seek 4 for aggravated burglary in Midsomer Murders town

What a cock

Running that kind of business from home and allowing his address to be found in less than a minute.

Here we go again... UK Prime Minister urges nerds to come up with magic crypto backdoors

She only wants a WotsApp backdoor

So she can check up on what Boris is up to on his sekrit group.

Acronis: Ransomware protection! Get yer free ransomware protection!

Epic fail

Installed on Win 8.1. Backup failed, followed by a series of interweb lockups. Told me there were 5 iffy programs installed, but only showed 3 to check.

Lasted 2 hours before meeting the bit bucket.

Another UAV licence price hike? Commercial drone fliers rage over consultation

Re: CAA

Codswallop. This tale stinks of bullshine. All they had to do way cancel the use of a drone. A professional film crew would have been well aware of any additional issues created by their use of a drone.

Public Liability Insurance

Professional drone operations must also have public liability insurance. If they make a claim and don't have the necessary CAA licence, the insurance company will not pay out. How long will it be before some clown falls into this self inflicted pit?

Get over it, licences along with insurance are a legitimate expense, which can be offset against tax, along with all the makey uppey costs the self employed use to cut their tax bills.

Intel finds critical holes in secret Management Engine hidden in tons of desktop, server chipsets

This isn't news

This build in bug has been known about for some time, plenty long enough for every state security agency in the world to have found ways to make use of it. Even it Intel provide a method of disabling the Management Engine, who's to say it can't be reversed or will just continue to work ignoring whatever updates provided by Intel?

Downloaded CCleaner lately? Oo, awks... it was stuffed with malware

Not the only 'security' product that's borked recently

In recent months I've had my system buggered by updates from Bitdefender AVP and Comodo firewall. Have they been employing ex Symantec staff?

'Real' people want govts to spy on them, argues UK Home Secretary

So what would Boris Johnson do?

WhatsApp: the go-to messaging tool for parliamentary plotting

All of the UK parliamentary parties use encrypted WhatsApp to keep 'on message'.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/12/whatsapp-the-go-to-tool-for-parliamentary-plotting

Shooting org demands answers from Met Police over gun owner blab

On a tangent

Housing Associations are sending lists of their tenants rent history to Experian, claiming they are helping the tenants raise their credit rating. So much for keeping your name off the voters lists. It's called Rental Exchange, but there's sod all for the tenants in return.

Would you believe it? The Museum of Failure contains quite a few pieces of technology

Err... 3D telly and filums

Who wants to look like a nob wearing silly glasses! As for watching sport on Sky, a total fail.

Microsoft cloud TITSUP: Skype, Outlook, Xbox, OneDrive, Hotmail down

If that fails

Clear the cache...

Firefox 52 kills plugins – except Flash – and runs up a red flag for HTTP

Sky Go gets to boot too

"...Important Notice – Firefox customers

Watching Sky Go is no longer supported on the latest version of Firefox. Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to enjoy Sky Go using an alternative browser like Internet Explorer.

We are aware of the problem and are working hard to get this fixed as soon as we possibly can.."

Will Firefox keep on fiddling until they've no users left ?

Technology as a catalyst for cultural change

And there was me

Thinking this was going to be about False News.

UK warships to have less firepower than 19th century equivalents as missiles withdrawn

Re: Battleships

They were sinking that ship in a specific spot to create a reef and playground for divers. They removed all the equipment to prevent polution. Do I need to point out that those considerations take a backseat in wartime? Many US carriers were taken out by a single bomb, because they were built with wooden deck, unlike British carriers which had armoured decking.

Frigates and destroyers have been a platform for torpedoes for many years, it's pretty obvious their pop guns are not going have any affect on a battleship, but they are not facing battleships are they.