Posts by Brad Ackerman

How does a global corporation switch to IP Voice?

Re: Interception law

Those countries may be starting to think about VoIP encryption, but VoIP bans are generally intended to protect the profits of the state- or crony-owned telephone company. It's hard to skim off the top without something to skim.

FCC sexes up, er, sextuples 'broadband' speed to 25Mbps in US

Better cap disclosure would definitely be nice. In duration, at least as prominent as the advertised download speed. A 300 GB/mo cap on service advertised at 50 Mb/s is 13 hours 20 minutes of use per month, for example.

DEATH by PowerPoint: Microsoft warns of 0-day attack hidden in slides

Bob Howard to the rescue?

Better grab a SCORPION STARE device and run like hell, because you're not supposed to actually implement Charlie Stross's books.

Next we'll be having PDFs that wake the Sleeper in the Pyramid... oh, wait. That would be the PeopleSoft HRMS schema documentation. So never mind then.

Heistmeisters crack cost of safecrackers with $150 widget

Re: Heh

Ooh, backlit display... primary complaint with the X-09 addressed.

Re: *sigh*

Kaba Mas likes 50-25-50, and if you don't remember that, don't worry; some asshole will tape it to the back of the ATM.

NORKS ban Wi-Fi and satellite internet at embassies

The good old days of TVRO BUDs

Back in the prime of C-band antennas, there were plenty of people who liked to watch all those feeds (editing, backhaul, whatever). I don't know how old the story you refer to is, but I'd guess that somebody, who may or may not have been affiliated with the agency, was watching the feed in an unofficial capacity and passed on the information to CIA's public affairs office.

(Did the clipping services monitor those feeds as well? If so, the pre-broadcast feed could have been obtained that way.)

Since there's no icon for "I guess this comment makes me an old fart", it's black helicopters.

Chinese hackers spied on investigators of Flight MH370 - report

Re: "[Iran] hijacked the aircraft and they landed it in a place that nobody can see or find it."

Ellis BillingtonLarry Ellison owns a private island and a megayacht. How is it possible that he's not a Bond villain?

Dolby Atmos is coming home and it sounds amazing

A Sontaran-developed sound system

What could possibly go wrong with that? I hope someone has Prof. Quatermass on speed-dial.

Cor blimey: Virgin Media pipes 152Mb fibre to 100,000 East Londoners

Re: Anyone tried aaisp.net?

Also a company that has implemented the Shibboleet protocol. Not that it's difficult when you insist on hiring people who actually know something about networks.

July 14, 2015. Tuesday. No more support for Windows Server 2003. Good luck

"The reason is that they bought a server and software when server 2003 was the windows Server OS of choice."

I'm sure a substantial percentage of those servers were actually installed when 2008R2 was the Windows server OS of choice.

Russian law will force citizens' personal data to be stored locally

Re: Amazing.

UnionPay could take the opportunity to expand.

Future Apple gumble could lock fanbois out of their own devices

I'd be shocked if location-based settings aren't in FISHBOWL. http://www.nsa.gov/ia/programs/mobility_program/ but I don't know how much of that project was published before the patent's filing date.

Icon because it's the only solution for software patents.

Microsoft compliance police to NHS: We want your money

Re: This kind of nonesense...

Are you including the CALs? And the cost of your employees' time spent making sure that a sufficient number are purchased?

Stopping IT price gouging would risk SOCIALIST DYSTOPIA!

Re: No price control needed

a) is the main solution; specifically, fixing §123 of the Trade Marks Act 1995 (Cth).

b) would only affect agreements made in Australia; the US/UK vendors that Australians buy from wouldn't be affected.

Direct regulation of prices would probably end up like a government IT project.

Cabbies paralyze London in Uber rebellion

Re: Argument

During the periods when Uber is using surge pricing, you'll note that you can't actually find a taxi (e.g. in NYC when it's raining). The choice isn't between surge pricing and normal pricing; it's between surge pricing and not being able to get a ride at all (unless you get really lucky).

Where do you stand on multi-function network appliances?

The chart says "404 respondents"

These ADCs must not be very reliable, then.

Teen girl arrested with 70-year-old man's four inch weapon inside her

Re: Am I really the first one

Eskimo Nell would use a .454 Casull.

Tamil Nadu's XP migration plan: Go Linux like a BOSS

Re: Silver Lining

Tata's incompetent workers doesn't implicate Indian IT in general, just like CACI's or HP's don't implicate US IT in general. When the customer is happy to keep paying for people whose only job qualification is a pulse, why spend the extra money to hire people who know what they're doing?

Puking! protester! forces! Yahoo! 'techie! scum!' to! ride! vile! bile! barf! bus! to! work!

Free market? If only

Rents are rising because that's exactly what the city government wants. If they eliminated rent control and allowed housing to actually be built, prices would fall, but that would annoy the rich people who can afford to buy the Board of Supervisors.

El Reg's Deep Outback XP upgrade almost foiled by KILLER ARACHNIDS

Background on speed limits in NT

The Stuart Highway didn't have a speed limit until 2007, when the Labour government instituted the current 130 km/h one to raise revenue. The Country Liberals promised to ditch the speed limit if returned to office, and this is the start of actually fulfilling that promise.

Amazon is decompiling our apps in security gaffe hunt, says dev

Where's the lashing out? Or even vaguely implying that Amazon doing what they did is even slightly objectionable? I don't see it in the linked post at all.

Straight to 8: London's Met Police hatches Win XP escape plan

Re: y2k

I'm sure the "occasional stuff" your customers refer to is completely low-importance, like filing taxes or something of that nature.

Blighty teen boffin builds nuclear reactor INSIDE CLASSROOM

Perhaps if the English got over their strange notion that secret nuclear bunkers should be noted as such on road signs.

Hey, MoJ, we're not your Buddi: Brit firm abandons 'frustrating' crim-tagging contract

At least they didn't request equoids

"(Addendum: Going forward, SOE (X Division) OOAC recommends a blanket ban on all procurement specifications that involve supernatural equine entities (SEEs). For reference, see EQUESTRIAN RED SIRLOIN. This keeps coming up like a bad penny at least once every couple of decades, and it’s got to stop.)"

(http://www.tor.com/stories/2013/09/equoid for those who haven't read that story yet)

Microsoft to RIP THE SHEETS off Windows 9 aka 'Threshold' in April

First it's Threshold, then Foothold, and finally Stranglehold?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_(TV_series)#Planned_storylines

TPP treaty nearly ready to roll over us, says Oz minister

Absent our continued propping-up of certain Floridian families (who were allegedly more important to President Clinton than spending time with his mistress), the US would be buying much of its sugar from Brazil, not Australia. Also, a good amount of sugar currently being bought in Canada would be bought in the US instead—those sugar quotas and tariffs have been causing the US to hemorrhage food-production jobs.

What I'd want to see from a hypothetical trade treaty that wasn't just a giveaway to the MAFIAA: ditch the Jones Act, Buy America Act, and Fly America Act; eliminate the aforementioned sugar supports; give states the choice between allowing gambling and banning it (not, say, allowing a state-run lottery but no private-sector gaming); freedom of movement; and maybe even burying FACTA. Sadly, to get these things, we'd apparently need to actually exercise the option of ejecting the entire House and one-third of the Senate in an even-year election, which never seems to happen no matter how crappy our representation in DC is.

Report: Prez Obama kicks Healthcare.gov contractor to curb for web disaster

Re: Sorry Michele, your buddies...

Getting work based on friend$hip with politicians works just great. You get twice as much money as a private-sector organization would pay for similar work, then come the overruns. By the time you've finished, the government has paid ten times and you've delivered maybe half. As long as you don't do anything that causes your facility security clearance to be pulled (such as inviting a delegation from the Russian embassy over to the data center for a weed-fueled orgy), you can keep lowballing bids and billing the government $150/hr for people who aren't even worth minimum wage until the cows come home.

Oh, wait... maybe you were thinking about how it doesn't work at all for the taxpayer? Nobody signing the cheques gives a flying frak about them; they're just wallets on legs.

Nearly 1 in 5 of UK's Xmas gifts were bought online... not that it helped

Re: Imagine how much better it could be

And yet the Japanese courier companies have no trouble offering one- or two-hour windows that don't stop when the banks do.

EE and Voda subscribers to get 2G and 3G INSIDE the Channel Tunnel

Re: How about on UK train lines?!

Perhaps UK train lines should work on offerings more directly related to their business. Like, y'know, actually having trains 365 days a year, rather than sleeping in until noon and cutting frequency on Sundays.

My coat's the one with a Thuraya handset in the pocket.

Intel ditches McAfee brand: 'THANK GOD' shouts McAfee the man

Re: Worst software on the planet?

It's not that difficult to remove Norton software with the right equipment.

http://www.jaybeehammermills.com/products.html

The DIY solution: KMnO4 + Fe2O3 + Al (with a strip of Mg for the fuse)

Or let the pros from 36th Civil Engineering Squadron do it their way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_xt-0fLhKI

Icon added in case you're not sure which solution I endorse.

Who's the best-built bot that makes the US military hot? SCHAFT!

Re: Skynet coming too?

Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.

RSA comes out swinging at claims it took NSA's $10m to backdoor crypto

Regarding RSA's competence or lack thereof, I'll just leave this link here.

http://arstechnica.com/security/2011/06/rsa-finally-comes-clean-securid-is-compromised/

Unite: HP 'addicted to culture of job cuts' as axe raised again

Re: Earth to Unite

If HP did shut down, could Agilent get their name back?

My coat's the one with a 48GX in the pockets.

Dixons selling £68k gold, diamond, ruby and sapphire iPhone for Xmas

I'm sure a certain Patriarch is on the way to Harrods as we speak to put in his order. His photographers can airbrush it out in post, just like the watch.

European Parliament reports HACK ATTACK, turns off public Wi-Fi

SMTP only broadcasts passwords in the clear if the system administrators can't find their own asses with both hands in a small, well-lit room. Sadly, this description probably applies to the contractors they're using. (CSC? HP? Almost certainly a company whose core competency involves procurement lawyers, not technology.)

HEADS UP, text-flinging drivers! A cop in a huge SUV is snooping on you

I haven't noticed any reduction in drivers with permanently-attached phones, on either coast or in between. I did see an idiot make an illegal turn with a marked police car right behind—I couldn't see whether the driver needed their phone to be removed from the ear and inserted somewhere else, but I can certainly guess.

Rare AutoCAD malware rigs drafting machines for follow-up attacks

The only surprise here is that the malware authors bothered to learn LISP; they must feel a need to diversify their product lines. (Or perhaps it's a targeted attack?)

Cryptolocker infects cop PC: Massachusetts plod fork out Bitcoin ransom

Re: A novel approach to crimefighting...

The nice thing about being a cop is apparently that you can decide to become an accessory to a felony without risking jail. Yay Massachusetts.

3CX PBX for Windows: Everything you ever wanted from a phone system

Re: Pricing

Free is speech, not beer. We do have to be fair to Windows, so let's overengineer a ROFLscale Asterisk PBX for comparison's sake.

First, a Digium-supported Asterisk installation at $11k for a three-year term. Since that's a five-server support agreement, we'll make this a three-system cluster just because we can. And since we're doing the support-contract route, that's three entitlements for RHEL at $800/ea/year ($7200 for three years). Buy the hardware; tart up some R720s with crazy RAM and call that $6k each. Add a nice switch (heck, add two!), firewall, and we're still at $35kish. I'll call that a draw based on the infamous parity exchange-rate concept; if you disagree, throw in training for your PBX guy and some one-on-one time with Digium's people until the prices balance out.

Oh, wait a second... we didn't buy Windows. That'll cost you $2k for those three machines (Windows Server 2012 Standard). Whoops, now the Windows software alone is more expensive than the Linux hardware and software.

My coat? It's an OpenBSD fireman's jacket.

Apple MacBook 13in with Retina display

Concur - minimum 8GB RAM

If you're happy with 8GB of RAM, the 13" Air has substantially longer battery life in addition to being cheaper and lighter. As in, you can take a weekend trip without the charger. I certainly wouldn't do 4GB, RAM compression or no; why risk needing a forklift upgrade on a $1500+ computer?[1]

(Also, dropping down to 8GB RAM allows in the competition: Dell XPS 13, Sony Vaio Pro 13, etc. But dammit, I want to be able to have a million VMs open locally.)

[1] Counterargument: don't buy one of the soldered-on-RAM computers. While my wallet would support this course of action, my L5-S1 just wants the thin-and-light.

New FCC supremo: Sort out your cell unlocking, mobe giants - OR ELSE

LTE has actually made it worse. UMTS/HSPA isn't much of a problem, especially now that T-Mobile has been upgrading its network to support non-AWS-capable devices. And I've seen SIM cards for sale at Wally World and CVS, so the idea does appear to be catching on.

File-NUKING Cryptolocker PC malware MENACES 'TENS of MILLIONS' in UK

Re: Nasty.

Other than because the attackers didn't think that they would make enough BTC to justify a Linux port? Probably nothing. But I do reserve the right to snark about businesses that don't have offline backups.

Dell orbits Linux a third time with revamped Sputnik notebooks

I'd expect a developer machine to come with 16GB of RAM. And what's with the non-5000 graphics? Half the point of Haswell is that the iGPU is now available in a non-sucking version.

Want a unified data centre? Don't forget to defrag the admins

Re: VMware Snapshots? For real?

NetApp has a nice vCenter plugin that handles snapshots on the filer. It does require some extra licenses that you may not already have purchased to use all the features (notably, single-file restore).

My choice of the icon should be obvious to anyone who's dealt with NetApp or Brocade licensing. Especially Brocade. Bugger port-based licensing with a bloody spear.

Dell ‘xpands XPS line with 'WORLD-FIRST' MEGA-RESOLUTION laptops

Re: Back pains

I should've mentioned that I'm looking for 2 kg maximum weight, so the gaming/desktop-replacement laptops need not apply.

Your comment about budget airlines is why I flew traditional carriers whenever I could when living in the UK—it wasn't even much more expensive when you fully account for the checked-bag fee, boarding-pass fee, ticket-buying fee, fee-paying fee, and Helvetica fee.

Coat because I always took a filled-to-near-breaking SCOTTEVEST jacket on Sleazyjet/Ryanair and never ran into your gate agent attempting to close that loophole. (Perhaps they've changed their tariff conditions since 2010.)

Dell announced the Latitude 14 7000 series two months ago with rather nice specs, but they're still only selling stripped-down versions—only 4GB RAM, no smart-card reader, only 768p display. If I'm going to upgrade my 2010 MBP (which my L5-S1 disc has been advocating), I'll damn well want to take full advantage of Haswell. That means 16GB RAM and at least an HD 5000 GPU. The Clevo W740SU (System76 galu1) would be great if its keyboard didn't make the PCjr's look good.)

Please ship some of this rather than just announcing it, Dell. I'd love to leave Apple, but if they're the only ones bothering to ship ass-kicking Haswell laptops, I can't very well do that, can I?

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 region-locking saga CLEAR AS MUD

Someone who saw an unlocked phone with nice-looking features and couldn't have imagined a defect so batshit insane as this one.

Re: Software *UPGRADE*?

I've got auto-update—my phone lets me know whenever the latest Cyanogen release is available. Come for the security patches that stop random people from pwning your phone; stay for the patches that stop Samsung from pwning it.

Medical apps to come under FDA scrutiny

Optional

Hopefully this new process won't take resources away from conventional medical device review, which seems to be slipping recently. Of course, if TPTB really wanted to improve access to medical equipment and pharmaceuticals without reducing patient safety, they wouldn't insist on separate FDA facility approvals for plants that have already been approved by the EU... oh, wait, we'd get rid of all those medicine shortages. Can't have that, now, can we?

I wasn't sure whether the facepalm or the mushroom cloud was more appropriate, but had to pick one or the other.