Posts by Allan George Dyer

Fat-fingered admin downs entire Joyent data center

Shock collars?

He makes it sound like he tried. Guess they should invest in waterproof keyboards that can be operated with flippers.

After the cyberpunks, prepare to fight a new wave of nasties

Re: A huge error in the article

It was a threat to the user. The user sees the tick on the shield, believes they are protected and makes decisions on that basis. A false sense of security can be very dangerous.

Not a "huge error", perhaps a grey area.

Watch this: IPv4 must die! So let's beef up on IPv6

Re: We really should have larger IPv6 deployments by now...

Because ISPs like charging a monthly fee for each static IPv4 address? They also charge a premium for IPv6 connectivity.

eBay slammed for daft post-hack password swap advice

World Password Day website

It seems that a length of 14 alone, e.g. '11111111111111', will get rated as Strong, but to get Best you need a lower case letter, upper case letter, number and special character, e.g. 'bT@11111111111' or '[e-mail]'. I wonder if anyone decided to use their email address as their password on this website's advice?

Re: ebay's password policy ...

'So mine is "***********".'

Have you stopped using all the sites that display your password in plaintext as you type it?

US authorities name five Chinese military hackers wanted for espionage

Re: Why?

Yes, it's for the PR. Makes it more concrete in the public mind. Any Senator or pundit can emphasise, "and they STILL haven't extradited Wen, Wang, Sun, Huang and Gu". Can you specify any secret economic data stolen in the Bermudan phone calls, or name the people who stole them? No? Then it's all theoretical.

So you reckon you're a leet infosec warrior. Now you can prove it, pal

Re: Well Done to the British

Named in the same spirit as the Ministry of Defence.

Bitcoin blockchain allegedly infected by ancient 'Stoned' virus

Re: Many Monkey theorem

"Also, how many many mips are expended looking for "stoned" on a daily basis?"

Probably, remarkably few. The days when AV was 'search target for pattern 1, search target for pattern 2, …' were over within 5 years of Stoned. More efficient search techniques are used, so Stoned and thousands of other malware sharing some pattern will be eliminated high up in the decision tree.

Real, hovering SPEEDER BIKE can be YOURS for cheaper than a house

Just right for nipping around the Amazon Rainforest

icon: expected result.

Cloud computing is FAIL and here’s why

Re: Points of Failure

We should have large families to increase the size of the backup pool in case of system failure?

Is this something we should be asking the CEO's of cloud computing companies? How big is your family?

Japanese cops arrest man with five 3D printed guns at home

Re: In Japan, no guns means children are safe!

Well, you're right… the murder rate in Japan is 0.3, five times the gun death rate of 0.06. Stopping people using guns only makes them look for another weapon.

In USA, the murder rate (4.8), is only 1.5 times the gun death rate (3.6). Some people are going to kill other people no matter what, but limiting their choices does seem to discourage the less-determined would-be murderers.

Aren't Japanese press highlighting torima cases because they are exceptional? When it happens every day, it's no longer news.

Laser deflector shields possible with today's tech – but there's one small problem

If you surround your spaceship with a ball of plasma…

surely your FIRST problem is dying when your ship evaporates?

Super-heavy element 117 DOES exist – albeit briefly. Got any berkelium handy?

Obviously a strong textbook-publisher lobby...

though there might be practical disadvantages to a textbook that falls apart before the teacher has said, "Good morning class".

Thanks for nothing, Apple, say forensic security chaps

Re: Boo. Hoo..

@Grikath - so, you're saying Apple are criminals?

Google's self-driving car breakthrough: Stop sign no longer a problem

Re: Existing Solutions

@dotdavid OK, there's a threshold for population density below which bus and other public transport becomes infrequent and inconvenient. I suspect that the threshold is lower than you think - any town there is a problem with road congestion is probably dense enough to benefit from a good bus service. As for the costs, everyone having their own car is an enormous capital cost and continuous fuel cost.

You mention people being forced to abandon their cars, yes, many people have a deep, personal attachment, somehow it's part of their identity (or a symbol of their virility?). This makes it difficult for people to realise that, to live closer together, they need to share more. Personally, I find not having a car liberating, it's cheaper, I don't have to find parking spaces, I can drink, if the traffic is bad I can hop off and walk.

The problems for delivery vans apply the same to using a self-drive car for an unattended grocery run.

Better utilisation of the family self-driving car would probably increase the number of empty trips, and therefore increase congestion and decrease fuel efficiency. A self-driving taxi would be good, except that it also falls foul of the "my car, my identity" syndrome.

Existing Solutions

Sergey Brin, and others that see self-driving cars as a solution for people that are "under served by the current transport system" are missing an achievable existing solution: public transport. People who anticipate sending their car to collect their shopping are overlooking the efficiency of a delivery van, that can deliver groceries for you and, say, a dozen neighbours in one trip versus 12 self-drive cars clogging up the roads.

As an example of how public transport can work, look at Hong Kong, with a tenth of the vehicles per capita of USA and buses on most routes at 10 minute intervals. If 9 out of 10 urban Americans abandoned their cars, there would be enough demand for frequent, convenient public transport.

I admire the improvements in self-driving technology, but see it more as a niche solution. Maybe, one day, a self-driving bus would be even better, if it can answer passengers' questions and deploy the wheelchair ramp safely when needed.

Lost artworks by Andy Warhol found on 80s-era FLOPPY DISKS

Re: Sorry Neil McAllister.

@Lazlo Woodbine - did you clean the drive heads? Or perhaps one of the drives was borderline mis-aligned?

I never did understand the design "feature" that placed the most dust-sensitive component directly in front of the power supply, dragging air through it and out the back.

Red-faced LOHAN team 'fesses up in blown SPEARS fuse fiasco

Re: Fuse Blown - I can fix that

You Are Spartacus, I have this feeling that you, the Reg and all commtards ought to be arrested under extreme pornography laws because you linked to that, that, that… DISGUSTING picture!

I'm off to wash my mind with bleach and turn myself in.

Obama allows NSA to exploit 0-days: report

Re: Missing the point, surely?

Well, both those have been happening: Some people have been saying for a very long time, "these powers are dangerous to democracy", and, recently, lots of people have been shocked that the targets have included USA citizens and allies.

However, the problem with 0-days is that, not only do they allow the good guys to spy on the bad guys, they allow the bad guys to spy on the good guys. Of course, there is a lot of context-specific risk balancing. If the NSA find a 0-day in "the most popular encryption software used in North Korea, rarely used outside", then there could be a reasonable argument for keeping it hidden. Or, if the nature of the 0-day makes the NSA confident that it can detect when someone else discovers it, they could plan to reveal it at that time, and use it until then. Heartbleed is the opposite of both of these: the library is used almost everywhere, and it is (virtually?) impossible to tell if someone else discovered and used it.

Anyone who discovered Heartbleed and kept it hidden deliberately reduced everyone's security.

What are USAans wasting their tax dollars on?

Isn't this an admission that the NSA is useless? Regardless of whether they think (or you agree) that their most important mission is protecting "friendly" communications or intercepting "enemy" communications, with their funding they should have found this bug. Why didn't they use the old, "neither confirm nor deny" to keep some semblance of competence?

Audio fans, prepare yourself for the Second Coming ... of Blu-ray

I'll definitely be buying this...

next time I upgrade my pet bat's entertainment system.

Yes, the one with the oddly-quiet whistle in the pocket, please.

USB reversible cables could become standard sooner than you think

Obligatory XKCD

https://xkcd.com/927/

Honeybee boffin stings own wedding tackle... for science

Ignoble Award

He really wants to win one!

Wookiee! CHEWIE'S BACK in Star Wars Ep VII – blab Hollywood 'sources'

Re: WORTH THE PRICE OF ADMISSION....

So how long do wookies live?

Google kills fake anti-virus app that hit No. 1 on Play charts

Re: Pretty easy

I don't see much distinction between an overtly malicious app and deliberately selling the user a false sense of security. They are knowingly putting their customer in harms way.

Plus, considering Aslan's comment below, "Google Play only runs an automated check to see if an App is malicious", it is quite possible that it was a wannabe malicious app developer who found the auto-checks too difficult to get past, and took an easy route to the money. All the same intent is there.

Technology is murdering customer service - legally

Re: This will change

If you remember the 70's, then maybe you remember the British Rail Enquiry line where the main question was whether you would starve to death before the phone was answered?

It wasn't ALL good.

Internet is a tool of Satan that destroys belief, study claims

So the internet does some good

and it's not just cat videos and porn?

Re: So access to information

Maybe that's why. If you have one, carefully edited, book of ridiculous superstition, it looks believable. If you see thousands of conflicting superstitions...

Hey, Michael Lewis: Stop DEMONISING Wall Street’s SUPERHUMAN high-speed trading

Re: Feedback

OK, Squander Two, you're getting closer to my point, but I'm not saying that doing anything in milliseconds is inherently economically unvaluable, just that an ultra-fast stock market does not benefit the wider society. A good stock market directs investments into activities the society finds most useful, but HFT happens so fast it is all about what my algorithm thinks your algorithm is about to do, not the economic data that changes on much slower timescales. The value of, say, a company that manufactures high-speed switches to society does not change in milliseconds. The HF Traders trying to grab the money as it goes past faster than anybody else, but, as a result, they are making the system more unstable. An audio system designer will build in high frequency cutoff, not stick in a UHF amplifier, however useful a UHF amplifier is in another circumstance.

Feedback

Valuable economic activity takes place on slow timescales; days to build a car, months to grow a crop, decades to grow a tree. The stock markets fluctuate according to what people think other people will do, or, for HFT, what algorithms think other algorithms will do.

Take a high-quality audio system and stick a UHF amplifier into it. Turn the gain up. Does the music quality improve?

Lego is the TOOL OF SATAN, thunders Polish priest

This is new?

So the Lego skeletons from a few years back are OK because they're smiling?

Apple poking at idea of bayonet phone fittings

Thank goodness it's lenses

The idea of a phone with 12 inches of steel sticking out the back is frightening!

"iPhone 6, This time, it's Personal"

Asia's internet in peril as cable network breaks in TWO places

Re: cut in two places?

"yank it loose at both ends" - Possibly. I'll let you know if I see any fishing boats with a thousand miles of cable trailing behind them, and a red-faced captain. But I might need to revert to other communications methods (see icon).

Zuck: Web drones, not balloons (cough, cough Google) are way forward

Re: FB & Google...

Not to mention uploading a picture of the rash etc. to a doctor.

There might also be benefits in distributing aid. Overcrowded refugee camps bring their own problems, but perhaps connectivity will allow more people to receive aid where they are.

Say WHAT? ATVOD claims 44k Brit primary school kids look at smut online each month

Maybe they turned on the webcam remotely...

as therefore have a collection of videos of people enjoying porn to watch and classify?

Homeopathic remedies contaminated with REAL medicine get recalled

I like the way...

they always talk about "natural substances", but penicillin is perfectly natural, not that I'm suggesting eating mouldy bread is a guarantee for good health. Other natural things include lions, malaria and molten lava. I am not responsible for any injury that may occur when attempting to dilute a volcano.

FINALLY Microsoft releases Office for iPad – but wait there's a CATCH

Re: The consumption myth

Next you'll tell me that someone's come up with the idea of packaging the tablet and keyboard together, in a hinged arrangement, so that the keyboard acts as a base to support the display at a convenient viewing angle…

Now, where did that patent application form go...

Ugh! This DUNKABLE wearable tech is REPELLENT

Re: Memories

I didn't see that TW segment, but I recall first seeing the aquatic mice on a PG Tips tea card…

(old fart icon)

RISE of the LIVING CHAIR: Boffins recruit E coli to build futuristic materials

Did no-one else think of...

1. The Master's furniture line in Terror of the Autons

2. The mattresses on the Vogon spaceship in H2GT2G

I think I'll stay standing.

BOFH: On the PFY's Scottish estate, no one can hear you scream...

Re: Bleach?

I think the "recycled paper" is about 50% trimmings from commercial print jobs, and 50% water. Based on observation of the guy holding a hose on the bales of offcuts.

They want me to install CCTV to see what YOU did in the TOILET

Who has time to watch it all?

Use motion detection to capture the activity of interest.

Then your guard just has to go through the motions…

OK, I'm going. No, I'm leaving.

NSA 'hunted sysadmins' to find CAT PHOTOS, high-level passwords

Telnet traffic?

Really? So they were going after the low-hanging fruit. Who uses the telnet protocol when ssh is available?

The telnet program, OTOH, is a useful http/smtp client.

Hunted sysadmins?

The full works, with horses, dogs, horns and fancy clothes?

Just call me Reynard.

I'll get my coat, scatter some aniseed, cross the ploughed field, wade upstream and leave by a low-hanging branch...

'Arrogant' Snowden putting lives at risk, says NSA's deputy spyboss

"discreet, measured, controlled ways"

I see…

"Is it secret?"

"Check!"

"Is it big?"

"Check!"

"Do we have control?"

"Check!"

Star Wars movie to start shooting in UK this summer

Re: Star Wars is a remake of The Dambusters!

So Episode I was National Velvet, and VII will be Bridge Over the River Kwai?

Think drone delivery is hot air? A BREWERY just proved you wrong

Next Terminator sequel...

Skynet upgrades with ethanol fuel cells and deploys drones to break in to off-licenses, vandalise downtown and drop empty beer bottles on cowering meatbags.

GRAV WAVE TSUNAMI boffinry BONANZA – the aftershock of the universe's Big Bang

Check the small print...

Sounds like the first detection was before the cutoff date, so the confirmation date shouldn't matter. Does Ladbrokes invalidate bets if there's a delay in getting the photo-finish result?

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Friday is Pi Day

So Pi = 2.0140314

I must remember that.

Obligatory xkcd

Five unbelievable headlines that claim Tim Berners-Lee 'INVENTED the INTERNET'

Re: At least those other publications…

Why is "the internet" a proper noun? It isn't one organisation, person or place, any more than the sea is.

I prefer "the internet" without capitalisation, but feel free to capitalise as you prefer in your sentences.

Nipper rolls up at nursery with 48 wraps of HEROIN

Do they also expel all cookery students?