Posts by Dan 55

Official: Perl the most hated programming language, say devs

Re: Perl.... Arrggh

Whatever you can say about Perl, it's not worse than JavaScript. In Perl there's method behind the madness. JavaScript eschews the method and gives you 100% distilled madness.

UK industry bods: Re-train one million manufacturing workers to deal with new tech

Re: The UK lacks effective leadership

Not identical, things have got worse.

Mozilla devs discuss ditching Dutch CA, because cryptowars

Re: MST Assurances /Authentication of Server

But there's still the phishing problem. If the wrong server name is entered by accident and it leads to a phishing server, the false server will say, "yep, all that info you've given me is fine". And it can then act as a MITM.

The most you can do is encrypt the connection, but not authenticate it.

Re: MST Assurances

I mean, it's an encrypted connection, but the client won't be clearly told in the URL bar if they're talking to hsbc.com (HSBC) or hbsc.com (Bank of Phish). There's nothing like Extended Validation.

Re: Let's Ditch TLS Alltogether

But (I guess) this doesn't have any authentication though so it's not suitable for banks, payments, etc...

Re: Advancing our civilization into less a democratic state...

At the top:

State some facts and I'll discuss them.

Then we come to the discussion at the post above...

Well that was disappointing and expected. If the guy in charge of Vote Leave says it's going to be a disaster, all that are going to be left are the Brexit Taliban.

Re: Advancing our civilization into less a democratic state...

If you have any complaint, and believe that the result should have been different with those missing votes - then your complaint should be against those who didn't get out and vote the way you wanted.

No, my complaint is against the government. The referendum is advisory (legally, there's no way around that, it was stated in the Act and the HoC library, and backed up by the courts), and it's wrong for the government to take the actions which affect the future of the whole country basted on only 37% of the electorate.

Government goes on majority and if the number of opinions in question is more than 2 then a majority opinion may be less than 50%. This is basic maths, obviously something you have a problem with.

Most referendums which change the direction of an entire country require a supermajority and/or a minimum number of participants to stop this kind of incessant argument which has been going on for 16 months.

Re: Advancing our civilization into less a democratic state...

Government is supposed to be for everybody. If it's only carrying out one policy to keep what 37% of the country wanted on referendum day happy it won't last very long.

I notice you took no issue with the "drive the country off a cliff" bit.

Re: Advancing our civilization into less a democratic state...

The Conservative manifesto doesn't matter (did they actually specify what kind of referendum it was going to be?), what matters is the EU Referendum Act 2015 and that did not make it legally binding.

Re: Advancing our civilization into less a democratic state...

The will of 37% of the electorate should be advisory to future government policy but shouldn't be able to drive the country off a cliff.

It's probably best to have state-backed certificates

That was you can enable and disable them when you want.

The alternative is some deal with a large commercial provider behind closed doors.

Microsoft slowly closes Outlook Premium's door while Office 365 winks at you across the street

Two tries to parse the first two paragraphs

It'd help if MS didn't call everything Outlook or Office. Their marketing department seem to think a client, a webmail website, and a subscription service all should be called the same thing and everyone will somehow magically know the difference.

Say what? Another reCaptcha attack, now against audio challenges

Captcha security

Seems to defend against blind people and people in a rush.

Now all they need to do is add security against spammers and phishers.

Unfortunately it's not going away until Google have trained their self-driving AI to identify all street features.

Google AMP supremo whinges at being called out on team's bulls***

Take a look at El Reg's AMP version vs m.register if you want an example of Google doing something absurd and the world asking "how high?"

m.register is faster than AMP, if other publishers are saying "oh wow, our pages load 300% faster" it's because they didn't know how to design (mobile) websites in the first place.

Yet El Reg is obliged to make an AMP version otherwise it won't get listed at or near the top.

Also worth noting that Google saying this is open source. It always is, at the start. Then the open source part disappears.

MoD: Sci-tech strategy? Er, here's a bunch of words and diagrams

It's next level communication encryption

Hostile states will never be able to decode its meaning.

Google's phone woes: The Pixel and the damage done

Re: Other options

In spite of everything Redmond has put them through, what remains of Nokia's mobile division, now back at Nokia, doesn't seem to have these problems either.

Presumably someone remembered what QC means.

Boffins befuddled over EU probe into UK's tax rules for multinationals

Re: It will matter

At the very least, unless everything comes off the rails, there'll be a two (or one and a half) year transition period where the UK will still be subject to EU law.

Why are we disappointed with the best streaming media box on the market?

Re: Lots of hate

Kodi 18 will have Netflix support. OSMC and LibreElec have betas and people have managed to get it to work.

Re: Which country?

Kodi on Android can launch the Netflix or Amazon (or any other) app.

Re: What does it do...

Close. Unless you run the Windows 10 store app or Edge you ain't getting 4K. At least if you're running it on a computer.

Plex and Emby are for the technically impaired that don't understand Kodi.

That's not a dig at anyone btw, I'm just stating facts.

Re: 3D?

Was going to say the same. Try buying a 3D TV now.

I guess people buying Rokus are buying them for a TV which is a few years old... Bought when they could still be found.

Hey, you know why it's called the iPhone X? When you see Apple's repair bill, your response will be X-rated

Re: Apple Care +

If you got an iPhone from a phone company and get a replacement from Apple in the first year, the phone company will probably say it's not the one they supplied.

Re: Apple Care +

Apple do everything humanly possible to make every repair due to damage not being in normal use.

Also people know their rights more in the UK. In Spain, they've successfully managed to convince everyone the guarantee lasts one year. In the second year, they say it's not covered by the Apple Guarantee and here's the price list. What they don't tell you is they're washing their hands of the second year or if you go to the Spanish equivalent of trading standards you'll get it repaired under the standard consumer rights law.

They should be forced to tell people that the consumer rights law offers a two year guarantee and accept items for repair in the shop in the second year but that would mean someone in government doing their job.

IBM offloads Notes and Domino to India's HCL Technologies

Re: Interface Hall of Shame

There was another web site which listed its many many failures. People from IBM read it and some bugs even got fixed.

Unfortunately the banner at the top made from stock photos of people facepalming has not survived the transition to archive.org.

Car trouble: Keyless and lockless is no match for brainless

So I googled the YouTube video

When Dabbsy said it was a 4000 page manual, I suspect that was just for the key.

Video which feels like it goes on forever just to explain how a damn key works on a "Knee-sahn Juke".

The best answer seems to be availing yourself of a "hidden mechanical key" which you should extract from the rest of the nonsense surrounding it and use instead.

NHS could have 'fended off' WannaCry by taking 'simple steps' – report

It was done this morning.

The NAO report named the Department of Health and the NHS, but since the security minister went on Toady Programme it's all been about the NHS and how lazy they are. Oh, and it was probably Norks, as usual.

FYI: iOS apps can turn on your camera any time without warning

Buy a webcam cover (just like we used to have in the olden days) if tape isn't your thing?

Knock, knock? Oh, no one there? No problem, Amazon will let itself in via your IoT smart lock

So presumably they're going to stop using Hermes in the UK for deliveries?

Forget One Windows, Microsoft says it's time to modernize your apps

Re: Modernise apps?

iOS, Android, Blackberry, Palm, Nintendo DS/3DS/Wii/Wii U/Switch, Nokia Symbian/Maemo, Sony Playstation, Xbox, and Android you always see a full screen of icons. Only OSX, OS/2, Windows and Linux have non full screen use

Mobiles have a small screen so can't usefully have a UI with windows (see first ever Windows Mobile up to version 6.5 as to why).

Devices with big-screen UIs need large simple UI and usually have simple input devices to control them so again, they don't have a UI with windows.

Notice that a mobile UI and a big-screen UI are different from each other. Stock Android runnning on a TV using an air mouse for input is a crappy experience.

Computer screens are neither small nor far away (Dougal) and have two input devices capable of finer control. You can have different apps side by side and switch between them and copy daya between them easily. TIFKAM doesn't allow you to do that, it's a step backwards.

Modernise apps?

Modernise installer - make it incompatible with 7 and 8.

Modernise apps - wreck the UI and make it incompatible with 7 and 8.

Cloud - Azure, Azure, or Azure, and as a developer you'll be paying for the back end.

Yeah, where do I sign?

VR-bonkers Microsoft yanks plug out of Kinect

Mostly because there wasn't any software for Kinect V2.

Let us pause a moment and remember

It gave us games such as this. It will truely be missed.

Happy New Year! Love, Microsoft: Price rises? Aw, you shouldn't have

The Register has asked Microsoft to explain why price rises are proposed

Agile development and continuous updates means these products are now 10% better than at the start of the year.

UK's NHS to pilot 'Airbnb'-style care service in homeowners' spare rooms

Really NHS management should just give a list of what services they're going to cancel on what date and refer any complaints to the government. Perhaps then the British public might decide to do something about it.

Hey, big vendor: Oracle, Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook blow even more cash on lobbying

Re: re: anonymous

What happened with sticking the file on your own website to download, or is that too old fashioned these days?

Fines for crossing roads while TXTing enacted in Honolulu

Does an early generation iPod not provide amusement?

Musical taste aside.

Family's legal battle over YouTube's role in Paris terror murders is paused

Re: Not Surprised

The family lives in California so that makes California pretty much the only choice. The victim was studying abroad for a year in Paris.

However I think for something like this citing terms of service is barking up the wrong tree. There are plenty of laws in other countries that Google has to follow or get whacked with a fine. Most western European countries have hate speech laws of one form or another.

Fake-news-monetizing machine Facebook lectures hacks on how not to write fake news that made it millions

Perhaps they could just get 'content' in from the Mail's Sidebar of Shame. Everyone will know where they stand then.

Gotta have standards? Security boffins not API about bloated browsers

Re: Old man shouts at cloud

It never went away.

Re: From being a window on the world...

Explorer integration looks positively tame now. This hands over hardware control on a plate.

This is no yolk. Newegg scrambles against rotten shell company claims

Re: Pun for all the family

You're white there.

Viasat: We're going to sue Ofcom over EU-wide airline Wi-Fi network

Is it really necessary to mandate EU-wide aeroplane Wi-Fi?

If Norwegian, Lufthansa, Aer Lingus, BA, or TAP manage to sell more seats because of it, good for them (they could also sell fewer).

If the rest want to have on board WiFi, they can add it themselves.

Sick burn, yo: Google's latest Pixel 2 XL suffers old-skool screen singe

Nokia N8, eh?

OLED and never had this problem.

They don't make them like that any more.

Google slides text message 2FA a little closer to the door

Re: Compromise via SS7?!

Isn't the point about SS7 vulnerabilities is that you can compromise any mobile provider on the planet, it doesn't have to be your target's mobile provider.

Just head for a country where corruption is the normal.

Re: Slight problem?

Yes, Yahoo Account Key. I thought this was similar, and obviously I'm wrong.

Wowee. Look at this server. Definitely keep critical data in there. Yup

You'd think that if fake addresses were left around in config files, then the daemons themselves would try to use them...

New phishing campaign uses 30-year-old Microsoft mess as bait

Re: 20 years ago it was 1997

DDE was baked into Windows in 1987, again according to Wikipedia.

(I should know, I've just edited it.)

Malware hidden in vid app is so nasty, victims should wipe their Macs

Re: A complete wipe?

Once it has root there's no telling what it has done.

The latest Mac OSes are supposedly rootless so having root shouldn't happen. What went wrong here?

DXC slashes meal allowances for travelling troops: Please sir, may I have some more?

Do Indian workers in the UK travel in their own deflationary bubble?

Indian workers who are temporarily based in the UK for project work, and who are receiving a per diem rate of £15 will need prior approval from the three managers, as above.