Posts by PacketPusher

Don't use natwest.co.uk for online banking, Natwest bank tells baffled customer

Scotland & Brexit?

Perhaps they think that Scotland my exit the UK after Brexit and want to avoid the .UK TLD.

Fuming French monopoly watchdog is so incensed by Google's 'random' web ad rules, it's fining the US giant, er, <1% annual profit

Re: Deceptive units.

That can happen when the item is individually wrapped, but sold in a larger package. "Fun Size" Kit Kat candy bars will not have munch information on the individually wrapped bars, but the package they came in will have nutritional data, weight/volume, and ingredient info.

ACLU sues America's border cops: Tell us everything about these secret search teams targeting travelers

Re: BTW

The international airport that serves Cincinnati, OH is actually in Hebron Kentucky.

Radio nerd who sipped NHS pager messages then streamed them via webcam may have committed a crime

The US is certainly not as free as it used to be, but I have never had to get finger printed at the airport. As I recall, I never had to submit finger prints for my passport either. I did have to submit a thumb print for my driver's license.

Boris Brexit bluff binds .eu domains to time-bending itinerary

What to do?

Putting all of the politics aside, any business outside the remaining EU needs to get a stable internet domain whether it is .com, .co.uk or something else and tell your customers about it. Keep the .EU domain as long as you can with a message about the new domain so occasional users have a better chance to see the change.

If Brexit doesn't happen, then you can quietly drop the new domain, if it does, then you will be as prepared as you can be.

Neptune-sized oddball baffles astroboffins: It has a good atmosphere despite star-lashing

Horta

The home of the Horta of Star Trek fame?

Telly production biz films maternity clinic, doesn't tell patients, gets fined £120,000

Am I an Insensitive Arse?

"... tragically didn't get patients' advance permission..."

I do think the producers and the hospital should be punished for violating the patients' privacy without permission, but is it really a tragedy?

Ivan to be left alone: Russia preps to turn its internet into an intranet if West opens cyber-fire

Re: Airgapped

The problem is that airgaps only work if the hacker is on the other side of the airgap. Hackers can bring in computers to a rented office to wreck their havoc from inside the country.

First they came for Equifax and we did nothing because America. Now they are coming for back-end systems and we're...

Re: Blackface?

I really wish I could laugh at this, but I saw an article last week about the chimney sweep scene in Mary Poppins being racist blackface because of the theatrical soot on their faces.

Never mind that naked selfie scandal... Brazil lights the, er, kindling, dot-Amazon saga roars back into life

Greece

I don't know why Brazil should really have any say in the matter. The river is named after a Greek myth. If anyone should have veto rights, it is the Greeks, not the Brazilians.

Re: Incongrous footnote, p.s.

I have to say that I have never seen an Amazon driver. When I order stuff from Amazon, it just appears on the front step. Even when I am home, i never hear a know or doorbell. I doubt that amazon delivery drivers get tips.

Post-Brexit plan for .EU tweaked: No dot-EU web domains for Europeans in UK, no appeals, etc

Re: Mail Drops

I was just being safe. They might send a snail mail code to enter to validate the mailing address.

Mail Drops

Here in the US, we have shops that rent mailboxes. Surely they have such things in Europe. All they have to do is rent a box and pay someone a few euros, to check it and forward to a UK address. Seems pretty easy to me.

Cops told: No, you can't have a warrant to force a big bunch of people to unlock their phones by fingerprint, face scans

Self incrimination?

I am a firm believer in the 5th amendment, but this is a stretch. If this is self incrimination, then so is providing breath for a breathalyzer, DNA, Urine, and Blood. Even finger prints would be considered self incrimination by this standard. The warrant was rightly denied as too broad, but if they apply again narrowed to just the suspects, then I think it should be approved.

Senator Wyden goes ballistic after US telcos caught selling people's location data yet again

Bounty Hunters are Shady?

I am not a fan of businesses selling customer data, but if it is going to be allowed, I don't see bounty hunters as an illegitimate use of the data. The customers would be people who have broken their promise to show up in court. Some of the US states give bounty hunters too much power and some bounty hunters abuse what powers they do have so some bounty hunters are not worthy of respect, but that can be said about regular police forces as well.

No Warrant Required

The US courts have ruled that law enforcement access to customer location data does not require a warrant. Other meta data such as when phone calls are made and to what number also does not require a warrant. Generally, only the content of the communication (texts, voice, etc.) requires a warrant.

New Horizons probe reveals Ultima Thule is huge, spinning... chicken drumstick?

Re: Alice

One of these days Alice! One of these days! Pow! To the moon!

What happens when a Royal Navy warship sees a NATO task force headed straight for it? A crash course in Morse

After you. No, after you!

I had a friend who described an at sea encounter similar to the one described in the article. The other ship had the right of way, so my friends ship altered course. The other ship altered course at the same time putting them on conflicting courses again. This happened several times before they were able to get on safely passing courses. Sometime being helpful can cause more problems.

Re: NATO task force can't read Morse code?

I would think that an expert system could be created to send and receive lamp morse code messages. A controller with a keypad can operate the lamp, and a camera focused on the reply light can read and covert to text.

Dutch cops hope to cuff 'hundreds' of suspects after snatching server, snooping on 250,000+ encrypted chat texts

Re: So

>Not at all. Probable cause (in US speak) is not the same as being declared guilty, that is the prerogative of the court.

Not really. That is the prerogative of the jury unless the defendant waives his/her right to a jury. A judge can give a directed verdict of not guilty, but cannot declare guilt.

IPv6: It's only NAT-ural that network nerds are dragging their feet...

Re: "the world is clinging stubbornly to IPv4"

Have the businesses forgotten that the Internet was created by academics to share knowledge and their

bottom line is as much a concern as the excretory end of genus rattus?

That is correct, and they can use IPv6 to share all of the knowledge that they want, but business is about making a profit and until there is no profit in IPv4, they will continue to support it.

You're a govt official. You accidentally slap personal info on the web. Quick, blame a kid!

Re: Unisys screwed up

>>If my bank left a pile of money on a table for me to take my own, I might be tempted to take a bit extra. >>Yes, that would be theft, but also entrapment.

No it would not be entrapment. Entrapment requires the prosecution or their agents to suggest the crime. While the money is unsecured, the bank is not suggesting you take it. We are supposed to be honest and take only what is ours.

This does not apply to the fellow that was arrested as he had reason to believe that all of the information is public when he copied it. I suppose if he knew that there was private information there an argument could be made that it was not his to copy, but how could he know that without looking at it first.

Yes, your old iPhone is slowing down: iOS hits brakes on CPUs as batteries wear out

Replace the battery.

Of course, if they let users replace the frikkin' battery, this would not be necessary.

US senators rail against effort to sneak through creepy mass spying bill

Not OK.

While most of us may be OK with that, I am not. The constitution requires behavior of the federal government whether the people involved are citizens or not. Foreigners have a reasonable expectation of privacy as well as citizens. Even if those foreigners are not actually in the US.

Russia could chop vital undersea web cables, warns Brit military chief

Re: Stay calm and lay more cable...

That gets you to Europe, but not the rest of the world. If you want to get to south asia, you have to go through Russia or lay a cable across the Bosphorus which is vulnerable to those nasty submarines. Australia, Iceland, Ireland, and the Americas can only be accessed by submarine bait.

Maybe we need to dig some REALLY long tunnels to put the cables in.

European Commission intervenes in Microsoft Irish data centre spat

Search warrants and behavior orders

It seems reasonable to me that search warrants should be limited to the jurisdiction of the court making the order. How about an order to perform an action? Could the court order Microsoft, which is in the court's jurisdiction to move something that they control into the court's jurisdiction in order tp make the search warrant valid?

Driverless cars will make more traffic, say transport boffins

Taxi?

Why would anyone lease their car out? It seems to me that once autonomous cars become common, they will mostly become taxis. Without the cost of a driver, I would think that the cost of a taxi would be lower than driving your own car. Some individuals might have their own specialty vehicle such as luxury cars for the wealthy or muscle cars for hoons. Just chrystal ball thoughts.

UK not as keen on mobile wallets as mainland Europe and US

Re: So?

While you can make small purchases with just a card swipe, many vendors still require a signature. I can make a $20 purchase at Safeway with just a swipe, but If I buy more at $50 or $60, then they want a signature. Some, mostly smaller companies, still require signatures even for small purchases. I do wish they would expand requires for PINs as I believe that it is better than my scrawl for verifying transactions. At this point, only my Target card has a PIN.

Facebook users pwnd by phone with account recovery vulnerability

It takes two to tango

Yep. This is lousy security, but it is on the users as well as Facebook. Even if FB forced a PW change, that won't stop crackers from getting in. It might warn the user that something is going on or it might not. Either way, it reminds be about a saying about horses and barn doors. Users should also be held responsible for not keeping contract info up to date.

Dear racist Airbnb host, we've enrolled you in an Asian American studies course

Where is Big Bear?

Do you mean east of Los Angeles?

Facebook, Google, etc: Yeah, yeah, we'll work on the nasty stuff about bombs – but we ain't doing no backdoors

Another way.

Censorship or surveillance? Maybe instead of shutting down hate content, we should leave it and note who posts on it and investigate them. These hate sites could become a honey pot we use to detect terrorists before they can cause problems.

San Francisco reveals latest #Resist effort – resisting sub-gigabit internet access

"How to make the network safe."

Sounds like content filtering. I don't object to the city building infrastructure, digital or physical, but I do care about them limiting what I can use it for unless my use would damage it or prevent others from using it.

Amid new push to make Pluto a planet again... Get over it, ice-world's assassin tells El Reg

Large Satellites?

By Stern's definition all of the large satellites would be planets too.

Zut alors! Uber wrecked my marriage, fumes French businessman

The Fail is strong in this one.

If he was having an affair, then If someone rats him out they can be sued? That seems harsh.

If he was not having an affair, he could show her the logs so she can see where he is going, or maybe he is better off with out her.

US govt can't stop Microsoft taking its Irish email seizure fight to the Supreme Court

Get them from the account holder

It seems to me that they should just get the account holder to give them the mail. If he/she is in the US, they should be able to force him/her to login and give them access. If the police had a search warrant for my house, they can force me to open the door. How is this different?

Icelandic Pirate Party asked to form government

Do Over

Anyone know at what point do they give up and have new elections?

Silicon Valley VCs: We're gonna make California great again – on its own

Last time

What happened the last time a democratic state tried to secede from the union controlled by a republican president?

British defence minister refuses to rule out F-35A purchase

Tankers are there too.

Last time I looked, the USN used the S-3 Viking for ASW and as a tanker.

UK prison reform report wants hard-coded no-fly zones in drones to keep them out of jail

Slippery slope

Even if this works, then what about air ports. Maybe we should add sensitive government buildings like the White House and the Kremlin. There are military bases. GitMo? Maybe that gulag in Siberia. Schools. Parks.

England expects... you to patch your apps and not just Windows

Java

I can certainly understand being reluctant to update Java. It seems like every other update breaks some Java app that I use.

Mercedes answers autonomous car moral dilemma: Yeah, we'll just run over pedestrians

Car companies are not in this alone.

Generally, a company's first priority is its share holders, followed by its customers. Everyone else is at the end of the list. It is up to the rest of us to set rules through our government that more balanced. It is understandable the Mercedes will take this position, but it should not last.

Ofcom finds 'reasonable grounds' that KCOM failed to maintain 999 services

112?

What is 112?

Should Computer Misuse Act offences committed in UK be prosecuted in UK?

Either or Both?

There have been some fascinating analogies about where the crime was committed, but it seems to me that crimes are being committed in both places. The UK should have first dibs on prosecuting Mr. Love as he is currently in the UK. If they choose not to or the US feels that the punishment is inadequate, then they should be able to push for their own prosecution. Of course the UK has the power to tell the US to take a flying leap, but there could be political or financial consequences to that.

Human rights orgs take Five Eyes nations to court

USA & Brexit

Well the USA is not part of Europe, and the UK is getting set to leave. So What do they hope to accomplish with this?

I got the power – over your IoT power-point

Re: Mitigation?

Rather than blocking the destination, you can block the source. You can control what address the DHCP server hands out to it so you can block that address from the internet. That would stop the e-mails too.

Google deleting websites

Re: Yet Again

They appear to have given a years warning. That is hardly "disappearing tomorrow."

That said, the fact that you can lose your site/blog/etc. because of some vague and subjective terms of service violation with no appeal is a good reason not to go to the cloud.

California to put all your power-hungry PCs on a low carb(on) diet

Re: I wonder what they're planning to break

Your URL was cut off:

http://docketpublic.energy.ca.gov/PublicDocuments/14-AAER-02/TN210913_20160330T161602_Final_Draft_Staff_Report_for_Computers_Computer_Monitors_and_Si.pdf

Lightning strikes: Britain's first F-35B supersonic fighter lands

Re: Curious minds want to know

All your planes are belong to us

Cosmo study: Middle-aged galaxies are rarer than you'd think

Speaking of middle aged.

...green galaxies probably made up less than ten per cent of all galaxies.

It ain't easy being green.

- Kermit the frog.

Utah sheriffs blow $10,000 on smut-sniffing Labrador

Re: What law?

I don't think 'normal' porn is illegal, even in Utah, but child porn is. I suspect that is URL's primary target.