Posts by Stuart 22

UK safety app keeping lorries on the right side of cyclists

Re: And here we go with anti-cyclist bingo...

"Not for one second am I belittling anyone's tragic death, but 20 in a year is tiny in comparison to deaths from other traffic accidents, obesity, smoking, alcoholism, cancer, well pretty much everything else you can think of."

Well that's a lot more than terrorism in the UK and look at the amount of money and police we are prepared to throw at preventing that.

But the greater issue is that it is this fear of cycling that is the greatest impediment to people who want to cycle to actually do it. Telling them that the risk is infinitely smaller than the life extending benefits doesn't really get through. Hence the obesity, the extra road blocking traffic and its easier to smoke in a car than on a bike.

The size of the problem is a benefit. Its a tiny fraction of drivers who can be targeted or re-incetivised to make much of the problem go away. It should be easier, cheaper, faster and much less disruptive than trying to change our road infrastructure, redesign vehicles or create an app.

Its a low cost per life saver - and shouldn't upset the 96% of drivers (and 80% of cyclists who are also drivers). So let's cool the anti-cyclist sentiment. One gets enough of it on the road no matter how well one tries to do the right thing.

Re: Common Sense

"If cycling, don't try to get to the very front of a queue, hang 1 vehicle back, then you can see what is going on, and the driver, just may be able to see you."

Are you the guy who gave me my first downvote?

Instead of coming out with this - why not try and understand the real problem? Yes cyclists can be as stupid as anybody else but the killing is done mostly with one type of lorry operator. It isn't even the most challenging vehicles on the roads. Cyclists rarely have issues with the biggest supermarket artics. They are driven well and can even cope with the odd idiotic cyclist.

The not so stupid cyclist in London is very, very aware of the construction lorry issue. Its the one vehicle you give the maximum clearance possible. But the opposite is not true. Last week I had a skip lorry whizz past close with a heavy chain swinging in the breeze. It was pure luck it didn't take my head off.

Wrong Solution

The issue on cyclist deaths in London is a very specific one. Many (most) are caused by a tiny segment of the lorry trade. Specifically those in the construction business. This is believed to be largely caused by the business model. Many driver owned lorries being paid by the load.

Incentivised to cut corners - literally. But also in maintenance, insurance and licensing. Complemented by H&S saying its not their job to sort and the police choosing not to enforce the law, Some decent lorry operators have greatly reduced incidents through training. But this take time and money. Giving the pirates, the guys who kill, a greater advantage.

They are not going to buy this kit. Extra cuffs for the police may be a better investment.

Jamie Oliver's ministry of malware served slops AGAIN

Re: Hang on a moment

"This affects the whole WordPress set-up and not just the Likely Lad cook?"

And not just Wordpress. It's likely this was backdoored via a third party theme or plugin. A number of vendors replicate them across the popular CMSs. its just that WP being the biggest is the most attractive target.

Frankly even good SysAdmins get caught. An issue is that we can't really share our defensive measures without giving them away to the enemy. So we roll our own and who can guarantee to do that perfectly?

What's unforgivable is not to have a recovery plan when (not if) it happens. The 5 week DEFRA downtime is really bad service. And I bet they paid a lot more to the contractors then did Mr Oliver who, from the report, got it sorted quickly.

RAF radar station crew begs public for cash to buy gaming LAN kit

If you are Russian, please look away now ...

Yep, another smart move by our brilliant lads to deceive the enemy by highlighting this decoy site to attract incoming when the balloon goes up.

The lack of any connectivity with civilisation or even Yorkshire gives it away. Shame on you Reg for publishing a picture of the real comms hub. Beer will be spilt!

Small WordPress sites leaking like sieves

Re: Get patching. ®

"By migrating away from WordPress?"

Oh, how I wish.

Yes I've tried Drupal and Joomla but they just don't have the quantity and ease of off the peg plugins and templates. And with Joomla I've been bitten twice with security vulnerabilities which is one more than Wordpress which I use much, much more.

Still WP is a stinking pile of steaming sh^t. The rot starts not with the coders but with PHP. A true abortion we seemingly cannot escape.

- a retired cgi-bin Perl luvver <:-(

Re: Get patching. ®

"But how can they patch when it's an unknown Vuln, by the looks of the article?"

Simple. Look at the source of your <domain>/wp-login.php page. If you see <script type="text/javascript" src="//conyouse.com/wp.js"> then you are infected. Glasgow seem to have resolved the issue, Blissfield have not (yet).

You should be able to re-edit your login.php file and hopefully secure it. This may not stop re-infection but it means you can limp along with close vigilance until the backdoor is identified. Re-edit login.php from the command line not through wordpress - then change your login and password pdq.

Disable all other accounts and warn your users their passwords may be compromised.

Mozilla to whack HTTP sites with feature-ban stick

Re: Bye, bye, Mozilla

"Eh? You've not needed a dedicated IP for SSL since SNI was invented about 10 years ago"

Except SNI will not work with IE8 and below on XP or less. Sadly they still form around 25% of our web traffic so we can't afford to lose/upset them. So most of our sites stay on http. What we need is an IE<9 killer. Or just an IE killer ;-)

Google makes life easier for mixed-content sysadmins

Please, please ...

Sounds wonderful - but only if (as a minimum) Firefox, Safari, IE & Spartan follow suit in recognising and enforcing the same meta command. Otherwise it may create more problems than it solves (especially for operators of forums where posters reference their own images).

Is this what Windows XP's death throes look like?

Re: web or not

The issue for us is we want to provide more secure websites than we have IPs.

No problem with SNI except for mostly the WinXP/IE fraternity. Use SNI and we screw them. Much as I would wish to - our clients don't fancy losing 16% of their users. And it is very variable depending on the demographic of the website. We have a few still getting 35%+ WinXP/IE.

Way to go yet I fear frustrating the upcoming salvation that is Let's Encrypt.

Met Police in egg/face blunder as shop-a-crim site's SSL cert expires

Missing the point

So i have some crime busting information or just want to look up who to contact?

As a geek I'll examine the certificate come to the same conclusion as El Reg and accept the warning and continue as normal. No problem. Meanwhile my well trained partner and 99% of humanity would see the danger warning and obey - retreating and not use the website for its purpose. That's the issue the Met has stuffed one of its lines of information - a less serious issue then losing the switchboard. It should be a lot simpler to fix. They could get a Class 1 certificate up in minutes to clear the site warnings while the culprit gets the extended validation jobby sorted before falling down the stairs - oops!

Microsoft's Project Spartan browser is HERE (unless you build apps or run VMs, that is)

Re: Poor compliance with web standards

"To get access to the internet the later !Plus Pack was required (or 3rd party networking)."

That is incorrect. It depended which version of Windows 95 was installed. The standard OEM version I purchased on release from a distributor for our self-built kit contained Mosaic and stack. Crude full Internet/WWW right out of box without MSN or Plus Pack.

And here is what 'state of the art' microsoft.com looked like at the time (seen through IE):

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3574/3809955692_3ce2e81eb6_o.gif

Life after Lord Shugs looks good, as Viglen directors' packages swell

Sugar Barrel

Do you know - I don't care a tinker's arse about how much Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, James Dyson or even Alan Sugar pocketed. They changed the world. Alan Sugar probably did more for the modern English novelist with his Amstrad Wordprocessor than anybody else.

They probably cost us less than two useless aircraft carriers.

They did what they did for more than money. But this lot? What is there contribution to society? What have they changed? How many people's lives have they enriched? More to the point how much have they enriched their employees they needed to deliver the goods?

Equality is a dream, but this level of inequality is a nightmare. Nobody is offering a practical plan to reverse. Even discussion about it gets kicked off the agenda. By highly paid media men no less ...

Anti-gay Indiana starts backtracking on hated law after tech pressure

Re: Politics. politics....and duplicity

"Don't you know: there are no Muslim gay, nor Japanese gays, nor Chinese gays. I know this because my Muslim, JP, CN friends assure me it is the case."

May I suggest you widen your circle of friends or read something like 'A Case of Exploding Mangoes' by Mohammed Hanif. Wonderfully subversive story of homosexuality and much else in Pakistan.

Yes, the west (well east of Indiana) are ahead but not that far ahead. The Thatcher Government's Section 28 was only repealed in 2003. Many of its strong supporters are still very active in the current (well until May 7) government.

Anybody my age should understand the cultural issues on LGBT in those societies. But have hope that the rapid transformation we have seen in the last half century can be repeated elsewhere, And not be too superior about it.

BT Home Hub SIP backdoor blunder blamed for VoIP fraud

Re: A few at fault here

BT are right not to re-imburse. If 5060 had been blocked then it would have had to be unblocked anyway and so the same hack would have happened.

But BT are at fault for not blocking 5060 on 'All'. Anyone who isn't knowingly using SIP/VOIP who gets hacked through this port should take 'em to the cleaners. As to the distinction between security on a home and business account - I have a home business and I expect the same level of security in either mode. If I'm running a bank or an obvious target for attack I may elect to put in extra firewalls and other stuff but an ordinary business and an ordinary home user should have the same level of protection. Not just for their own sake but to minimise the chance it gets taken as a bot to plague the rest of us.

And on the grief BT Broadband has given me and my clients over the years - anyone using them should, perhaps, be aware they are not to be trusted for anything other than watching some footie. So, yes, blame all round!

HUGE Aussie asteroid impact sent TREMORS towards the EARTH'S CORE

Re: Devonian? @ ~Spartacus

"Anyone spotted any dino-tech on the moon?"

Might it resemble a WW2 bomber?

Cyanogen finds $80m in collecting tin after busking session

Re: Cyanogen -

As an HP Touchpad user Cyanogen is the OS that brings back the dead. But that's only an unofficial port. That's the crux of Cyanogen's dilemma?

Born of a desire to not landfill good kit the manufacturer disowned or bloated out of existence - that is no revenue opportunity for an organisation going professional with paid developers. $80 million says they are going to target OEM agreements in competition with Google and the aftermarket can go get lost - again!

It would be good if this stimulated more Google Play offerings. But I'm not counting on it.

Millions of voters are missing: It’s another #GovtDigiShambles

Re: No doubt...

Yep, Frankie wasn't so mad after all. Worth his weight in (none) votes.

My self-driving cars may lead to human driver ban, says Tesla's Musk

Re: Am I the only one...

"Last I saw, robots don't move around at 70mph"

The one driving my tube train is rated to do 75mph. The one flying my plane cruises at 500mph and can land safely in fog. As we know its tube drivers and pilots who fail castrophically and kill. But, somehow, we feel uneasy if there isn't a person up front who can open the doors or give us the weather forecast for our destination.

FREAKing hell: ALL Windows versions vulnerable to SSL snoop

Bork IE<9

Can we find something that will do this?

I'm prevented from using SSL on websites as these browsers don't support SNI and we don't have enough IPs. That is threat to everybody else's security. You can't degrade what you haven't implemented because of these retards.

Apple: We could expose our WHOPPING 12 INCH iPad - but it's not real

Re: Headline fraud

Nope - the photo was just a way of charming Apple to invite El Reg to the next real launch ... journos need the lunch. Pity as I guess the only alcoholic beverage on offer would be cider.

'Domain shadowing' hijacks registrar accounts to spawn attack sites

Sorry to be so thick ...

But is this about DNS hijacking rather than Registrar hijacking (though of course some people do use the Registrar's own DNS). And is it just normal credential compromise that is concentrating on logins from a small number of registrars so they can play about with the DNS there?

The point of these articles is surely to alert us as to new threats. Can you please remember that some of us have had our sharpness blunted by many years of SysAdmining and need things spelt out a little simpler. Anyone?

Windows XP's market share grows AGAIN!

Well my GP surgery is on XP and can access my medical records. Presumably this implies there is a route to (or worse still from) the universe.

I was having an anti-virus jab. I suggested she shoved it up the USB slot as it might do a better job.

Assemblers were once people: My aunt did it for NASA

Re: RIP

Indeed it rang a few bells for me. My first program was in Deuce machine code. Deuce was a valve computer built by English Electric and I won a prize to work on one for a few days at Nelson Labs in '64. It was the opposite of today's computer rooms - all the windows were wide open to get rid of the huge heat output from the valves.

Raw programming in machine code - and because the main memory capacity was so small you could keep in your head all the memory locations you were using. Saved having to document and meant you could get stuff running very quickly. Of course updating it later was kinda difficult.

I went on to proper programming at University and after in high level languages on a variety of of ICL mainframes. It was only when I bought a TRS-80 with my own money that I got back to real raw programming in Z80 code and Assembler. It was a joy and found I could put stuff together much faster and more reliably than the ponderous mainframes. GEORGE3 had a half life of only 15 minutes at one time.

So I lashed up a termiprinter to the Trash-80 which would take standard 132 pp computer print out paper. I actually had a major business planning application running on it. I kept it secret and presented the results on printouts that the board assumed was from the 1902A mainframe they had allocated to me. Fun while it lasted.

What happened when they found out I may tell another time.

Don't pay for the BBC? Then no Doctor Who for you, I'm afraid

Re: Telly Tax exit stage right!!

That's very public spirited of you. Are you absolutely sure you don't benefit in anyway from those who do pay the tellytax? Never listen to BBC radio, watch BBC productions, appreciate the breadth of classical music available in this country, keeping bloated politicians to account (and Cliff Richard), and provide a valuable companion to many poor pensioners, disabled and so much more for £145 per household?

It doesn't all get blown on ridiculous salaries, pay-offs and Eastenders. But if it makes you happy to brag about not paying it then keep right on. Its almost a free country.

Europol shuts down darn RAMNIT botnet

Re: Gosport!

The ferry operators start before you even get there ... how much is a single? We only do returns! I only want to go one way. Well if you don't pay us our double ransom you can just stay in Pompey.

That's a triple ransom ...

Not even GCHQ and NSA can crack our SIM key database, claims Gemalto

Re: Who to believe?

If NSA/GCHQ can't crack 'em then they should be closed down as incompetent. If they can and use them without warrant then they should be shut down.

As for Gemalto - they wouldn't have a clue. NSA/GCHQ do have a reasonably 65+ years track record of doing the impossible without the target noticing.

Samb-AAAHH! Scary remote execution vuln spotted in Windows-Linux interop code

Re: Another Open Source security problem

Yes. But I didn't have to scramble. It fixed itself (or rather the repository did). I had to decommission the XP boxes because they no longer fix themselves. That's why i prefer OS insecurity to MS insecurity. Is that so bad?

MP resigns as security committee chair amid 'cash-for-access' claims

Re: Why such a surprise?

Well £50k would be very welcome to the majority in this country. And that for a full time job.

This was clearly a part time job with a glorious set of perks that can be milked quite legally for kith & kin (our MP 'employs' his wife and nephew). No - I don't want him to stand for treason. Only the lawyers win and we are milked more for financing his stay at Bessie's Pleasure.

No, we just want his unearned salary back please. This would be true justice for a man who voted for capping benefits from those less fortunate than himself.

Tweak comms laws or Facebook 'n' Twitter folk will be treated like CRIMINALS

Trouble is ...

When an ex-partner is indecent or grossly offensive in a public medium - the police do need a handle to protect the more vulnerable.

Paul Chambers is a red herring 'cos all that demonstrates is a serial failure of common sense by the complainant, police, cps and magistrate - all of whom should have tossed it out. And its really hard to draft a law to bring 'em to their senses. It is one case to balance against the monstrous stuff that mostly women have to put up with from angry men. Its one case that brought in guidelines to hopefully stop a repeat of the law's misuse whilst protecting its intended use.

Android malware hijacks power button, empties wallet while you sleep

Re: Let me know

1. Ok so I'm running 5.0 so no current threat. But when they crack that. ..

2. They have to get the app recommended to me by a trusted source. But when...

3. They have to get it both into Play Store (not difficult?) and keep it there (more difficult). But when...

4. Get over my obsessive hangup about permissions. But when...

5. They can rip me off for all of £2 being my Tesco Mobile cap.

Yes its bad but not bad enough to lose sleep over. YMMV.

Dutch MEP slams 'cowboy practices' of GCHQ 'n' pals following Gemalto allegations

Simples!

Re-issue all SIMs and bill NSA/GCHQ for the cost. Well it is Friday and one can dream ... of invisible ink and one-off pads.

BBC: SOD the scientific consensus! Look OUT! MEGA TSUNAMI is coming

It almost makes you pine for those CGI enhanced flares on the old OU Maths & Science programmes. At least they stuck to facts. You can always trust a man with elbow patches.

Tesla loses $100 million after Chinese problems

Barge (pole) touching ...

Is Elon sure those wings will bring the wheels safely back to earth? Do you have to check the (real) shipping forecast before you land?

UK chip champ ARM flexes muscle: Shows strong profit and sales

Good or Bad?

"Profits rose 13 per cent to £411.3m ... on revenue up 16 per cent to £795m"

Impressive results of which they and their shareholders should be proud.

But that is £795m of a what sized mobile phone industry? One that wouldn't be punting the products they do without ARM. One where us users wouldn't be getting the same power without mass (ie reduced battery requirements).

Apple can slurp billions for flashy design but the people who provide the grunt and make it possible get a pittance. It says all that needs to be said about the place of engineers in our society.

Car? Check. Driver? Nope. OK, let's go, says British govt

By public transport I presume you mean mostly buses and trains? The insoluble problem of these covering 100% of your transport needs is they require a minimum mass between points to operate. Those points may not be near you or the frequency inadequate or you need to do it at 3am in the morning.

Whereas when it comes to taxis and mini-cabs - driverless cars are direct competition and probably superior in cost, convenience and comfort. They could be the end of uber. Hit the app and one turns up at your door. Even better than Zipcar saving you the walk down the road. Whether this, for many people, makes owning a car redundant we shall have to see.

That could trigger the return of our urban streets to people (and kids) instead of being mainly an ugly repository of the very expensive and infrequently used metal boxes blocking traffic that actually needs to move.

Personally I hope driverless cars will have taken over the roads before I decide to hand in my driving licence because I am no longer competent to drive. Bring 'em on!

Skin colour's irrelevant. Just hire competent folk on their merits, FFS

"On one hand - you are 100% correct: Competence should be the only measure."

Yes, but when the apparent result is 100% white or 100% men or both then you have to ask some deep questions like is the access to competence equally open to all? Or is there something about your image which discourages applications from others?

If you suspect either do you just close your eyes to the issue or try and do something about it? - which is usually some form of positive discrimination which if successful is in the long term is beneficial to all. The object, of course, being to eliminate the future need for considering positive discrimination.

This has nothing to do with quotas. That is just unthinkingly bad.

Keyless vehicle theft suspects cuffed after key Met Police, er, 'lockdown'

Re: @Stuart22, AC

OK, so some bikes have stamped frame numbers.

First of all, are these a legal requirement?

Are these held centrally like car VIN details?

Are they required to be tied to a specific identity/registration document?

No, no, no & no. But that is irrelevant. Nearly all bikes are marked by the manufacturer. You can get it marked by the police too in London and probably elsewhere. If they are stolen they do, if the police can be bothered, go on to the stolen database. So, if I'm stopped they should be able to quickly establish if the bike was stolen and who from. Just like a Range Rover or BMW.

There are well known places where dodgy bikes are traded. These are very thinly policed because of scarce resources. But if we can find resources for reclaiming vanity cars it must be of even greater value to reclaim essential transport? Probably in greater numbers. More cases solved. Better result unless you are looking at book value.

Or is the negativity in the voting above reflective of the values of our society of which the police are just a part?

Just askin'

Re: Just a beginning?

Most bikes already have a stamped frame number which is recorded if you register them with the police. Plus they etch on their own number. Otherwise you should be able to retrieve the frame number from the shop you got it from. So that's not a big problem. Next?

Just a beginning?

This is very impressive. I trust the police will be scaling up their operation to cover the greater number of bicycles stolen. Or does using a key but not a V6 disqualify one from having one's method of transport protected?

EE 'best' of the UK mobile network bunch, but how good is that?

Re: Yeah...

"Only the "major Metro areas" matter"

Except sometimes we ultra-cool metro-folk have to venture out into the sticks and it is so awkward not being able to tweet one's pictures of the local peasantry back to the ranch. And missing out on those re-tweets could ruin your whole day.

Watch it: It's watching you as you watch it (Your Samsung TV is)

Re: Smart TVs

You could use a pretty dumb chip. The only voice command that is really necessary is "Where is the <bleep> remote?"

Sorted.

RadioShack lists 1,800 stores facing the axe across America

Re: It's perhaps an image of the demise of technology in the US

And the name makes me think of Rack Shack - when server farms were fun. It was my way in to having my first dedicated server as Radio Shack into my first TRS-80 PC. Both made IT accessible, cheap (for its time) and part of a movement. Both an important part of my IT development and business building.

RIP

Calling a friend? Listen to an advert. You lucky, lucky thing

Re: It's actually "cost shifting", moiety.

That would just encourage me to send an email instead. Now if I could sell my sig space to an ad agency ...

First look: Ordnance Survey lifts kimono on next-gen map app

Spotted what's missing?

Contour lines, contour lines & contour lines - or is Southampton absolutely flat?

GoogleMaps are good - as long as you only want a 2D rendition. We live in a 3D world. Perhaps not if you spend your life in a turbocharged 4x4 or Google Bus. But self powered people (on foot or wheels) need the feel of the land to navigate. 3D is why I plan using OS Landrangers, 3D is what I need to find my way in real countryside. 2D/GPS doesn't respect cliffs. I do.

3D is a real niche OS have the perfect heritage. Don't go all googly please. Bu**er the fonts - make sure I can tell the difference between a church with a steeple and a church with a tower - please!

Satya Nadella, Year One: Has Microsoft's new CEO cut the mustard?

Team Time

Rarely is the top man a lone actor. Most, from football managers to CEOs bring with them a few key staffers they can trust to penetrate down to the bits they will not have time to do. Some would say the mark of a great CEO is not what he/she does but who he/she picks to do it. And to build a team that can outlast the CEO.

Even iconoclast Steve Jobs did a good job there.

So there was a nice opportunity to tell us what Satya has done to set MS up for the next decade even though the fruits of his decisions may be years away. MS is a supertanker. Turning it is a delicate operation without wrecking the banker (Office) that will finance the change.

Who is with him on the bridge examining at the charts rather than just spinning the wheel for effect?

Forget Norks, Russian hackers are in Sony Pictures' servers – claim

Re: Je suis Sony!

The answer is obvious:

* NORK hacked Sony

* CIA/NSA hacked NORK

* FSB hacked CIA/NSA

It's called data sharing. The only other alternative is that all of the above outsource their hacking to the same contractor. A contractor who will bill three clients for the same job? Centrica - where are you when we need you ;-)

CHAINSAW HORROR advert earns GiffGaff a slap from regulator

Re: Anyone actually read the article?

Ssssssh - don't tell anyone under 18 but you can also find 'Peter and the Wolf' on YouTube. And don't listen to Prokofiev ... absolute carnage if you are of a Anatidaen disposition.

Best get them to stick to playing Grand Auto Theft methinks.

German 700MHz auction signals start of Euro spectrum flogoffs

Planned Obsolescence

So if I buy a TV now - will it work beyond 2022? The average life expectancy of my TVs to date has been between 20 and 30 years! And I have a Panny set top boxes dating back to the first days of Freeview to extend their lives.

Still mad about having to ditch my Pace Freeview tuner.

Turing notes found warming Bletchley Park's leaky ceilings

If only they had not invented air conditioning

There would have been no need for for Edward Snowden.