Posts by Neal 5

Amazon's EC2 brings new might to password cracking

Bruteforcing?

Nah, more likely used for building rainbow tables.

Firefox 3.6 beta promises speed injection

I like the advertising

Where can I buy it.

Also, you forgot to mention, for 6 months, the first 300000 patches for buffer overflows,memory leaks, and general malfunction etc,etc,etc are free.

After that of course, you have to upgrade to another version, or alternatively use another browser, or alternativelly, disconnect from the internet, get a life and meet some real friggin' people for once.

Scientists flee Home Office after adviser sacking

No surprise

I should think 130,000 Royal Mail staff could tell you about a right "royal" shafting from A Johnson during his tenure in charge of the CWU, from which stems the current problems

No matter how many time you bleach it, an asshole is still an asshole, or if your prefer arsehole, depends on your terminology.

Still whichever way it is, however you cut this one A Johnson is still the excrement server.

NASA chuffed with super-accurate new map of universe

Codswallop.

We pay billions in taxes for this shoddy work, it's just not good enough.

About time we actually researched something worthwhile and relevant, like how to improve the printing on tea towels.

Mass web infections spike to 6 million pages

Good stuff

Thanks for the heads up, If only there was some way to make the owners of the 640000 infected sites clean up. If the security firms can identify them, they shouldn't have any problem notifying them.

Any "decent" site owner would prefer to have a clean site if their livlihood or reputation depended on it than no business.

And to be fair here, we are talking of only a minor proportion of the number of sites available, although the numbers are large, and the potential for infection "may" be exponential, as yet we don't know, a good scare story near to halloween is always appreciated.

Still a good article.

El Reg receives message from planet 'Female Pigeon'

Yes indeed.

I don't really see what all the fuss is about, mythology and wikipedia go well together, if not in the same breath, at least hand in hand.

And probably not the first to say this, or the last, seeing as we're into naming the planets after Greek Islands, what about Lesbos. After all as Wlad points out, he feels Uranus to be "problematic", why not cut to the chase and just use humuorous names, Lesbos would be just fine, if the planet had any moons, they could be classed as Lesbossians naturally, of course many would associate wrongly with Lesbians, in the same manner they associate with Uranus.

Google Spanner — instamatic redundancy for 10 million servers?

@c3

Your comments are completely justified from your point of view, alternatively,

1)no not really, we need as much free porn as we can get, the few of us who aren't shagging Mrs Smith, might want to watch on streaming video, best off Mr Smith being cuckolded for as long as possible.

2) don't feed the paranoics too much hope, google know everything, at least thats what Bing and Yahoo think, else why compete, the only other alternative realistically is Wolfram Alpha, any other search engine might give a halfway reasonable and respectable response without ads, even tho' I must say that the ads for pinkish hued dildo's seem rather feminine. Not really my cup of tea, personally i thought you boys preferred blue, but what with being a "New" man and all, you'd probably be able to tell me elsewise, I bow to your superior knowledge in that field.

3)I don't get your point, we all know Yankees are inbreds.

4)Your obsession with pink dildo's is rather infuriating, seepoint 2) for explanation.

5)Really, we want porn, we don't want to know how we get, or a what temperature it got served at, it's fap material, not a bloody hot supper at the Savoy.

Does Google actually need to be more efficient, they already have a monopoly, and along with MS practically dominate the online experience, and so what I hear you say. Well standardisation may well be the in thing, but, Henry Ford realised standisation wasn't winning customers, hence the dumping of any colour you like, so long as it's black.

@Steve Evans

I hope you appreciate my non bastardisation of the word colour, obviously it would have saved (a lot of ) time to miss the "u" out of nearly all the words that use a "u", but that would curry no favours would it now. Still, when have the Yankees ever considered "U" in anything they've ever done.

smell the $$$$$$$$$$$$$

"According to Dean’s presentation, Google is intent on scaling Spanner to between one million and 10 million servers, encompassing 10 trillion (1013) directories and a quintillion (1018) bytes of storage. And all this would be spread across “100s to 1000s” of locations around the world."

How many ads is that, will my web page be able to show them all, will you be able to click on them all, will adsense be able to do the maths for my payments?

These are the REALLY crucial questions, who cares about temp cooling in their data centres, Google will have that all under control, Google is good, money is good, advertising is good, CO2 emmisions are good, money is good, more money is even better.

You people don't know what is good for you, Google does, trust in Google, Google will do everything for you, for a price, quite cheap really, once you've signed your soul away. Now you go and sit down, put your feet up and read an online book.

TalkTalk-Tiscali merger proves fraught

Not a surprise.

Anyone not forsee this happening?

And, how the f+++ did the Tiscali staff get to talk to junior managment, if you try ringing the TalkTalk customer service department, firstly you're lucky if you can speak to someone who actually speaks English,and that's if they understand it to start with, and secondly, I would love to be able to talk with one of TalkTalk managers, even a junior one, if they even exist, which I'm not sure they do.

As for TalkTalk technical managers, we've seen a few of their replies in some of the comments in the reports they answer to. Personally, I believe manager would be the wrong word, possibly, coper would be better, and that's if they've got their carer with them.

Botnet click fraud at record high

At last

"It's in everyone's best interest in the online community to find and stamp out click fraud," Pellman said. "The fraudsters are trying to stay a step ahead of those efforts."

Recognizing at least that everyone needs to play a part, it's no good blaming just MS or Google or Yahoo for the wrongs of the web.

Perhaps hosting sites could do something about malware laden sites on their servers, perhaps on an educational level, people could be made aware that maintaining a level of "cleanliness" on their own computers would alleviate part of the problem, as for ISP's, already able to block P2P/Torrent traffic, could enabling a filter on traffic to/from malware laden sites.(This I already know is feasable, and for instance, is used for blocking child porn sites).

Don't go shooting me down for offering an opinion that may vary from your's, it's my right, exactly the same one you're using to respond.

China fingered in cyberattack on mystery high tech co.

Any guesses who the company was

Fair guess being we could rule out MS,Intel,Google or basically anyone in that industry, the info isn't really that important or even unavailable to China freely.

I'm betting it's someone like Lockheed who do loads of military work, and anything like the info available to them would be of extreme value to China, or a company in that field, that's related to military work.

Why unnamed high tech company, probably, because the security was provided by the same people who provided the security that a Mr Mckinnon hacked using simple passwords to access an entire network. I wonder if the Yankee's will pursue this with the same vigour?

eBay halts nine months of revenue shrinkage

All seems normal to me

Again another load of statistics mis-mashed and presented all together in a fashion to cause total lack of understanding, not by the author who is just reproducing the figures, probably from an accountants statement, which is where the original disappearing monies magic originates.

Can anyone actually put a figure on what the real situation is, I mean forget about the magical mumbo jumbo, is the company making money in real terms, or just paper money.

Whilst to many, the share prices and the effects the statements have on the share prices, which actually values the company,means a lot, but gives no indication if the company is actually making money, may be the indicator to whether ebay is worth investing in or not, it isn't really any reflection on profitability.

Please, some enlightenment, without magic mirrors and smoke, would be much appreciated.

Thousands of sites loaded with potent malware cocktail

Not the cybercriminals to blame is it!!!

"The trick makes it extremely difficult for webmasters and anti-malware programs to detect the threats."

In which case then the options are very limited, we can only

a) blame Microsoft for not fixing cryptapi AFTER MORE than 9 (well 10, NOW) weeks.

b) blame someone else.

How about webmasters actually securing their sites. I guess this solution is TOO obvious and simple, so I guess we're back to solution a) or b) again.

Feds’ insider trading wiretap snares IBM heir apparent

@Matt Bryant

Greed isn't normally associated with pity, in either direction, why does it seem sad?

A more appropiate word would have "disgusting".

Why they threw it away for a few extra million is already covered by your use of the word greed.

Their greed isn't what beggars belief, as you noted they were already wealthy individuals,you don't get that way without being greedy, what actually does beggar belief is the stupidity of the individuals involved.

Lets just say, these people are living walking proof, that an education is no substitute for intelligence.

Disney kicks 'Ho White' out of bed

Oh, yes, really.

You're all a buch of quasi lawyers/fairy tale historians and members of CAMRA now are you?

Anyone see the real dangers of this advert, and it's not the selling of beer using sexual images, or using characters associated with infancy in a sexual innuendo kind of way.

Enough of the beer drinking legalese, where are the anti smoking (for you earthy young men out there, I'm not talkng about your wives, girlfriends, or in the case of most of the commentards, their underage boyfriends) brigade.

The anti tobacco brigade should be having a field day here too, all taboo's in one advert, it isn't Disney they should have been having a little chat with, perhaps Plod might like a word, maybe.

Merkel rips into Google Books

I mis read, or mis-understand

Is it book scanning, or book scamming, either way you cut it, we're back to 1930's German politics, "You can read what we say you can read".

'Amateur' IBM brings down Air New Zealand

Good story,

Yep, theres nothing like intractability for negotiating a discpount/price rise, depending which side your on.

IBM's negotiating point, without us, it'll take you months to get servicable again, if you don't go bankrupt first.

From ANZ, point of view, are you trying to bankrupt us, we'll sue your little blue socks off.

Must laugh, didn't have these problems when the world was run by Commodore 64's or Atari's.

Still that's progress/modernisation/technology/globalisation for you.

Thank goodness for Ryanair, at least you expect to get shafted one way or another, so it's no let down then.

Microsoft yawns at Google's chillerless data center antidote

Yes, but

The coffee machine still doesn't work

Volkswagen boffins turn staircase into giant working piano keyboard

VW didn't invent the bottomless bin

Anyone with growing children will fully understand what a bottomless bin is, and it has been around since the dawn of time.

Alpha-male Ellison issues $10m Exadata challenge

I thought you said Alpha Male

As in who's the Daddy kinda mode.

Sorry 10 mill in worthless US greenbacks, sorry nah, lets have a real challenge Larry, how about you go "all in", you'll get plenty of takers then. Make the bet worth someones while at least.

Even IBM are going 10mill, pifffffft, what a cheapskate.

Web firms seek Royal Mail rivals with GSOH for delivery fling

And a lot still miss something important.

Point 1, in reality, will any us in actuality notice the difference when the national strike occurs, already it takes around 4 days for delivery of a first class letter, which should be next day delivery, so what difference does one more day make.

Point 2, in reference to Billy Hayes, and the commentard about the 2007 strikes, I think you'll find most of the damage done between RM and the CWU, occurred under the management of one Alan Johnson, now Home Secretary, and what a complete f+++++t, he's turned out to be at that job too.

Microsoft-tested browser prosecution snares tech giants

Like I care

Will I be still able to get dtreaming porn, I mean WTF else does anyone use the "web" for.

Gmail, AOL, Yahoo! all hit by webmail phishing scam

Oh, yeah

Anybody who knows, knows the real reason for this is because in the Microsoft OS, cryptAPI is broken, and MS didn't fix it more than 9 weeks ago, as regularly reported by ElReg.

No responsibility is to be held by anyone other than MS. So, MS, get your a+++ in gear and mend the entire internet. You're making it unsafe for anyone to use the net, and it isn't the fault of crappy coders or malevolent people.

In my little red book, Bill Gates is the first against the wall for the firing squad.

Firefox 3.6 beta set to ship next week

I don't care.

If it doesn't take up 150MB on my hardrive, it's not worth having. All I want is bloat, I don't give a flying f about the bootup time, all i want is a harddrive full of porn from a safe browser.

Man banished from PayPal for showing how to hack PayPal

Right

So, obviously MS need to fix cryptoAPI, because they havem

n't fixed it after more than 9 weeks.

No excuses here, it is quite plainly an MS issue,

See, the problem with all of this is purely and simply Microsofts fault, so perhaps all of you should move over to Linux and Mozilla, because Microsoft don't give a shit because you're a bunch of fuckwits.

Now, seriously, if we can actually move on to where the responsibility does lie.

Disreputable,malevolent scammers and fraudsters. This isn't a paypal,ms or web related issue, it's an abuse of trust issue. Now maybe it's time for internet users to actually take control of their own issues.

Yep, I'll be the target again, for something none of you seem to be able to grasp.

If you want to do finacial services, shopping etc, go out into the real world and meet real people, you,me,we are all victims of laziness, and to a point social peer pressures.

Try and control your own lives before you go calling foul on others. I'd rather have a happy family life, than be the richest man in the graveyard, which to me, seems the point of your headlong march to the maker.

IE, Chrome, Safari duped by bogus PayPal SSL cert

@adnim,eponymous cowherd

exactly the very thing I'm talking about, jumped ignorant pricks, perhaps if YOU read the article instead of getting yourselves all wound up, crptoApi isn't broken, it has performed exactly as it should have, what is broken is the morality of the coder of the malicious website. And the browsers ability to detect fraudulent certificates, and no, not just an MS issue, but if you read carefully, and I know that the headline is in larger letters, so that SHOULD make it easier for you to read, although obviously nothing can be done about your comprehension.

As an aside, anonymouse coward 15.34. Perhaps you could enlighten me, MS code for Apple and for Google, please don't choke on your cup of tea, whilst you single handedly keep the economy running, your wages will have to fund our benefits.

Again, for all of you complaining about MS coding, why don't you all use an OS which is so obviously superior,and free, or would that involve you actually having to think. Of course, the plus side of that being, the instant removal of all crime on the internet, wouldn't it.

@DrXym

Yep, widen the argument out if you must, however cryptoAPI isn't the interface with the web, IE is.

At others who still persist, to be fair, if the author had written the article to say for eg, only safari was affected, would you all be jumping on Apple's or MS's back.

I'm sorry, in my opinion, and as written by the author, this IS a BROWSER issue, not an OS issue.

CrptoAPI isn't broken. the browsers are broken, and all those who harpen on about the OS being broken are wrong.

Now I agree that IE is crap, but to be fair so are all the other options available. perhaps hardening up the interfaces with the web is the route to be looking at. If you still don't follow that, if I run my computer without connecting to the web, am I at risk from fraudulent sites, NO.

The real truth you can't all face, lazy/malicious web site coders, fraudulent in part populace, and unknowleadgable users.

The OS is fine, the web, it's users, and abusers aren't. Mozilla, whatever system it runs on, has to make calls to the OS. Fix the browsers once and for all, including Apple, Opera and Mozilla.Don't just blame MS for the criminal activities and intents of others.

Look in your own hearts first, or not, just blame MS because society is f'ed up. No, the responsibility lies equally with the web's users. Perhaps adjustments to your attitudes are needed too.

@adrian sietsma,Anonymous Coward8.52, etc

Firefox has fixed the problem, without MS doing anything, ergo this isn't an OS problem, or a cryptoAPI problem, it's a browser problem.

So no, I'm not a software expert, and to be blunt I don't need to be, however I can read, and I can think.

Perhaps you guys could remove your heads from your asses, and actually construct a criticism that is actually relevant to the issue, which is BROWSER related, quite obviously, or if it isn't, perhaps it is the OS, so why don't you all just f+++ off to a Mac, or a Linux system, and actually have to employ your brains for once, if they aren't yet frazzled by the commute to the front door.

Quite frankly, the article is nothing more than a sales pitch for Firefox. I get enough spam in my inbox already, thank you very much.

WTF has the author been smoking

Unfortunately I have to share this with you, why is it Microsofts fault?

Did they script the fraudulent certificate?

Perhaps you, and anyone who thinks like you, might actually like to focus on the real cause of the problem, which to your utter dismay is not Microsoft. Why don't you spend some of your vitriolic hatred of Microsoft on the real perpetrators of the problem.

Focusing the attention elsewhere is poor journalism, and also shows to some extent poor moral standards. Spend some effort removing the real problem, perhaps an attempt at getting the fraudulent site down might have been a better use of your time.

Royal Mail lawyers demand closure of postcode lookup site

@Alexander Hanff reposte 2

You've just killed your original posting with that. So will the real Alexander Hanff please stand up.

You've answered in a manner that suggest only that bulk postings pay, so I would indeed appreciate your reply to why "junk" mail postings are fractional costing to a singular letter, not in the fashion that bulk mailing needs to be subsidised, but to explain to me , a second class stamp is the price it is, and a "junk" mail posting is less than half that price. They get collected, sorted and delivered in exactly the same way.

And yes, it's business, which again negates your first posting.

@ Alexander Hanff 1

"The Post Office should be forced to make the use of post codes free for non profit purposes. Next thing you know they will be charging us royalties for every damn letter we send that we write a postcode on."

What do you think a stamp is then, could you personally deliver a letter from one end of the country to the other, for the price of a stamp, and make enough profit to make a living?

Google to blight smartphones with big ads

Good

Now I don't have to watch ITV. I can get all the crap I want on my mobile phone, with its 3.5 inch screen, and it's portable too.

Maybe one day I'll actually find a friend and be able to call them.

Maybe I'm eccentric, but if I want to take a photo, I use a camera, if I want to browse the web, I use a computer. As for GPS or maps,electronically, I use SatNav, because not only do I find that faffing around with a miniscule screen at 40mph in heavy traffic slightly distracting, it's also illegal, now I know that it's a rarity to find a law abiding citizen these days, but I already said I was eccentric.

Anyway, thanks to Google,Yahoo and Microsoft, with their incarnations of Ad sponsored email, I'm now moving back to snail mail, the reason being, nobody can afford that much paper to waste on spam

10,000 Hotmail passwords mysteriously leaked to web

Excuse my ignorance.

What is Hotmail?

Mozilla unveils cure for Web 2.0 world run amok

@charles9

The big problem isn't allow by default. The big problem is lazy coders and malicious coders.

Good

At least some responsibility is being laid at the feet of others and being picked.

Perhaps at last others (read MS or Google) won't be held responsible for all the malicious actions of others, the web is used by all, the ills of the web need to be solved by all.

Your phone is winding me up

Brilliant

That's is going to be the most enterntainment all round on the 7.58 to Liverpool Street, it'll be the no1 video on youTube for months.

US commission urges broadband socialism

I'm intrigued.

You say that the report makes many recommendation, although some are not as clear as others, yet you focus on only one recommendation, which you support.

Surely, that is Fascism.

US spontaneous human combustion raygun video released

opportunities abound

"The ATL has no such clearly-defined purpose"

Well, it could be used as a mobile industrial paint stripper, the video is a good advert, but would there be a market for this.

Microsoft goes Darwinian with evolutionary tree patent

That's not all

Rumour has it, that Apple are trying to patent the wheel, and Google are trying to patent fire, and Intel are trying to patent water.

However the only thing they are abusing is hot air. Now I know it's America, but surely common sense has to kick in somewhere, or on previous experiences, maybe not.

LG GD900 Crystal camphone

Why?

Will I be able to make a phone call on this in public without being mugged?

Visa dings teen for $23-quadrillion restaurant charge

Indeed

" It's already providing a valuable lesson in the importance of reading statements carefully."

And don't forget the 26.6%APR

Greedy fat b++++r eats all the pies, and then complains.

If you don't want to pay, then eat half the meal and complain, I think this easily learnt lesson was covered by Mr Bean and the Steak Tartar.

Visa, of course would not make a mistake, this is one of those insigned service charges applied at one of Gordon Ramsay's establishments.

Microsoft store crumples as Win7 promo kicks off

Idiocy

What is wrong with the people who keep on trying to buy this product, do they not know that within minutes of the official launch, that it will be freely and widely available by the torrent networks.

Does this constitute a DDoS?, repeated requests that bring down a website.