Posts by Version 1.0

Chinese hacking competition cracks Chrome, ESXi, Windows 10, iOS 14, Galaxy 20, Qemu, and more

Re: They targetted Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge

OK, I'm going back to using Netscape Navigator, wonderful! It was not hacked!

Re: They did all that over a weekend for a competition

Right, the winners normally already know about the hacks, it's a bit like doing an O-level exam, you can't take your books in but if you sit down remember the information you can win.

Solving a big, yellow IT problem: If it's not wearing hi-vis, I don't trust it

Re: Live that everyday

Upvote from me - I'll have access to the emails in about 30 minutes.

Election security fears doused with reality: Top officials say Nov 3 'was the most secure in American history.' The end

Occasionally you see live voters voting for dead candidates too.

Voting in America is flawed, not fraud.

Look at the results - Biden is five million votes ahead but the democrats have lost Congress seats and are still in second place in the Senate - the traditional "fraud" is gerrymandering the voting districts to ensure that the results boost the party that sets the district boundaries - this is normally perfectly legal, both political parties have worked at this for years.

And California, with a population of nearly 40 million elects two US senators, while Wyoming with a population of half a million also elects two US senators - certainly that's not "fraud" but is it democracy? A single vote in Wyoming is worth almost 10 times a vote in California.

New lawsuit: Why do Android phones mysteriously exchange 260MB a month with Google via cellular data when they're not even in use?

Standard operating procedure

Now we know why the phone companies are offering such nice discounts when you buy two or three new Android phones from them. It's like HP selling cheap printers because the users have to keep buying ink.

Microsoft unveils a Universal version of Office for Apple silicon

Re: This puzzled me a bit

64-bit is not better than 32-bit, it's just bigger. We're all chasing the word size believing that it's somehow better - while there are a few advantages, the fact is that the application sizes keep doubling, systems need more memory and higher cpu clock speeds each time.

Does anyone think that switching to 128-bit is going to improve things in a couple of years? Will our kids be playing games on their 512-bit cpu driven phones?

Android without Google – and yes it has apps: The Reg talks to founder about the /e/ smartphone

Re: Excellent

Nice, I'd been thinking about replacing the battery in my old Nexus and returning to it to escape the modern Google phone crap environment. This could be a better solution.

BOFH: You might want to sit down for this. Oh, right, you can't. Listen carefully: THIS IS NOT AN IT PROBLEM!

Re: Office Chairs!

So what's coming next year? An office chair designed for "home use" with a Bluetooth monitor built into the seat that tells the company who's sitting in the chair, how long they are in the chair and which way they are facing to make sure they are on the computer?

Swiss spies knew about Crypto AG compromise – and kept it from govt overseers for nearly 30 years

Or maybe...

"If the legal framework allowed the American intelligence service and foreign intelligence services to jointly use a company to seek information on foreigners, such collaboration had a great political significance, then we are very happy that the American political leaders were not informed."

I don't think that this is any surprise, regardless of which political party you may support, the intelligence services normally do their work for the country, not politicians. The political leaders are only updated when the services think that it's necessary.

Microsoft warns against SMS, voice calls for multi-factor authentication: Try something that can't be SIM swapped

Mother FA

The only secure method is not to have on-line access, if you do have an on-line account then don't use Maga2020 as the password - use a real password. Maybe this new method will work but it's just an app and apps get hacked, MFA doesn't stop hacking, it just slows it down.

Try to avoid thinking of the internet as a flashy new battlefield, warns former NCSC chief

Re: Well, blow me down ... was there ever a squarer peg in a round hole?

...did Ciaran Martin ever manage to wangle his way to be a former head ... perhaps he won a whole bunch of DOOM games?

The evolution of C#: Lead designer describes modernization journey, breaks it down about getting func-y

Two decades of lessons that no one has learned

Great article El Reg (hence the icon), and where are we today? We're seeing all of the issues described in today's languages and we're going to see them again in tomorrows languages.

Halt don't catch fire: Amazon recalls hundreds of thousands of Ring doorbells over exploding battery fears

Re: Shows people don't read the instructions

It's not just door bells, I see this sort of problem all the time, users install something incorrectly, often without reading the instructions, and then blame the problem on the supplier. And the product designers make everything easy to build and install without ever considering that people screw up occasionally because they failed to think about what they were doing. This is just normal these days - everything is "fixed" by releasing an update.

Former Microsoft tester sent down for 9 years after $10m gift card fraud

Re: He just got too greedy

Maybe Microsoft should have offered him a job instead, he could probably have identified a lot of other corporate accounting failures that are probably still going on.

Europe clamps down on cybersurveillance exports, pushes human rights focus

Google cybersurveillance?

So will I have to leave my Pixel phone at home when I visit Europe once travel restrictions are discontinued? I can get my old Nokia battery replaced, so it's not a problem.

Missing Alan Turing memorabilia to be returned to Blighty from the US, 36 years after it went walkabout

Re: And the next story will be ....

Sure, but while being gay in the 80's wasn't a crime, it was still seen as bad. I never thought so but I dealt with a lot of people who thought that being gay sucked back then. I often got crapped back then for saying that gender was irrelevant.

Re: And the next story will be ....

You got to go back in time, when I was a kid in the 50's Alan Turing was considered to be a criminal in Britain because he was gay. So nobody back then would have cared about his history being "stolen" - most likely if the items had not been removed then, in those days, they would all have just been thrown away and we would not have them any longer.

So we think that taking Turing's property was a crime, but keeping the Elgin Marbles is not? Effectively both "crimes" have resulted in the preservation of history.

One more reason for Apple to dump Intel processors: Another SGX, kernel data-leak flaw unearthed by experts

This is news?

One more reason to dump processors: Today's kernel data-leak flaw unearthed by experts... fixed it for you. We design processors and all systems these days to make them fast and easy to use. Security? Yea, we've heard of it. Is there anything out there that can't be hacked today? Do you really believe that you can build something that has Internet access and is perfectly safe?

Hacking is normal (and fun too).

Curse of Arecibo strikes again: Now another cable breaks, smashes into America's largest radio telescope

Re: Indicators

Arecibo would have been well maintained if there was a golf course next door.

Zoom strong-armed by US watchdog to beef up security after boasting of end-to-end encryption that didn't exist

Re: End-to-end?

Five eyes end-to-end encryption is encryption at the start, decryption in the middle and encryption at the other end - this is approved by five-eyes so Zoom is meeting the requirements?

Biden projected to be the next US President, Microsoft joins rest of world in telling Trump: It looks like... you're fired

Re: Four more years

Trump had four years to improve his golf and boost his golf course income, he did well ... oh wait, is that why you run for the office as president? Make America Golf Again?

The Geeky view

Wanna know who'd be the best president? Given their ages, give them a 10 minute tutorial and ask them to write a "Hello World" application in FORTRAN.

Bad software crashed Boeings. Now it appears the company lacked a singular software supremo

You got a downvote? We have accountants reading El Reg? Well I guess that's a good thing.

Re: Pity they didn't think it that important earlier.

I'm not going to downvote you but as a programmer or software application management boss you have to understand the environment that you are working in ... well, that's the way it used to be but the world has changed. These days it's not a pity that they didn't think it that important earlier because the standard is to get the app written and released - and "fix" the bugs with an update later.

"Only one sensor? No problem, I'll create a virtual one ...."

America's democracy on the brink, Brexit looming, climate crashing... when better to get the first fast radio burst from our own galaxy?

Scientists 5: Politicians 2 - a clear victory!

"If it is, indeed, in the closer range to Earth, scientists reckon the total X-ray energy generated during its outburst is equivalent to the same amount of energy produced by the Sun over a month."

Remember that e=mc2 ... so what happened, was it an internal event or did something circle and then strike the magnetar? Thanks El Reg for the story, it's making me think about incredible events out there in the universe! What would happen if a black hole approached a magnetar ... which one would survive or would we get something completely different? Sure, there's no way to actually know but it's fascinating to think about.

Uncle Sam's legal eagles hope to get their claws on $1bn in Bitcoin 'stolen by hacker' from dark-web souk Silk Road

The US makes a lot of money from drug sales, sure they are illegal but they are very profitable too. So what will Uncle Sam do if it gets the money before January 20th? Buy the president a new golf cart?

Whoa, humans have been hanging out and doing science stuff in freaking space aboard the ISS for 20 years

Re: If we as humankind work together...

A drink for you Joe and one for Richard too - a great article, the world is a wonderful place when we all stop being stupid. The ISS was launched back in the days when politicians of all types listened to scientists. :-)

With less than two months left, let's check in on Brexit: All IT systems are up and running and ready to go, says no one

Re: QR

It's no problem, Boris has created a whirled bleating corevideo tacking app. Brexit is already dumb so getting an app ready by January will be whirled bleating two.

Remember that we were promised that this would be teasy (darn autocorrect).

GitHub warns devs face ban if they fork DMCA'd YouTube download tool... while hinting how to beat the RIAA

Re: Jealousy

Back in the days, I thought that cable TV was selling all my watching habits so I cancelled my cable subscription and spent the subscription money on DVD's instead - I now have about 2,000 and the fun thing is that some of them are now worth about 20 times what I originally paid for them - LOL.

US govt ups minimum H-1B tech salaries to $208,000 a year, more than startups can hope to afford, say VCs

So they will hire an American worker, get them up to speed and then send them overseas to train the locals and then, once the job is done, retire/fire them now that the jobs have move overseas. Welcome to corporate Americana.

The Russians are at it again: Zebrocy backdoor malware is evolving, Uncle Sam warns close to eve of presidential election

El Reg - new icon please.

If Windows had been developed by a company based in Moscow then countries (not just the West) would have been hacking it for years. We're doing the same things that they are - the only way to secure the Internet is to use a pair of wire cutters.

Ryuk this for a game of soldiers: Ransomware-flingers actively targeting hospitals in the US, cyber agencies warn

"those Iranians and Pakistanis at it again'

LOL, you think that just because the bitcoin request comes via an IP address in those countries that they did it? Maybe ... but it's quite easy to hack a system in one country and redirect your attack to another so unless you can walk back through every set of system logs you have very little chance of knowing where the attacks actually originated.

He's anonymous, maybe he's just telling us what he's doing?

Unionised BT Technology workers vote for industrial action as more compulsory job cuts hit UK telco's IT crowd

Cost cutting protects jobs.

CEO Philip Jansen needs to keep working at the cost cutting program to protect his salary.

Our government policy is that strikes 'only cause damage' - David Cameron ... would Jansen go on strike if they abolished the cost cutting program or would he just move to a new CEO position?

Did I or did I not ask you to double-check that the socket was on? Now I've driven 15 miles, what have we found?

Re: Executives left in the dark

Sure, but when you're on the bottom of the employment ladder pissing off the bosses because they are stupid, it doesn't help you at all to document their behavior.

Re: Been there ... done that

Try thinking about what's in a vacuum cleaner and how much power it uses ... it's perfect spark land so it needs a specifically well designed switch if it's to keep working.

Re: British electrics

I see nice little sparks occasionally in the US when I plug things in or pull them out.

Software engineer leaked UK missile system secrets and refused to hand cops his passwords, Old Bailey told

Gmail account?

If he had emailed the information to his Gmail account then everything would have been revealed ... and he would now be getting lot's of "recommendations" from google for November 5th fireworks.

But seriously - we have a conviction for doing something that would be a crime if he has Putins email address on his phone, but would sound more like needing some mental health care if he sent the information to Mother Jones and George Monbiot instead; that's hardly a crime, just stupidity - and stupidity is normal in government these days. Essentially he's been convicted of a crime that nobody is allowed to know the details about - that's injustice in action.

Researchers made an OpenAI GPT-3 medical chatbot as an experiment. It told a mock patient to kill themselves

It will be fixed

Management will get it re-coded - telling a patient to kill themselves before they've payed the bill for services is going to cut back on corporate profits. Next time it will tell them to kill themselves in a week.

Brit accused of spying on 772 people via webcam CCTV software tells court he'd end his life if extradited to US

Spying on people webcams - a US standard

Snowden documented that the US spies on peoples webcams using code developed in the UK. Maybe we should just give him a job with MI5 to figure out how the hack is observed?

SNAFU: Clairvoyant train brings warning of what was coming down the line for 2020

Re: SNAFU?

At least it didn't say FOCUS

RIAA DMCAs GitHub into nuking popular YouTube video download tool, says it's used to slurp music

Re: If it can be played

So the artists should be payed if it's played. Instead YouTube gets paid by the advertiser.

Ed Snowden doesn’t need to worry about being turfed out of Russia any more

I have always seen Ed Snowden as Tech Saint Snowden - his "crime" was telling everyone that the US was breaking its own laws, whereupon the US tried to tie him to a post and shot arrows at him.

Just think what the world would look like if Snowden had just hidden everything, or if Peter had been paid by Pontius Pilate to act like the US today.

Bitcoin value jumps as PayPal says it will accept cryptocurrencies... once it has the kinks worked out

Re: A kick in the VISA

Try paying for something internationally with a bank wire transfer, it takes days and costs money.

Is Google fudging search rankings to benefit pages that embed YouTube vids? Or is this just another ‘bug’?

Farting Hippos

This is a very useful story El Reg, I'll add a new video to the corporate web site.

Remember insider threat? Old news now. Focus on malware detection, says EU infosec agency

Check the algorithms

I'm confident that malware deliveries come from many different sources and that many deliveries are controlled by algorithms - I see big increases in infection attempts in Louisiana every time there's a hurricane or tropical storm in the area and the attempts started increasing significantly when the State started telling people to work from home.

This is not a coincidence - we're under attack, but the government hasn't noticed - our mail server gets a login attempt every 20 seconds 24/7 these days.

Let’s check in with that 30,000-job $10bn Trump-Foxconn Wisconsin plant. Wow, way worse than we'd imagined

Todays politics is irrelevant

The issue is that the US exported all its tech talent to China starting about 20 years ago, I have friends who were sent to China to train their Chinese "colleagues" to design and build the technology in China, all of them were "retired" after a year or two and returned to the US, none work in the technology world these days. So Foxconn are going to have issues hiring high level technical talent in the US these days ... want to design a power supply? It's easy we'll use these connectors, they are only one ohm resistance, that's good.

But we're running twenty amps through the connector... (see icon, it's a joke).

This is a result of the corporate politics, moving everything to China made companies a lot of money, it's going to cost money to get US talent back to the levels of 30-40 years ago.

Will there be no end to govt attempts to break encryption? Hand over your data or the kiddies get it, threaten Five Eyes spies

Backdoors solve nothing

OK, so it helps them catch idiots but anyone with a brain or working for a professional spy agency will be completely unaffected.

Microsoft will adopt Google Chrome's controversial Manifest V3 in Edge

Google owns the Internet

Remember the days before Google started deleting sites from the search database that didn't comply with their mobile friendly "standard"? Web sites in those days (and there are still a few out there) would contain pages and pages of text information about everything - nowadays all you see are pictures and a link that you have to register to download the stuff you used to read for free. The Google "mobile friendly" web site requirement has made them a hell of a lot of money.