Posts by kbb

Bad news: Coronavirus is spreading rapidly across the world. Good news: Nitrogen dioxide levels are decreasing and the air on Earth is cleaner

Logical conclusion

So if more coronavirus means less pollution isn't the logical conclusion that more pollution means less coronavirus?

Everyone...start your engines to save us all!

Americans should have strong privacy-protecting encryption ...that the Feds and cops can break, say senators

Missing a trick

Surely the response should be to ask for a large grant to do research into this area for the next decade or so. I'm sure that the answer can be found in some far-off, 5 star, all inclusive resort given enough time.

Furious Apple revokes Facebook's enty app cert after Zuck's crew abused it to slurp private data

New law - not a chance

Do Not Track Kids Act? It won't pass because it's not a snappy acryonym - DNTKA. It needs to be something like PATRIOT to get passed these days.

Attention all British .eu owners: Buy dotcom domains and prepare to sue, says UK govt

Suggestion for Nominet

Perhaps Nominet can open up .eu.uk?

'World's favorite airline' favorite among hackers: British Airways site, app hacked for two weeks

...separated by a common language

Tsk. All these comments and no one has mentioned the missing 'u'? Even their American Advert with prices in dollars had the UK spelling of favourite. ;)

Brit film board proposed as overlord of online pr0nz age checks

Why not copy mobile?

As I recall when I signed up to my current mobile provider there was a defacto block on adult sites. To unblock I had to make a token payment of £1 which was then taken off the next bill, to allow me to choose to allow access.

Why can't the same simply be done with ISPs? Give the control to the bill payer.

UK's surveillance regime challenged in landmark European court hearing

Simple solution

Have a referendum and go with the will of the people.

You can't find tech staff – wah, wah, wah. Start with your ridiculous job spec

Remote working

I live close enough to London to be caught in its vortex, but far enough out that it takes me a couple of hours to commute in. I get the emails from recruiters about positions. Some of them have even actually read my CV and informed me of jobs that I could do. "Remote working for some/most/all of the time?" I ask. "No, you have to be on site," I am told, over and over again.

I can (and have) worked remotely and, if anything, I've been more efficient. My home office is set up the way I want it so I'm comfortable and less distracted. If someone really, really, *really* needs me they can call, but other than that it's email or some other messaging service, things that I can turn off if I need to focus on a problem. It's difficult to turn off your co-workers in an open plan office. (And, as an aside, if there's anyone in a position of political power reading this, please put forward a motion banning people from installing Sonos speakers in the office!)

Widen your talent pool, trust the people that you hire, but don't screw them over by offering peanuts just because they don't have to pay London prices.

Cheeky IT rival parks 'we're hiring' van outside 'vote Tory' firm Storm Technologies

Re: How would Storm know?

Some people are quite open and proud about their political affiliations. Suspicion is not proof but someone who goes out on the campaign trail for $party is unlikely to be voting for $other_party.

WhatsApp blind-sided by booby-trapped photo vulnerability

Telegram says it does not have the same issue

From http://telegra.ph/Checkpoint-Confusion-NEWS

Former Mozilla dev joins chorus roasting antivirus, says 'It's poison!'

If Microsoft's own AV is the best...

...why don't they just build it straight into the product it's protecting?

Moron is late for flight, calls in bomb threat

"...charges of uttering threats..."

I thought that was making a threat in a quiet voice. Then I looked it up. You learn something new every day.

Ofcom smacks Sky for breaching broadband switching rules

"...breached rules..."

"...contravened the rules..." So what did they actually do? The article doesn't actually say what they did wrong.

Simply not credible: The extraordinary verdict against the body that hopes to run the internet

Re: And they have a famous chef, too

Setting up DNSSEC might be easier with Ikea-style documentation.

European privacy body slams shut backdoors everywhere

It makes sense

The real reason why Theresa May is going to enact Brexit. #snooperscharter

Guess who gets hit hard by IR35 tax clampdown? Yep, IT contractors

"...estimated to cost more than £400m..."

Or about 6½% of a Vodafone.

Germany: If Brits vote to Remain, we'll admit Hurst's 1966 goal was a goal

Re: See what can happen when you work together?

You mean you trusted politicians before?!

Microsoft encrypts explanation of borked Windows 10 encryption

Not sure I follow

If the drive is self-encrypting, what does enabling bitlocker give you (if it worked)?

El Reg celebrates Back to the Future Day

Sometimes, when you see your father going commando, you curse the latest Google Glasses update that added x-ray functionality.

"Marty marvels that it's 8am and his dad's iWatch still has 4% charge."

Swooning MEPs go all Directioner over Edward Snowden

The prize

I don't suppose the prize is asylum in the EU by any chance?

BORN to HURL: Man's shoulders are head and shoulders above apes, gorillas, chimps etc

Re: Only one thing to say

Not forgetting The Commentators - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3bl4xaFZMM "It's a long, slow, lazy delivery...but it's the best I can do."

Happy birthday, Amiga: The 'other' home computer turns 30

Expansion

Ah, I still remember my A500. I still have the A1200 and an A4000. One of my favourite things was the Action Replay. Astounding that you could freeze your machine as the press of a button, poke around the memory, find images, sounds and music, and then carry on as if nothing had happened.

The keyboard was a dream. If I recall it actually had it's own co-processor.

And for the developers, who can forget the system calls that allowed you to put in a memory-resident program that survived the CTRL-Amiga-Amiga.

I'm off to have a read of the ROM Kernel Reference Manual for aulde times' sake.

Dev gives HBO free math tips to nail Game of Thrones pirate leakers

Watermarking assembly

(Dragging this from the depths of my memory so apologies if it is misremembered.)

There used to be a shareware x86 assembler that claimed in the docs that it watermarked your output. It said that there were multiple x86 instructions that performed the same operation, so by choosing them in a predictable pattern during assembly, disassembling the output could determine if you were licensed or not.

Microsoft update mayhem delays German basketball game, costs team dear

Re: Linux

Soon to be one and the same as I understand.

Bulk interception is NOT mass surveillance, says parliamentary committee

"the need for a thorough overhaul of the current, overly complicated, legislation..."

"...thus allowing us not to simply replace like-for-like, but to give us the opportunity to add in all those other things that we, of course, do not currently do (*cough*) but would like to do."

Dream job: Sysadmin/F1 pit crew member with Red Bull racing

"...for a complete tyre change and fuel top-up"

Except they don't refuel anymore.</pedant>

UK boffins DOUBLE distance of fiber data: London to New York WITHOUT a repeater

Testing

I always wonder how they test these things. Do they happen to have a long enough piece of fibre spare that they give one end to an intern to send off on a long walk?

Switch it off and on again: How peers failed to sneak Snoopers' Charter into terror bill

Here's your problem Lord B

"...and hand this over to the government without a warrant". Perhaps if you were to ask for something and abide by due process with checks and balances you might get somewhere.

Just WHY is the FBI so sure North Korea hacked Sony? NSA: *BLUSH*

Creating Precedent

Isn't it obvious? It's all a front by the RIAA/MPAA. If they can convince everyone that a list of IP addresses equates to the identificaiton of the guilty party then all those pesky "an IP address doesn't identify an individual" arguments get thrown away in court.

Go Canada: Now ILLEGAL to auto-update software without 'consent'

Mobile apps

I believe on Android the "automatically update apps" option is on by default. Is this something that Google have to worry about or individual app creators? If the latter I can't see how they can stop it other than not releasing any updates or adding in a new permission for each release to make the update a manual process.

BOING, BOING! Philae BOUNCED TWICE on Comet 67P

Reg units

Auntie Beeb says the probe is "the size of a washing machine". Is that an officially sanctioned Reg unit?

NSA: Inside the FIVE-EYED VAMPIRE SQUID of the INTERNET

Re: Simple Counter-Measure

aka adverts

Bitcoin blockchain allegedly infected by ancient 'Stoned' virus

A cunning plan?

So could this be a plan to make people so annoyed with their AV - "I can't spend my bitcoins because the stupid AV software thinks it has a virus" - that they turn it off?

Is FCoE faster than Fibre Channel? Who knows? Just run your own tests

"what hope do the non-technical and the uninitiated have to find out the truth?"

Should the non-technical and uninitiated be concerned? Shouldn't they be asking the technical and initiated as to which is the best solution to get?

Candy Crush dev stuffs EU 'candy' trademark down gob

Too little

"King claims that it is only seeking the patent in order to prevent rival firms from ripping off Candy Crush."

So why not trademark "Candy Crush" instead of just "Candy"?

App to manage Android app permissions

"SnoopWall is proudly made in the USA."

"Patent pending." Ah I love the sound of sueballs in the morning.

HTC: Shipping Android updates is harder than you think – here's why

What's missing...

...is a timeline. How long, for example, does it takes to incorporate Sense™ vs. the other steps?

Fees shakeup: Freephone numbers will actually BE free – Ofcom

A mandatory service?

How about making all providers supply a free way of finding out how much a call would cost you? A free app or something on a website where you put in the number you want to call and it shows the price? Or a number you can call or text (for free) that you can then enter the number you want to call and it will tell you how much it will cost. Can't be that difficult to tie it in to your account to be able to say if it is part of your included bundle surely.

MPs back call to boycott low-taxed tat from Amazon over Xmas

Alternatives

"I haven't used Amazon for a year and I have found plenty of alternatives for buying goods online."

Did you Google for those alternatives by any chance?

The CURSE of WHO: WHY has there never been a decent videogame with the Doctor?

What is needed...

...is a Dr Who made by the team that did Monkey Island.

Brit inventor Dyson challenges EU ruling on his hoover's energy efficiency ratings

"...help customers to consider environmental concerns..."

Wouldn't it just be simpler to make the manufacturers make the things 'A' rated?

Hollywood: How do we secure high-def 4K content? Easy. Just BRAND the pirates

Watermarking

Wouldn't re-encoding remove watermarking like this?

Oh, shoppin’ HELL: I’m in the supermarket of the DAMNED

Co-Op

In my experience the Co-Op ones seem to be set up to give you about 0.27 seconds from scanning "beep" until it tells you to place the item in the bagging area for every single item.

And often the "unexpected item" issue can be sidestepped by pressing the "I'm using my own bag" button, even if you're not.

IT bloke inadvertently broadcasts smut on vast public screen

What? No jil(l)in(g) jokes?

Something's going on with Google Reader but nobody knows what

Who is losing out?

I used to be logged in all day to reader, which would mean Google get all my searches. Without reader I don't have the incentive to be logged in. So with my cookies being cleared when I closer my browser seems to me that Google are losing out more than me.

Judge nixes Microsoft SkyDrive name in BSkyB court ruling

"Redmond tried to argue that the term "sky" was descriptive"

Like "windows" then?

NSA PRISM snoop-gate: Won't someone think of the children, wails Apple

Numbers

Seems that Microsoft either have better linked accounts than Facebook/Apple or they are more generous with their answers: approx 5 accounts per request vs. 2 for the others.

Or there was one massive fishing expedition. :-)

GCHQ attempts to downplay amazing plaintext password blunder

Banks too?

I've written my PIN down before in amongst a lot of other numbers to disguise it, and then forgotten which 4 digits were the right ones, so I contacted the bank to let them know I'd forgotten it. They sent me a "here is your PIN" letter and it had the same PIN (the digits were in my note). So they must be storing PINs in plain text too.

Furious Stephen Fry blasts 'evil' Reg and 'TW*T' Orlowski

Re: Thank God it's (not) Fryday

No, but it puts her nose out of joint.