* Posts by Richard Taylor 2

765 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Oct 2009

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GCHQ Christmas Card asks YOU the questions

Richard Taylor 2

Re: Actually

Well to be fair it took 5 minutes to code, but I did get a nice ascii picture. Looking at the code again, 10 minutes to code would probably have meant 5 minutes to run, 20 minutes to code and maybe 10s to run :-( but the laptop wasn't doing anything else and I used the time to have a beer

Brit-American hacker duo throws pwns on IoT BBQs, grills open admin

Richard Taylor 2
Happy

Truly a southern hemisphere problem at this time of the year

National Crime Agency: Your kid could be a nasty interwebs hacker

Richard Taylor 2
Thumb Down

Re: Signs for Parents

Link worked fine for me.3 hours ago.

Richard Taylor 2

Re: Signs for Parents

Brilliant - thanks for the pointer

Motorola’s X Force awakens a seemingly ‘shatterproof’ future

Richard Taylor 2

Now if it was also waterproof

Japanese hack gets space probe back on track

Richard Taylor 2

duct tape only holds the world together

Richard Taylor 2
Pint

Re: An astonishing demonstration of patience.

I think an extraordinary degree of patience for all of these deep solar system projects is a prerequisite. Along with understanding, low cunning and a great technical competence.

ASCII @dventure game NetHack gets first upgrade in ten years

Richard Taylor 2

<pedant>

I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, BUT I COULD MURDER A CURRY.

</pedant>

Death never murdered anyone :-)

Six years in the slammer for SilkRoad-skimming secret agent

Richard Taylor 2
Facepalm

Re: If only ...

If only he had been technically competent enough to properly - or even half heartedly (the FIBS may not have noticed) cover his tracks

IBM bats away Australian sueball over billion-dollar-blowout

Richard Taylor 2
Trollface

I could not agree more. Take Carlisle Hospital - a PFI build that while superficially pretty lacks things such as covering over A&E entrances (people entering from or exiting to ambulances frequently get soaked, and even before recent events, folks must have been aware of the Cumbrian rain norm), an electrical and fire system so flaky that there is a permanent monitoring service provided by the local Fire Brigade) and such grossly underestimated parking capacity that cars are parked on every available piece of grass, block roads and ambulance ingress and occupy many of the double red lines with impunity.

Weather finally cooperates with NASA, ISS resupply launch successful

Richard Taylor 2
Pirate

Re: Hot air rises

That's the model with the Shark(tm) Firmware I take it

Revenge porn 'king' Hunter Moore sent down for 2.5 years, fined $2k

Richard Taylor 2
Pirate

Re: Sanctimonious much?

Live by the sword die by the sword

Target settles with banks for $40m after data breach

Richard Taylor 2
Pirate

Ahaa but will they conclude that non security is a cost centre? No, thought not.

Microsoft, US senators want to grease wheels of trade secret theft cases

Richard Taylor 2
Flame

As an interested outsider and occasional resident, one of the quaint features of the US has been the variation in laws across states (extradition between states, state Bar associations) and even counties. Another step in the march towards total federal control?

London councils splurge wildly differing amounts on Oracle software

Richard Taylor 2
Headmaster

Good to see that Jeremy has been briefed in good time

MSFT boffins bust mobile data bottlenecks with iOS app

Richard Taylor 2

Re: IOS app?

It was probably the Singapore team who drove the platform

Microsoft whips out PowerApps – now your Pointy Haired Boss can write software, too!

Richard Taylor 2

Re: Dilbert recycled joke....

The original Dilbert strip

VW's Audi suspends two engineers in air pollution cheatware probe

Richard Taylor 2
Happy

So I can assume you are not a fan of BMW's management culture?

128GB DDR4 DIMMs have landed so double your RAM cram plan

Richard Taylor 2

Re: Pricing

Well you know what the BOFH always says, the best bean counter is a been counter

So why exactly are IT investors so utterly clueless?

Richard Taylor 2

Having spent rather too much time visiting someone in hospital over the las t few months I can concur - semi anecdotally, uncontrolled samples, male only. After the first couple of times, I began to count the number of staff (identified by ID cards) who came into the loos and then attempted to leave without washing their hands. Over

3 months and about 60 logo trips, 1/3of staff tried to leave. I started challenging them (the sinks being conveniently close to the exit. There was an amazing mix of incredulity, denial, excuse and actually abuse. However they'd I'd all make a token approach to hand washing.

I wrote the the head of the trus (yes Cumberland and Westmorland, Carlisle I am talking about you). No answer after 3 weeks. Wrote again last week, but sent it recorded delivery and ccd the Health Care Commision. Just waiting.....

Australian cops rush to stop 2AM murder of … a spider

Richard Taylor 2

Re: Could someone explain the (multiple) phone calls ?

It could have well been a Wolf Spider - their bite can draw (a little) blood. Non venemous though as far as I know

Samsung Gear VR is good. So good 2016 could be year virtual reality finally makes it

Richard Taylor 2

Re: The moment the porn industry gets hold of this..

Deffo anon if you have slapped down a real credit card :-)

Cyber-terror: How real is the threat? Squirrels are more of a danger

Richard Taylor 2

Re: Arf Arf Arf

Paris, because she could be the next President of those United States.

There could be worse. Based on the current runners, GOP and Dems that is.

Richard Taylor 2
Trollface

I hope that critical national infrastructure is a little harder than that which would allow an internet based attack to cause major disruption. However, kill supply chains (to let's just say the five major supermarkets) and within a few days there would be trouble. And they well may be more vulnerable - after all security is just a cost is it not?

Richard Taylor 2

You were lucky. You have to see how much damage two pissed off parrots can do to infrastructure (electrical, computer and doors) to realise your budgie was just starting off. My nearest and dearest assure me that they didn't like their new grub....

Richard Taylor 2

Re: No Kidding!

Bloody right - but with a 'C' ark designed for politicians and senior civil (or not) servants

Richard Taylor 2

Re: It's all about the blinky lights

I solved our rat/mice problem by getting a company cat. We even claimed the VAT back on its food.

No joke. Two cats are important members of our team in a very small development data centre. Their sister does sterling work in our house. Very popular players. And yes, we also get VAT back on food, vets and claim them as a valid expense. We were pulled up by HMRC on this about 2 years ago (a fractional part of a fractional part of 1% of our turnover - but at least HMRC were reading the returns.......)

ps - no cute cat icon?

Paris, jihadis, tech giants ... What is David Cameron's speechwriter banging on about now?

Richard Taylor 2

oxford does not appear to have a good record on promoting critical self awareness

MoJ restarts troubled £250m National Offender management ICT system

Richard Taylor 2

Re: "Restarted"?

Or even on and back off again?

'Hypocritical' Europe is just as bad as the USA for data protection

Richard Taylor 2
Devil

Re: The scum leading the dumb

I'm just surprised this is anonymous. I assume that it is because of one of a number of reasons

- you have run out of sock puppet accounts based on the same IP address (well let's face it, its not worth the money to do even a basic job of obfuscation)

- you really believe it (and are not happy to take advice from others)

- ummmm

- errrrr

(that'senuff. Ed.)

Taxi for NASA! SpaceX to fly astronauts to space station

Richard Taylor 2

Re: Boo, hiss

The US seems to have been up front on their losses. Was the USSR actually being honest - or alternatively did they have a superior safety process combined with technology? Just wondering.

Who's running dozens of top-secret unpatched databases? The Dept of Homeland Security

Richard Taylor 2

Re: Surprised? Nah

I think Twain was rather smarter than the average flea (or Congressman)

Dell PCs to be never knowingly undersold by John Lewis this Chrimbo

Richard Taylor 2

As a consumer (are many of us not), John Lewis seem to have pretty good prices (not the lowest, but then at least you know who you are handing your CC over to), seem to extend warranties to make up for part of that, but importantly don't quibble about warranties and get of their arses and collect/fix. Two recent examples, a Sony television (lovely picture, shame it stopped working) and a Lenovo laptop. Both collected, repaired/replaced with little hassle.

I don't have a financial interest, but maybe a little extra cash to get a better service is sometimes worth it?

Kids' tech skills go backwards thanks to tablets and smartmobes

Richard Taylor 2

Re: As an ICT teacher I am not surprised

If you want to get fancy AND truthful, maybe you could call them "micropayment experts" (generally involving someone else's credit card)...

The teams working on micropayments (except for a few specialised high volume chaps and chapesses) are the ones at the bottom of the pile.

Richard Taylor 2

Re: Those tasks are *bullshit*

Web designer, a skill?

Well given the differences between well designed web sites and the majority - yes, I would say there is skill there

TalkTalk boss on Joe Garner exit, Virgin Media support for Openreach and THAT attack

Richard Taylor 2
Facepalm

But we know the answer to that would be 'don't be silly, don't you know how this business is run?'

Next-gen killer hurricane hunter to be armed with Nvidia graphics chips

Richard Taylor 2

Re: Is it the resolution or the model itself?

Quite. While I have no experience of climate modelling directly, I spent many years working on problems in numerical analysis, generally related to fluids. On many (not a few) occasions I saw groups led astray by concentrating on improving resolution through both code optimisation and improved machine performance. While these can help, throwing more resources at the wrong (sub) questions can result in a lot of wasted time.

Of course the US group might just have been unlucky with some of their initial conditions, rather than necessarily worse than the European team.

The Edward Snowden guide to practical privacy

Richard Taylor 2

Or the mic in the non working shower (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Frontier_(novel) - 1959)

Richard Taylor 2

Re: TAILS

Or a dog/cat fancier (other species are available)

Tor Project: US government paid university $1m bounty to hack our networks

Richard Taylor 2
Trollface

Fascinating. While I can see the reasons for developing TOR to further publicly declared US interests in free speech (overseas at least), I assume that the NSA were keeping a careful eye out and that it would not be allowed to come back and bite them on the buttox? Although I suppose that has worked well in similar 'well meaning' interventions - such as support for a nascent Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan?

TalkTalk hired BAE Systems' infosec bods before THAT hack

Richard Taylor 2
Facepalm

Re: "and previously told investors it had "completed" a security audit."

No, they passed the formal audit....

Multinationals hiding more than half a trillion from G20 tax collectors

Richard Taylor 2

Re: Well this answers one question

BND is directed by politicians on (about to be) on multinational payrolls.

TFTFY

E.ON fined £7m for smart meter fail

Richard Taylor 2

Re: Successful government IT projects

There are a set of systems running in a certain doughnut that seem to make many people in gubbimint happy - do these count?

Facebook brings creepy ’Minority Report’-style ads one step closer

Richard Taylor 2

Re: Facebook...

On a related note, there have been a couple of recorded incidents in the UK of enterprising thieves stealing high end bicycles by combining publicly available "map my ride" profiles (to approximate start/stop locations, and other social info.

Coding with dad on the Dragon 32

Richard Taylor 2

Re: Learning.

Z80?

NASA photo gallery: How to blow $200m of rocket in seconds

Richard Taylor 2

Re: Ultimate goal

I question that cats are intelligent. Who did they choose for servants?

Dumb animals of course - uhhhh

Met signs up Atos as second outsourcing 'service integrator'

Richard Taylor 2

Yup, with Atos running it, self service will be the only option - except that security requirements will prevent anyone form doing anything than the traditional turn it off and on again.

TalkTalk offers customer £30.20 'final settlement' after crims nick £3,500

Richard Taylor 2
Devil

Re: help..

Absolutely. My father (in his eighties and a bit of a sucker for some of these things - I discouraged him from online banking and have a reasonable protocol in place with the Bank - HSBC actually, might be bad at some things but good here) had a problem with BT. Having failed to get them to realise that a £250 (yup £250) cancellation charge for a service he was persuaded to sign up for but which could never be delivered I went the OFCOM route and ccd BTs customer services. Within 72 hours, following a note from OFCOM requesting further details, BT cancelled the contract - without either apology or charge.

Get the facts right and inform OFCOM.

Richard Taylor 2
Unhappy

Lots lots more. Next question....

Music lovers move to block Phil Collins' rebirth

Richard Taylor 2
Happy

Re: I'll Sign Anything

Poor introduction to coke for your 13 year old daughter I suspect?

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