Posts by g00se

Hardcoded god-mode code found in RSA 2016 badge-scanning app

Bigger fail

The password found within the app's code allowed the hackers to access the app’s settings. From there they tapped into the phone's system settings ...

Worse than leaving a hard-coded password in the app, why on earth should breaking in to application-level code be able to lead on to (what should be) OS-level access?

NSA boss reveals top 3 security nightmares that keep him awake at night

Is that American Dad?

Hint: None of them are Apple

None of them IS Apple

FTFY

You're a cybercrime kingpin. You need a new evil lackey. How much do you tell them?

We're not actually evil

You're a cybercrime kingpin. You need a new evil lackey. How much do you tell them?

Err .. "we're called Google"?

Brits unveil 'revolutionary' hydrogen-powered car

Cheap at the price

fuel consumption of around "250 mpg (equivalent)

Not bad! So a journey of 250 miles is going to cost me about £3.79 (a litre of petrol being roughly £1 at value stations) then?

Your anger is our energy, says Microsoft as it fixes Surface

Your call is important to us

feedback from our customers is really important to the team and to me personally. I read the blogs, I read the comments, I read social media ...

Pity they don't react to the reception of the spyware control-freak platform that's Windows 10

Firemen free chap's todger from four-ring chokehold

Firemen != mass noun

The year before, the same hospital saw no less than eight firemen...

You mean "no fewer"

Microsoft hits the gas in drive to recruit autistic techies

What about management?

OTOH, they're looking for people high on the sociopathic spectrum for management. Qualities sought include:

a. no empathy with customers or regard for their best interests and wishes

b. a complete lack of conscience/remorse

c. ability to view humans as merely potential profit centres and datamines

...

Go phish your own staff: Dev builds open-source fool-testing tool

Recursive phishing

So, as these become more popular will we see management getting fake anti-phishing (i.e. phishing) links?

Random ideas sought to improve cryptography

Re: Reliable way to check the output

Things like stenography can be detected when comparing to original source (if available else where) etc.

You mean, say, by traces of nail polish from a secretary?

Pay up, Lincolnshire, or your data gets it. Systems still down after ransomware hits

Sisyphean

Our office currently gets about 50 emails a day which are not picked up by the a/v at the ISP, the different a/v on the gateway nor the a/v on the desktop. Many of these look like ...

All very commendable, not to say heroic. So why exactly are you still using Windows?

Cops hate encryption but the NSA loves it when you use PGP

Show me

0000000: 8501 0c03 4c8c 9506 6833 55b6 0107 fd16 ....L...h3U.....

0000010: 2597 49f8 0cb1 3621 075c 3ce1 b32a 67b7 %.I...6!.\<..*g.

0000020: 2347 a773 fa6a 4376 3717 be53 959b 01a1 #G.s.jCv7..S....

0000030: 702d 3ff6 4375 579d 0931 7d5e dcb8 ec7a p-?.CuW..1}^...z

0000040: ca88 d7ed cab4 64cb 70be 9578 ec54 a31b ......d.p..x.T..

0000050: 24dd 40f2 e268 ba64 d843 d021 d7e9 fd2e $.@..h.d.C.!....

0000060: 8e84 a0c5 9eaf ceb7 dd42 6af4 7cb5 dcde .........Bj.|...

0000070: 66cc 8e40 580d ff4d caf3 fad6 f175 756c f..@X..M.....uul

0000080: 8e1a 83ac aab0 025c 85d9 98e5 3ea6 e7a5 .......\....>...

0000090: d0ef ac66 636b a7ca b0ed f07f dc68 0b74 ...fck.......h.t

00000a0: 0ce2 a74e 3980 55c5 64ae a648 090d 83d1 ...N9.U.d..H....

00000b0: 2a4d baa6 74d0 7dae 2b71 437c d6af aa94 *M..t.}.+qC|....

00000c0: 7c0d 4879 95ab bc8f 6302 748a 844a ceea |.Hy....c.t..J..

00000d0: d592 951b 92cb 8f12 b92b 8af8 87e8 354e .........+....5N

00000e0: cd10 ced4 931e 6eae e480 3569 677c 4f96 ......n...5ig|O.

00000f0: e1cd 235b e849 eb0b 393e e864 f7ed 1a12 ..#[.I..9>.d....

0000100: 682c 4805 c59c ed34 ad12 d474 66a1 efd2 h,H....4...tf...

0000110: 4f01 0af7 b6cc c977 1bc5 45dd 68ba b276 O......w..E.h..v

0000120: e447 423c d239 20e3 f212 182c 54a0 c345 .GB<.9 ....,T..E

0000130: 41a9 684e 6458 857c 00c0 1e09 6aa6 26b0 A.hNdX.|....j.&.

0000140: 271e 84ac fafe 649d 9872 78d1 9bef 15f8 '.....d..rx.....

0000150: d6ca 046f 6ef8 1edd fac4 55a1 95e0 e8d7 ...on.....U.....

The above is a dump of a gpg-encrypted file containing 16 famous digits. I must be missing something - where are the metadata there?

Facebook brings European cats' snaps closer to home with £151m Irish data centre

Feline photos

Facebook brings European cats' snaps ...

I didn't know cats take photographs ...

Apple's Tim Cook rocks up at Vatican - one week after Schmidt

Papal endorsement

Bookending such a pair of tech heavy weights has sparked much debate over what the Vatican is up to.

Or what Tim (a better candidate for the appellation "Whore of Babylon") Cook is up to. Come on guys - follow the money!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/15/apple_irish_apple/

Drydex malware busting bursting British business bank balances

Lower wool content for sec issues please

and is detected by only a handful of antivirus platforms.

WHICH handful?

Evil OpenSSH servers can steal your private login keys to other systems – patch now

Verb and noun

Then when you next login,

No, no, no! The verbal form is TWO words. What you've got is a noun

Microsoft’s Get Windows 10 nagware shows signs of sentience

Painful reading

Reading these comments is (largely) like eavesdropping on a Stockholm syndrome sufferers support group. Come on!! Break the cycle

Windows 10 makes big gains at home, lags at work

Re: Why keep reporting these stats

I myself am near a 100% Linux person

I hope the odour isn't bothering you

Confirmed: How to stop Windows 10 forcing itself onto PCs – your essential guide

Re: Endemic of the whole Windows 10 effort

Windows Feedback is full of upvoted "stop trying to control this for me" messages, so it appears a general problem.

If it's any consolation (see my Convergence Alert comments elsewhere) Linux is getting like that too with "Don't worry your pretty head about how systemd works or its specs - it just does" or "don't worry that systemd logging is binary and will be well and truly fscked if things get corrupted - it just won't happen" and the like.

Re: Paying for Windows 10 after July

That would have too many complications for them; they'd get sued for deceptive marketing promises faster than you can say "class action", for one thing.

But you'd think that would already have happened. It hasn't - in any significant way.

How long is your password? HTTPS Bicycle attack reveals that and more

My password has twenty five symbols. Be my guest

Surface Pro 4: Will you go the F**K to SLEEP?

Re: But does it run...

afaicr 'mandatory' secure boot is illegal on anything other than ARM

Microsoft releases major PowerShell update after long preview

Re: Conversion alert

Oops - should have been Convergence alert

Conversion alert

Snover, you could argue, is trying to make Windows more like Linux.

And Sievers and Poettering, you could argue, are trying to make Linux more like Windows

IT bloke: Crooks stole my bikes after cycling app blabbed my address

Privacy

a. you elect to carry an electronic tag

b. you elect to publish details of your tag

What could possibly go wrong?

Cyber security buck stops with me, says Dido Harding

Re: Double ROT-13 is not good enougth

Not having the data in the first place. Which I believe was her point about the "tokenisation" of the credit card numbers - apparently they explicitly did not save six of the digits which make them usable.

Except that they DID have (some of) the data, which means that they could be used in a social engineering attack which is most certainly a 'format' above encryption, not below it.

Gamer ransomware grows up, now infecting UK, Euro businesses

Only three of 55 antivirus products detect the ransomware through static VirusTotal analysis, however this is not necessarily indicative of real-world dynamic scanning results.

Why not? Have enterprises access to better/different AVs? Or is it fewer than three in the real world?

Steve Jobs mural highlights plight of Syrian refugees

"The son of a migrant from Syria."

If there's anything likely to make me start feeling a little kippery about the issue, it will be that picture+caption

Microsoft drops internal PowerShell tests on GitHub

Re: So would it be possible?

Yes and it would be possible for the good guys to see how the bad guys could bork it and therefore help to harden it

Visual Studio Code: How to integrate Git

SSH?

Git, afaik, needs SSH. Teaching Windows to do that is a bit like getting a cat to bark isn't it?

Doctor Who: Nigel Farage-alike bogey beast terrorises in darkly comic Sleep No More

Singular

Shearsmith and another League of Gentleman alumni, Steve Pemberton,

The word you want is alumnus. The one used above is the plural form.

Prison telco recorded inmates' lawyer-client calls, hack reveals

Desirable info

That's why i posted THIS ;)

Oz e-health privacy: after a breach is too late

Re: "[the system] couldn't handle names with apostrophes"

Or maybe they over-sanitized? Perhaps it also disallows the surname Tables? Sorry Bobby, you're out of luck ...

Let's get to the bottom of in-app purchases that go titsup

Re: Sacrebleu

Indeed. Similarly Alan Harper's mother's definition of chiropractor in Two and a Half Men:

That's a masseuse without the hot oil.

(Rhymes with 'moose')

Re: Totally irrelevant fact

... and Java was invented for set top boxes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set-top_box

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

Template

In order to resolve the situation, my proposals are to take the following actions: Unfortunately I would not be able to waive your contract breakage fee if you decide to leave TalkTalk.

The jarring non-sequitur there a dead give away that's a template letter. Couldn't be bothered to write a personalised one. Another masterstroke of customer relations management.

Flickering screens turn Microsoft Surface Books into Microsoft Surface paperweights

Multipurpose

Brilliant! So in addtion to doubling as radiators*, some are now doubling as disco lights.

* A friend has had two from John Lewis and with each he said he could feel the heat coming off the screen

RBS promises 'safe, secure, confidential' info-sharing on Facebook at Work

Re: Bonkers!

Coming next - Facebook For Convicts

What could possibly go wrong?

I wonder what the nature of the information likely to be circulated only amongst employees of a bank on a social networking app could be? Obviously nothing sensitive ...

Mostly Harmless: Google Project Zero man's verdict on Windows 10

Roger Irrelevant

Funny - discussing the security of Windows 10 now seems to be a bit like talking about how strong the deckchairs are on the Titanic ...

WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

See, I told you Gimp was just as good as Photoshop. Rotate 180° - no problem!

On its way: A Google-free, NSA-free IT infrastructure for Europe

Re: MUA

?? Are you perhaps confusing OX and OS X?

MUA

In the OX mail client a traffic light indicates the relative security of the sender. Green for trusted. Gmail remains permanently lit red.

Where do i get this colourful mail client and where do i get its source code. Because obviously it IS open source, right?

Assange™ offered 'plans for escape by flying fox to Harrods'

someone who's obviously flaunting your laws to escape your justice?

That would tend to reinforce them. I think you mean flouting

WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

Mum told us to go and do something healthy outdoors. Good thing she's not listening...

Hash-tag CompSci: FBI grooms pre-weed teens

Desperation

FBI director James Comey told the White Collar Crime Institute that recruitment was a nuisance as "some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview".

Put out that joint boy! Join us in the mission to rid the world of the evil that is marijuana publicly-available strong encryption.

WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

Moses told me to get one of these. His tablet was just too prohibitive

PEAK FONDLESLAB: Fewer people will use tablets next year – claim

Triumph of form over content

High time fewer people were buying these hobbled netbooks, or at least just the probably miniscule few who actually have a genuine use case.

WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

I.T. here. Can you show us your Support Level please?

Krafcik takes wheel at Google driverless car project, so to speak

Faster, faster, faster!

Your metaphor had me fooled. I was fantasizing about switching in SatNad instead of the gentleman in question and setting up 0wning the car's controls as a black hatters' convention challenge ...

Donald Trump? No, it's BRAD SMITH for president (of Microsoft)

Trusted computing

"People won't use technology they don't trust," Smith said. "And so for us, it's an imperative as a company that we put trust at the core of technology."

Whoops ... too late