Posts by heyrick

Shopped recently in a small online store? Check this list to see if it was one of 570 websites infected with card-skimming Magecart

"single use virtual credit cards"

Doesn't your bank provide that? Mine does - link to info (in French). It's the only sensible way to pay for stuff online.

Re: 40000

orange.com, FFS!

Social media giants move to defy Hong Kong's new national security law

Re: Not only

Yet.

Three UK: We're sending you this SMS to warn you not to pay attention to unsolicited texts

It's as bad as the banks

Sending emails telling you never to follow links in messages claiming to be from the bank...

...followed by a big link button to go to your account.

I kind of wonder if anybody who clicks the link has some sort of "UserIsATwat" flag set on their account?

When a deleted primary device file only takes 20 mins out of your maintenance window, but a whole year off your lifespan

Re: You know you've been reading El Reg too long…

You know you've been reading too long when you just nod in sympathy and mumble "uh-huh".

Re: Windows 95 was still new...

"I was 13 at the time and a totally noob with computers"

And, yet, you likely knew more about what was necessary than the authors of those "fix Windows" programs.

Before letting anything near my real machine, I'd give it a whirl on an old box running a basic installation (era of 98SE ~ XP). My god, I don't think I found one single registry cleaner that didn't make things worse. One of them made such a mess Windows threw a BSOD on booting.

Accordingly, my machine's registry might be cluttered and suboptimal, but it hasn't been wrecked by some half-assed attempt to "repair" it.

Serious question from a non Unix person

"The file space isn't reclaimed as long as the file is held open by some process."

How does the system actually manage to delete a file that something has open and active? Surely any sensible filesystem should refuse to delete an open file?

Think of a number: A tale of iffy discount codes, supermarket loyalty cards and Hotels.com

selling the discount codes for between £200 and £750

Wait, what?

They were selling them for their face value? What the hell is the point of that?!?

Dutch national broadcaster saw ad revenue rise when it stopped tracking users. It's meant to work like that, right?

RTB is fascinating

Advertising is the art of making money through bullshit. Reduces the signs of aging, nine out of ten budgerigars prefer it, clinically proven...

Now along comes RTB which is a whole new way to make money out of bullshit, but what is being sold is somebody else's bullshit. It's like double plus bullshit equals kerching. [*]

It's fascinating, all this money being created out of hot air and waffle, that ultimately makes products cost more, a price that we end up paying unless we take the attitude that companies that advertise aggressively have to overcharge for their product in order to cover costs, and thus refuse to buy from aggressive advertisers.

* - My phone's swipe-type autocorrect wanted to replace "kerching" with "leeching". My phone understands. That is all.

Re: Dear Advertisers,

"billions of clicks from your less enlightened brethren beg to differ…"

Billions, huh?

You know the population of this planet, right?

And you know how many of them have a computer and internet access, right?

And you know how many actually see your advert and understand what it says enough to want to click on it, right?

Right?

'Cos, I think you'll find, those billions of clicks came from excited webcams and underappreciated toasters. Because, come on, what toaster doesn't dream of having a pristine slice of Hovis gently slid inside of itself? {click} {click} {click}

Re: 'Relevant' ads

"Perhaps the targeting just doesn't work very well."

The targeting doesn't have to actually work, it just has to look convincing enough to justify the publisher taking their hefty cut.

Happy privacy action day in California: If you don't have 'Do not sell my information' in your website footer, you need to read this story right now

he criticized the slow enforcement of Europe’s GDPR

Funny, given that it's his country's (frequently his state's) megacorps that are the problem, that hide behind bullshit privacy shields and of course the "we're in a different country they doesn't follow your laws (you follow ours)" issue.

And what's this with being "sold"? There's a vast gaping chasm between collecting and processing personal data, and selling it. Probably a chasm large enough to create plenty of loopholes to keep lawyers busy, and we're not all Max Schrems. Most of us, faced with that, won't bother.

MIT apologizes, permanently pulls offline huge dataset that taught AI systems to use racist, misogynistic slurs

"Computer".

It explains why nerds don't mate well. Some things, it seems, remain a perplexing predicament.

I mean, it's clearly some sort of input/output port, right?

Re: This is a problem in general

You did turn off search sanitising, right?

This is a problem in general

Google (images) for "cute girl" and notice how "cute" seems to be a metaphor for "naked", and usually the sort of person you wouldn't want to take home to meet the parents, thus implying some alien unrecognised definition of the word cute.

Apple said to be removing charger, headphones from upcoming iPhone 12 series

burn so fast I make gingers look like Morgan Freeman...

If there's a vote for the comment soundbite of the year, can I nominate this?

Re: There is no price...

"I've got dozens of USB chargers and several pairs of headphones kicking around as they often outlive their original device."

Me too. So instead of wondering where chargers and such are, I have one in the bedroom, one by the computer, one in the living room...

It's worth noting, however, that only two of them are capable of stepping up to 9V for fast charge, and only three of them are up to charging the tablet.

That being said, can I find the right USB cable? Can I heck. I went on Amazon and got this brilliant cable that has lightning, USB C, and micro USB all together. Got a couple of those that stay with the charger so whatever needs a charge can get it without the "dammit this one is USB C" problem.

As for earphones, I'm currently using proper Bluetooth headphones as ear lugs sound rubbish, often fall out, and don't last very long at all. Plus, I now have a lovely noise cancelling pair that is brilliant for using when mowing (context: it's a ride-on and a full mow takes a little under three hours).

"BMW drivers, Audi drivers and people who should never be allowed behind the wheel."

So, basically: BMW drivers, Audi drivers, and everybody else?

And, of course, the price will be reduced accordingly, right?

Apple: We're defending your privacy by nixing 16 browser APIs. Rivals: You mean defending your bottom line

other APIs that can be abused

Browsers really ought to put toggle switches on all of these, so the end users can decide whether or not they are available.

The amount of secret sauce being hidden in a piece of software that is then routinely used by god knows how many third party scripts is... disturbing.

Brit police's use of facial-recognition tech is lawful, no need to question us, cops' lawyer tells Court of Appeal

Re: This is legislation which affects everyone, immediately and continuously

"but rather a citizen wide vote"

Yeah, because democracy by referendum works so well...

Re: So now

"And what if you happen to look a bit like someone on the wanted list?"

This wasn't even creepy cam. This was just black dude and his father on bikes who just happened to match the description of a recent nearby stabbing where the assaillants were described as...tada...two black guys on bikes.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/28/black-teenager-on-family-cycle-ride-injured-during-aggressive-police-arrest

Now imagine how well this is going to go when a machine is connected to various cameras, trying to identify everybody it sees, and periodically screams "WITCHES!". Especially when you consider that such systems are notoriously poor at distinguishing people who aren't white.

Fasten your seat belts: Brave Reg hack spends a week eating airline food grounded by coronavirus crash

Re: Would I eat airline curry?

"Which always made me wonder why they called it a peach flan?"

Because it's supposed to be a peach flan, but is bulked out with apple because it's cheaper.

Apple and my digestion don't get on well, so I tend to look for where things have apple stuffed in like that. You'd be surprised how often it happens.

Re: So who decides what is necessary?

"The guys actually now able to control your heating from their desk"

Indirectly, perhaps, if they decide to switch to a spot pricing model and bully people into using less.

Otherwise, a smart meter simply reports back on electricity consumption (per day, per hour, or minute, whatever). It doesn't adjust heating, or how many lights are on, or anything else. Especially if you have gas heating in which case the electric bit is just a pump...

It's National Cream Tea Day and this time we end the age-old debate once and for all: How do you eat yours?

Re: I solved this when I was eight

"-own is a rhyme with "clown" or "down" except in the standalone word "own". English is like that.

Sown. Blown. Known. Thrown. Overgrown. Shown. Mown.....

English is like that.

Re: I solved this when I was eight

"No one has ever used those pronunciations."

What you've demonstrated is that writing stuff out phonetically in a way that normal people can read (because not everybody is familiar with IPA) is...actually quite difficult.

I've heard "s-cone" (rhymes with blown). I've also heard "skun" (rhymes with stun). And as you mention it, there's also "skon" (rhymes with gone). Origins? Perhaps regional. Tea rooms in the Cotswolds, and also around Bodmin/Padstow.

I solved this when I was eight

Cut scone in half. Jam on one half, cream on the other. Order of coverings is whichever is closest goes on first. Slam the two halves together, and eat while starting a conflict [*] amongst the other patrons as to whether it's said like "sk-own" or like "sk-un".

* You know it's getting bad when people start putting their tea cups down with sufficient force to make the waitresses visibily wince, and start raising voices. Who'd have imagined such drama in a tea room?

An unfortunate bit of product placement for Microsoft as Liverpool celebrates winning some silverware

Re: Clarification

"Americans don't insist on call that sport football, they just call it football."

They insist, because from what I've seen of it on any number of American movies, they pick up the damn ball, toss it to each other, and then cross a seemingly arbitrary movable line, lob it to the ground, and then half the audience cheers. There's very little kicking of the ball. You know, with the feet, that might otherwise justify calling the game football.

I mean, jeez, it basically looks like rugby being played by crash-test dummies.

One year ago, Apple promised breakthrough features to help iPhone, iPad, Mac owners with disabilities. It failed them

Re: Voice control for the mute

I knew a guy with...I think it was a Nokia...back in the late '90s. It wasn't smart, it wasn't feature. But it did have the ability to learn and recognise words in order to call people by name. And since you had to say the word a few times to train it, no problem with accents.

He spent a fair chunk of change calling the wrong people, however, as he trained the names to be words like "twat", "bender", and "pillock". Of course, he could never remember what twat was the bender and what pillock was the twat. As for his wife, that was a phrase sometimes said while goose-stepping with the right arm held up. And he called somebody else a twat.......

Re: Accessibility

"at a time when Android treated accessibility as an afterthought (and still does, honestly)"

Not strictly accessibility, but I'm still flabbergasted that using a British layout Bluetooth keyboard with Android won't let me directly enter the majority of French accents.

My God, XP had this sorted twenty years ago, RISC OS had this sorted thirty years ago. Android? Uh........

Re: What are the penalties for excluding disabled people?

"making this accessible for screen readers is too much work"

Is there a free screen reader / TTS browser that runs on Android? I'd be interested to see how my own site fares.

Re: Lack of engagement with disable people

"they actually employ several of them"

There's a big difference between virtue signalling "we employ some disabled people" and "we have disabled people involved in the design process so we can be sure all this stuff will work for the (very) ability impaired".

Re: Lack of Support

"Similar problems exist in other apps that have been around for ever"

In the days of iOS 6/7, I gave up on asking Apple about the ability to _tell_ Siri where one is located, because hardware without GPS has no way of telling the system where the user is, so asking basic things like "what will the weather be like" is met with "I don't know where you are".

It's part of why I have the iPad to my mother and stuck with Android myself. Too many stupid little problems like that which nobody seemed interested in acknowledging, never mind fixing.

and the mainstream media reported it uncritically

El Reg, more than anyone, ought to understand the grudge that the Big Pomme can hold against any journalist who dares to report critically.

CompSci student bitten by fox after feeding it McNuggets

"Seems crazy that they haven't already tried to eradicate them."

Well, both students survived. That probably counts as "damn near tame" in Aussie terms.

Seems crazy to rid a place of wild animals because some students failed to appreciate the "wild" part.

Maybe there is hope for 2020: AI that 'predicts criminality' from faces with '80% accuracy, no bias' gets in the sea

Re: Criminality

"crime is experienced and managed in a social context"

Indeed. What is the saying? Something like...

Kill a person, you're a murderer. Kill ten, you're a serial killer. Kill a thousand, you're a commander. Kill a million, you're an emperor.

Re: Body language

"be arrested for an arrestable offense"

Oh, I think recent videos have demonstrated that the police are quite capable of going from "what are you doing" to "assume the position motherfuggler" in about three heartbeats. All they need to do is escalate to the merest suggestion of violence (like you putting your hands up and saying "what the hell, man?") and there you go, an arrestable offence. Easy peasy.

When you bork... through a storm: Liverpool do all they can to take advantage of summer transfer, er, Windows

Re: Newcaastle

At least he was nice enough to recycle so somebody else could have a go...

Windows fails to reach the Finnish line as Helsinki signage pleads for help

Re: Is Finland part of Russia?

"only a fraction of all people will ever use Linux"

What you mean to say is "only a fraction of all people will ever know they're using Linux".

Because more people use Linux than use Windows. They just don't know it.

Re: How condescending

I wish I could upvote this an integer overflow number of times.

That message just really rubs me the wrong way. It's aiming for chummy and hits patronising.

Facebook accused of trying to bypass GDPR, slurp domain owners' personal Whois info via an obscure process

That’s not the answer that’s going to work for us.

Having industrial data monetisers rummage around domain registration data is just not an answer that is going to work for me.

Faxing hell: The cops say they would very much like us to stop calling them all the time

"I doubt kids these days would even know what a fax IS, let alone what one sounds like..."

The company I work for, here in France, still uses fax for order confirmations (well, it's a photocopier with intelligence actually) because emails are unreliable and there's not a great paper trail. Armed with a document and a cover report showing a mini version of it, when it was sent, and to what phone number, it's a pretty solid piece of CMA armoury. Email just doesn't compare...

Re: Fax as scanner.

"get the fax-modem to take the call on another extension"

Hmm, a 9V battery, some capacitors, a few bits of wire, and two phone sockets. Set one fax to manually send, the other to manually receive...

Later on, I "scanned" a pile of business documents using the fax, my fake phone line, and a faxmodem. Company owner was too cheap to buy a real scanner...

Way back when...

I used to live near Aldershot. The home phone number was one digit different to the... I guess it was CID or something. Wasn't the normal cop shop, it was whoever the fuzz called when things went pear shaped.

So I'd answer and they, the polite buggers that they are, would immediately hang up. Loudly. So I'd count to ten and when the phone rang again would pick up instantly and tell them "you wrote the number down wrongly, go check it".

Usually that was enough. It happened two or three times a month, so I'm guessing it was written down wrongly on a noticeboard or something.

I was pushed on one occasion, thanks to belligerence (must have been management) to answer the phone with "trying the same thing multiple times and hoping for a different result of a sign of madness".

Facebook's $500k deepfake-detector AI contest drama: Winning team disqualified on buried consent technicality

Re: If the contest was for designing the AI...

"one team might be able to use training data from grainy cctv while another team needs pristine mug shots"

In that case, mugshot team is inferior. Grainy rubbish shots with poor lighting and wonky colour balance are normal. Failing to handle those is failing.

"where people are merely micro-optmising for the rules"

Not really. There's an easy way around that. Give everybody the same test data. Then make it very clear that when determining the effectiveness of the solution, it will be evaluated with a different set of test data that is not disclosed beforehand, using the data learned from the first data set.

That way, the teams will have incentive to make something that can actually recognise, rather than performing very well with specific predetermined images.

Re: Conflicted

"I'm real conflicted on this one."

I'm not, because we ought to assume that Facebook will be more than happy to use the winning code...training it with data pilfered from their own service, not from elsewhere.

The excuse given, especially coming from Facebook, is just a way of stiffing the winners.

Ex-director cops community service after 5,000-file deletion spree on company Dropbox

Bulley got off lightly

What gets me about this is the sheer utter stupidity of keeping all of these important company documents in a Dropbox.

I can understand putting some things there for access on the road, or whatever, but to lose thousands of files and a hundred grand for the want of a fifty dollar harddisc, or maybe a couple of SD cards...?

You simply do not put your entire business at the whims of a third party. If this data was that important, copies should be made, and kept. And I don't mean "stuff it into the cloud".

Hey is trying a new take on email – but maker complains of 'outrageous' demands after Apple rejects iOS app

Re: RE: quxinot

"a word that defines absolutely nothing"

Quirky is a polite way of saying weird.

Only true boffins will be able to grasp Blighty's new legal definitions of the humble metre and kilogram

Re: Oh dear...poor use of symbols and units

"Her Britannic Majesty's government did the proof-reading"

Well, there's your mistake. By the time it goes from boffin to government official, it's been passed across a dozen desks, watered down, tweaked, prodded just for the sake of it, and I'd check those numbers just in case somebody rounded it off "because it looks complicated".