Posts by Yet Another Anonymous coward

How STEVE JOBS saved Apple's bacon with an outstretched ARM

Re: An interesting recap of history for those who did not live through it.

By being listed their holdings are publicaly available and there are strict and well enforced rules to prevent Samsung/Apple/Intel etc owning more than a certain percentage without announcing a formal takeover and triggering a shitload of regulatory / competition investigation.

If they were private then Dr Evil could secretly buy them and hold the word to ransom for $1Million. Which is why ARM is only viable if everybody knows who owns them

Visual Studio 2013: 50 Shades of Grey not a worry for MONSTER dev TOOL

Re: Visual Studio

vi and make - are the weapon of a Jedi, an elegant weapon of a more civilized age

GCHQ was called in to crack password in Watkins child abuse case

Re: Rainbow tables

Unless elcom have made some amazing breakthroughs in maths that the NSA/CIA/KGB/MMB are unaware of - they cannot 'break' the encryption they can only brute force it by guessing your password.

Bitlocker almost certainly has a backdoor, and given Microsoft's history of security it is probably "NSA123".

Currently Truecrypt is probably your safest bet for keeping things secret. Don't worry they will just convict you of something else instead or accidentally shoot you on the tube if they can't break it.

Truecrypt is open source and can be built entirely from source. The binary download most people use is signed so that it can be loaded as a device driver on MSFT. The source does contain a binary blob which contains the initiialisation vectors of some of the crypto routines but you are free to replace them with your own.

There is a project underway to validate Truecrypt's source. Even if there are no deliberate backdoors it is still possible that mistakes have been made in the implementation.

Re: Fai play...

Because a government resource like GCHQ also has the resources to place the files there and request that the hosting company generate logs that show they were there for years.

I look forward to the discovery of lots of Alex Salmon's online files if the vote looks tight.

BBC's 3D blunder BLASTED OUR BRAINS – Doctor Who fans

Re: I sometimes wish to doG the BBC would open up a studio in Sydney.

As part of the deal over Scottish independence I think we get Australia back, so it could happen.

Re: Like, ahem, cooking pr0n and talent shows.

>perhaps they could supply different viewer groups suitable programmes on different channels?

That wouldn't take advantage of new technology.

Why don't they use 3D to supply different shows to different eyes?

That way your right brain could get Melvin Bragg while your left brain gets Trinny and Sue Bake Swap Makeover challenge

Microsoft bans XXXXBOX gamers for CURSING in online combat

Writing fags on bombs used in the limited police action in Afghanistan is still naughty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fag_bomb

Romance is dead: Part-time model slings $1.5bn SUEBALL at Match.com

Slightly obvious flaw in the plan

Doesn't there come a a point on the first date where the couple have to explain to each other why they don't look quite as much like Tom Cruise/Paris Hilton as their profile picture would suggest?

Angela Merkel's phone was being listened in on by FIVE foreign powers

Re: Take it as a compliment, Angela...

Alex Salmon has officially complained to the N Koreans that he wasn't being spied on.

Tiny, invisible EXTRATERRESTRIAL INVADERS appear at South Pole

Re: Won't somebody think of the chil... neutrinos

Worse being a photon. You travel across the universe for 13billion years, find the telescope, reflect off the mirror, get through the band pass filter, happen to be in the few seconds when the shutter is open - and then hit a dead patch between two pixels.

Re: Maybe I'm dense but..

Umpteen gazillion particles came from outside the solar system - 28 happened to stop in this cubic km of ice, another 28 (or so) will have stopped in the ice above it and more in the ice next door.

When the nearby supernova went off in 1987 we detected a total of 24 neutrinos in all the detectors on Earth, the model is that something like 10^60 neutrinos were created in the star.

NSW privacy exemption shares personal data with private sector

Re: Canada was first

The police decide what behaviour means a future criminal - viewing gangsta videos on youtube, listening to that sinful rock and roll music or not accessing their local church web site enough.

They pass that information onto the private sector who share it with anyone that seems profitable.

Suppose the Manitoba drug network data was shared with your bank, with employment agencies, with travel insurance companies, with car insurance etc - what would be wrong with that?

US govt cuts squeeze crucial computer science, shoot country in foot

Re: computing the value of computing

Another way of looking at it.

When HPC was dependant on government you simply wrote a bigger check to Cray each year and 5years later got a new Cray twice as powerfull as the old one.

When the DoE/DoD stopped writing blank checks to Cray we got a massive increase in innovation in clusters/GPU/FPGA etc

.

So we should thank Holywood and players of GTA for any new improvements.

Intel on the alert: Thick, acrid smog in China, India is EATING servers

Simplifed semiconductor fab

Apply mask to wafer

Open window to etch wafer

Wash

repeat

Native Americans were actually European - BEFORE the Europeans arrived!

Re: "....Native Americans were in part merely an earlier wave of European colonisation,"

That's why I always put "African ancestory" on forms.

Re: Awaiting politics.

Same thing applies everywhere.

We have had a 1000years of Norman/Southern oppression which is still continuing - and we don't get Casinos.

Time to throw off the oppressors, kill anyone called Piers and take back our land.

Re: Awaiting politics.

Obviously if native Americans and Europeans had common ancestors then Europeans get to run casinos as well.

Although apparently it's racist to claim that 1st nations came from Africa via Asia via an Alaskan land bridge. Their sincerely held beliefs are that they originated here on the land and so have absolute rights to it.

Kerching! Nominet preps for cash AVALANCHE from shorter UK domain names

Re: A novel proposal

Too young to remember "01 811 8055" then ?

A novel proposal

People are already used to remembering telephone numbers for companies

There is no ambiguity in a number, no "all one word" or no it's not sex-change it's "s-exchange"

I propose a system where a simple set of say 4, 2 or 3 digit numbers could replace a website URL.

And one day when the internet is available on phones we will be able to enter the website companies directly with a simple numerical keypad in our pockets. Comments to 50.57.15.204 please

>Nominet is a not for profit company.

So is Eton and both work equally selflessly for the greater good of the ordinary man in the internets

Microsoft touts SCROOGLE merch: Hopes YOU'LL PAY to dump on rival

Re: Hi pot, kettle calling...

A new improved security policy - microsoft have changed the backdoor password to Bitlocker from "NSA" to "NSA123"

Cryptolocker infects cop PC: Massachusetts plod fork out Bitcoin ransom

Re: A novel approach to crimefighting...

Two stories down is a US senator claiming that Bitcoin is only used by terrorists and money-launderers.

Isn't there a rule against the police funding terrorists?

- I mean the CIA or FBI ok, but surely local police shouldn't be funding them

Gaming co ESEA hit by $1m fine for hidden Bitcoin mining enslaver

Next time

There will just be a line on page 96 of the EULA allowing them to use computer resources for "auxiliary purposes"

US senator asks: Will Bitcoin replace Swiss bank accounts?

Re: Yes, HSBC Bank.................

Remember that HSBC were fined, not the $ itself

You can simply prosecute exchanges int he same way - even if you can't fine "bitcoin"

Antidote for poisonous Aussie Red-Back Spider venom DOESN'T WORK

Re: Second most feared??

>How else to explain their ability to break into cars, and the jump out at the most comically appropriate moment....

Due to the average temperature being slightly higher than the surface of the sun, most people park with their windows partly open. The spider thinks - Hello, a nice cool cave with a ledge to hide behind.

Re: Second most feared??

I thought Huntsmans killed more people than any other spider?

They like to get into cars and hide behind the sun visor.

So you are driving across Australia at a sedate 30mph (as all Aussie drivers do), flip down the visor - a spider the size of a cat lands in your face and you liable to be momentarily distracted

What a plot of nonsense: Ten Master master plan FAILS

Re: Mostly bad plans but also mostly not bad entertainment

But he fell foul of the Rickman law. In any movie always shoot the actor with the beard and the posh English accent - he is bound to be a supervillian

London businesses to signal UNSWERVING LOYALTY to capital with .london domain

Re: Not Good

Scotland, Ireland and Northumbria will then unite into a viking army and pillage London - sign me up.

#ALERT! There'll be emergencies on Twitter for UK, Ireland

Re: Geographically focused?

they do that here for lost kids etc. but location is based on administrative regions.

So the UK equivalent is that a kid goes missing at a motorway services in Berwick, they put up notices on road signs in the Scilly isles but not in Edinburgh.

Budget decay kills NASA plutonium drive project

Re: Obama strikes again

>"More folks sit on their asses and take government tax money than work in this country"

If you include in that farmers and everyone that works in the defense industry - then yes.

Re: Obama strikes again

To be fair the Muslim outreach was relatively cheap.

They simply released the report on how many Jewish slaves died in Von Braun's V2 factory

GCHQ tracks diplomats' hotel bookings to plant bugs, say leaked docs

Re: Based on all the leaks

Yes but they are evil empires that we spend billions of $$ pointing nukes at (except Israel) - we are the good guys.

WHO ate all the PIs? Sales of Brit mini-puter pass 2 MEELLION

Some context

Over it's 5-8 (?) year life the BBC micro sold 1.5M units, almost all to schools and pretty much only in the UK.

The Spectrum sold around 5M mostly in the UK, while the international Commodore 64 shipped 12-15M.

Not a bad start for a device that is less than a year old and pretty much sold only to geek hobbyists.

It could take 3-5 years to get into schools.

Education work on year-ahead schedules. This year it's launched and a few teachers notice, next year it's brought to the attention of the curriculum/exam boards, they consider it for the next year, then they announce it will be an option the year after that, then schools start to buy them.

Space hotelier Bigelow wants capitalists to FIGHT comm-MOON-ist takeover

Re: INFLATABLE LEAD ? ( The metal that is )

Because the autonomous bots can't then stand for election as "heroes of the space age" - so there is no way they would get funding.

The same reason we still have fast jet pilots in charge of all the world's airforces

Fukushima fearmongers: It's your fault Japan dumped CO2 targets

Re: No middle ground for the hard Greens...

Depends on what you mean by third world.

china and India don't have much of a green movement curtailing their emmissions

Re: Oh dear...

>the chances of anyone dying of cancer as a result of the Fukushima accident are remote.

Nope - if you are in Eastern Europe and about to get a couple of million tonnes of coal power station ash dumped on you as Germany shuts down it's nukes - they are quite high.

It's going to drop a lot more Becquerels on them than Chernobyl did - however it won't affect anyone west of the oder so we don't give a .....

Re: Humans aren't responsible enough for nuclear power

We just finished building a new multi-million $ treatment plant for the chemical soup pouring out of a mine that closed 50years ago. The mercury, arsenic, cadmium etc will be safe in 10^32 years if certain theories about proton decay are correct. Until then we can just keep cleaning the water and burying the toxic sludge.

Removing 100years of the same stuff from the bottom of a 1000m deep fjord is going to be a little more tricky.

Re: Anti-nukers... vs. Pro-Nukers

>I don't feel any warmer about eating fish from the Pacific.

You would prefer fish from the North Sea?

Take every factory, refinery, chemical plant from Basel to Rotterdam and filter all it's waste through that fish.

Then add every particle of brake dust, rubber additives, catalyst, and paint chips that flaked off every car in europe, Then add in all the human and animal sewage and pathogens

Re: Anti-nukers... vs. Pro-Nukers

But that is natural free-range organic radiation which haven't been forcibly bred in some neutron factory.

Re: It is an engeneering problem not a nuclear problem.

>The calculations were made to harden the plant against a massive tsunami

That is precisely what engineering means.

The plants should have been hardened against any conceivable tsunami/earthquake?

What about the schools and homes- 1000s of people died in those.

Surely all primary schools should be proof against a magnitude 10 earth quake?

Here on the other side of the same fault zone we spend only a few million $$ bolting classroom bookcases to walls.

If society had priorities then all the children would be protected by schools built deep underground in bunkers, and all the old peoples homes, and all the hospitals etc etc - in fact nobody would be allowed to live within 100km of the pacific ocean

Re: Remember Bhopal?

But those were brown people - and even worse, poor brown people.

The correct order of concern is:

White Americans

Europeans

Japanese

Black / poor Americans

South Americans/Russians/Chinese

3rd world smiling children

3rd world starving children

Other

So Fukismima/Chernoby are about equal to a 3mile island, only because it may affect sushi or Welsh Lamb, a Bhopal is about equal to a Katrina

DropBox puts locks on doors, hopes biz bods will buy the house

You can send public links to somebody - so that file you need to send to a client that is too large for email or blocked by some firewall policy, just dropbox it and email them a link.

Want free reliable back-up for a few Gb of stuff without needing to run a btsync server?

Have a non-techie that wants to just keep their pictures/docs safe without understanding what backup means?

Re: And still no client-side encryption?

>Ask yourself why they designed the system this way

Deduplication = less diskspace/bandwidth

Dropbox heavily dedupe files. So a million copies of that same cat picture only takes up a few K

If they are all encrypted they can't tell the files (or parts of the file) are the same and so need to store and transmit everything

True fact: Britain is losing its brains

Re: How do they know I emigrated?

I assumed the report meant UK residents who had patents (and so were inventors) who had then left.

How do they know I emigrated?

I am an inventor (at least I wrote a bunch of patents)

I have worked abroad a number of times.

I currently live abroad in the land above the land of the free

But although I always have to fill in a lot of documentation for the place i'm going to - I don't remember ever telling the UK government I left.

Canadian teens cuffed over alleged Snapchat child sex pics ring

Re: Proper charges

Yes they are lucky they are only being tried as child-sex offenders.

If the copyright police got them - they would really be in trouble

Yes if there is one group that should have complete unfettered access to all your communications it's Quebec's police and politicians.

I here they are currently investigating one of the senior officers under suspicions that he had no links to the mafia

The only way to protect the children is to make sure that boys and girls are totally separated upto the age of 18 with no allowed contact between them - then they can safely emerge as adults.

The system has worked very well for the UK ruling classes, and the current government.