* Posts by Dave Harris 1

15 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jan 2010

Spooks vs boffins: MIT bods say they've created PRISM-proof encryption

Dave Harris 1

Re: Wouldn't work in the UK

Plausible deniability (a la TrueCrypt etc) is a perfectly sound defence. "Here's my password to that encrypted virtual disc and as you can see, there's nothing naughty on it." That there is another encrypted volume within that one is not demonstrable and certainly not provable, not even by the NSA nor CESG (the correct name for GCHQ). AFAIK... unless someone has evidence to the contrary.

TV sales PLUMMET. But no one's prepared to say what we all know

Dave Harris 1

Buying less because what they've got lasts longer?

It crosses my mind that, at least as far as TVs are concerned, despite the possibility that manufacturers do their best to ensure otherwise, modern TVs simply last longer and stay working pretty much perfectly their full life. Modern LCD sets consume a fraction of the power of even a plasma set (remember those?), let alone a CRT, and that means they run much cooler. The effect on equipment lifetime is surprisingly large. My finger-in-the-air guess is that a good quality LED LCD TV will last 3 x what a CRT TV would last - and some of those lasted 10+ years.

Even non-LED LCD screens failed mostly when the backlight(s) and/or their inverter went AFAIK and they're almost impossible to replace economically. But then, they ran hot, so no surprise there.

In other words, the TV makers have engineered themselves out of a job. Perhaps more accurately, they've been technology-ed out of a job.

Security guru Bruce Schneier to leave employer BT

Dave Harris 1

B3

"...the telecoms giant was no different from any other large private sector firm in the UK."

Triple distilled bullshit. Many BT exchanges used to (and I suspect still do) have classified compartments, mostly in basements, sometimes lower basements that are themselves, ummm... hard to get into. BT carries all government comms and had (has?) crews security cleared to high levels in order to service this.

Of course - Hughes may actually be telling the truth, as in: all the major UK telcos now have the same relationships with government security services.

NASA's Jupiter probe wakes up after unexpected snooze

Dave Harris 1

Re: Far from nominally

"Nominally" is a fairly standard term in this context in the Space industry and actually refers to the fact that all telemetry parameters are within allowed limits - i.e., they are nominal - a meaning of the word which can be found in the Oxford dictionary.

Robot WildCat slips its leash and bounds around parking lot

Dave Harris 1

There was a comment about the noise. It sounded to me like a small motorcycle engine - maybe a 125cc, in which case silencing it would be trivial.

The engine is clearly running at almost constant speed and presumably driving either an electric generator or hydraulic pump which in turn powers the actuators. If it is that kind of engine, and that is the case, then you'd probably get around an hours running (galloping?) time from 5 litres of fuel.

More to the point, however, is that a battlefield capable version would be a lot heavier than this prototype as it'd have to carry armour. That makes me think that a real product would be much bigger... and now think of the psychological effect of seeing a 1/2 tonne mechanical, armoured cat-horse running at you, faster than you can move,, firing its stabilised armament in your direction ("smart ammo", of course)... Might be useful.

NSA Prism: Why I'm boycotting US cloud tech - and you should too

Dave Harris 1
Thumb Up

Non US Hosting service

www.ovh.com AFAIK is French and not in any way behoven to the US. I've been using there services for about 7 or 8 years and find them reliable and good value for money.

'Liberator': Proof that you can't make a working gun in a 3D printer

Dave Harris 1

Re: Not the original liberator.

However, it was apparently never actually fired in any kind of combat - mostly 'cos it was never dropped in the places they had planned to.

Dave Harris 1

The Anarchists' Cookbook is freely available - it's regularly posted on Usenet which, contrary to rumours, is still very much alive & kicking. People actually update it from time to time.

Java open-source frameworks 'pose risk' to biz - report

Dave Harris 1

Big News - Software Quality Varies!

I suspect the quality has little (probably not zero) to do with the framework chosen and more to do with whether the team - from management on down but especially management - know what they're doing. You can look at almost any type of software project (and other types too) and you're going to find a range of qualities.

Regarding the additional languages used I think they're confounding cause and effect: the more capable teams do this at least tolerably well; most other don't even try or try and then rapidly give up on the idea when they find they don't have the required skills and can't make it work.

US deploys robot submarine armada against Iranian mines

Dave Harris 1

Propping up the Euro?

No, 'cos it'd still only add up to a few billion at most - a drop in the ocean.

BTW, take anything you read about the Sea Fox's capabilities with a large pinch of salt - the publicly available info on these things is very rarely the truth.

BTW2, does Iran really think the USN - and any others who happen to be in the vicinity - are going to just sit by and watch them mining the sea before starting to take action?

LOHAN spaceplane project starting to shape up nicely

Dave Harris 1

Launch slightly downwards?

OK, this may be daft but a variation on this works for the Shuttle:

Launch pointing slightly (a lot?) downwards so, being nose-heavy, LOHAN would dive stably and continue unpowered until it has acquired sufficient velocity to give the control surfaces sufficient authority, then start pointing the nose upwards & fire the rockets, continuing the pitch up until vertical. This totally avoids the possibility of impacting the balloon(s).

I have no idea if this would mean sacrificing a significant amount of max height but a small loss may be worth it.

YouGov's voluntary stalkware unpicked

Dave Harris 1

Not really worried...

...as I had no intention of installing such software when it was offered. As Stuart said: there was no clear indication of what was being sent to whom & how much control one had over it.

Of course it should be marked as Potentially Unwanted for business customers - in fact I'd go further & say Definitely Unwanted - on a business machine. On a home machine, as long as the transparency requirements are satisfied (and the reality independently verified), then maybe.

Banking industry worker faces cosh over anonymous rant

Dave Harris 1

He deserved smacking down for the childish 1st post

...which was, AFAICS, technically inaccurate. It was certainly insulting and that has no place in such discussions.

'The statement goes on to say "neither the banking industry nor the police have any evidence of criminals having the capability to deploy such sophisticated attacks".'

a) That doesn't mean they're not happening.

b) Nor does it mean they won't once criminals - some of whom seem to be better funded & more tech savvy than the police these days - work out how to make good use of the exploit.

New airlock mini-sub for US Navy SEAL 'operations'

Dave Harris 1

A simple solution

I'd guess that the craft would be towed to the ops area by the mothership (most SSNs, I believe, are already equipped for towing sonar arrays & they are *heavy*) On reaching the minisub departure point, near the surface (to avoid lengthy compression/decompression cycles) the frogmen exit the mothership's lock & enter the minisub via its lock. Now warm & dry, they drop the tow & proceed to their target. That way, they could get to their target area much. much quicker as the minisub could be made to survive high speed towing relatively easily, I'd have thought.

IBM's monster tape will take three days to fill

Dave Harris 1

Why 4 drives?

Rather than 4 drives with all the robotics that entails - and the ensuing unreliability - why not stack 4 reels of tape in a single cartridge? I can see some engineering problems that would need solving but I suspect they're relatively easy.