Posts by BillG

Carolina cop cuffed for 'carjacking'

If found guilty, the Hardin faces a possible 10 years' jail time

So he'll be doing some hard time?

What we all really need is an SD card for our cars. Thanks, SanDisk

Automotive Electronics and Quality

I've worked in Automotive Electronics for over ten years and I can tell you these memory cards are necessary. Automotive is an extremely harsh environment, and electronics in the cabin needs to be qualified over extremes of temperatures from -45°C to +105°C (up to 125°C in the engine compartment). There are also tests for vibration, high humidity, and long life.

For automotive semiconductors the specification is AEC-Q200 - look it up.

Maybe your commercial-grade USB stick is serving you well in your car, but consider that a failure rate of 5% is considered high and completely unacceptable in automotive electronics. If you have 50,000 vehicles that means 2,500 failures you will read about on the internet.

I can tell you that, in the early mad rush to connect cars, many car manufacturers were only using commercial-grade connectivity products (WiFi, Bluetooth, Ethernet, etc). Watch how many of these cars have failures four years after they were sold.

Top new IoT foundation (yeah, another one) to develop open standards

Re: Mee too!!!

Many of these organizations are not traditional standards bodies, because they do not follow traditional standards processes, such as public ratification and publication of standards.

In most cases these organization only make their publications available first to paid members of the organizations. Because of this, bodies like OCF, IETF, and WiSUN are not a traditional open-standards organizations.

Google to snatch control of Android updates from mobe makers – analyst

This is the only way that Google can end the endemic fragmentation that continues to plague its devices as well as take back control of software distribution

To put it another way: "This is the only way that Google can end this destructive conflict, and bring order to the galax... uh, software distribution"

FTDI boss hits out at 'Chinese criminal gang' pumping knock-off chips

Re: Fakes damaging FTDI's reputation

Dropbear: there is no such thing as a guaranteed supply chain unless one buys from YOU directly

Wrong, all you need to do is buy from an authorized distributor. They are listed on the manufacturer's website. It's as easy to buy from an authorized FTDI distributor such as Mouser Electronics as it is to buy a book off Amazon.

Pay a few cents more than the fake and you get a reliable device.

Even if the FTDI drivers worked with the fake, there is a good chance the fake will stop working a year from now. These are cheap counterfeit chips, and the counterfeiters are overclocking a cheap MCU to do it. The FTDI design techniques are insufficient to prevent the cheap counterfeits from eventually overheating. Go read the product reviews on Amazon. Manufacturers that knowingly buy counterfeits put out cheap products that eventually fail (think they give a damn about you???).

Dropbear: the clones were actually MORE faithfully following your spec than your own damn chips did

Now you are just making stuff up.

Re: Caveat emptor

After last year's criticism, Dart reckons today's approach, in which the driver refuses to work if it detects a counterfeit (without bricking the product), is endorsed by most of its customers.

I work for an authorized distributor that sells FTDI chips and I can tell you the above statement is true. Serious customers want to know they are buying genuine chips and they quiz us to make certain we sell the real stuff.

It's funny when people that bought counterfeit FTDI chips off eBay call us and demand we switch them for genuine chips "because it's not my fault I bought a counterfeit!!!".

No manufacturer wants to risk the reputation of their company's end products by putting counterfeit components in their system.

US Congress locks and loads three anti-encryption bullets

Let me fix that for ya'

The bill to grant the Congress sole rights to an encryption solution is likely to face opposition from Congressmen the U.S. Constitution with a strong states-rights philosophy.

a.k.a. The Tenth Amendment

Facebook tells Viz to f**k right off

Re: A once brilliant comic....

It's rare that I don't like something attempting to be comedic, I like to brag that I got my comedy chops from watching Monty Python. But when I look at Viz, I think he presently characterizes the phrase "That's not Funny, that's Stupid".

This is what it looks like when your website is hit by nasty ransomware

Re: Just an idea

Maybe it's not CTB-Locker, it just claims it is? Unless you are expecting honesty from criminals, that is...

Obama govt proposes 33% hike in cyber-security spending

Re: Knock me over with a feather

Federal spending grew much more (by both percentage and actual dollars) under Bush than it has so far under Obama. But don't let facts get in the way of a good rant.

You listed the submitted budgets and did not include off-budget spending. If you want to see just how outrageous federal spending has become under Obama, look at this chart from George Mason University:

High Levels of Government Spending Become Status Quo

Just take a look at Bush's last year when the Dems in Congress passed massive pork and overrode Bush's veto.

But even if you do not agree with me, laying blame does not make everything better. If you are a Dem, proving Bush is to blame does not suddenly make the economy O.K. And if you did not live though the Federal government incompetence that followed Hurricane Sandy, you can't understand. And if you think that the people whose lives were destroyed by Obama's mishandling of Sandy victims are simply inconvenient to your political ideology, then you are a cold person.

If you think that it's O.K. that of the $50B of the Sandy bill, $48B went to pork and only $2B went to victims <- if you want to make excuses for that, then tell that to my brother. His house is still uninhabitable because the promised Federal funds never showed up.

http://www.fema.gov/sandy-recovery-office

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/03/08/3631236/christie-sandy-protestors-iowa/

Re: Knock me over with a feather

The outgoing Obama administration has proposed increasing federal cyber-security spending by $5bn, or around a third, in the hope of reaching $19bn in 2017.

Yeah, right. I remember Barry's $50B Hurricane Sandy Relief Bill where $2B went to Sandy relief and $48B went to programs like trout fisheries in Nevada and a museum in Arkansas.

Sick and tired of modern Windows? Upgrade to Windows 3.1 today – in your web browser

Fiddling around with my Windows 3.11 desktop was like training wheels for my career with computers.

But before Windows - before the Mac - there was: The Amiga! It just worked and had amazing graphics for the time. It failed because of poor marketing.

Google licks its lips at sight of Qualcomm's 64-bit server ARM chips

Data centres could be on the cusp of switching to ARM very rapidly

I don't think you read the article - ARM is gaining traction very slowly in very high end servers, during which Intel/x86 is NOT standing still.

Intel will defend the server market like a lioness protecting her cubs. They will expand their highly efficient x64 server architectures and continue to innovate.

In the end, the competition will benefit server manufacturers.

Dutch cops train anti-drone eagle squadron

Re: Cool video

@Known Hero

You get an eagle, they going to start making drones to take down eagles !!! Then where will we be !! covered in chips and blood !!!

Then it begins!

Re: Cool video

Forget the drones - I want an eagle!

Samsung trolls Google, adds adblockers to phones

Re: If nothing else ...

For me, mobile ads are reaching the same tipping point as full browser ads, but even more so.

I absolutely will not tolerate mobile browser ads that play video as soon as I open the page. The unwanted attention-getting noise, the slowing of my browser and phone, the battery drain - then there's the hunt on the browser page to find the video to stop it.

I also object to the official-looking ads that imitate an Android interface with "You have one unread messages". Yes, I'm experienced enough to know it's an ad but how many others will fall for it, click, and then get duped?

On my rooted Android I use an adblocker to block ads on my apps ONLY when the ads interfere with the operation of the app. I gladly pay $3 or so for the non-ad supported version. But the mobile browser ads are really trying my patience.

30 years on from Challenger, NASA remembers the fallen

Re: Was a very long day for me.

I remember I was two years out of college working as a EE for a contractor that had equipment on the shuttle, although I was not on that project. I saw the explosion when I was home for lunch. I immediately drove back to the office.

We were all told to stand by in case NASA needed our assistance in regards to our equipment. As EEs we were all walking around like zombies, in total shock. It would have been a mixed honor to assist in the investigation, but no request from NASA came to our department that day.

I reminded myself why I wanted to be an Electrical Engineer in the first place - I wanted to create, to build, to make a difference. NASA was the epitome of why I studied all those years. When the word came out that the disaster occurred because a non-engineer manager had overridden the techies that were yelling DON'T LAUNCH, it impressed in me a distrust of non-engineering management that exists to this day.

Re: "Killing season"?

I also feel "killing season" is very very disrespectful because "kill" implies intent and "season" implies sport.

China has a chip to fry with y'all: Wants its own chip smarts and fabs

It's more than that. When I worked (worked? it was FUN!) as a technical marketing manager for a major semiconductor company, my customers were all the major technology manufacturers in the USA and Europe. I knew their corporate roadmaps for the next three years, their product plans, the inner workings of all their stuff.

Do you want China to know what's in Ford's cars for the next three years, or the inner workings of Cisco's next generation routers, or the hardware and software inside Boeing's newest aircraft before it's released? Semiconductor companies know all these things. They know the real technology future. Do we want the Chinese government to have this information?

Motorola cut in half! But still alive, and ready to live again

Motorola and The Peter Principle

I had worked with (not for) Motorola about 15 years ago. Management was the ultimate study of The Peter Principle ("managers rise to their level of incompetence") and they were more concerned with looking important than actually putting out products that people wanted. Overhead expenses were through the roof with lavish dinners and First Class airfares. Management retreats to Hawaii would wipe out an entire R&D budget for the year.

The management atmosphere was toxic - you could create nine successful products and one dud, and your co-workers would tear you apart for the dud. The result was marketing malaise where there were endless marketing studies done but no leading-edge products produced. Somebody should make a movie.

Bloke sues dad who shot down his drone – and why it may decide who owns the skies

Re: the problem with drones...

Interesting - drones with cameras might be covered under the Peeping Tom Law

(f) Any person who, for the purpose of arousing or gratifying the sexual desire of any person, secretly or surreptitiously uses or installs in a room any device that can be used to create a photographic image with the intent to capture the image of another without their consent shall be guilty of a Class I felony.

While this applies to a room, I can see a good lawyer making a legal argument extending this to the airspace of drones.

Remember that Roe v. Wade stated that the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment implied a right to privacy. That also comes into play here.

Obama: What will solve America's gun problem? What could it be? *snaps fingers* Technology!

Re: Huh?

How often do people have this problem in America where an assailant is attacking them in such a way that lethal force is necessary?

This is called a defensive gun use (DGU). Depending on whose numbers you look at, according to the Harvard School of Public Health a DGU occurrs between 55,000-80,000 times a year - however, that survey was commissioned by an anti-gun lobby. Another survey sponsored by The Police Foundation found that 4.7 million DGUs occur in the USA each year. There seems to be a consensus that 1 million DGUs per year is a good number.

Growing up in New York, one night a burgler jumped a fence into my friend's yard with a bag of loot, big guy, built like a linebacker. Whole family in the yard. Burgler saw my friend's father and ran straight at him with a knife. Father took out his pistol and quickly put two in the guys chest from ten feet away, killing him. While guns were illegal in NY at the time, my friend's father was an off-duty policeman, wearing his civies but still packing his service revolver, as required.

Microsoft makes Raspberry Pi its preferred IoT dev board

ERRATA

Several things wrong with this article, first, um, the Galileo is definitely not a Raspberry Pi board, it is definitely an Arduino board.

And, as I work for a distributor that sells Intel products, I can tell you that the Galileo is one of our best selling single-board computers. I have not seen an EOL notice on the Galileo.

Also, the Galileo is not recommended as a platform for running Windows 10, but Intel promotes that to show that the board is 100% compatible with Windows software which is very significant in the embedded market.

Brazil gets a WTF WhatsApp moment

Re: What did the court orginally ask for?

WhatsApp encrypt messages only to make it difficult to eavesdrop in real time. If they do not keep the keys they presumably do not keep the messages past delivery since it would be a pointless waste of storage. Thus, a court request/order for past messages would be answered with a simple "we don't keep messages on our servers after they are delivered".

You need to understand how governments think when they want something. They think and act like spoiled children, which includes thinking that everyone lies (like they do). Anything they do not understand or do not like hearing becomes sounds like blah blah noise, so like a spoiled child that does not understand, they think if they throw a large enough temper tantrum they will get what they want.

So "We will not provide you with the messages because we don't keep messages on our servers after they are delivered"

becomes

"We will not provide you with the messages blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah"

To the government, "unable to comply" = "refusal to comply". So the government throws a temper tantrum and blocks WhatsApp. When their behavior makes things worse (voter revolt), they try another tactic.

it's important to realize that the government still believes that although WhatsApp denies having access to messaging data, they do not believe WhatsApp because they would keep and deny the data themselves.

Mozilla looses Firefox 43, including Windows 64-bit variant

Firefox 43! Now Using Three Times More RAM!

Truth in advertising.

Google says its quantum computer is 100 million times faster than PC

Re: Speed

It looks like they are talking about asynchronous computing? That is, a CPU without a clock. These always look great on paper and simulate well, but in real life they either do not work or burn up quickly from the intense heat.

Dailymotion hit by malvertising attack as perpetrators ‘up their game'

Nonetheless, the incident serves to illustrate the ongoing problems posed by ad networks

I've gotta laugh at this - DailyMotion suspended my account, the reason they gave is that because I use an adblocker!!!

Free HTTPS certs for all – Let's Encrypt opens doors to world+dog

Re: So...

Why doesn't El Reg just use HTTPS for forum/comments login, then?

Brit hardware hacker turns Raspberry Pi Zeros into selfie slayers

Re: Hmm

I want one.

I want to block access to social networking sites during family gatherings.

Sued for using HTTPS: Big brands told to cough up in crypto patent fight

Re: @asdf

At the risk of incurring the pedantic wrath of some.. I'll invoke Shakespeare's "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" concept.

Another good one is, "We need lawyers to get us out of trouble that we wouldn't be in in the first place, if it wasn't for lawyers."

Report: VW execs 'knew' about fuel economy issues last year

Re: Thank You, Captain Obvious.

In other news (THIS IS TRUE)...

Yesterday, the New England Patriots post-game report was sponsored by... VOLKSWAGEN!

Thank You, Captain Obvious.

Report: VW Execs 'Knew' About Fuel Economy Issues Last Year!

Duh.

Mozilla annual report shows risky Google dependency now risky Yahoo! dependency

Re: The problem

I just checked Process Explorer, and what do you know - 1.1GB. That sounds pretty bad, but bear in mind I have 2 Firefox windows open with several hundred tabs (though only a small subset are loaded). I wonder if Mozilla is trying to boost performance by using more RAM?

I've found that it's not the number of tabs open, but the types of websites and how many you browse. For example, if you visit and re-visit the awful and bloated Walmart website often enough in just one tab, your RAM goes to 1.8G and higher, and browsing on any tab becomes painfully slow.

On Firefox, the more RAM a profile consumes, the slower that profile gets until you are forced to re-start the browser.

Re: The problem

I run Firefox 28 on one laptop and the latest Firefox 42 on another laptop. When I compare the two, browsing identical websites with multiple tabs open, not only is FF28 faster but it uses about half as much RAM. FF42 gobbles up RAM at an alarming rate, when FF28 is using 750M RAM, FF42 is using 1.3G and it gets worse and worse as you keep browsing.

It's almost like the modern versions of FF act like old Windows 98, using all all available RAM and getting slower and slower until you have to restart it to get it running fast again.

FF jumped the shark with the Australis interface. There's a good reason why the classic theme restorer plugin is popular.

Top Android app devs found exfiltrating mystery stealth packets

Re: Phone home

There used to be a flashlight app on the Android app store that was about 3M in size and grabbed access to almost all phone privileges, including network access. It's since been taken down.

I use a firewall to block network access to any app that doesn't need it, but I refuse to install any app that wants to toggle sync on and off, as no good can come from that.

Malvertising: How the ad model makes crime pay

Re: So basically

Often, the advertisers involved in a malvertising incident may not be the malicious actor themselves. Segura stated: "They may simply have resold to a third-party that abused their trust. For this reason, it would be unfair to terminate the top level advertiser because they did not 'knowingly' participate in the malvertising"

I'm sorry, that's not good enough. I'll bet if the third-party advertisers were required to either step up their game and vet advertisers, or be terminated when they resell malvertising, the problem would diminish significantly.

Right now third-party advertisers do very little for the money they make. I've worked with some that don't know what JavaScript is, but email it in an attachment for website insertion. When there is an issue they make a very very big deal out of not understanding anything even remotely technical about their job, they just sign a contract over the web and forward the code off to me for insertion on my website. Any issue at all, they seem to painstakingly make a deliberate point that they do not understand anything technical about anything.

They need to be technically competent enough to know when they are doing something wrong or face the consequences, just like everyplace else on the web.

Hillary Clinton: Stop helping terrorists, Silicon Valley – weaken your encryption

Re: Trump

One of the banes of politics in the US - and possibly elsewhere - is business men who are confused about the nature of government and politics.

The reality is that career politicians are confused about the nature of business, as their goals are in direct opposition.

In business you want to keep overhead down so you are rewarded for spending as little as possible, keeping headcount down, and making a profit.

Government is exactly the opposite. Since the purpose of government is to spend money, a politician is rewarded with power by spending as much as possible, and keeping headcount as high as possible. You are actually punished if you make a profit.

It's easy to just brush off a businessperson what wants to get involved in politics, but the truth of it is that Trump has a history of making money for state and local governments. You don't have to like him, and he can be an asshole at times, but you can't argue with his record.

Re: Oi! Hillary

This isn't surprising that Hillary is against encryption, as she has consistently supported the surveillance provisions of the PATRIOT act from 2001 up to this year.

Meanwhile, Trump is against backdoors, supports warrants, and wants to limit government surveillance. Have the Earth's magnetic poles flipped as well?

How does that song go?... "The party on the left / Is now the party on the right..."

Irish electricity company threatens to cut off graveyard

Re: That'll be...

That'll be... Dr Frankenstein.

That's FRONK-en-steen.

Yahoo! Mail! is! still! a! thing!, tries! blocking! Adblock! users!

Re: Yahoo! blocks Adblock users

Oddly enough I found that while Yahoo blocks access to their email when using them latest Firefox 42 w/AdBlock, if I use Firefox 28 with AdBlock I can still access Yahoo email!

YAHOO!!!

Another $75m for Datto as EMEA and APAC expansion beckons

The Two Americas

When I worked for a defense contractor, if I did what Hillary did my clearance would be revoked, I'd never be allowed a clearance again, and I'd be fired.

But if you are rich and powerful, I guess the rules don't apply to you.

Ofcom asks: Do kids believe anything they read on the internet?

Whenever I listen to someone who insists some babble they read online is true, I remind them of this quote I read years ago on Yahoo!:

"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet" - Winston Churchill

Coffee fixes the damage booze did to your liver, study finds

Re: Okay, got it

"One bourbon, one scotch, one latte..."

Not as catchy as the original.

iPad data entry errors caused plane to strike runway during takeoff

Re: Using toys as tools... @Pott

Trevor wrote:

Brand tribalism is a piss-poor reason to choose technology.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Re: Using toys as tools...

I'm not sure why the downvotes for you Trevor.

The downvotes are because most, if not all, of Trevor's points do not apply. The iPads that are approved for use by the FAA are not your standard run-of-the-mill iPads. They are heavily locked-down, heavily customized, and can only be updated by technicians that have validated the software again and again and again.

They do not have access to the Apple app store, nor do they have Angry Birds installed. so any criticism from those that are anti-Surface are those with an unprofessional, untechnical anti-MS bias.

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

Hurricane Sandy

Back in October 2012, NOAA got the path of Hurricane Sandy wrong – its GFS model reckoned Sandy would swerve away from the US – whereas the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) got it right, calculating America would take a direct hit. The superstorm killed 233 people and caused $75bn of damage as it barreled into the Caribbean, Bermuda, and the east coast of the United States.

And yet three years later there are still hundreds of people homeless, and thousands with horribly damaged homes, while they get screwed over by insurance companies an the U.S. government.

US Presidential race becomes Wi-Fi password snark battle

Re: @A Non e-mouse

The SSID on that one is "RNCdebate" and that one has a password of "StopHillary".

Actually, there is a movement among the Democratic party faithful called "ABH": "Anyone But Hillary".

From a technical standpoint, the Democratic password is more secure: it's longer and mixes numerals and letters

As already stated above, "13MillionNewJobs" is an SSID, not a password

But if it WAS the password, the above extract from the Reg article is still wrong because IT'S A PUBLIC PASSWORD THAT NO ONE HAS TO GUESS!!!

Is this April 1st? Was this written by an intern?

Exactly.

Ex-HP top aide in the clink for racking up $1m on company credit cards

@Mark 85 wrote:

If you read the article, it's obvious and explained. Most admin assistants have that kind of "power" for lack of a better word. They managed the bosses email, phone calls, meetings.. everything. If they work at it, they can manipulate the whole company....

True. The way I see them get caught is when some bigwig with a black-belt in office politics at or above the same level as the admin's boss either tries to get something done or asks for some bit of information and the admin blocks them with some stupid reason. The blackbelt bigwig quickly smells bullshit and demands answers. That's when everything comes out into the open and the admin finally gets caught. Believe me, I've seen it happen.

California cops pull over Google car for driving too SLOWLY

Re: I'll betcha a dollar that...

I recall a study done 20 years ago of auto accidents that determined that speed doesn't cause accidents, it's the DIFFERENCE in speed. So if everyone is driving 24mph, or 50mph, that's safe. But if you have everyone driving 50mph and one car doing 35, that difference in speed is a danger. That's why the left lane is so strictly enforced on the Autobahn.

If one car is doing 60mph and it's tapped or sideswipped by another doing 62, that's not too bad because it's effectively a 2mph accident. But think of the same situation when the cars are 40mph and 25mph, that's the equivalent of a car doing 15mph hitting or sideswiping a stationary object.