Posts by JohnG

Ganja believe it? Police make hash of suspected weed farm raid, pot Bitcoin mine instead

Re: Dirty servers + clean shelves, oink oink

"...police say "enquiries with Western Power revealed the electric supply had been bypassed and thousands of pounds worth had been stolen to power the ‘mine’."

As if there was no physical evidence of bypass and they had to ask Western Power for their opinion."

Individual police officers may well have seen evidence of abstraction but obviously, the police are going to ask the utility concerned to provide a definitive and expert statement.

"Any losses would be estimated at best no? Odd."

If the meters have been bypassed, it would seem entirely normal to estimate the amount of electricity abstracted, based on the usage of the equipment removed. There's nothing odd about that - how would you think they would find out how much has been stolen?

The utility will get to charge for the abstracted electricity at the "out of contract rates".

Tesla owners win legal fight after software update crippled older Model S batteries

Re: Green vehicles...

Here's a 2015 study from the Union of Concerned Scientists in the USA, analysing and comparing the "cradle to grave" "well to wheel" impact of battery electric, ICE and hydrogen vehicles.

https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/cleaner-cars-cradle-grave

The increased impact of manufacturing EVs over ICE vehicles is recovered within 6 - 16 months of typical driving. What many tend to overlook is that the extraction, processing, storage and distribution of petrol and diesel is incredibly energy intensive and contributes significantly to the environmental impact of ICE and hydrogen vehicles.

The data here is from the USA and from some years ago - we have more renewable and less coal generated electricity.

When they can no longer suport the deep charge and discharge cycles needed for vehicular use, Ev battery modules can (and are) re-purposed for use as static storage.

Preliminary report on Texas Tesla crash finds Autosteer was 'not available' along road where both passengers died

Re: Ban it

The dashboard infotainment storage was destroyed but the black box safety data logger was read by the NTSB.

citation needed

Try the NTSB report linked in the article.

Tesla cars have an Event Data Recorder module, which is separate from the infotainment and other systems. Like an aircraft black box, it is designed to survive a crash and records the sort of informations that investigators and lawyers would want to see. You can even buy the analysis kit from Tesla: https://edr.tesla.com

Re: No driver?

The actual text from the NTSB report was:

"Footage from the owner’s home security camera shows the owner entering the car’s driver’s seat and the passenger entering the front passenger seat. The car leaves and travels about 550 feet before departing the road on a curve, driving over the curb, and hitting a drainage culvert, a raised manhole, and a tree."

All Tesla cars have a driver seat occupancy sensor. Like most sensors, it is possible to defeat this detection if you are determined/stupid enough.

Re: Ban it

"If the storage has been destroyed how the fuck did they know that??"

1. The car sends telemetry to Tesla via cellular data and the initial impacts would likely have triggered the transmission of event data, before the fire took hold;

2. From the linked NTSB report:

"The fire destroyed the car, including the onboard storage device inside the infotainment console (figure 2). The car’s restraint control module, which can record data associated with vehicle speed, belt status, acceleration, and airbag deployment, was recovered but sustained fire damage."

i.e. the Event Data Recorder module was damaged but not destroyed.

As another vendor promises 3 years of Android updates, we ask: How long should mobile devices receive support?

Open source after support ends

However long support is provided for a mobile or tablet, when support ends, manufacturers ought to allow the device to be flashed with one of the open source OSes. Ideally, they would allow access to drivers for the outdated hardware, to allow these to be fully integrated in to open source offerings. Older devices are not attractive to those in the market for a new device, so they wouldn't lose out. Open It's better than having so many viable devices sent to recycling or landfill.

Some manufacturers go out of their way to prevent their phones being flashed with anything other than their own offering.

39 Post Office convictions quashed after Fujitsu evidence about Horizon IT platform called into question

Re: And still...

"Upper management will always claim no knowledge and as they hold all the evidence it can't be challenged or proven that they were culpable."

Either they knew and were complicit in the conspiracies to proceed with prosecutions based on unsafe or fabricated evidence or they were negligent in their duties as officiers of the company.

It's a safe bet that those lower in the chain who are clearly involved will have kept emails that incriminate their bosses.

Seeing a robot dog tagging along with NYPD officers after an arrest stuns New Yorkers

Re: Dogs are smarter than people

"There have been no cases of dogs firing a gun at someone but thinking that they were going to taser them..."

Although, there been several cases of Americans being shot by a dog (usually by their own dog). There was some guy had collected statistics, with a column in hos table "Happened in Florida", because an unusual number of shot-by-dog incidents happened there. I can't find the link now.

Home office setup with built-in boiling water tap for tea and coffee without getting up is a monument to deskcess

For the last 7 years or so, I've been working mostly from home and going to a client's premises a couple of times a month. When WFH, it is a good idea to take a walk to the kitchen to get a drink or a snack every so often and a bad idea to have a desk or office setup that encourages you to sit in one place for hours at a time.

It was Russia wot did it: SolarWinds hack was done by Kremlin's APT29 crew, say UK and US

Re: I love

I don't think it is a case of people thinking that our intelligence agencies aren't clever enough to have identified the culprits - I think it is more that some people may suspect that one of our intelligence agencies could themselves be the culprits and could be using the Russian as scapegoats. After Edward Snowden's revelations, perhaps our intelligence agencies are not seen as pure as the driven snow.

Re: Instincts

Straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak:

https://www.president.gov.ua/documents/1172021-37533

If you use Google Transate, about a quarter of the way down, there is this:

"ensuring sustainable socio-political, humanitarian and economic development of Ukraine in accordance with certain principles of domestic and foreign policy, the strategic course of the state to gain full membership of Ukraine in the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization."

Airline software super-bug: Flight loads miscalculated because women using 'Miss' were treated as children

Re: Who was the developer?

I used to know a German lady who lived in the UK but wintered in Spain. She could have been the origin of the stereotype of a loud overbearing German. On one of her trips to Spain, she did the usual trick of turning up at Heathrow with five suitcases/bags and it was suggested that she needed to pay an excess baggage charge. She looked around the check-in hall and pointed out some fat guy checking in with one small bag and said "Is he paying an excess charge? You can weigh him and his luggage and me and my luggage - if I weigh more, I will pay. If not, I will not pay". The lady at the check-in desk decided to forego the excess baggage charge.

There is something to be said for weighing passengers and all their luggage. I've often seen people checking in and declaring a single carry on bag, while wearing a rucksack under a coat or having a friend or family member look after addtional undeclared carry-on bags.

For blinkenlights sake.... RTFM! Yes. Read The Front of the Machine

Re: Communicating with only obscenities?

In the same tone, an ex-British army guy at a European organisation, inspecting a failed voice circuit with a young female German engineer, gave this analysis "The fucking fucker's fucked!".

Semi-autonomous cars sales move up a gear with 3.5 million units leaving forecourts

Re: The plus side.

There have already been at least two cases where Tesla's Autopilot was effective in avoiding an accident, when the driver was incapacitated. In both cases, the driver was asleep at the wheel and the car was driving itself on Autopilot - and the police stopped the cars by overtaking them and then slowing to a stop. In both cases, the drivers were subsequently found to be drunk.

Where drunks have fallen asleep at the wheel in cars without autonomy, the typical result is an accident in which they injure themselves and other road users.

The kids aren't all right: Fall in GCSE compsci students is bad news for employers and Britain's future growth plans

Re: Blah blah offshoring

"But software development - why wouldn't you?"

In the UK, there are other career paths that offer more money and faster/higher progression.

Starlink's latent China crisis could spark a whole new world of warcraft

Re: more than 4,000 orbiters by the end of 2021

We manage to fit over 7 billion people around the surface of earth at an altitude of 0. The surface of Starlink's LEO offers even more area - there's plenty of room between the 12,000 planned satellites and even with the possible extension to 42,000 satellites.

Communication Workers Union to hold national ballot for members at BT, Openreach and EE over strike action

Re: Public utility should be provided by public entity.

"Re-nationalize British Telecom. It's the only answer."

The GPO was a real shitshow. Having chosen and stuck with the wrong type of telephone exchange hardware, their telephone network was unable to digitise for years and customers were left with ridiculous rotary dial telelephones when the rest of the developed world had moved on. Tone dialling and numerous other features like "redial" were simply unavailable. There was a monopoly on telephone wiring, allowing the GPO to charge what they like and force customers to wait months for a new line. The same applied if you wanted to have a telephone moved from one desk to another (telephones were hard wired - no plugs and sockets and it was illegal to interefere with telephone wiring). If you wanted to connect your own telephone the GPO would check it first and then charge you £15 extra per month for you to use your own telephone - at a time when average weekly pay was about £50 a week.

The 40-Year-Old Version: ZX81's sleek plastic case shows no sign of middle-aged spread

I still have a ZX81, somewhere in the attic. It still worked when I last brought it out to show someone, about ten years ago. I also have a Casio fx201P - a chunky programmable calculator from the mid 70s with a gas discharge 7 segmant display. That also works and I have the original manual, with a load of example programs.

"a single ULA"

Courtesy of Ferranti. Ferranti devised their ULA: a chip with a load of gates in the lower layers for which the customer-defined top layer would determine how the gates were interconnected. It was ideal for customers who could not afford to have custom chips made and was cost effective, even at relatively low volumes.

GPS jamming around Cyprus gives our air traffic controllers a headache, says Eurocontrol

When considering jamming of GNSS, it is worth noting that all the current GNSS are military systems, with the exception of Galileo i.e. first and foremost, these systems are for military use and they are managed by the military arms of the various countries that own/operate them. Galileo were obliged to accede to American demands that the US military would jam Galileo signals at local/regional level, when they deem it necessary.

Re: ILS?

For a commerical aircraft to use an RNAV approach or departure, they will typically be required to used an SBAS - a system that augments GNSS, adding corrections to the positioning data (mostly compensating for refraction of the ionosphere), deciding which satellites are offering reliable data and if GNSS/SBAS navigation can be used at any time. The European (EGNOS) and US systems (WAAS) currently only augment GPS signals, although augmentation of Galileo and L5/E5 bands is planned, along with a full CAT1 Autoland capability.

Copper broadband phaseout will leave UK customers with higher bills and less choice, says comparison site

Re: Emergeny calls

For better or worse, telcos are gradually removing legacy services from their product portfolios and moving inexorably towards only IP based/cloud services. Obviously, these don't offer customers anything like the same visibility as many of the traditional serial services but the telcos see that as an advantage e.g. does this IP cloud service actually have the promised reslience between point A and Point B?

Australia facepalms as Facebook blocks bookstores, sport, health services instead of just news

Re: effect on small Pacific countries

"The issue is, people in some of these tiny places *do not have* affordable access to that website, or any website. The internet for them is a phone on 4G pointed to Facebook. How that came about, I don't know, but presumably Facebook did the telco a deal."

One risk of Facebook's move is that the people in these small countries and/or their governments will have seen the risk of relying on Facebook and may look to rectify their lack of Internet or at least, of alternatives to Facebook.

What's that, Lassie? Dogs show signs of self-awareness according to peer-reviewed academic study?

My dog ignores itself in the mirror but it can recognise refections of me or other people (and react accordingly) - I guess the dog percieves his own reflection as inconsequential. Many dogs have to learn about mirrors when puppies i.e. they initially think it is another puppy - rather similar to the reactions of human babies.

European Commission redacts AstraZeneca vaccine contract – but forgets to wipe the bookmarks tab

Curevac

Interestingly, the EC published their APA with Curevac, which includes the following:

"The participating Member States acknowledge that, in light of the uncertainties both with respect to the development of the Product and the accelerated establishment of sufficient manufacturing capacities, the delivery dates set out in this APA are the contractor's current best estimates only and subject to change. Due to possible delays in the authorisation, production and release of the Product, no Product or only reduced volumes of the Product may be available at the estimated delivery dates set out in this APA. In the case of delays to the anticipated availability of the Product, the contractor aims to allocate the doses of the Product fairly across the demand of doses, which the contractor has or will contractually commit to towards its present and future customers, as such doses become available."

As I understand it, Curevac is a long way from delivering any vaccine to the EU or the UK but the EC doesn't seem to be concerned about Curevac. It does seem strange that the EC is throwing their toys out of the pram over AZ, given that

- The EU have not yet approved the vaccine;

- The EC is not up to date with their advance payments to AZ;

- The French president and some politicians in Germany are claiming that the AZ vaccine is ineffective for people over 60.

As I understand it, AZ indicated that their EU deliveries would be affected due to problems at a Belgian plant run by a partner, Novasep - but the EC is not talking about those problems or how they might help to resolve them.

It appears that Italy and Latvia are suing AZ, presumably on the basis that EU member states are parties to the APA.

Somebody's Russian to meddle with UK coronavirus vaccine efforts, but GCHQ won't take it lying down

Re: Infantile

"...unvaccinated conspiracy theory adherents will clog up the hospitals between steps B) get sick and C) die."

The NHS could be directed to refuse hospital admission to those who have previously refused to be vaccinated, when advised by NHS medical professionals.

The exodus continues: Less than half of contractors expect to stick with their employment set-up after IR35

It is an unfortunate coincidence that the Chancellor introducing these IR35 measures has a father-in-law who is a founder and now chairman emeritus of Infosys, a large Indian multinational specialising in outsourcing - who might expect to gain from work that would otherwise have been awarded to contractors with PSCs.

Hydrogen-powered train tested on Britain's railway tracks as diesel alternative

"Current hydrogen production methods are largely reliant on electricity from non-low-carbon sources.."

It's worse than that: hydrogen is not normally manufactured by electrolysis - it is normally manufactured through the steam reforming of oil refinery off gases. After that, as with petrol and diesel, hydrogen must be stored and transported until it reaches the point of use - and that storage and distribution is incredibly energy intensive and adds more pollution.

Given that railway electrification has been implemented sucessfully in numerous countries, this looks like a pretend green solution to a problem that already has a better, proven solution.

Bad news for 'cool dads' trying to bond with their teens: China-owned TikTok and WeChat face US download ban by Sunday

The bigger problem with the TikTok app is all the data it snarfs from your phone and uploads to servers in China, not so much the stuff you choose to post.

Regardless of what Mr Trump does or who buys ByteDance, the TikTok app is Chinese spyware, masquerading as a social media app.

We're not getting back with Galileo, UK govt tells The Reg, as question marks sprout above its BS*

Re: Two chocolate teapots

There's an interesting article in a Russian journal, in which they discuss the replacement of their old terrestrial naviagation system "Chayka" with a new one called "Skorpion". In the article, there is a comment to the effect that "in the event of war, all GNSS (GPS, GLONASS, etc.) would be jammed worldwide" and that the Russian military would use their terrestrial systems.

Re: LORAN?

I understand the Americans are looking at eLoran or similar, possibly in response to the Russian jamming of GPS during NATO exercises in Norway. The Russians already have two terrestrial navigation systems, in addition to GLONASS - so jamming GPS makes sense for them.

Re: Hard Brexit

The EU has offered PRS access to the UK but only when the UK is engaged in activities that are coordinated with the EU and inline with the EU's geopolitical policies.

Before you buy that managed Netgear switch, be aware you may need to create a cloud account to use its full UI

Does this mean that when you register the product, you get some sort of code to unlock the full feature set or that Netgear require these products to be managed via their cloud? If it is the latter, then the administrative interfaces of these devices would have to be exposed to the Internet and these products would cease to be useful whenever Netgear drops them out of it's cloud or their cloud is turned off. How utterly useless!

I can 'proceed without you', judge tells Julian Assange after courtroom outburst

Re: Blackmailed

"For the extradition hearing, they need to show that what he is accused of is illegal in England or some other part of the UK."

Sadly, this is not the case. As was seen with the NatWest Three, the UK - US extradition treaty allows the extradition of UK residents whose alleged crimes were acts carried out while they were in the UK and were acts that are not illegal in the UK.

Re: Blackmailed

"There needs to be a prima facie case for extradition for each charge."

Under the UK - US extradition treaty, the UK is obliged to demonstrate "probable cause", whereas the US has to show "reasonable suspicion", both of which are considerably less than presenting a prima facie case.

Like Uber, but for satellite launches: European Space Agency’s ride-sharing rocket slings 53 birds with one bang

Re: ESAIL I'm confused

As I understand it, ESAIL is aimed at monitoring of ship positions for environmental/fisheries management, fleet management, security, etc., collecting AIS data from areas that are beyond the range of terrestrial monitoring stations.

Digital pregnancy testing sticks turn out to have very analogue internals when it comes to getting results

Maybe a moisture meter or a barcode reader.

Unexpected victory in bagging area: Apple must pay shop workers for time they spend waiting to get frisked

One piece at a time?

Pass that Brit guy with the right-hand drive: UK looking into legalising automated lane-keeping systems by 2021

Re: Lane Management Warning Systems Are Not Very Good

At present, these systems are only intended for use on motorways and dual carriageways.

Re: This has to be subject to rules for automation

Tesla has had warnings about drivers needing to be alert and ready to take control at any time but they have been forced to introduce checks that the driver is alert by requiring the drivers to "exert pressure on the steering wheel" at intervals. Amazingly, some drivers have deployed devices to defeat the alertness check.

On a motorway or dual carriageway, these systems are fine, as long as they can "see" lane markings. If the car arrives to a point where the lane markings have worn away or when there is heavy rain/snow/slush, the lane keeping systems gives up and hands back control - the driver needs to takeover immediately.

Oh what a feeling: New Toyotas will upload data to AWS to help create custom insurance premiums based on driver behaviour

Re: eCall only activates when there's been an accident

"In a recent murder case in Wales, the evidence against the accused was largely based on data sent from their Land Rover Discovery to LR's HQ."

The data was not sent to LR's HQ or anyone else - data was retrieved from the Event Data Recorder module. These modules store data for analysis after a crash and include parameters such as speed, accelerator and brake pedal positions, G forces, etc. But the data can only be retrieved by physically connecting the module to a computer with the relevant software, via a suitable cable.

Re: It communicates the vehicle's exact location to emergency services

In an eCall module, there is a GPS receiver, which is operational whenever the vehicle is powered - it will continuously receive signals from GNSS satellites and calculate the vehicle's current position. Inertial sensors continously monitor G forces and the vehicle's attitude e.g. Is it upside down? There are also inputs to the eCall module for things like airbag deployment. If the eCall module senses an event or if the SOS button is pressed, it makes a voice call to the emergency number. Once connected, the eCall module sends a burst of data (car's WIN, orientation, location, etc.) in an audible stream (like an old analogue modem) and then lets the emergency operator speak with the occupants.

The eCall module doesn't have a conventional cellular data service and is not permanently connected with anyone.

This NSA, FBI security advisory has four words you never want to see together: Fancy Bear Linux rootkit

Re: 85th Main Special Service Center

In Russia, I think the they are known as "Military Unit 26165" and according to their Rusprofile listing, they are engaged in "military security activities" and "other unspecified activities". The address given is the HQ of the GRU.

https://www.rusprofile.ru/id/7337085

Russia tested satellite-to-satellite shooter, say UK and USA

Re: respectable clone of the B29

Our American allies were none too pleased about the RR jet engines sales to the USSR.

Heir-to-Concorde demo model to debut in October

Looking at Planefinder recently, I reckon the people that might fly on a new supersonic transatlantic jet would rather pootle to and fro in a smaller and slower private jet, to avoid mixing with other potentially infectious passengers.

Re: Lost Opportunities

When talking about US industry, Jay Leno said "We're becoming like the British. We like noble failures". He wasn't wrong in his assessment of attitudes in Britain.

Analogue radio given 10-year stay of execution as the UK U-turns on DAB digital future

Re: What a surpirse. It's muppetry.

"The problem isn’t the analog receiver, the problem is the lack of a DAB receiver."

My car has FM, DAB, Spotify and Tune-In. I don't use DAB at all because it typically has either 1 - 5 stations or none, even in areas that are supposed to have good outdoor DAB reception. DAB is utterly useless in cars.

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

"Giant datasets like ImageNet and 80 Million Tiny Images are also often collected by scraping photos from Flickr or Google Images without people’s explicit consent."

Data illicitly copied in bulk from the Internet turns out to have unethical content. Well, that's a shock.

If they included social media imagery and postings, it is hardly surprising that some of the imagery is associated with colourful language that is routinely used by some people of assorted ethnic groups. AIs may need to learn that the acceptability of using certain terms may depend on the ethnicity of those using them.