Posts by John Brown (no body)

Journalist hurt by exploding USB bomb drive

Re: We need a bigger kaboom.

...and the era of Mad Max gets closer :-(

Re: If you really have to ...

And that 3 metres is only the recommended limit to assure a working connection. Odds are in many cases greater than 3 metres will work too.

Re: Random USB devices can usually be handled safely[1]

"For physical safety, I guess a USB extender with relays to allow remote activation."

Relays? Just don't plug the extender in until after the device is plugged in and placed behind the blast shield. Then plug the extender cable into a power source, or if feeling brave, a computer.

Re: Yet another reason

"It really is an evil idea."

On the other hand, people have clearly STILL not learned to plug in unsolicited devices. Maybe if enough people learn that plugging it in might cause an explosion, they might think twice at plugging in the random USB pendrive "helpfully dropped" in the car park by your local friendly h4xx0rs.

I'd not wish anyone to come to harm, but this is exactly the sort of "security scare" many users need to be made aware of. Of course, even then, the "it won't happen to me", or "it only happens in far off countries" mentality soon kicks in.

Microsoft freaks out users with Windows 11 warning: 'LSA protection is off'

Because MS are an effective monopoly and they know it.

Microsoft scrambles to fix Windows 11 'aCropalypse' privacy-battering bug

It beggers belief...

It beggars belief that devs could get something as simple as image cropping so badly wrong. What the fuck were they thinking? Did not ONE of them notice the file sizes not changing or not reducing enough?

It's bad enough when users embed huge images into Word documents and then scale them using Word and the entire huge image is still there instead of being actually scaled to the size the user chose. But this is a whole other level of shitty programming!

I'm left speechless!

Space dust that regularly hits Earth could contain proof of alien life

Re: Great Science!

"Panspermia is a bit of a cop-out and unnecessary. It suggests the chemicals needed to spark life came from a biome rather than lifeless coincidence but those chemicals are pretty common in space so while not ruling out panspermia it doesn't really matter."

And not forgetting, of course, the biggest cop-out of panspermia. For "life" to be travelling through space to "seed" planets, it had to start somewhere first. Whether that be a planet or clouds in space, somewhere, the building blocks of life had to form first.

Europe's right-to-repair law asks hardware makers for fixes for up to 10 years

Re: What stunt will 'Elon the magnificent' play to get around this?

Based on the numbers I see on UK roads, I'd expect similar in the EU, therefore, yes, a sizeable market.

SpaceX tries to de-orbit Amazon's request for a satellite broadband shortcut

Re: Good, very good!

But you DO have a choice. Go back to your cheap(er) and crap DSL provider or stay with expensive and fast provider :-)

Student satellite demonstrates drag sail to de-orbit old hardware

Re: But how would a sail work?

The Earths atmosphere extends a LONG way above us, well into the "empty" space of LEO. It's very, very thin[*] up there though, but is there. Then there are solar winds too. Have you ever wondered by the ISS needs it's orbit boosting periodically? Or why satellites carry "station keeping" fuel? The drag degrades their orbits and they need pushing back "up" every now and then.

* so thin that this test sat with it's sail will likely derbit in about 6.5 years compared to about 25 years without it, as per the article, which mentions other sats put up at the same time in similar orbits.

And FWIW, I learned the above by reading the articles and comments on El Reg, as well as lots of SF stories over the years :-)

Lenovo Thinkpad X13s: The stealth Arm-powered laptop

Re: ARmchair

My wife has a powered recliner ARMchair with a USB charging port :-)

"RAM measured in the megabytes"

Megabytes? Pah! Kids today!. Now git orf ma' lawn!

Re: long-term Windows users are used to this and will barely notice

I've come across a few brands of laptop where certain models exhibit that same behaviour, including both HP and Lenovo. It's usually because the charger has failed, the user broke the charger or simply didn't have somewhere to plug in and HAD to get some work done before reporting the issue to IT and totally flattened the battery. It usually only takes a few minutes on charge before the laptop will switch on. On the other hand, with it stripped down for diagnostics/repair, they will power on via the PSU with the battery disconnected. Maybe the power management simply sees a fully dead battery as needing all available power to jump start the charging process for a couple of minutes. I've no idea how the charging process works with various battery technologies in that situation, just a best guess. I do seem to vaguely remember one some years ago that didn't power on with the supplied 45W charger but did with a 65W charger, then later worked perfectly fine with it's 45W charger. As I said, best empirical guess. Not enough data to be definitive in my case.

Re: long-term Windows users are used to this and will barely notice

"Two is good. Two is much better than one. Two is a bare minimum. But for over a thousand quid, I expect more than a bare minimum. For a £1200 device, I expect a plenitude."

While I agree, you are not the target market if you need all those extra ports. After all, it's a laptop, and a slim one at that, not a desktop :-)

I'd not have one for the same reason. It's also a bit pricey in my view for that and other short-comings. On the other hand, every site I visit, the desks generally all have screens on them which are also USB hubs, and you just plug your laptop in via (one of) the USB-C port(s) and get screen, keyboard, mouse and sometimes networking. Or you carry a small port replicator that gives you power, USB, Ethernet, HDMI etc. There's even on in the X13s manual which it says is supplied with some models or available as an optional extra. See Page 21 [PDF} Theirs even has an SD-Card slot too and looks easily small enough to keep in the laptop bag. No idea of the price, not cheap I suspect.

How the Internet Archive faces potential destruction at the hands of Big Four publishers

Re: Public Good

Maybe be need to go back to The Statute of Anne. 14 years of copyright protection from date of publication with the option to renew ONCE only for a further 14 years, after which it's in the Public Domain. With suitable amendments for various media that have come into existence since the 1700's :-)

Also interesting is copyrights on works prior to 1956. particularly radio broadcast which were not copyrightable. Even up to the 1980's, "broadcast by cable" was not copyrightable so radio and TV first broadcast on, for example, the Redifusion cable network were not copyright if exclusive to or first "broadcast" only on that network. Note, IANAL, least of all in Copyright Law, if in doubt consult an actual qualified lawyer :-)

...and next years version of the book will have some information removed and other information added that WILL be required in next years course, so don't buy a second hand copy of last years book if you want to pass the course.

Re: The IA have themselves to blame

"make all of their out of print materials available for download free of charge."

And that's the nub of the whole argument against the publishers. Potential, there are books out there that got a single print run 20 years ago but are potentially still in copyright for another 120+ years. eg, young author, with many years of life still ahead of them plus another 70 years after their death. So almost certainly no public access to that work for almost the entire lifetime of most people currently on this planet since there will never be another print run and all of the original print run are in private hands, a few in libraries, los, damaged, destroyed or even pulped if not all sold.

I've even tried to track down a legal source for a book I KNOW was also published as an ebook, but no, "no longer in print". I mean WTF? An ebook "no longer in print"? How is that even possible? If they sell ebooks already, there is only a miniscule cost in maintaining ALL of their ebook catalogue along with the current sellers. Uploading it and creating the catalogue entry is already done. It's only a MB or so of storage to keep it there as long as the server exists.

I suppose the publisher may no longer hold the rights. But someone does. And if I can't find it to buy it, they clearly have no interest in earning from it.

Apple bags patent for folding phone that closes as it's dropped

I think the point is that anyone can have an idea. But it takes real work to actually implement it. If you want to "protect" your idea, don't tell anyone else about it. Go implement it[*]. The risk you take is that someone else may have already had the same idea or simply be better at implementing and beat you to punch. Tough. That's life.

* It doesn't have to actually work fully or be a production model. But it should exist in the form you are describing before a patent can be granted IMHO.

Potatoes in space: Boffins cook up cosmic concrete for off-world habitats

Re: "StarCrete" ??

"StarCrete 2.0 ??"

They'll probably be travelling in Starship. Or possibly Boing Starliners. Marketing is all about superlatives. I'm super-excited about all this!!!!!

IT phone home: How to run up a $20K bill in two days and get away with it by blaming Cisco

Re: Not ISDN...

Yeah, it knocked him for 6 because he didn't know where the boundaries were. Silly middon!!

Re: Ah, the good'ol days..

Ah, that THAT is why Raspberry Pis suddenly became so hard to get retail!!!

John Deere urged to surrender source code under GPL

Re: I just use my old Ford 8-N

"Somehow I see a person who hasn't ever worked in a farm telling how it's a wise move to buy a $3M tractor you aren't allowed to fix. How much JD is paying you?"

You seem to have taken the exact opposite meaning from my post than I intended.

The point I was making is that accountants and corporations don't think like normal people. They think like the people who used to say "no one got fired for buying IBM". But they think that about John Deere.

Re: I just use my old Ford 8-N

You are speaking from the point of view of a small, independent farmer and you are, of course correct. The big corporate owned farms, operated by employees, are run by accountants. They see partially or fully automated tractors doing 5 times the work more efficiently with only one person paid to do a job that you and your machinery needs more than one person to do as a cost saving. They are taking the risk of maybe loosing time and/or crops against the guaranteed savings on wages over the long term. They probably have service contracts too, with SLAs that costs less than the wages they are saving. Costs that are prohibitive unless you are a big corporate farm owner. They don't care if a crop fails due to failed equipment. It's not their livelihood on the line. The service contract SLA payouts and/or insurance will cover it and it doesn't matter to them if the food supply drops for a while. The profits from their other enormous farms will cover the losses on that one for the duration.

All of the above could also apply to you in terms of cost savings on manpower with all the clever SatNav directed poughing, seeding, spraying etc if you can get that sort of equipment without the overpriced lock-in/out :-)

BianLian ransomware crew goes 100% extortion after free decryptor lands

Breach notification?

"references to legal and regulatory issues facing organizations if a data breach became public"

In many jurisdiction, NOT notifying the relevant authorities and affected users/customers means even bigger fines. Trying to hide that you've been breached is a bad move so that threat at least is pretty meaningless. And once the data is out there, there's nothing stopping the ransomware scum from blackmailing the same victim again, even if they do pay up the first time. And this particular crew seem to be a bit pissed off at the free decryption keys being available so instead of doing the "arms race" work to stay ahead of the good guys, they've turned even more nasty and vindictive. That's a recipe for the good guys to put even more resources into taking them out. Yeah, it's still whack-a-mole, but if the good guy decide it's viable to use a bigger hammer, the odds of any one mole getting whacked get better.

Now collapsed SVB's parent files for bankruptcy as Biden calls for stiffer penalties

He might had had a chance when the Dems ran that place, but much less so with the Reps in charge. Most will oppose it just because Biden is calling for it, even if they agree "something needs to be done".

NHS threatened with legal action over £480m patient data platform

Re: Foxglove

"I did write to my GP in November and a month later demanded an acknowledgement, but I have still had no substantive reply."

Probably because your GP knows even less about it than you do and s/he is probably quite busy being overworked by more patients than the practice can actually handle.

Re: Ask???

"Published in 2005, 18 years ago."

It'd be interesting to get a frank and honest answer from them to the question "Do you still believe that". Politicians have been known to change their views. Sometimes on a whim, sometimes in an attempt to gain votes and sometimes, though rarely, because they realised they were wrong. 18 years is quite a long time and most of those named have changed their positions on other policies.

Lenovo ordered to pay $140M for InterDigital patents – sees this as a 'major win'

Maybe the answer is to have the owners of FRAND patents publicly and openly publish the licencing costs so everyone who wants to licence the patents know up front what the price is and everyone is paying the same allowing for "bulk" licencing of course.

AI-generated art can be copyrighted, say US officials – with a catch

Re: Copyright-Worthy Human Element

There is "art" out there in galleries, presumably copyrighted, that is little more than a simple geometric shape in some single colour or other on an otherwise white canvas. The only real work that went into something like that is the bullshit generated in the "artists" head when describing why it's so wonderful and meaningful. Or that gut that used to get small passenger jets and set up a canvas behind them and throw tins of paint into the jet stream to "create art". I doubt he could plan where the paint went, only the order in which he threw the colours.

Re: Realistically this is less of an issue than people make out...

Is it? Or is that Steamboat Willy? Not technically Micky Mouse, although the House of Mouse probably hate that situation.

Dual Tesla lawsuits pull Elon Musk into right-to-repair war

Re: John Deer

"John Deer has changed tact"

I think you meant "tack", but tact sort of works too :-)

Tact: skill and sensitivity in dealing with others or with difficult issues.

Tack: When referring to a change in direction, position, or course of action, the correct phrase is to change tack.

There were over 4000 patents granted on the human genome until the US Supreme Court said no.

Could be a different result now since Trump tried to stuff the court with people like him.

Techie fired for inventing an acronym – and accidentally applying it to the boss

Re: Oh no...

Situation Normal, Al FUBARed Up any better?

Of course, you're fucked when you discover what FUBAR means :-)

Karen. Or possibly Sue. Or maybe it was Dick Head?

Re: Supreme Head of Information Technology

Another possibly apocryphal one was when the RSA introduced their Computer Literacy and Information Technology course. They decided it might be a good idea to capitalise the A in the name and so it became CLAIT instead of something a bit more vulgar.

The Stonehenge of PC design, Xerox Alto, appeared 50 years ago this month

Re: Xerox and foolishness

Or borrow a copy and Xerox it :-)

Reg fashion: Here's what the well-dressed astronaut will wear on the Moon in 2025

Re: NASA Marketing -- who knew?

Maybe they got it mixed up with the suit for the new Space Force Space Marines super stealth space commando unit?

Re: Why?

To the dark side he has gone.

Re: Why?

"Or a long time ago, I read another SF story that talked about why walking on frozen gas lakes might be a bad idea, especially if your soles transfer heat."

The Forever War, Joe Haldeman. The troops practising "cold manoeuvres" on Charon before deploying. An yes, oddly, your comment triggered the full memory of that, I didn't even have to look it up :-)

Re: Tight fit?

There's already three of them on the Moon. Sadly they were not parked in the proper charging bays, having been left in random places by the previous "riders". All you have to do is find one, sign up with the app, complete the "captcha" (pick three images with craters in them), register your usage and off you go. Don't forget to wear a helmet and take out the optional insurance.

Re: Tight fit?

...and a built in purple wig :-)

Cancer patient sues hospital after ransomware gang leaks her nude medical photos

"Going to be an expensive pay out, better just settle out of court !"

Settling out of court is entirely possible. No one wants to be the one to lose in court and set a precedent. It happens all the time, sadly. There are certain court cases that really need to go ahead and the judge ought to refuse to accept the settlement terms.

Here's a fun idea: Try to unlock and drive away in someone else's Tesla

Re: Do not disturb

Me neither. Standing in the queue to pay at the supermarket, it used to be the old ladies looking through their bag for their purse that held the queue up. Now it "tech bros" fumbling with their phone and drawing "gestures" or entering PINs to activate the payment. On the other hand, some people just seem to pick their phone out and tap it on the reader, so maybe there are different system or some people are a little more security conscious than others.

Re: But physical keys can be hacked

"If only there were some sort of index number easily visible on the vehicle... I mean, particularly if you're parked next to an other similar car, wouldn't you check which was yours?"

Good point. But in a hurry and they "key" just unlocked the car and probably flashed the lights so "obviously" that must be "yours" :-)

Re: It's a feature

"Mine are flat-black, and usually hang on the roll cage when not in use."

Doers that give a better view of the road on a long straight when rallying?

Anyone want an International Space Station? Slightly used

Re: Spare parts?

"Plus actually grappling any larger parts will be tricky when most things are orbiting at 25,000 MPH."

The relative velocity is what matters and orbital junk is not all going at 25,000mph relative to the ISS :-)

Re: Can someone explain why it must come down?

MIR was a shithole and a deathtrap by the time the Russians finally decided to burn it up. You can only maintain something for so long before essential bits can no longer support operation. Even swapping out a whole module is nigh on impossible. Most of the interconnecting hatches are strung through with loads of pipes and cabling so just shutting the door between modules would be almost impossible without compromising all sorts of systems.

Re: Why not sell it?

"if we aren't living in cis-lunar space by then, that will the be end of permanent human habitation in space, for a while."

If by "we" you mean America and a few others allowed to be guests up there, yeah. If by "we" you mean humanity, China are happy to keep the place warm for the rest of us with their manned station. I suspect for that reason, the US will actually want to replace ISS ASAP, if only to not be seen as in 2nd place to the Chinese. I think we can discount the Russians for a long while now and other countries aren't really up to manned flight yet let alone lofting their own space stations apart from ESA and there doesn't seem to be the budget or political will to go that route alone.

Re: I don't think future space stations will be "international" ....

China already has their own Heavenly Palace anyway.

I wonder if it's a coincidence that they gone from "revolutionary" names to mythical-sounding names for their space hardware at the same time Pooh Bear is angling for the position of Emperor-for-life?

Re: I've got a better idea...

Just crash it into Wimbledon Common. Some small furry creatures will quickly clear it up, dismantle it and re-purpose and recycle the remains into something useful. I'm sure Madame Cholet would like some titanium soup ladles :-)