Posts by Khoos

Google in talks to nail Virgin as 'partner' in satellite internet plan

And still...

There will be no actual virgin media fiber connection.

Build your own mobile network for the low, low price of US$2,000

Add the 1800 MHz dect guard band...

I don't know about the UK but in the Netherlands it is allowed to start your private gsm network in the bit of the 1800 MHz band that was once 'dect guard band' but which falls within the 1800 MHz bands supported by GSM handsets (rules apply for power, but a license/registration is not needed).

Deep Impact succumbs to 'HAL bug' as glitch messes with antenna

"DIXI also did the business"

So, have NASA heard about the loo-for-rent business named 'Dixi' ?

Telefonica and Arqiva set to mop up BILLIONS in smart meter cash

900 MHz ISM band?

One thing that irked me in the original article: it mentions 900 MHz ISM band. I checked the ofcom spectrum management site, but the UK doesn't have a 900 MHz ISM band (it's US-only).

See a young Brit's mobe? 55% chance it has nekkid selfies on it, claims poll

Suddenly, it makes sense...

Now I understand why police and border control are so eager to download everything from smartphones.

Mosaic turns 20: Let's fire up the old girl, show her the web today

Re: NOW I feel old...

.. and PTSD from busy signals?

Jammy b*stards: Admen flog chocolate bars with 'Wi-Fi-free' zones

Dutch frequency allotment authority has been notified

The Dutch frequency allotment authority (agentschap telecom) has been notified of this jamming (over a week ago) and has had at least one jammer disabled.

Ever had to register to buy online - and been PELTED with SPAM?

Re: Unique emails.

Or you get a nastygram from the company that you are misrepresenting them by using their name in your e-mail address. Great way to lose customers and gain bad reviews.

Kickstarted mobe charger 'kicked to death by Apple'

Hell hasn't frozen over yet

I'd expect headline news all over the IT press when "Cupertino" starts giving useful answers to El Reg.

Take a number, says new social network

phonespell d'oh

I'm surprised the editor found the one site where you have to solve captchas = look at ads to find out which letters on your phone keypad resolve to which numbers. That's a whole new low in trying to monetize any service.

ZTE make benefit glorious world's tiniest 4G dongle

It's so small...

one of those 1x1 gifs delivered with this article is the picture of the device.

GoDaddy puts gratuitous sexy pics on IT content

But it needs an image! Any image! A stock image!

I see this "needs an image! any image!" thinking on other sites too. With usually stock images which have little to do with the story. For example www.nu.nl has a stock image of a CRT (remember those?) with a full-screen (remember?) output of IPv4-only (remember?) of netstat.exe -r applied to lots of stories about computer security.

Tremble, operators: UK gets ACCURATE mobile coverage guide

Interesting operators listed

I can see coverage of AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon in London... which together all sound like US operators. Having to do with roaming handsets not properly seeing that they weren't on their home network?

Conroy wants telcos to wear undies on heads

Impact on prices

With a "Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy" like that it is no surprise broadband prices and caps in Australia are still quite different from those in other parts of the world. And yes, situations are different, but there is a point at which assholery is influencing prices more than enormous distances.

Satellite broadband rollout for all in US: But Europe just doesn't get it

Re: Satellite is a reasonable fit for some commercial uses

I noticed a lot of petrol stations here in .nl (Texaco, Esso) have a dish on the roof with clearly two lnb-like devices, hinting at a two-way satellite connection.

I'm not versed enough in that area to recognize the dishes and their bands, someone can probably explain.

The one-size-fits-all solution indeed, since petrol stations can't be too close to serious amounts of houses and those along the highway are usually quite far from areas with high population densities. Although highways are probably also a place for lots of fiber.. it's a way to make your right-of-way pay for itself.

Disney sitcom says open source is insecure

Something like this can haunt you for years...

IBM had a commercial (in the Dutch market) with a kid as annoying as this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLMglsX3bGA with the 'kicker' at the end that you may need to plug in the computer before you can use it. Annoying in itself as a commercial, but even more annoying was the years after that when people would give "helpful IT advice" when you're debugging a deep problem: "are you sure it's plugged in? I heard computers have serious problems when they aren't plugged in".

Tumblr CEO realises ads don't make him sick after all

Probably a simple reason

The hosting bill showed up, and 'unlimited traffic *' turned out to be a marketing term.

Prince of Persia author releases 1980s source code

And the copy protection finally got removed!

According to this tweet by Jason Scott:

https://twitter.com/#!/textfiles/status/192303728202743808

CAN'T-FAIL APPLE II CRACKING STRATEGY: 1. Wait 22 years 2. Source released on github 3. Patch source 4. Success!!

IPv6 networking: Bad news for small biz

Re: You fail at IPv6.

The whole article reads like the author just wanted to rant about IPv6 and was not willing to get technical details in the way of a nice rant and/or trolling. Other publications hire better authors to write about IPv6.

Raving Iranian TV accuses Ofcom of Sky ban

Has anyone checked with Sky

My guess (as a foreigner with an interest in broadcast systems) would be 'unavailable on sky (sat? cable?) at all' or 'removed from the sky electronic program guide'. Has anyone checked that?

UK cops must justify using new mobile interception tech

Sounds like they are exploiting a hole that needs to be plugged...

I guess they use the hole that was presented at US hacker conferences misleading all GSM phones into using 'fake' networks.

It's a good thing that was presented, pretending there is no hole which would therefore never be abused is a thing of the past.

What I do wonder: do they have enough cooperation from the telco's to have access to the encryption keys or will a (very tiny) amount of phones suddenly start to warn about using an unencrypted network?

Attack on 'Cyberbullying' critic prompts raid by armed cops

Oh no, a computer was used!

Lovely writing in the Northjersey.com article: "The 911 caller whose hoax prompted a tense police standoff in a quiet Wyckoff neighborhood used a computer to mask the origin of the call, authorities said Sunday".

The whole article reads like the 'reporter' got introduced for the first time to the interesting artefacts of cheap VoIP trunk services and spoofing providers.

Broadband leads to drug abuse, say US boffins

And now the correct conclusion, please

To me the right conclusion would be 'pharmacy spam works'. The broadband just helps the spam get delivered.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

This was a tough one

Used some wild guesses. Please update us with explanations and full answers after closing the entries! I'd love to know the story behind some of these devices.

UK.gov ignores 'net neutrality' campaigners

Policymakers and knowledge...

""Is a society where the people tasked with making policy have some basic technical understanding of the areas for which they are responsible really a dream too far?""

Yes. Next question?

Defcon speaker calls IPv6 a 'security nightmare'

The real nightmare

The real nightmare is a network security vendor (like a firewall vendor) who can't deliver IPv6-capable firewalls when IPv6 has only been in the making for about 20 years, probably longer than some of those network security vendors have been wrestling with IPv4 insecurities. Why was "IPv6 support" not on the must-have list for any network device being bought for the last 3 years?

Ex-staffer pleads guilty to massive T-Mobile data scam

Interesting misparse

And here I thought "massive T-mobile data scam" was an article about the international data roaming tariffs.

Windows Shortcut Flaw underpins power plant Trojan

"disabling outrun"

I hope outrun isn't installed on these systems.

On the other hand, it might be a better way to fill the time than actually looking at the boring numbers from the control systems.

"Keep the car. Go Home"

Brighton NIMBYs complain over BT broadband upgrades

Pics?

Any pictures of those scary monster cabinets taking over the streets? How bad is it?

Will we see stories of monster cabinets roaming around, scaring little children, messing up gardens and doing generally inappropriate stuff?