Posts by Vector

Better mobe coverage needed for connected cars, says firm flogging networking gear

Re: real-time telemetrics

"why should I worry about that, since I don't drive like a tosspot ?"

Because your definition of "driving like a tosspot" may differ from your insurance company's.

Shock: NASA denies secret child sex slave cannibal colony on Mars

Re: Reigniting the debate on what constitutes an important skill

"And spotting when someone is crazy as a s**thouse rat remains one of them"

In this case, that's not a skill. Skills require training and practice. This just requires a brain.

Disney mulls Mickey Mouse magic material to thwart pirates' 3D scans

@ Not also known as SC Re: Solid DRM

"Sounds like a good starting point for a novel."

Actually, a rock opera:

Repo! The Genetic Opera

France and UK want to make web firms liable for users' content

Re: The End Is Nigh

Every time I see a report like "number of terrorists plots foiled," I always think, yup, no lions here! My Anti-Lion device works perfectly!

You know this net neutrality thing? Well, people really love it

Re: How To Write the FCC Without Pain and Suffering

"Due to bad web coding, the FCC website itself is a mess to navigate when you'd like to convey your opinions to them regarding real net neutrality."

You seem to imply that's some kind of accident...

"He's a soulless mercenary bastard, happy to be owned by a corporation."

Isn't that one of the definitions of Lawyer?

Essentially puzzling: Rubin's hype-phone ties up with… Sprint?

"Sprint is ...in the midst of negotiations for a possible merger with T‑Mobile US"

Being a T-Mobile customer, I certainly hope they are not foolish enough to follow through on a deal with Sprint. The genesis of Sprint's current woes can be found in their acquisition of Nextel and many of the same issues would also apply here, most notably, the need to merge two disparate network technologies! The costs to move users from Nextel's network over to Sprint's far outweighed the gains of a larger customer base and left Sprint swimming in red ink.

As to Ruben's new toy, it's pretty close to DOA out the door. It's one "innovation" (which has been tried before in various incarnations with little success) is tied to a price way to high to be enticing to the general public. So, in the end, they're tying a dead phone to a dead carrier. No loss.

Break crypto to monitor jihadis in real time? Don't be ridiculous, say experts

@Adam 52

No, the original statement is absolutely true. Your assertion that we've done it with paper and comms is a false one. In those cases as with this, the bad guys could employ most of the same tactics to snoop that the good guys used, it was just illegal for them to use them (which is a fairly low bar when you're a bad guy).

The current situation is further complicated by the fact that monitoring, whether good or bad, happens in an unmonitored location, so it's hard to know exactly who is monitoring until they take some action.

Add the fact that the "terrorists" will simply start employing e2e encryption of their own or other methods which require no encryption at all and you really haven't accomplished much towards your stated goal. Bear in mind that drug dealers have managed to avoid capture for decades in a world with no encryption despite being high value targets.

After reusing a rocket, SpaceX tries reusing Dragon capsule for ISS resupply

FTFY

"Recycling kit to lower costs is key to Musk's everyone's goals"

If we're gonna make space travel viable, we've got to be able to reuse launch vehicles. Imagine if they had to build a new plane every time you wanted to fly someplace!

China cyber-security law will keep citizens' data within the Great Firewall

@hellwig Re: Just Cut Them Off

Guess you really don't care about your smartphone, or computer or most of the rest of your modern electronic conveniences which are largely manufactured in China. Manufacturing which I doubt the Chinese government would hesitate long before cutting right off at the knees if a plan like the one you propose were to be implemented.

Not that we couldn't pick up that manufacturing slack elsewhere in the world, but I'm not sure we could pick it up at the current prices and I am sure we couldn't do it without large amounts of pain!

Re: Pity this doesent apply to the English

Unfortunately, this type of law wouldn't help us Yanks. It just says data has to stay within the country's borders and we're already within those border's with the biggest data farmers in the world!

French fling fun-sized fine at Facebook for freakin' following folk

Re: the french??

"Where do the tracking cookies come from?"

Sites that have partnered with Facebook. You visit their site, they apply a Facebook cookie to please their dark overlord and you get tracked.

Re: Does not compute, Captain

You just have to do it over...and over...and over...and over...

It's all about volume!!!

Re: the french??

Ha yourself.

Perhaps you missed this little tidbit in the article:

"...Facebook should stop tracking the web activity of non-users of the service without getting their consent"

So I wouldn't be quite so smug about not being a Farcebook user.

WannaCrypt 'may be the work of North Korea' theory floated

Yeah, two things occur to me. First, from reports I've heard this thing was so hideously bungled (from a payoff perspective) that I'm more inclined to believe it was script kiddie adaptation than some "notorious" hacking collective. Second, if this was some political actor, why bother with the ransom? Just encrypt the files and watch all the phish flop on the line.

Amazon announces new Echo just as Microsoft's first Cortana-powered clone breaks cover

Re: read 1984 for several years

Naw...Anthony Burgess is the one wot got it right!

What is this bullsh*t, Google? Nexus phones starved of security fixes after just three years

Re: Why is this shocking?

Thanks RegW. I just saw this and was afraid I was gonna have to unplug from the internet (even though I did originally qualify my potentially faulty memory).

There is, however, a devil in the details. There's a little footnote on that claim that reads:

"These devices will receive Android version updates for at least two years from when the device first became available on the Google Store."

How long that little detail has been around I couldn't begin to say. I will say, however, that 2 years is hardly "Always."

Re: Why is this shocking?

Why? Because, as I remember, and I may be remembering poorly, one of Google's selling points when the Nexuses (Nexi?) first came out was that you'd always have the most up to date version of Android if you bought one.

So much for that claim...

Huawei P10 Plus: The bigger brother is the real contender

Google's ludicrously priced Google Pixel has...bafflingly, no expandable storage.

No mystery here at all.

Google can't index storage on the phone...use Google Drive so they can send more ads your way!

Uber cloaked its spying and all it got from Apple was a slap on the wrist

Re: Symbiotic relationship

" they'd end up punishing their own userbase as much as they'd punish Uber"

Apple's userbase can use other ride sharing services, ones which, hopefully (possibly vain, but still), have more aboveboard and legal business models. Uber, on the other hand, needs to be seriously smacked upside the head for their continuing practice of doing whatever the fsck they want regardless of laws and ethical behavior.

The idea that we can't punish a company operating illegally and unethically simply because some people like it is ludicrous.

Chap 'fixes' Microsoft's Windows 7 and 8 update block on new CPUs

Re: So?

"...I'm switching our entire business to macOS and the Apple ecosystem for everything..."

So...your solution to the Windows lock-in problem is to replace it with the Apple lock-in problem?

Now you've locked yourself into software and hardware.

Expensive hardware at that...

PACK YOUR BAGS! Boffins spot Earth-size planet most likeliest yet to harbor alien life

Re: Even if we could get there, somehow

"we'd just have to wave to them from orbit."

...while they laughed at how fragile we are...

Overcharge customers, underpay the serfs. Who else but Uber (allegedly)

Hmmm...

This sounds like more rules, and we know how Uber feels about those.

FedEx will deliver you $5.00 just to install Flash

Re: I may do it....

Do you really need to print that much? 'Cause they ain't givin' ya 5 bucks, they're giving you a credit you can use at checkout...

GiftGhostBot scares up victims' gift-card cash with brute-force attacks

Boy that's gonna really suck for all them ransomware kiddies demanding gift cards for the unlock code.

New iPad revealed. Big price cut is main feature

Re: Same Old Tricks?

"If you can buy a 4G MIMO cellular modem with a built in GPS/GLONASS chipset for $5, I'm sure Apple's procurement execs would love to hear from you."

I doubt it since that price is probably about right. I did a spot check on the interwebs and, though this is not a comprehensive survey by any means, I found a Qualcomm LTE modem (just the chip) for $10.60 each in lots of 10! Didn't look at the specs, so although probably not as capable, I'm fairly confident that Apple, with their buying power can get the chip you describe at about 5 bucks.

Fix crap Internet of Things security, booms Internet daddy Cerf

Re: I hope "the answer" isn't EVEN MORE gummint...

"My own belief is that SOME gummint (i.e. liability laws)..."

I believe liability is all that's required. Make the producers responsible for the safety and security of their products just like we do with other industries. As mentioned above, you have to affect their bottom line or nothing will happen. Liability laws will do just that.

Where to draw the line is probably the biggest debate.

'Sorry, I've forgotten my decryption password' is contempt of court, pal – US appeal judges

As affirmed by the "Citizens United" decision, corporations are people enough to be granted constitutional rights which would include the right against self incrimination. To my mind, corporate structures should exist purely for financial indemnification and nothing more.

Of course, virtually every time a corporation gets sued, they settle "without admitting fault," so maybe the fifth amendment is irrelevant for them anyway...

Re: so Desperation

"The difference is that when such a sumbag's ext HDD is decrypted, they seemingly stand a good chance of being jailed. Whilst an honest ordinary upstanding member of society such as yourself wouldn't."

This assumes that governments are steady-state, which is often not the case. Today's fine upstanding citizen can quite easily become tomorrow's undesirable as the winds of change flow through the corridors of state.

Stop treating corporations as people and you wouldn't have that problem.

"That won't help..."

Yes, it would. If corporations are not people then corporations have no fifth amendment right to assert.

"Scores of companies now encrypt their data," Terzian wrote. "In the EFF’s alternate universe, these companies are effectively immune from discovery and subpoenas."

Stop treating corporations as people and you wouldn't have that problem.

Spammy Google Home spouts audio ads without warning – now throw yours in the trash

Re: Good way to lose customers

"Unwanted audio adverts is the killer application..."

Heh, first time I've hear of a killer app killing the product!

And I'm aghast at Google's response. Talk about tone-deaf.

Google deploys flamethrower on Android ad-fraud apps

"Google didn’t name any apps it had expelled..."

And so, yet again, we're left to wonder if we have any of these "bad actors" on our phones. Probably a case of the horse already out of the barn, but still, I'd uninstall an app if I knew that it was up to no good. Not publishing the list just leaves us scratching our heads...

President Trump-themed escort services may soon open in China

Re: More income that he won't pay Tax on???

"What's fake anymore? What's real?"

Allow me to clarify.

Fake news: Any news item the President doesn't like.

Real News: Any news item the President does like.

CIA hacking dossier leak reignites debate over vulnerability disclosure

"...so critics are actually arguing that the government should spend millions on vulnerabilities in order to disclose them to vendors."

Why, that sounds like a marvelous way to spend taxpayer dollars since I always thought my tax dollars were supposed to work for me!

"Security pundits fear that information exposed in the release will allow cybercriminals and less capable nation states to up the ante."

A) If the CIA is buying these exploits, wouldn't it be a bit naive to assume that no one else has a checkbook.

B) Equally simplistic is the idea that the folks the CIA bought the exploit from are the only ones to discover it. This is not a zero sum game and it's also not like guarding nuclear secrets where you need hard materials in addition to knowledge (OK, you need a computer, but...).

Your next PC is… your 'Droid? Remix unveils Continuum-killer

Re: Luddite here

OK, you're a Luddite. :D

Maybe we could dig up an old PDP 11 for ya. I hear they were never going to be replaced by any microcomputer toy like that upstart Apple makes.

Tosh in deeper financial doo-doo as banks crank up the pressure

Would someone please tell me what Daniel Tosh has to do with IT!?

Every time I see one of these articles, I have just a moment...

'Hey, Homeland Security. Don't you dare demand Twitter, Facebook passwords at the border'

Re: "only block those [..] who have never entered the country previously"

"Every last White American Idiot is an immigrant from some other country..."

No, most white American idiots are descended from immigrants, though some actually are immigrants.

I, myself, am a native American (I am not indigenous but I am native). My grandfather and his mother and sister were immigrants, but I was born here and have never known any other home.

This, in fact, is a large part of the problem: people in the US forget that we are largely descended from immigrants and those nouveau natives now want to keep the country to themselves.

But even with all of that, this new idea of forcing people to surrender access to social media accounts is ludicrous! It's as much an invasion as asking for the keys to your car or house!

Installing disks is basically LEGO, right? This admin failed LEGO

"...making firewall changes that cut off all their traffic..."

TBH, if you haven't done this at least once, you're not a true admin.

THE SCHMIDT HITS THE BAN: Keep your gloves off AI, military top brass

"machine-learning research needs to be out in the open under public scrutiny, not locked away in some secret military lab"

Yeah...

Good luck with that.

Judge green lights Microsoft vs Uncle Sam gag order case

Re: The Cloud..

Which is why I refuse to use cloud storage. That and the whole MegaUpload fiasco. I feel sorry for all the legitimate users of that service.

My data is mine! If the government wants to see it, they need to serve me with a warrant!

Re: you can't sue Uncle Sam

No, it's yet another modern privacy catch 22. The only parties that have standing to sue can't because no one can or will tell them that they have standing.

Comcast lied and now it must STFU: Its cable broadband is not 'the fastest' in the US

Trumpisms

I believe you meant to refer to "alternative facts" rather than "alternate facts."

I know Trumpish can be a challenging language, but precision is key!

More tech companies join anti-Trump battle, but why did some pay for his inauguration?

Agreed. If they had made the contributions after the travel ban was instituted, charges of hypocrisy might be justified. Sequence of events is important here.

Human memory, or the lack of it, is the biggest security bug on the 'net

Re: "sneak a key logger"

"Option #2 is access an encrypted database of passwords over an encrypted connection behind a firewall on a system running antivirus and other security software, with the remote possibility that all of those security measures might simultaneously fail"

We were talking about using a password safe on a smartphone which fails many of the above conditions. I looked at the obfuscation system you referenced and it looks like a fine way to guard passwords in the safe but it does nothing to protect the password to access Keypass itself. That is the real issue.

Re: "the only available computer is communal"

Your smartphone is "communal"?

No...

But your smartphone is connected to that great community in the sky known as the internet. As soon as someone can sneak a key logger on to it, all your password are belong to them. Not just for the sites you use from that phone, every password in your safe!

Apple eats itself as iPhone fatigue spreads

Re: Once again, a distorted and misleading article

Methinks you did not properly understand the article. El Reg is not saying that the stock is down, they're saying that analysts (well, one analyst, at least) predict the stock will be down.

Oracle sues its own star sales rep after she wins back $200k in pay fight

"Oracle, which requires salespeople to agree to binding arbitration to avoid costly disputes in court, is unhappy that an arbitrator ruled against it. So it is suing one of its own employees..."

So...it's binding unless the corporation that forced the arbitration doesn't like the result.

nice...

<sigh>

Google loses Android friends with Pixel exclusivity

Re: nothing like pissing off your friends

"Can they continue to sell the Pixel at iPhone prices? Can they beat Apple at their own game?"

Probably not. Apple won't be able to maintain their prices either, more than likely.

Smartphones are a commodity now. If the PC business is any indication (and I think it is), when tech becomes a commodity, the Chinese take over and the margins fall through the floor. We can already see the beginnings of this with phones from ZTE (like the Axon 7 mentioned above), Huawei, Oneplus, etc. They've got phones that do most (meaning the vast majority of) tasks just fine for prices starting at 2/3rds less and going down from there.

Apple and Google might get some traction from status since smartphones are something you carry with you and can wave around smugly, but I doubt that will last long.