* Posts by Chris T Almighty

57 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Mar 2011

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Why Nobody Should Ever Search The Ashley Madison Data

Chris T Almighty

Re: Wrong recipient?

Sex is good, but you can't beat the real thing...

NASA guy to White House: Be really careful with that HTTPS stuff

Chris T Almighty

Vested interest?

Call me a cynic, but I'm guessing a lawmaker is about to land a well paid directorship at a certificate authority.

Ford dumps Windows for QNX in new in-car entertainment unit

Chris T Almighty

Bad design

I can't believe all the animations. The half-second delay while new options slide or expand into place is crazy. Big buttons, big fonts you can read at a glance, instantaneous transitions, and it might be bearable.

This is as bad as my Android TOMTOM app, where I have to hit about 5 options, with long delays in between, and hit tiny little 'Okay' buttons before it'll give me directions.

El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

Chris T Almighty

Awful.

The excuse that you can't make it responsive because of advertising is really weak. If someone charged you for this redesign, you were had.

Protesters stop ground breaking on world's largest telescope

Chris T Almighty

Re: Wow Ten times further

You're confusing distance with time, the observable Universe is over 90 Billion light years across, according to brainy people who do this for a living. A little Googling can a good thing before making snide comments, particularly in areas as complex as cosmology.

Remaining Snowden docs will be released to avert 'unspecified US war' – ‪Cryptome‬

Chris T Almighty

Does it matter any more?

The reaction of most people seems to be 'Whatever". People seem to be willing to sacrifice privacy for "protection from the terrorists". Will a mega release change any opinions? I doubt it, so this probably will do more harm than good.

SpaceX billionaire claims Air Force official 'likely' made job-for-spy-sat-contract deal

Chris T Almighty

Military-industrial complex in Bribery shock.

I'd say his odds of seeing a prison are just about zero. Nice work if you can get it.

SpaceX wins court injunction to block US Air Force buying Russian rockets

Chris T Almighty

Re: national security

Are they trying to gain a commercial advantage, or are they trying to open the playing field to any interested bidder?

Laser deflector shields possible with today's tech – but there's one small problem

Chris T Almighty
Facepalm

Re: "spin and a highly-reflective coating"

If "Moving your finger from one place to another on a touchscreen" is patentable, then I'm sure "Airbourne cloud of discoballs to defeat attack by lasers" would have been worth a punt. And it would certainly liven up the afternoon at the Patent office.

Sadly, by making your idea public, we're all now free to clad our spaceships in 70's sparkle, and you won't get a bean. You'll be kicking yourself one day.

Twitter tunes out trashy Tweeters with much-needed muting module

Chris T Almighty

Q. What do Twitter developers actually do?

This is a useful feature, but I'm amazed at how slow progress is at Twitter, Facebook etc. Considering the size of their development teams, they don't seem to actually *do* a lot.

Does building the infrastructure, creating new optimised database etc really take up all their time? I guess it must, but it never fails to amaze me how large teams can put in so much work with so little to show for it. I'm a developer myself, and I know how much a small team can do when they put their minds to it.

Dragon capsule arrives at space station for Easter Sunday delivery

Chris T Almighty

Congratulations SpaceX

It's nice to have someone showing governments how to do it properly.

Canadian taxman says hundreds pierced by Heartbleed SSL skewer

Chris T Almighty
Megaphone

The whole world is obviously lying to me!

The article doesn't say exactly how they know, so it must be a giant conspiracy to fool me! In no way am I completely crazy!

Windows 8.1 Update: Throws desktop drones a bone but still as TOUCHY as ever

Chris T Almighty

Re: Windows 8 was built for one reason only

"is there a compelling reason to get this update"

I think we'll stop getting updates for 8.1 if we don't upgrade. But for those of us with Classic Shell I doubt upgrading will do any harm.

For those who havn't tried it, Windows 8 with Classic Shell is better than Windows 7, in my opinion at least.

Earth's night-side gets different kinds of neutrinos from day-side

Chris T Almighty

Re: Hang on there

Never trust a man who starts a sentence about neutrinos with the word 'basically'.

GRAV WAVE TSUNAMI boffinry BONANZA – the aftershock of the universe's Big Bang

Chris T Almighty

Re: " throws enormous weight behind the famous theory of the Big Bang."

It's accelerating now, but it was decelerating due to gravity for the first half or so of the universe's lifetime, I believe.

Even HTTPS can leak your PRIVATE browsing

Chris T Almighty

I don't think it's the biggest risk

I think the sort of people who would make use of this sort of information are probably capable of getting access to the medical database directly. It's generally going to be easier.

Brit Bitcoin dev: I lost 'over £200k' when MtGox popped its socks

Chris T Almighty

Re: Inconsistency

It's not entirely unreasonable. You and I could trade in cars or stamps, and want to do it without interference from government, but also expect the police to act if the other party stole from us.

Apple Safari, Mail and more hit by SSL spying bug on OS X, fix 'soon'

Chris T Almighty

Re: Test-Driven Development

"I would also love to see a lint-like tool that would spot the wrong indentation."

Or just do what Visual Studio does and have an auto-format.

Uni of Maryland hacked: 300,000 SSNs of staff, students, alumni swiped

Chris T Almighty

Perhaps it's time to think about security?

It's not just bored teenagers anymore, we're in a world where Billions of people in countries of low income have access to the internet and very little chance of being caught or punished. We, as an industry, need to put our quest for speed and cost reduction and bells and whistles on hold for a little while, and put some serious effort into security.

I think we should do it soon.

Imprisoned Norwegian mass murderer says PlayStation 2 is 'KILLING HIM'

Chris T Almighty

If they were serious about punishment

they'd give him a Windows 8 machine instead.

Schmidt gets $100m in Google stock on top of his $6m bonus

Chris T Almighty

Re: Bistromathics

His role is essentially political and if he was involved in the various deals to minimise their Tax liabilities then it's entirely possible he's earned them that and then some.

By the way, I'm not in any way approving of this behaviour! Just stating the fact...

Good news: 'password' is no longer the #1 sesame opener, now it's '123456'

Chris T Almighty

Re: Seeing the password

At which point your main security threat won't be some foreigner, it'll be someone in your office. It has to be down to the software to reject commonly used passwords.

"No. You're NOT choosing 123456 as your password.

Would you like to try again, or should I just mail your Boss now and tell him you can't even manage this simple task...?"

Chrome lets websites secretly record you?! Google says no, but...

Chris T Almighty

Re: Spies

If they can deliver malware to an air-gapped system underneath a mountain in Iran, I'm fairly sure they can listen in on your webcam without having to ask Chrome to be a middle man.

KCOM-owned Eclipse FAILS to cover up the password 'password'

Chris T Almighty

Fire the spokesman

All they needed to say is "Oops, cockup, sorry, we've fixed that now". I would respect the company, and wouldn't rule out using them.

But the response "We havn't done anything wrong, everything is fine" makes me think they don't care, and so I won't be using Eclipse again.

Well played Mr Spokesman.

Google cleared to land in private terminal at Silicon Valley airport

Chris T Almighty

About time

It is inconvenient when you can't park your Jet nearby. The roads are so full of...well...you people.

Java, Android were THE wide-open barn doors of security in 2013 - report

Chris T Almighty

To be fair, it's perfectly safe to download apps from the Play store. Those who choose to download pirated software from unofficial sites...well, it's to be expected.

The report said something like 14% of web malware was targeted at iPhones, which is weird because we would have heard if there were widespread iPhone infections. So I'm thinking these stats include failed attacks, i.e. sites trying old and long patched vulnerabilities.

I'd love to hear from an expert...if you don't invite virus' in via pirated software, what is the actual risk of a drive-by infection?

Microsoft buries Sinofsky Era... then jumps on the coffin lid

Chris T Almighty

Re: Using Sinofsky As A Scapegoat

He was Head of the Windows division, and he produced a loathed version of Windows. It's pretty hard to argue he's a Scapegoat.

NSA: It's TRUE, we grab 200 MILLION of your text messages A DAY globally

Chris T Almighty

Re: The defense for Billy Catriger

"Why so many down votes?"

The "My political party is an Angel, yours is the Devil" type of rant will normally fall on deaf ears in the UK. In fact we're still perplexed why so many Americans fall for it so easily.

Faster, more private, easier to read: My 2014 browser wishlist

Chris T Almighty

People in glass houses

Referencing CNN as a site which displays it's content in a tiny strip down the screen is a bit cheeky, when the Reg does exactly the same.

Don't panic! Japan to send nuke fuel rod into MELTDOWN in Fukushima probe

Chris T Almighty

Re: Technical question

I don't think you need a critical mass. if the rods are generating more heat than the cooling is taking away, they'll get hotter. When they're hot enough they'll melt, then they can melt through the reactor itself.

Android antivirus apps CAN'T kill nasties on sight like normal AV - and that's Google's fault

Chris T Almighty

"If you think you might be a target, is there anyone you can rely on?"

Well, no. If you think the NSA are after you, you should probably avoid using a smartphone.

Schmidt: 'Android mobes are a great Christmas present to an iPhone user!'

Chris T Almighty

If you like iPhones, stick with them

I really like Android (especially my Nexus 7 without all the crap that my Samsung phone has), but I would never try and persuade my wife to ditch her iPhone. For some people, Apple's approach to security meaning virtually no risk of malware (that I've ever heard, anyway) is just easier.

I don't like the company, or a lot of their practises, but as a safe and hassle free piece of kit the iphone is the right choice for a lot of the population.

Apple iOS 7 makes some users literally SICK. As in puking, not upset

Chris T Almighty
Flame

This is a good reminder that one size doesn't fit all

Both Apple and Microsoft are guilty of forcing user interfaces on people with a 'like it or lump it' attitude. It suits their marketing to have everything looking the same.

It's just wrong. We should have more control over how our computers look. Android is a little better at allowing re-skinning, but still not as good as the era we're leaving, with desktop computers where we can easily change colours, fonts, resolutions to whatever we want.

Soon we won't be able to do anything without consuming Apple/Microsoft/Google content and marketing.

Wow. I'm angrier than I thought. But hey, it IS a really annoying animation.

Cisco email accidentally sent to 1000s of employees causes message list MAYHEM

Chris T Almighty
Happy

I feel sorry for the Spooks

Their job of cataloging every email in the world isn't made any easier by this sort of nonsense. :o)

Windows 8.1: Microsoft's reluctant upgrade has a split-screen personality

Chris T Almighty

Re: How do I remove the Start menu?

> "Can't please all of the people all of the time"

Sure you can, all it needs is an option to choose between the desktop start menu or the metro start screen.

Continuous delivery: What works (and what doesn't)

Chris T Almighty

Re: CD = Colision Detect

If you don't do documentation, you're doing it badly. Unless your system is so simple it doesn't need any, but that's unlikely.

Forget Mars: Let's get someone on the Moon – NASA veteran

Chris T Almighty

That's no moon.

It's a Power station.

iPhone 5S: 64-bit A7, 128GB storage, flashy ƒ/2.0 camera, and...

Chris T Almighty
Happy

Re: 128G storage

Shouldn't REALLY surprise you that a story about new iPhone rumours will attract a fair number of iPhone fans. :o)

Card-cloning crooks use 3D printers to make ever-better skimmers

Chris T Almighty

Perhaps the banks could introduce some actual security.

Trying to stop skimming is almost impossible, so lets solve the real problem - that anyone can help themselves to our money just by knowing a couple of secret numbers. Facial, iris, fingerprint, and voice recognition could all be used, or cards themselves could have copy protection. It's just crazy that someone who isn't me, looks nothing like me, and who doesn't have my bank card can pretend to be me so easily.

Bill Gates's barbed comments pop Google's broadband balloons

Chris T Almighty

Re: "Not a saint"

"Having been personally burned by some of his shady business practices, I'm going to be holding my applause for a while"

You mean even though he's on a mission that might save MILLIONS of lives, he's still, on balance, a bad guy? Wow...what exactly did he do to you??

Second LulzSec Sony website hacker starts a year in the cooler

Chris T Almighty

Re: It's all good

If the sentences for burglary, assault, rape etc are all at least as high, maybe. But if you think attempting to access someone's computer without permission is worse than those things then you sir, are a nit.

Upstart's 'FLASH KILLER' chips pack a terabyte per tiny layer

Chris T Almighty

Apple (and a few others) need a new business model, and soon.

If they can't charge an extra £200 to throw in £30 more flash memory, what will they screw us on next?

Windows 8.1: So it's, er, half-speed ahead for Microsoft's Plan A

Chris T Almighty

Re: Search as primary means of navigation?

You could type names and hit return in Windows 7 too.

Apple said to be 'exploring' 5.7-inch iPhone

Chris T Almighty

There's nothing wrong with copying

I'd love to get back to a world (if it ever existed) where a company could protect clever technical discoveries with patents, but where no-one owns ideas of shapes or sizes or colours. If one company releases a triangular smartphone and it sells like hotcakes, then great, everyone should build them.

I don't want to live in a world where companies aren't allowed to build things their customers want, just because someone else has already built something similar.

Space boffins, oil giants, nuke plants 'raided' by mystery code nasty

Chris T Almighty
Mushroom

Re: Just nuke it.

Good plan, it's not like they have hundreds of their own nukes to retaliate.

No, wait...

TSA: Perv scanners now fully banished from US airports

Chris T Almighty

Re: Hmmm...

Absolutely right, or health campaigns in hospitals, compare the number of people dying from carelessness or uncleanliness compared to the number killed by terrorists.

China denies hacking claims, says it doesn’t need US tech

Chris T Almighty

Re: US tech, and server logs

What sort of hacking attempts use a spoofed IP? To hack, don't you need to server to send data back to you?

Any clues as to why America is attacking Canada while doing very bad Chinese impressions?

May threatens ban on 'hate-inciting' radicals, even if they don't promote violence

Chris T Almighty

Re: Inciting hate

On the plus side, it should be easy to get the Daily Mail banned, the most hate filled publication in the country. Probably.

Are you being robbed of sleep by badly designed servers?

Chris T Almighty

Re: diurnal cycle

Ssleep phase disorder! I have the same pattern, I didn't realise it had a name. So I've learned about remote server management and circadian rhythm disorders in a single article. :o)

Inuit all along: Pirate Bay flees Sweden for Greenland

Chris T Almighty
Meh

Thank God they're cracking down on these dangerous criminals. The world will be a far safer place when there aren't websites that help you download TV programs.

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