Posts by diodesign

Copy-left behind: Permissive MIT, Apache open-source licenses on the up as developers snub GNU's GPL

Hair splitting

Yeah, all right, but you get the gist of what we meant. It's in the context of releasing, aka distributing, software. I've taken that sentence out so people can't misread it.

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Ex-Autonomy CFO Sushovan Hussain's part in the accounting badness was 'wildly overblown'

Re: impersonation

amanfromMars 1 above is the original amanfromMars.

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Change to front page

Re: Forum links

FYI, for now at least, the forums link is back - at the bottom of every page under 'More content'. Or bookmark forums.theregister.co.uk. Or click through article comments.

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Okay guys, how is it that this juicy tidbit of IT security ended up on the Beeb

"how is it that this juicy tidbit of IT security ended up on the Beeb"

It's pretty simple: the databases were found by the folks at VPNmentor. Sometimes they give a publication or outlet a heads-up before going live with their findings. Sometimes it's us, sometimes it's a rival. In this case, it may have been the BBC. If not, then the BBC spotted the blog post before us.

We'll get onto it this week. In fact, we're planning a month-long series of insecure databases to demonstrate that this stuff is rife on the internet. Everyone is exposed.

Edit: Here's the latest S3 leakage: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/15/open_s3_buckets/

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Welcome to the 2020s: Booby-trapped Office files, NSA tipping off Windows cert-spoofing bugs, RDP flaws...

"The patches are sent out as and when necessary"

Yeah dude we know.

Every day, we have to make decisions on what stories to write up: what can be completed in time before something gets too old. Stuff has to be prioritized. There also has to be a healthy mix of stories, it can't all the the same stuff everyday.

So if there are enough Linux world patches to fill a monthly roundup, then that may be the best way to summarize it, because we may not have the time or people to write a story every time a patch arrives.

Obviously, the latency in rounding up the patches is non-optimal, and critical ones could be written up immediately because they prioritize over other stories.

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Re: Linux?

If the Linux world had a Patch Tuesday, we'd cover it. Maybe we should invent Patch Monday for GNU/Linux and other open-source operating systems.

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Step away from that Windows 7 machine, order UK cyber-cops: It's not safe for managing your cash digitally

Re: You missed...

Yeah, oops, didn't realize it was still going. Added a link to the ISO.

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Re: Windows 7 to 10 for FREEEE

Yeah, thanks. Didn't know it was still going - added a link to the ISO.

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Thanks a lot - didn't know that still worked. Added it to the article.

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Ring of fired: Amazon axes multiple workers who secretly snooped on netizens' surveillance camera footage

Source of complaints

I could be going out on a limb, but I read "regarding a team member’s access to Ring video data" in the letter as someone internally raising a concern.

We'll try to prize any other info out of Amazon.

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AMD rips covers off 64-core Threadripper desktop monster, plus laptop chips, leaving Intel gesturing vaguely at 2021

Cache sizes

Your Pentium from the 1990s is, like, single core, right? So there's space on the die for cache. With 64 cores, you can't bung too much on without producing dies that smash your yield targets.

Look at it this way: there's a total of 4MB L1 cache, 32MB L2, and 256MB of L3 in the 3990X.

And despite leaps in processor technology, it's likely today's software still works comfortably within 32KB working sets anyway, what with the latency issue DougS mentions above in mind.

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Yeah, says Google Project Zero, when you think about it, going public with exploit deets immediately after a patch is emitted isn't such a great idea

"its downloaded by the people writing malware"

Well, yeah, but Google's exploit is right there in the P0 bug tracker. It takes away 50%+ of the effort. I'll add this point.

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Is there alien life on Earth? Maybe, says Brit 'naut. Well, where did they come from? How about this far-away cluster. Or this 'Godzilla' galaxy...

Re: UGC 2885

Yeah, unfortunate mega typo - it's now fixed.

Don't forget to email [e-mail] if you spot any errors. This is because there's always someone, somewhere checking corrections@ while we read comments when we get a free moment hours after publication.

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I spy, with my little satellite AI, something beginning with 'North American image-analysis code embargo'

RISC-V

FWIW the foundation's move to Switzerland was a marketing exercise to ease the minds of non-US adopters of the ISA. It is still being run out of America.

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Re: Not just satellite imagery

Sure - satellites are a subset of geospatial, so we're not wrong. I've included drones and aerial images in the article.

Cheers,

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Having trouble finding a job in your 40s? Study shows some bosses like job applicants... up until they see dates of birth

'This is not news!1111@322!!1'

It's further evidence of it happening, rather than anecdotes and gripes.

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This page is currency unavailable... Travelex scrubs UK homepage, kills services, knackers other sites amid 'software virus' infection

Re: .NET 4.0.30319

Good spot, thanks. Added that to the story.

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EL Reg Going To Shit?

Comments on sponsored posts

Hi,

We disable comments on sponsored content - or advertorials in other words - for a few reasons.

One is that this move separates the content from our own independent articles. Sponsored content is commissioned by advertisers and produced externally to the El Reg news team; we don't endorse it. We don't want readers to think it's part of our normal output, and one way to make that clear is to switch off comments.

You say we're "breaking with a system of journalistic feedback," which proves my point: the pieces aren't journalism. It's paid-for content, produced outside the news team, and funds our actual journalism, which is independently produced.

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FYI: FBI raiding NSA's global wiretap database to probe US peeps is probably illegal, unconstitutional, court says

Re: Read the 14th amendment

Well, citizens are US persons so we're not wrong. Citizens are a subset of persons.

Bear in mind, spelling out "individuals who are United States citizens or lawful permanent residents, or are located in the United States" every time ruins sentence flow and headlines, and we like to keep things snappy around here.

But anyway, I've tweaked that to just peeps. Thanks for the feedback, and don't forget to email [e-mail] if you spot anything wrong.

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Remember Unrollme, the biz that helped you automatically ditch unwanted emails? Yeah, it was selling your data

Mate, I'm trying to keep it classy here.

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OK. We're off. Water ice found just below the surface of Mars. Good enough for us. Let's go. Impulse power, Mr Sulu

Re: 38% Earth Gravity

Start practicing. I want my gin and tonic with ice. Stat.

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Re: A very nice bit of image analysis by NASA folk and the MRO gang

Thanks for the URL - now added to the story, too.

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Space Force is go, go, go! Because we have a child as President of the United States

Re: Democrats run the House

Well, voted for a load of stuff that had the Space Force included.

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Kinda tautological, nu ?

Yes, for effect.

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ICANN demands transparency from others over .org deal. As for itself… well, not so much

They do challenge some of the factual claims and allegations made by the Reg

They've had plenty of opportunities to tell us where we've gone wrong, and I've yet to see them point out to us directly any corrections. If we are incorrect, they know where to find us.

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A cautionary, Thames Watery tale on how not to look phishy: 'Click here to re-register!'

You may want to follow-up on this story...

Thanks a lot - I've pinged this on to the news team.

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Revealed: NHS England bosses meet with tech and pharmaceutical giants to discuss price list of millions of Brits' medical data

NHS England does not have the data of 65 million Brits

Sure, but if you read the article, NHS England talks of, for want of a better word, leveraging 55 to 65 million medical records. All of it.

Whether the devolved NHSes want to fight off these plans or go along with them, or have no choice, we'll see.

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Re: Election day reporting restrictions?

The restrictions apply to broadcasters and enforced by Ofcom - print and online is fine. You're not allowed to speculate on voting outcomes, though, which we haven't.

Go into a supermarket, pick up a newspaper, and flick through it to see what print and online is free to do.

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Re: Dido Harding...

The very same.

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Ding dong merrily on high. In Berkeley, the bots are singeing: Self-driving college cooler droid goes up in flames

Re: Just what day IS this?

This article is from 2018, so 14th Dec 2018...

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We've heard of spam filters but this is ridiculous: Pig-monkey chimeras developed in a Chinese laboratory

Why not both. See the next sentence: "Typically, chimera experiments have been limited to rodents."

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If there's somethin' stored in a secure enclave, who ya gonna call? Membuster!

That's unfortunately not how secure enclaves are designed. They are supposed to allow application software to run code that not even the operating system, hypervisor, or administrator can access, using attestation to prove there has been no meddling.

Said code is things like DRM (on client machines) or sensitive stuff on cloud machines (when you don't want the remote server host snooping on you.)

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Windows 10 Insiders: Begone, foul Store version of Notepad!

Miss it? I even paid for a copy when it was shareware/commercial. It's taken years for mainstream editors to catch up with good old StrongED on RISC OS.

I have to say I use Visual Studio Code these days with a color scheme that closely resembles StrongED.

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Since the FCC won't act, Congress finally moves on robocalls by passing half-decent TRACED Act

Re: Author is clueless

If we're so wrong, can you email [e-mail] or the article author, Kieren, with specific sentences you think are incorrect, please? And we'll fix up any issues.

PS: I've tweaked some of the language from your feedback. Thanks.

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A little product renaming here, a little RISC-V magic there, some extra performance, and voila – Imagination's 10th-gen PowerVR is born

Re: RISC-V management core

Ah yeah, should have mentioned Imagination's using RV just like Nvidia (see Register passim for Nvidia usage) but I think this article makes clear it's a management core in the A-series of GPUs.

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It's 2019 so, of course, there's alleged ad fraud to the tune of $1bn in tech pushed to doctors

Just read the next part of the sentence

"inflated the business's reported revenues"

If you, allegedly, juice up the ad numbers, in terms of ads served and revenue collected, you give investors an inaccurate picture of the business's performance, fooling them into shoveling money into a startup that isn't doing as well as it claimed.

Also investors don't take a dividend at this stage: it's not a public company.

I'll make it clearer for you.

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That code that could never run? Well, guess what. Now Windows thinks it's Batman

Re: True multitasking didn't exist ...

We mean for your common or garden PC user. I'll just ditch that part. Don't forget to email [e-mail] if you spot anything weird.

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RDP loves company: Kaspersky finds 37 security holes in VNC remote desktop software

Re: TightVNC development is active AFAIK

Ah, the 1.x version is no longer supported and that's what Kaspersky studied. There is a version 2.x. I'll make this clearer in the piece.

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We lose money on repairs, sobs penniless Apple, even though we charge y'all a fortune

"Wow I'm in shock that you called apple out on the crap they pull"

Stick around, friend: you're in for a treat

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Complete with keyboard and actual, literal, 'physical' escape key: Apple emits new 16" $2.4k+ MacBook Pro

Re: "The £2,399 portable"

Er, I think you're wrong. This story is purely about the 16" Pro. There's no 13" involved here. The 16" starts at 2,399.

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Python overtakes Java to become second-most popular language on GitHub after JavaScript

Re: Popular ?

From the first sentence in the article:

Python has overtaken Java as the second-most popular language after JavaScript, *based on the primary language of repository contributors*

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FYI, we're now in the timeline where Facebook decides who is and isn't a politician on its 2bn-plus-person network

"You consider all conservative thought to be illegitimate"

No - it's that Breitbart really sucks. And the rest of your comment is bollocks.

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Remember the Uber self-driving car that killed a woman crossing the street? The AI had no clue about jaywalkers

Re: Surely

If you look at the logs, you'll see the AI thought Elaine was, at times, a static object - it didn't expect her to move into its path of travel. She did, though, because she was a person crossing the street. Something the AI didn't take into account at all until the final second or so. Or so it seems.

And don't call me Shirely.

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Phew! All that competition in the US mobile industry was exhausting. Thank God for the FCC, am I right?

Re: Doom and gloom and somewhat slanted

Sure, I get what you're saying. Though, you are describing just one scenario (Sprint dies, leaving just T-Mob, Verizon and ATT). There are/were other options, such as, someone else more competent takes over Sprint and turns it around or merges it with someone outside the big 3.

Softbank's mismanagement of yet another business shouldn't let them off the hook. We shouldn't sleepwalk into super-consolidation.

PS: Doom and gloom is our jam. We're an antidote to much of the tech press which is usually hopped up on happy hype pills.

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In a world of infosec rockstars, shutting down sexual harassment is hard work for victims

"I'm sorry but you don't get to gripe about it later."

Er, yes, you absolutely do get to gripe about it - how you were coerced into doing something you really didn't want to do simply just to work in the career of your choice. Some of us just fill out an application form and go through interviews. Some people have to, well, you get the idea.

This is exactly the sort of thing you should complain about. Loudly. Repeatedly. Until the abuse stops.

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Boffins don bad 1980s fashion to avoid being detected by object-recognizing AI cameras

Boffins

It's a term of endearment. It's a note of approval.

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Is everything moderated now?

Permanent?

It's not - it's something that'll stay until one of us gets tired of hand-moderating your posts. Just do us a favor, and if you see something wrong in a story, email corrections@

Cheers

Astroboffins rethink black hole theory after spotting tiny example with its own star buddy

Re: 4 Msol limit?

From the paper:

"the lowest well-measured black hole masses [5 to 6 M☉ (4, 5)]. Whereas some models of black hole formation indicate a lower mass limit of ∼4 M☉"

The Chandrasekhar limit is about white dwarf stars, which can eventually collapse into black holes, though it needs to take on mass to do this. The limit of 1.4 is the maximum limit for a stable white dwarf. If you want a black hole out of one, it needs more matter, it seems.

See: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1308.4887.pdf

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Watch tiny swimming magnetic robots suck up uranium in a droplet of radioactive wastewater

"Clever stuff, but practical?"

It's a lab experiment right now - where all* good ideas begin.

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* YMMV

"Uranium is harmless unless swallowed"

Yes, yes, and it's a good thing this article isn't about uranium in water, that hard to swallow, easy to contain, non-spilling water.

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