Posts by diodesign

Pixaaaarrrrrrghh! Mars-snapping CubeSats Wall-E and Eve declared dead (for now) by NASA bods

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Oops, we accidentally out a word. It's fixed - don't forget to email [e-mail] if you spot a problem, please.

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Congrats, Satya Nadella. In just five years, you've turned Microsoft from Neutral Evil to, er, merely True Neutral

Re: "didn't play DnD then?"

You need to tap two black and one generic mana to make that comment, friend.

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Is this a wind-up? Planet Computers boss calls time on ZX Spectrum reboot firm

Re: £751

It's 750 quid or more, eg, 751, I've tweaked it to the base value of 750.

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You got a smart speaker but you're worried about privacy. First off, why'd you buy one? Secondly, check out Project Alias

Re: Has anyone actually proved, conclusively

Your personal assistant is listening all the time for your wake word. As soon as it thinks you're talking to it, it's recording, and Amazon and (I believe) Google keep transcripts and audio snippets of these to further train their NN models. See Register passim

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/14/amazon_echo_recordings_murder_trial/

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/24/alexa_recording_couple/

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/23/amazon_police_case/

etc

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Chang'e 4 wakes and Yutu 2 stretches its solar panels for another day... on the friggin' MOON

Re: Fine article but

"such a wierdly terrible headline"

I was about to say welcome to the site, this is how we roll around here, a lot of it is tongue-in-cheek, unapologetically punny, etc etc... but you've posted more than 2,000 comments on our stories, so, er, what, this is the *first* Reg headline you've actually read in that time? ;-)

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You like JavaScript! You really like it! Scripting lingo tops dev survey of programming languages

Re: "That does not mean it is liked."

It's a reference to that famous Sally Field quote when picking up an award ("you like me, you like me!") https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sally_Field

The article speaks for itself.

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Japanese astronomers find tiniest Kuiper Belt object yet – using cheap 'scopes and off-the-shelf CMOS cameras

Re: Solar system mass.

We've tweaked the article. If you spot anything wrong, please email [e-mail] and we'll be able to fix anything immediately.

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Forget snowmageddon, it's dropageddon in Azure SQL world: Microsoft accidentally deletes customer DBs

Re: CenturyLink

"How is a DNS issue related to Century link (a telecom provider, and I guess colo too) ? Probably will never find out"

Microsoft uses CenturyLink as an internal DNS provider. It went down. From what I can gather, that meant internal systems relying on CL DNS couldn't work, which brought down various services.

How that triggered a script that deleted DBs is still beyond me.

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Are you a Windows 1 in 10 (1809)? Or a mighty 80 percenter (1803)?

re: elguapo

The Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC/LTSB 2019 edition is based on the 1809 build, and has extended support to January 2029.

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Hadoop coop thrown for loop by malware snoop n' scoop troop? Oh poop

Re: Xbash hits a vulnerable server

The means of infection are given in the article and linked-to post: Xbash uses three known vulnerabilities in Hadoop, Redis and ActiveMQ to hijack a machine and propagate.

* Hadoop YARN ResourceManager unauthenticated command execution, which was first disclosed in October 2016 and has no CVE number assigned.

* Redis arbitrary file write and remote command execution, which was first disclosed in October 2015 and has no CVE number assigned.

* ActiveMQ arbitrary file write vulnerability, CVE-2016-3088

The source is apparently here - caveat emptor:

https://github.com/h3ct0rjs/XBash-malware-files

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Wow, fancy that. Web ad giant Google to block ad-blockers in Chrome. For safety, apparently

Re: Of course this affects Adblock Plus

"I don't understand how you could tell me how the code will be affected."

We're not arguing that ABP will be affected - it will be affected. But uBO seemingly has a few features that ABP doesn't, and these may be stripped away totally by the API change. That's what we mean by uBO being harder hit.

"Stop trying to paint a narrative of 'Big bad Adblock Plus is OK since they are paid by Google', it's disingenuous at best."

It's not disingenuous: you have a potential conflict of interest. This is, I suspect but can't confirm, why ABP is so upset with us pointing out that other blockers are potentially worse off than ABP. You're not comfortable with people knowing about this Google relationship at a time when Google is adjusting its filtering APIs.

ABP's PR line is incoherent anyway. On the one hand, you're saying you're affected by this just as much as others - and uBO is so affected that it won't be able to function in future - and yet you're saying you'll make ABP work with Chrome if the changes are put in place.

You can't have it both ways.

Just my personal opinion.

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Re: Of course this affects Adblock Plus

It's not going to hit ABP as much as other extensions. Our understanding is that ABP will be able to continue to some degree, while other extensions will take a big hit.

See our followup article:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/23/google_chrome_extension_change/

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Q. China just landed on its far side, the US woz there 50 years ago – now Europe wants to mine it? A. It's the Moon

Re: oiseau

Lord, give me the same level of confidence of a random pseudonymous comment poster trying to, wrongly, one-up a professional astronomer.

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The most annoying British export since Piers Morgan: 'Drones' halt US airport flights

Re: 500g Drone vs 100 ton airliner

Of course a drone isn't going to immediately outright "destroy" a plane. No one's claiming that. But it will be bad news to an engine if ingested. Or a windshield. It'll be expensive, and the airport doesn't want to be on the hook for the potential repair bill, the airline doesn't want to deal with the insurance and downtime, and of course, there's the safety aspect.

Other posters are sharing scientific studies. Here's an unscientific one - a bird going into an engine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KhZwsYtNDE

Now imagine a metal and plastic drone, of unknown size, with a Li-on battery.

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Core blimey... When is an AMD CPU core not a CPU core? It's now up to a jury of 12 to decide

Re: FX, Opteron, etc

FWIW, the processors specifically covered by the class-action lawsuit are the FX-8120, FX-8150, FX-8320, FX8350, FX-8370, FX-9370, and FX-9590. No Opterons are named.

The mention of Opteron in the previous article was purely to indicate how widely used the designs were.

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Re: Ryzen

Ryzen CPU cores have their own FPU. AMD's Zen architecture is like Intel's in that the cores are fully featured and separate. AMD's approach with Bulldozer to pool some resources within a module has upset customers.

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DNAaaahahaha: Twins' 23andMe, Ancestry, etc genetic tests vary wildly, surprising no one

Re: anonymous coward

"This article just shows a total lack of understanding by the author and by the originating source."

You haven't read nor understood the article(s) - the sisters are identical twins. Their DNA profile is 99.6% the same. Each test should have returned the same percentages for them.

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Friday fun fact: If Stegosauruses had space telescopes, they wouldn't have seen any rings around Saturn

"Sounds rather like the Microsoft concept of quality control."

I am overjoyed that you consider El Reg (staff: ~40) on a par with multibillion-dollar corporation Microsoft (staff: ~130,000) in terms of resources.

As such, an email letting us know where we've screwed up is always appreciated, never mandatory. We do edit articles before publication and strive to check everything, but sadly not every blunder can be caught when we're trying to get everything out on an hourly basis.

Cheers

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Ring mass

Yeah, yeah, OK. We screwed that wording up. Should be obvious we meant 20,000th of Mercury's mass, but didn't make it clear enough. Sometimes fingers type the opposite of what's meant.

It's fixed. Please don't forget to email [e-mail] if you spot a problem so it can be fixed immediately, rather than having to read every comment to see where we typo'd.

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Top GP: Medical app Your.MD's data security wasn't my remit

Indeed - anyone confused needs to understand that a) it's an ongoing hearing so all the pieces haven't been joined in the puzzle; and b) see the side-bar and linked-to article for why this is all happening.

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Microsoft partner portal 'exposes 'every' support request filed worldwide' today

Email address

It's blurred - we didn't clock the address in the screenshot. Don't forget to email [e-mail] if you spot anything wrong.

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'It's like they took a rug and covered it up': Flight booking web app used by scores of airlines still vuln to attack – claim

"Yet again you've let them get away with an anodyne statement"

We've just published a whole article accusing them of bungling a security patch. I think Reg readers are smart enough to see and appreciate the irony of a vendor claiming they take security seriously despite such findings. The juxtaposition is exquisite.

If you think the statement makes them look good, rather than uncaring and dismissive, then you need to dial up the cynicism just a little.

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Amazon Mime: We train (badly) an AI love bot using divorce bombshell Bezos' alleged sexts to his new girlfriend

Re: AI?

Sssssssssh, man, don't blow this for me. It's going to be worth millions, rudimentary or not ;-)

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Hubble 'scope camera breaks down amid US govt shutdown, forcing boffins to fix it for free

Re: "it's already started"

Great, then you don't need my tax dollars to build the bloody thing.

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Fake news? More like ache news. Grandma, grampa 'more likely' to share made-up articles during US election

"a lot of them will age a bit and wise up a bit"

Winning an argument by insulting people... that's a bold strategy. Let's see if it pays off.

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What happens when a Royal Navy warship sees a NATO task force headed straight for it? A crash course in Morse

We were invited to take a look. We did so.

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Florida man stumbles on biggest prime number after working plucky i5 CPU for 12 days straight

"when written out in full"

As in, the full prime number, equals (2^n)-1 where n is the exponent that generates the prime. There are two numbers at play here: the prime number, calculated by (2^n)-1, and n, the exponent. 82,589,933 is not the prime number, it is the exponent that produces the final prime, which is what we were trying to drive at.

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London Gatwick Airport reopens but drone chaos perps still not found

Re: War time innovation

FWIW - we've added a link to a Daily Mail article claiming the cops used an Israeli ground-based drone-finder to knock it out of the skies: a laser was used to find the thing, and then its signals were jammed, by the multimillion-pound equipment. Alleged, of course, because nothing's been confirmed yet.

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Google settles Right To Be Forgotten case on eve of appeal hearing

Re: "Google settles"

FWIW either is right - a settlement means both sides withdraw from a case. We just think Google is the bigger name.

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A few reasons why cops didn't immediately shoot down London Gatwick airport drone menace

"the military involvement began 24 hours ago"

ICBW but the chief, speaking off-the-cuff to reporters badgering him for info, may mean that combined the police and military have been involved in the past 24 hours - the armed forces coming in the past four hours.

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Re: Bullets and shotgun pellets

Forgive us, a number of us vultures are of that generation where we were taught metric but grew up around imperial. Thus, 120 metres means more to me than 390 feet, but 8000 ft means more to me than 2.4km. I weigh 76kg but i'm 6ft 2in. It's a mess.

And I'll sort out the units.

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Joy to the vendors, HCI's day has come. And converged ... becomes less... of a thing – IDC

Re: Source Data guess

You've linked to IDC's Q2 analysis - which we also linked to. This latest article is about IDC's Q3 numbers. Aaron's seen them, analyzed them, and shared them with selected people.

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Mark Zuckerberg did everything in his power to avoid Facebook becoming the next MySpace – but forgot one crucial detail…

"this is a Brit publication written for Brits"

We're a Brit publication written for everyone, in a Brit style. Eg, a third of our readers this year are in the US.

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"this ought to be labelled an editorial."

The very first word in the article, in bold and blue, and on the front page, is: Comment.

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On the first day of Christmas, Microsoft gave to me... an emergency out-of-band security patch for IE

"MS have pulled the advisories"

Are you sure - the webpages are still up, and you can download the updates by hand if they're not in Microsoft Update.

Eg, for Windows 10 build 1809:

https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4483235

Windows 7 / 8:

https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4483187

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Microsoft: Come and play in our Windows SandBox

Re: Erkk!!!

It's a technical term (see Steve Knox's comment)

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It's beginning to look a lot like multi-threaded CPUs, everywhere you go... Arm teases SMT Cortex-A65AE car brains

Re: Spazturtle

Um, the very next sentence is...

"As in, each core can run two separate threads simultaneously"

I'll move the words around so as not to somehow confuse you.

Merry Christmas,

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Having swallowed its pride and started again with 10nm chips, Intel teases features in these 2019-ish processors

Re: Not what Intel has been saying for the past several years

FWIW... 10nm v1 (Cannon Lake) is dead and buried. It was impossible to see it through to mass volume. The integrated GPU in the CL Core i3 was disabled because it didn't work.The metalization was not viable.

Sunny Cove is v2 of 10nm, after going back to the drawing board.

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Re: Two thoughts

"it is largely Intel integrated GPU's that have sucked"

Yeah, fair point - I've made that distinction now. I pretty much meant that but didn't make it clear enough.

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Re: TSMC not at 7nm until 2019? Really?

See the comment by theblackhand and DougS. There's production, and then there's production.

We didn't say TSMC wasn't shipping 7nm in 2018 - the point was 2019 and 2020 are when it really kicks off for desktop and server-grade stuff, the things Intel makes and is the context of the piece.

I've tweaked the sentence to make it clearer, cheers.

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Supernovae may explain mass extinctions of marine animals 2.6 million years ago

It's millions - typo in headline :( (now fixed)

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HCL picks up Notes, spanks total of $1.8bn at Honest John's IBM software sale

Re: Do the people at El Reg...

Yeah, fair enough. Maybe we over-snarked.

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Total Inability To Support User Phones: O2 fries, burning data for 32 million Brits

Re: This is cyber warfare isn’t it?

Expired software certificate, apparently...

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/12/06/ericsson_o2_telefonica_uk_outage/

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Qualcomm lifts lid on 7nm Arm-based octo-core Snapdragon 855 chip for next year's expensive 5G Androids

Re: NE555?

855 reminded me of the old 555 [triv]

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DeepMind quits playing games with AI, ups the protein stakes with machine-learning code

Re: It's good somebody's doing this

That doesn't, TTBOMK, use machine learning, and instead uses the spare processor cycles on a lot of computers. Completely different project.

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Millennials 'horrify' their neighbours with knob-shaped lights display

"Sometimes I really appreciate local rag journalist"

Some of us used to be them. My favorite rejected crap headline was about a bunch of casino robbers...

'Aceholes'

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SEAL up your data just like Microsoft: Redmond open-sources 'simple' homomorphic encryption blueprints

Re: Benny

"Why would you want to use this if anyone could just come along and change your data (albeit without ever knowing what it was)?"

No one can "just come along" and change it - if you have unauthorized database access then if the DB is unencrypted t's completely game over, and if it's encrypted then at least they can't see the data. If someone breaks in and changes the database records, then roll back to a backup and seal up your network security.

The aim of this is to keep the data shielded and minimize risk.

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Customers baffled as Citrix forces password changes for document-slinging Sharefile outfit

Re: Question about weak passwords

"I'm a bit confused about the reasoning behind forcing password changes leading to weaker passwords"

I imagine it goes something like this: you start out with D9xTMffgH!#82 then D9xTMff then DxCitrixAgain and then ihatecitrix and ihatecitrix! and ihatecitrix123

etc

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It's nearly 2019, and your network can get pwned through an oscilloscope

Re: Credas

"the idea that someone could somehow gain anything useful from spying on a random oscilloscope"

Well, Target was pwned via its air-conditioning unit. I'm personally thinking you could use this to inject other systems - no one would suspect the scope - or infect it, wait for it to be transferred to another lab and then mess with stuff on that network.

Just use your imagination.

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See this, Google? Microsoft happy to take a half-billion in sweet, sweet US military money to 'increase lethality'

Re: Eh?

"Has the author failed to engage their brain before writing this?"

No - I think you're blaming us for the actions of tech workers? I mean, techies have been creating bad press and embarrassment for corps by kicking up a fuss over military contracts. It's a little surprising that MS has gone for it, in that context.

But as we say, Microsoft has shrugged off prev criticism.

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