Posts by diodesign

Imagine the candles on its birthday cake: Astro-eggheads detect galaxy born in universe's first billion years

Re: Tom 64

Thanks for deliberately misreading the story. Post less.

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Giza geezers' muon-geyser visor reveals Great Pyramid's hidden void surpriser

Re: 'a particle usually found in cosmic rays'

It's fixed. Don't forget to email corrections@ if you spot any errors.

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Oh, Google. You really are spoiling us: Docs block cockup chalks up yet another apology

Re: Double negative

Aah, sorry. Story fixed. Should be "deny via Twitter that Facebook eavesdrops on users".

Don't forget to email [e-mail] if you spot anything wrong.

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Comodo CA acquired by Francisco Partners ...

Re: Blue Coat owned by Symantec

Thanks - oops, someone forgot about the Symantec sale. We've updated the article. Don't forget to email [e-mail] if you spot any errors and we'll get on them straight away, if necessary.

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A draft US law to secure election computers that isn't braindead. Well, I'm stunned! I gotta lie down

It's been like that for aaaages. Eg, the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act:

Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act.

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Hey, big vendor: Oracle, Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook blow even more cash on lobbying

re: anonymous

Erg, IT cockup. Screw it, it's embedded as an image. Let's go old school.

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Please activate the anti-ransomware protection in your Windows 10 Fall Creators Update PC. Ta

Re: "controlled folder access"

Defense in depth! :) Anyway, not that many people will want to install anything to do with Comodo on their machines...

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Google and Intel cook AI chips, neural network exchanges – and more

Re: And AlphaGo Zero

Sure, we covered AGZ in depth here.

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Malware hidden in vid app is so nasty, victims should wipe their Macs

Re: How to scan for those files or folders? Not an Apple person.

Open the Terminal app (in Applications->Other) to get a command prompt. Use the ls command to list info about the files, eg type:

ls /tmp/Updater.app/

Or rather type 'ls ' and then cut'n'paste the file name. Hit enter, and you should see:

ls: /tmp/Updater.app/: No such file or directory

Which means the directory doesn't exist so you're OK. Repeat this for the other files listed. You can quit Terminal when you're done.

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NYC cops say they can't reveal figures on cash seized from people – the database is too shoddy

Re: Farked

We have waaaay more readers than Fark. Like, at least 5x. Fark.com got 793,800 uniques in Sept 2017, according to its official analytics.

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YouTube sin-bins account of KRACK WPA2 researcher

Re: Emma

If you apply your patches, you'll be OK. If you're using Windows or iOS, you're pretty much immune anyway. There isn't a tool to check as far as we're aware. If you're using a recent Linux or Android 6+ or macOS or openBSD or an IoT gadget that uses Linux, you're at risk.

But bear in mind no exploit code attacking the flaw is out there, someone has to be in range, and it's right now tricky to do. Grab the latest security updates for your devices so that you're protected in future.

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Re: Re: Coverage ?

"It is true, however, that there hasn't been the kind of well-informed, detailed explanation of the vulnerability that The Register would normally do."

The flaw is fairly complex but well-explained in the paper, which is public. We've linked to it in previous coverage. You should read it if you're interested in nonces and key installation. If you're aware of WPA2's cryptography, it's an easy read.

Instead, we've focused on the impact - that's what matters most.

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Microsoft exec says ARM-powered Windows laptops have multi-day battery life

Re: Please explain

Microsoft is giving up on smartphones, but loves the idea of ARM-powered laptops running Windows 10. Microsoft and Intel had a major falling out over PC processor prices, so Redmond turned to a CPU supplier dying to break out of mobile: Qualcomm.

So forget Microsoft in your pocket. Microsoft wants to be on your lap or desktop, with Windows 10, on Qualcomm ARM, or Intel or AMD x86.

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Man prosecuted for posting a picture of his hobby on Facebook

Re: TonyJ

It's a sensitive legal case. We may have to moderate comments for legal reasons.

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Facebook and Instagram outage not worthy of coverage ?

Re: Facebook and Instagram outage not worthy of coverage ?

Great question, Steve. We cover outages when we can. Some outages are more important than others (ISPs and multi-tenant cloud services, especially) so we jump on those. Facebook going down for a few minutes, not so much. Sometimes we're all working on other stories, and by the time we drop everything, and start writing up the outage, the thing comes back online.

The Verge is about as techie as a bent paperclip. It's a marketing vehicle for Silicon Valley.

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IBM: We're now a, what's not losing money? Ah, a cognitive cloud champ!

Re: Baton Rogue

It's fixed - don't forget to email [e-mail] if you spot any issues.

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Super Cali's futuristic robo-cars in focus – even though watchdogs say they're something quite atrocious

Re: Bah!

I'll let you in on a little secret: we don't really care if the scansion doesn't quite match up - worrying about a syllable here or there, life's too short for that.

In this case, we couldn't fit the 'the' in because then the headline would not fit in its little space on the front page, break over many many lines and just look ugly. And I'd rather have a tidy looking headline than one that fits the 14 syllables perfectly.

Sorry, not sorry. But thanks for appreciating the headline. We couldn't write one anywhere else in the enterprise IT news world.

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Hackers nick $60m from Taiwanese bank in tailored SWIFT attack

Re: Walter Bishop

We've tweaked the story to make it clear - it was the banks' equipment that was hacked, not SWIFT's infrastructure.

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You may not have noticed, but 'superfast' broadband is available to 94% of Blighty

Re: "Anyone know anything?"

A class-action lawsuit in the US over the issue (v Arris, IIRC) was settled v recently. A big bunch of CVEs were assigned to the Intel chipset bugs (pretty much all denial-of-service). We'll do another followup soon.

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Kotlin's killin' Java among Android devs

Re: article deja vu

We accidentally ran it too early - it was supposed to go live Tuesday after the Columbus Day break. My fault.

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Sole Equifax security worker at fault for failed patch, says former CEO

Re: Security resource identified.

^ Simpsons joke...

https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/Tibor_Jankovsky

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Have MAC, will hack: iThings have trivial-to-exploit Wi-Fi bug

Re: anonymously

"This a another faux-outrage created by non-Apple users, as usual."

Apple is being super confusing here.

"In iOS 11 and later, when you toggle the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth buttons in Control Center, your device will immediately disconnect from Wi-Fi and Bluetooth accessories. Both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth will continue to be available"

Will both continue to be available even though disconnected. Huh? Turns out you have to go to the *settings* page:

"To turn off Wi-Fi, go to Settings > Wi-Fi and turn off Wi-Fi.

To turn off Bluetooth, go to Settings > Bluetooth and turn off Bluetooth."

You can see why it's irritating people. Off should always be off, not nearly off until you find the other lever to pull.

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Deloitte is a sitting duck: Key systems with RDP open, VPN and proxy 'login details leaked'

Re: Excused Boots

You're not far off :(

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DataCore tech cranks wheezing SQL Servers to ridiculous speeds

Re: Re: Super fast response times

^ agmax works for DataCore, FYI.

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Pirate Bay digs itself a new hole: Mining alt-coin in slurper browsers

Re: anonymous

It's mining Monero, a relatively new and lightweight alt-coin that is still really easy to crunch on typical desktops. See the link in the story.

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Don't panic, but.. ALIEN galaxies are slamming Earth with ultra-high-energy cosmic rays

Re: anonymous

No - we're talking about charged particles, not light. Cosmic rays are atomic nuclei.

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Spanish govt slammed over bizarre Catalan .cat internet registry cop raid

Re: jltallon

BTW not sure what you mean by Catalan judges getting involved, but to be clear, the order against .cat domains is coming from the Spanish judicial authorities.

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Ah, good ol' Windows update cycles... Wait, before anything else, check your hardware

Re: Semtex451

Hate to 'actually' you, but ACTUALLY: Our revenue this year is neatly following 2016's record high. As in, 2016 smashed El Reg's all-time ad sales records. The unsung heroes here are our sterling ad sales team, and us news scribes are in their debt.

So yes, we sometimes run vendor-sponsored articles - clearly labelled sponsored or promos - and they make us a decent amount of money. Take 'em as you like: they are written by freelance journos we vet for quality. And the pieces are super interesting. Don't skip over them just because they are biz-sponsored. It's all part of the El Reg mix.

However, a vast chunk of our cash comes from display ads against our top news articles - which are produced well away from any vendor interference.

We strive to provide highly technical and accurate IT news and features independently and ethically.

Ultimately, this all funds the snark, sarcasm, the exclusives, the analyses, the features of The Reg that you love and we'll continue to serve.

Attention adults working in the real world: Do not upgrade to iOS 11 if you use Outlook, Exchange

Re: Full of nonsense as ever

Hey Andrew - it's Chris from Drobe. Remember those RISC OS days? Ah yeah. Now I'm at El Reg. Lol!?

Anyway. Thanks for reminding ppl about the extended iOS settings to actually switch off radio comms. We linked to Apple's instructions, so no foul there.

"The continued race to the bottom in El Reg persists"

The fact that we're the most read in the enterprise IT space, and that we're making year-upon-year growth in ad revenue and profit, suggests you're full of shit, Andrew.

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Re: Works fine here

This article isn't written for people who have avoided the bug. It's written for people hit by the bug who want to know WTF is going on. And check the link - Apple admits there is a problem.

Also, ppl saying their gear works - are you using the Outlook app? That app is crippled: check out the reviews for it. The UI is mashed beyond repair. That's not a great UX for ppl.

There's no sensationalism going on here. iOS 11 doesn't fully work with Microsoft's software - Apple says as much. If it works for you, great. Judging by the stats on this article, millions disagree that all is ok.

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Give staff privacy at work, Euro human rights court tells bosses

Re: Graham Dawson

Hiya - yup, sorry. Wrote this from the US and didn't appreciate the subtle differences. Don't forget to email [e-mail] if you spot any problems.

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Big Tech fumes over Prez Trump's decision to deport a million kids

Re: anonymous

That was then. Now it's happened, and this is the response.

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Big Tech slams Trump on plan to deport kids

Re: anonymous coward

"stopping exceptions that just encourage more people to enter the US illegally"

Yeah, sucks to be you if you're brought to the US as a young kid by family, and the States are all you know, amiright????

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Uncle Sam outlines evidence against British security whiz Hutchins

Re: Something's up

The crowdfunding thing was cancelled when it was swamped by fake credit cards. Another one is coming next week, we're told by his legal team.

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Node.js forks again – this time it's a war of words over anti-sex-pest codes of conduct

Re: anonymous coward

"ranting about the SJWs is poor form"

Ah, come on. Our job is to summarize as best we can complex stuff. In between the usual in-fighting and politics that rage in some open-source projects, the thing for us that stuck out was the CoC side, and so that's the focus here. To us, it's the straw that broke the camel's back.

The ability, or inability, for Node.js to self-govern properly as a FOSS project is best left to another story, and something we can look into. In fact, it should be obvious that, after two splits now, that all is not well in the project.

It's our job as journalists to identify the information that is most interesting to readers. And in our view, a bitter argument over CoCs - which is a rather large policy issue these days in tech - is more significant than people flaming each other on mailing lists.

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German court reveals reason for Europe-wide patent system freeze

Re: Truth, good story etc...

"the EPO has got nothing to do with the UPC"

Apart from granting them – and, for years, spent a lot of time, money and effort promoting UPC, is a huge cheerleader and advocate of UPC, and stands to gain a lot from the UPC coming into force.

So yeah, nothing to do with UPC, lol.

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Fat-fingered G Suite admins spill internal biz beans onto public 'net

Re: Steve G Suite Admin

Hi - we reported what Redlock was trying to warn everyone: that some people have set up their accounts incorrectly, and you should make sure you're not making the same mistake. We've updated the story with a note from Google explaining this.

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Rejected

Re: Rejected

Couple of observations, my dear fellow:

1. Your comment pointed out a typo in the article. Our standard operating procedure when we see corrections in comments is to fix the typo and reject the comment - because the comment is unlikely to make any sense after the tweak is made. You should email [e-mail] so problems can be addressed ASAP. We don't have time to read every comment but we do like to correct all errors.

2. You need to, as we say in California, chill out.

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Software definer wants you to befriend the 'BFC', do a bit of 'reverse virtualization'

Re: ikenassi

"big flexible computer"

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Space boffins competing for $20m Moon robot X-Prize are told: Be there by March 31 – or bust

Re: do something that literally has never been done before

Put a privately built moving rover on the Moon that streams back HD video (could be live, not sure) and photos. That's not been done before.

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Taken a while but finally here's the first proper smart-home gizmo

Re: Taken a while?

Kieren's point is that lightbulbs made by popular manufacturer A work with lightbulbs by popular manufacturer B - it's interoperability between competing devices, not competing hubs.

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Comp sci world shock: Bonn boffin proposes P≠NP proof, preps for prestige, plump prize

Re: FredBed

"I'm not saying it'd be fast or efficient"

Well, bingo. It's hard because it's virtually impossible to calculate using today's systems. And your numbers are off. Read the full problem:

"The total number of ways of choosing one hundred students from the four hundred applicants is greater than the number of atoms in the known universe! Thus no future civilization could ever hope to build a supercomputer capable of solving the problem by brute force; that is, by checking every possible combination of 100 students."

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Chap behind Godwin's law suspends his own rule for Charlottesville fascists: 'By all means, compare them to Nazis'

Re: Godwin not applicable here

Why you gotta ruin a good time?

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Re: Everything I don't like is a Nazi

I almost rejected this comment, but I approved it so I could point out its idiocy.

"It's been appropriated by straight-out low-IQ and hysterical thought enforcers and politicians out for a quick rallying so much that it's become meaningless."

MATE, THEY ARE WEARING FUCKING NAZI SWASTIKAS. FUCKING NAZI SWASTIKAS. THEY ARE FUCKING NAZIS. No, this isn't name calling or shock labelling by the left.

THEY ARE WEARING FUCKING NAZI SWASTIKAS. IN AMERICA. IN 2017.

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Revealed: The naughty tricks used by web ads to bypass blockers

Re: TheVogon

"What browsers is this applicable to?"

If you follow the link in the story (and read the sentence) it was reported by a Brave browser developer because it affects Brave. Brave is based on Chromium, so it may apply to both. How Wireshark and Charles Proxy are detected is under investigation – it's looking like RPC via JavaScript so may be cross platform.

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Your top five dreadful people the Google manifesto has pulled out of the woodwork

Re: nzok

"It would be *so* nice if we could have an honest debate about what the guy *actually* wrote"

He wrote a 3,000-word ramble. You gotta forgive people for summarizing it - and for a lot of people, it was a rather long-winded way of saying: it's ok to assume people are genetically incapable of some jobs. And that's rather in the face of efforts to ensure a fair and diverse workforce.

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Re: nzok

"His very first sentence is 'I value diversity and inclusion'"

Bit like folks who say, "I'm not sexist, but..."

"Some of my best friends are gay, but..."

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Re: Re: Thumb on the scale

"Damore has a PhD in systems biology"

FYI he dropped out of his PhD, and downgraded to a master's.

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Re: Re: No it didn't. It's garbage and you know it.

"What does the part about maths have to do with the memo?"

Ah, so tedious. It was an example of how there are sod all differences between men and women if you're not interested in things like physical strength. You're still missing the point, the contradiction within the memo. You can't on one hand scream about considering people purely on merit, and then on the other hand bang on about how some people are incapable of tasks due to their biology.

Which is it: giving everyone a fair crack to prove themselves, or writing off whole chunks of the population? It's stupid.

As for the silencing of debate - if your daft ideas and reasoning can't stand up to scrutiny then that's really your headache. I don't like to see people pushed out or moderates turned into extremists, but honestly. Calm down. It's just a stupid ill-thought-out memo that got someone fired.

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Hey America! Your internet is going to be so much better this January

Re: Amplex

Get ready for a huge shock.

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