Posts by diodesign

Dropbox blames staffer's password reuse for spam flood breach

Re: Erm

"How does this relate to the corresponding passwords getting lifted?"

Assuming you're being serious, I had hoped this was obvious: if not, then I've failed as a sub-editor.

If, say, you have a Dropbox account and a CrappoMail web mail account, and you use the same email address and password for both, and then CrappoMail is compromised and the hackers have your email address and password - they can log into the Dropbox account.

From there, the hacker can find a document with Dropbox users' email addresses. These are then turned over to a spam bot for fun and profit.

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Tesco in unencrypted password email reminder rumble

Re: encryption, hashes, etc

Hello,

Yes, you're right - there was a misunderstanding at the editing stage. We do know the difference between encryption and one-way hashing functions. It's been fixed.

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O2 dropped the ball in Olympic cycle race Twitter fiasco

Re: O2 Stratford to Liverpool Street

Yes, I also get borderline zero reception on that line with O2. It's sad. When I told O2, they told me they spend £1m a day improving their network.

I suggested they spend more.

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Forget 'climate convert' Muller: Here's the real warming blockbuster

Re: Re: Not likely

"That said, I was under the impression that that entire image came directly from NOAA"

The heat maps come from NOAA, the in-graphic comment is from Watts - as the caption says.

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Apple takes $2.2bn hit as Chinese resellers snub iPhone 4S

Re: Re: takes a bath?

"Apple didn't make a loss, they just didn't make as big a profit as last quarter"

OK, lesson learned. I stretched the idiom too far.

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Re: takes a bath?

Hm, I took it to mean any kind of financial loss - such as wiping $2.2bn off a previous quarter's revenue. For the sake of pedantry I've tweaked the headline.

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The Higgs boson search continues ... into ANOTHER dimension

Re: Re: If you knew SUSY like I know SUSY...

"The thing is that when you get this deep into it, you can't explain or understand it in terms of familiar, everyday examples and analogies"

Indeed - a mathematician friend once tried to begin an explanation for some system with: "Imagine a 2D space. Now a 3D space. OK? Now imagine an N-dimensional space where N is greater than ..."

We try our best to explain science stuff; it's often a fun challenge to squeeze a complex subject into one sentence. But that's for lunchtime reading, not all-night study.

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Google HARVESTS African mobile numbers with Gmail SMS

Re: Aaron Em

Having had a pint after a long day, I realise I probably suffered a knee jerk reaction. So, sorry. I think we all learned a lesson here, or something.

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Re: Aaron Em

I think you strayed over the line from funny to excessive. Nice try, though.

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IT pro to storm Everest in Bletchley Park cash quest

Re: Phil

I suppose you get to keep your badge.

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Re: In accurate headline and article

Sorry, 'Everest South Base Camp' was too long for the headline. Luckily the article makes it clear right away where she's going - so zero pedantry points for you.

Leave your badge on my desk, thanks.

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Ice island snaps off Greenland: Just a fifth the size of 1962 whopper

Re: Conversions to Reg scale...

"However, the question of why the contributor didn't use correct measures remains?"

We're beta-testing a new unit. Standby for action.

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Hacktivists lift emails, passwords from oil biz in support of Greenpeace

Re: Hashing is not encryption

I admire the pedantry; we do know the difference between encryption and hashing. But the word 'encrypted' by the dictionary simply means to 'conceal information or data' and it's there to hint to new readers, or the less technically able, what hashing means without having to bulk up every story with a detail description of how one-way functions work.

If you know what a hash is, brilliant. We've told you the passwords were hashed (quite possibly MD5d). If you don't, then 'encrypted' will help you out.

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McDonalds staff 'rough up' prof with home-made techno-spectacles

Re: Re: More shocking...

It was an error, sorry. The article has been changed.

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UK snoop system had 1,000 COCKUPS - including 2 duff cuffs

Re: Bloody hell...

Hi - Yes, sorry, should have reminded new readers what a CSP is: it was on the todo list.

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Nvidia admits forums hacked, user data swiped

Re: Cracked, not Hacked

Yes, yes. It's a bit sad that someone needs to point out that language evolves and now 'hacked' means 'cracked' as well.

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Fake sandwich shop's big fake Likes leave Facebook looking flaky

Re: So, headlines written to suit webscrapers...

It's a hard job: yes, we write headlines that we want to write because no one else in the IT/Science/Business/Politics world will dare write them. Yes, we channel tabloid humour. Yes, we high five ourselves when someone hits headline gold. No, we don't worry if a Google bot doesn't get the joke.

As far as Google News is concerned, headlines aren't the be all and end all.

PS: I know of one print-based publishing house that urges its writers to get the word 'torrent' into online headlines to boost traffic..

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BBC mulls seizing the wheel of Local TV

Re: Shouldn't that read Arqiva?

Yes. God damn it. I rather hastily 'checked' the spelling by popping it into Google, but the blasted thing autocorrected it and told me everything was fine - should have known, lesson learned.

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O2, GiffGaff network goes titsup for unlucky punters

Re: Giffgaff?

Thanks - it's just that we were able to confirm quickly that O2 and GiffGaff were affected.

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UK.gov to clear way for Britain's first SPACEPORT

Re: Less of the CRAPITALS please

"when you do it all the time.."

Out the 45 headlines on the front page right now, just FIVE have a capped up screamer - not including the headlines with acronyms and the like.

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Museum of Computing recognised as PROPER MUSEUM

Re: Macs and PCs..

"Now if only some of the reg hacks can visit it and learn that there was something other than Macs and PCs in the 80s and 90s... ;-)"

Ha. Don't worry, some of us were using Acorn RISC OS kit through the 1980s and 1990s.

Also, as for the museums, Bletchley Park, The National Museum of Computing (also in Bletchley) and Swindon's Museum of Computing are all separate things. Correct me if I'm wrong.

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'Apple is corrupting App Store downloads', warn angry devs

Re: ®

They're at the end of every Reg-written story! It's a style thing.

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Leap second bug cripples Linux servers at airlines, Reddit, LinkedIn

Re: AdamWill

"That suggests you're wrong"

With respect to version numbers, probably - it was a range some had suggested through experience rather than a triaged ranged. The reason why is more or less there - see the LKML.

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Re: Its a kernel bug

As I understand it, the system ideally should be a multicore machine on a 2.6.32-3.3 production kernel for the bug to occur: if one core grabs a high-resolution kernel timer lock while setting the time via the adjtime() system call and another core holds two other related timer locks. This will livelock the kernel, manifesting in services burning up all available CPU time.

I'm not entirely sure so I'd rather not say for certain at this stage; last time I looked there was a lot of discussion on exactly how the crash happens. You have to be fairly unlucky to encounter it, but if you've got a server farm, you will see machines dropping off.

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Blighty's new anti-bribe law will do more HARM than good

Re: What a shit headline

Well, it is rather warm, so why not?

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Hitchhiker shot while researching 'Kindness of America'

Re: What does this Anti-American news item have to do with technology

Anti-American? I think not. And we do carry non-IT news from time to time, mostly on Fridays just before Pub O'Clock, admittedly.

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Thief open-sources Richard Stallman's laptop, passport, visa

Re: Tim

That was pretty much the sentiment of the comment: Stallman's netbook isn't well-known hardware, doesn't have a particularly user-friendly setup (gNewSense and Emacs), and is altogether not a particularly great environment for an opportunistic thief.

I dunno about Anna's past experiences with FOSS, but I know that pissing about with codecs wasn't particularly enjoyable - so I just couldn't resist inserting the jibe.

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Re: @David Neil

Hi Tim - I'm not sure many Argie bag thieves would know how to install a video codec on a fairly obscure MIPS64-powered netbook..

Hardy handymen handed handy hardened handheld hardware

Re: Better, Reg Headline Dept.

Back of the net!

O2, Be Broadband axe Pirate Bay access

Re: janimal

Your argument falls apart on the censorship point: we're not stopping you from finding a solution to the blocking. In fact, we assume everyone knows, anyway. The ban on workarounds isn't permanent, just a precaution for now.

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Re: janimal

TBF the 'workaround' is pretty close to 'move to another country'. Where do you draw the line? Answers on a postcard to the High Court.

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Windows 8: Not even Microsoft thinks businesses will use it

Re: WTF am the 'channel'

The Channel used to be called Channel Register, and it's been around for a while. :-)

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Re: Re: RE: WTF is the channel?

It's on The Channel because that's our dedicated sister site for channel news - in the same way hardware and consumer tech deserves its own site, Reg Hardware.

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RE: WTF is the channel?

In a nutshell, the channel is the chain of companies linking vendors to end-users. From distributors with warehouses to resellers bundling extra services for business customers or to retailers flogging kit.

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Apple seeks resurrection of HTC importation ban

Re: Argh!

What if he's pointing out a statement of fact?

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Sean Parker launches Chatroulette killer: For why?

Re: That's all very well

Very good, but it's the Financial Times.

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Missed the Venus solar flyby? It's only 105 years to the next one

Re: Hubble

I admire your pedantry, Axe. However, I think you read a bit too much into "took images of it" - the Hubble did take images of it using, as you say, sunlight reflected off the Moon.

I've tweaked the wording for future generations, anyway. Cheers.

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Strong ARM: The Acorn Archimedes is 25

Re: Help?

Yes - I loved finding the easter eggs in Acorn's code. That particular one is a reference to an old novel that starts off with the protagonist squeezing some toothpaste onto his toothbrush and seeing a message in it that read:

"Help, I'm being held prisoner in a toothpaste factory!"

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HP 'overcharged New York City by $163m' on 911 system

Ouch. Thanks for the wake up call. It was a mild oversight. The copy has been tweaked.

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'Super-powerful' Flame worm actually boring bloatware

Re: Confusing article

It's possible to get a big team to write a huge piece of software that then doesn't do anything earth-shatteringly evil. Yes, it does bad things, but so does a lot of malware. It's not the weapon of annihilation first feared, although there is still a lot of code to get through.

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Steve Jobs was top of the flops, says Apple's Tim Cook

Re: Why do people care so much about the Foxconn rebranding thing?

Ilsa Loving: Precisely. So nicknames like boydroid, Web 2.0 adman, Big Blue, chair-flinging biz tyrant, Channel bullyboy, and others assigned to tech personalities are all OK - but pointing out that Apple's ever-so-shiny "magical" kit comes from the Foxconn factories that churn out the rest of the world's tech is a step too far.

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Fedora 17: Mm.. this stew of beefy source tastes just right

Re: …Unix disk space issues that were solved decades ago

All interesting stuff, and be as that may, the reference to the "disk space issue" is explained here: http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html

Hope this helps.

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Apple's Ping has fatal pong, says CEO

Re: We All Make Mistakes

Nope, Foxconn-rebrander still in the style guide.

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Migrating data from storage arrays

Migrating data from storage arrays

Do you agree with Chris? Are there any other challenges or implications from shifting data off a live array?

Mega 12ft interactive electro-whiteboard lures GTC12 punters

Re: " or '

A stupid error on my part, sorry. It's been fixed.

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Boffins cram binary data into living cells' DNA

Re: I confidently predict...

Haha. Have all my upvotes.

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UK man to spend year in the clink for Facebook account hack

Re: celeb

It's emerged the victim was Selena Gomez, actress and girlfriend of gerbil-faced popular music icon Justin Bieber.

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Ballmer says 500 MILLION 'users' to 'have' Windows 8 in 2013

Re: Open Sans

It's part of the smashing newlook Channel Reg.

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Steve Jobs' 'private Apple spaceship' seeks public love

Re: As reported yesterday by other sites...

Dear coward,

I guess you didn't see the two links in the article?

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Apple's trial experts are 'slavish fanbois who believe in magic'

Re: But back ontopic ..

If they say anything interesting or of worth, then we'll cover it.

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