Posts by Jamie Jones

Quibi, JetBlue, Wish, others accused of leaking millions of email addresses to ad orgs via HTTP referer headers

For the past two years, Wish.com has been transmitting millions of email addresses, in base64 encoding, which is not encryption, we're told.

You've been told correctly - base64 encoding isn't encryption!

Jeff Bezos tells shareholders to buckle up: Amazon to blow this quarter's profits and more on coronavirus costs

EPS?

"EPS"?

Ok, I know now, because I googled it, but there have often been comments in here from people accusing El. Reg. of dumbing down by explaining core techie concepts and expanding well known TLAs, and the official replies have more or less said that they explain such things for an audience that might not be so tech-savvy.

Fair enough, but how about doing the same for us techies who are not business-savvy?

ICANN finally halts $1.1bn sale of .org registry, says it's 'the right thing to do' after months of controversy

THANK-YOU KIEREN

I sincerely believe that your thorough investigative jounralism into this issue not only provided a great amount of extra detail to those of us with some knowledge of the subject, but also served as an accurate summary for the AG, and those in the media that may have otherwise not reported it.

I don't know the details, but I wouldn't be surprised if this decision has been made because of your reporting.

Anyway, quoting Amy Sample Ward from the article:

Now, ICANN must move forward with a plan for a competitive selection process to assign .Org management to a home that has the interest of nonprofits and people at its center."

Yes, I was going to ask "What happens next?"

Is it a done deal that the ISOC and/or PIR have lost the TLD... and without renumeration?

Microsoft decrees that all high-school IT teachers were wrong: Double spaces now flagged as typos in Word

Re: It may be a US "standard", but...

hee hee. you said boobies!

Re: It may be a US "standard", but...

Everyone knows that "gimp" is a fishing line made out of silk and wire.

Re: It may be a US "standard", but...

Serial/Oxford comma debate:

Without serial comma:

"I went for dinner with my parents, Dick and Jane."

Did you go with your parents, and Dick, and Jane, or are your parents called Dick and Jane?

With serial comma:

They are my parents:

"I went for dinner with my parents, Dick and Jane."

They are some other friends:

"I went for dinner with my parents, Dick, and Jane."

Florida man might just stick it to HP for injecting sneaky DRM update into his printers that rejected non-HP ink

I'm not sure the world is crossing their fingers....

As this very site reported, the EU banned such shinanigans a while back: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/12/30/eu_tells_hp_et_al/

Watch now the three UFO videos uncovered by Blink-182 star – and today officially released by the Pentagon

Re: optional?

Even my imaginary life is sad!

Those MIB mind-wipes are an abuse of my

And then she changed her mind again, and said she preferred the first one. "Get them both!" I said, trying to sound helpful, but just wanting to leave that damn shop already.

Royal Navy nuclear submarine captain rapped for letting crew throw shoreside BBQ party

Re: Another thing...

I made a mistake just referring to Sarah as a "key worker" - she's a care worker - working with people with mental health issues. But because she doesn't wear a nurses uniform, the neighbours didn't even make that connection.

As for your request, I'm not a cheerleader for any party, and I'd love to leave The Tories and Brexit out of this, but in addition to the vaild points in the reply from "ragnor", my point was related to the hypocrisy of it all.

Boris etc. loving the nurses and the NHS and using trite little slogans praising the NHS whilst the Tories have stripped the NHS bare, and voted against a (still below inflation) pay cap freeze back in 2017. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/public-sector-pay-cap-vote-conservatives-cheer-tory-theresa-may-jeremy-corbyn-dup-a7813661.html

And of course, the fact we have less PPE for the health staff because on 3 occasions, the Tories refused to join an EU procurment scheme (because... brexit.. and we can do it alone), and lied about "not receiving the email" when found out https://www.ft.com/content/58f5f476-7a85-4785-81bd-0806ff7c6ded

So, unfortunately the Tories and Brexit are very relevant here.

P.S. I didn't downvote you

Re: Another thing...

A friend of mine is a key worker. She was telling me that after a particularly hard day at work that ended up over 10 hours, she got home shortly before 8pm, and "collapsed into the sofa" (her words).

2 minutes later, her neighbours were banging on her door "Come on Sarah, it's time to clap the NHS".

She ignored them.

Herd immunity? Herd mentallity more like. I wonder how many of these clappers voted for Brexit and the Tories, but feel good about themselves because they to outside to clap?

I presume the really caring ones also click "like" on a few relevant facebook posts... Come on Facebook...

We're in a timeline where Dettol maker has to beg folks not to inject cleaning fluid into their veins. Thanks, Trump

Re: Cowards

Ah.... But do you have covid-19? !

Re: Dare I suggest

To add to that, I've noticed in the Cuomo briefings, his staff, and the reporters are all kept at a distance from each other.

Ah yes... I'm from the UK, the land that voted brexit and the tories....

ARRRRGH, I FEEL YOUR PAIN!

Re: Is he even capable of a full sentence?

Are you saying that "You're fake news" isn't a valid response to a question? !

Re: Trump's Base

Indeed. It was obvious from the video (and not just an editted clip, before the trumpets moan) that he was not being sarcastic.

And even if he was, that's even more bloody irresponsible!

Re: Suggestion

Sadly, The Register no longer carries the tombstone icon.

Yeah, shame that! :-)

Spyware maker NSO can't claim immunity, Facebook lawyers insist – it's time to face the music

Bollocks Bingo

"Our products are used to stop terrorism, curb violent crime, and save lives."

He forgot to mention catching pædophiles...

The Adobe Flash Farewell Tour 2020: LibreOffice to axe export support for .SWF in version 7

Re: Export to HTML5?

Flash *video* is a piece of piss to access. flv and swf are just containers in this context, and carry standard video types (including h264).

In these cases, ffmpeg doesn't even need to recode, just extract the video from the containter, and stick it into a more common container.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Video#Media_type_support

Usefully extracting other flash media from .swf files is a different kettle of fish, though I have in the past used opensource tools (I forget which) to pull apart swf files, and (e,g.) extract static images that may exist.

IBM Watson GPU cloud cluster Brexits from London to Frankfurt – because GDPR

Re: Pointless And Political

"Wonder if IBM getting any thick brown envelopes under the table ?"

Why? Your side "won"

Quit being a sore-winner

"The IBM Watson GPU cloud cluster-fuck"

You missed a sub-heading pun there (or maybe it was too obvious to be used... I am easily amused, after all)

Why should the UK pensions watchdog be able to spy on your internet activities? Same reason as the Environment Agency and many more

Also,if my car is broken into, and the cops say they don't have the resources to investigate, shouldn't I be given blanket access to everyones internet data so I can investigate myself?

Internet root keymasters must think they're cursed: First, a dodgy safe. Now, coronavirus upends IANA ceremony

Re: Test them?

Alternatively, use the fanatically religious who are kept virus-free by Jesus.

Churchgoer claims to be covered in Jesus' blood

CFAA latest: Supremes to tackle old chestnut of what 'authorized use' of a computer really means in America

Re: "he was an authorized user of the plate system"

Indeed. And if the car you were driving was a company car, you don't get prosecuted for stealing the car just because you used the car outside the terms the company expects.

Baby, I swear it's déjà vu: TalkTalk customers unable to opt out of ISP's ad-jacking DNS – just like six years ago

Re: ISP -> Internet Service Provider

:-)

I also want to thank you for not mentioning I wrote "sites" instead of "numbers"!

Re: ISP -> Internet Service Provider

Imagine dialing a wrong number, and getting an audio ad, and a suggestion of sites you may have actually meant!

This hurts a ton-80: British darts champ knocked out of home tourney by lousy internet connection

Re: here's something to do :

They'd need another POP then. I guess it's just simpler to have it all terminate in London.

And of course, with the phone networks, they had uk-wide networks before they got IP, so it made it that much easier to terminate in one place. I'm interested in how some of the virgin UK traffic routes though.

all my traffic comes out of telehouse, London. I think some USPS terminate in Manchester also

Could you try a trace route to (say) www.swan.ac.uk ? I know that's physically hosted in Swansea - I'm curious whether virgin in Bristol hits JANET in Bristol, or Cardiff, or London.

Cheers!

Re: Home tournament?

:-) ... or anchor the camera to the dartboard?

Re: here's something to do :

speedtest.net defaults to the closest geographical server, which is usually incorrect for those in the UK outside London.

I'm in Swansea. The server chooses Cardiff. My (like most) connections enters "the internet" in London.

Choosing a London server is therfore closer than the Swansea <--> London <--> Cardiff route.

Re: here's something to do :

The Broom cupboard is where Gordon the Gopher lives, surely?

Europe publishes draft rules for coronavirus contact-tracing app development, on a relaxed schedule

Re: We know what you did ...

About the author of the that article:

Jonathan Smith, a lecturer in epidemiology at Yale University, is completing his PhD in epidemiology at Emory University. His research focuses specifically on differential transmissibility of infectious diseases under various population-level and individual-level control measures.

It seems you were downvoted by someone anonymous who either knows better, or doesn't believe in facts. :-( Maybe someone who is "Covered in Jesus's blood"?

Vodafone: Yes, we slurp data on customers' network setups, but we do it for their own good

The talk-talk huawai vdsl modem has a 'modem only' mode that isn't hidden away somewhere.

From Brit telly presenter Eamonn Holmes to burning 5G towers in the Netherlands: Stupid week turns into stupid fortnight for radio standard

Re: "I assume there was some backstage arm-twisting"

.... except he didn't say how wrong he was, he said how wrong the viewers were to misinterpret what he had said.

So he apologised on behave of the viewers and their stupidity.

Re: Don't they realise ...

Don't be silly! Their cellphones don't have big scaffolding and pointing things with bits hanging off, and besides, whilst when they are surrounded by wifi / 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9g, unused phone masts etc., they get the headaches, but they are fine facebooking on their phone for hours on end.

It's almost as if the headaches only occur when the blame is on something they don't think they are using!

You can wipe those smiley faces off: Unicode technical website is going to be out for 'a couple of weeks'

https://unicode.org/main.html if you inadvisedly click through the browser warnings.

... because nothing is worse than those evil hackers swapping around smilie codes!

Trump orders 3M to keep US-made masks in the US

US steals masks from Thailand, destined for Germany https://www.ft.com/content/03e45e35-ab09-4892-899d-a86db08a935c

Signal sends smoke, er, signal: If Congress cripples anonymous speech with EARN IT Act, we'll shut US ops

Re: I think it would be rather splendid

US governent and military could just make rhemselves exempt from the law, and then roll their own.

I don't know if sigjal is open-source, but even if not, the encryption is.

Europe calls for single app to track coronavirus. Meanwhile America pretends it isn’t trying to build one at all

Re: A deal

I assumed you meant ten past eight yesterday evening!

Cloudflare dumps Google's reCAPTCHA, moves to hCaptcha as free ride ends (and something about privacy)

Get rid of all javascript tests....

..... they stop be visiting any site that has them enabled.

Ethernet standards group leaves its name in the dust as it details new 800Gbps spec

The title is too long.

"“Ethernet is evolving very quickly and as a group, we felt that having 25G in the name was too constraining for the scope of the consortium,”

They didn't forsee that?

Minister slams 5G coronavirus conspiracy theories as 'dangerous nonsense' after phone towers torched in UK

Stop saying "There is no Evidence"!

I know it's the right, scientifically sound way to say it, but the morons you are trying convince take such a term to conspiratorialy mean anything from "You guys haven't found the evidence that we have" to "obviously your fears are true - it's just no-one can prove it yet"

Remember, these are the people who say that even scientists know evolution is fake, as they admit it's just a "theory".

As grating as it sounds, you must say "It doesn't" not "there's no evidence that..."

Google tests hiding Chrome extension icons by default, developers definitely not amused by the change

Re: Once again, the question is choice

6 million times YES.

The worst thing about dumbing down of interfaces is the actual loss of functionality for those that want it.

Remember when the paypal site looked and operated like a proper banking site?

US prez Trump's administration reportedly nears new rules banning 'dual-use' tech sales to China

Re: It doesn't matter anyway

You praise Trump, whilst in the same post criticise China for innacracies.

Let's see:

After the disease was in Washington state and the World Health Organization reported a high global risk, Trump said there were no worries of a pandemic.

The day the stock market plummeted, Trump said the virus was very much under control in the U.S., and the stock market was looking pretty good to him.

A few days after declaring a national emergency, Trump said he had “always known” this was a pandemic.

More: https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/mar/20/how-donald-trump-responded-coronavirus-pandemic/

Even more: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/timeline-trump-covid19-responses/

Re: @Doctor Syntax

You guys are so tribal with your "teams"...

"If someone criticises Trump, they must love Obama"?

Funnily enough, the one most obsessed with Obama is Trump himself - you know, they guy who amongst other things, shuttered pandemic response initiatives because Obama set them up.

Oops, does that make me an Obama fan now?

Huawei signs non-aggression patent pact with membership of Open Invention Network

Linux lock-in

I'd assumed the article incorrectly quoted their mission as ".....any organisation that agrees not to asset its patents against Linux", when it actually reads "........ patents against open source projects."

But, no, I checked their website, and The Register article is correct.

So.... another example of "Linux vendor lock-in".. Typical. Seems that - yet again - the old rants against MS don't apply when it's Linux..

Watch your MANRS: Akamai, Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft, Google, and pals join internet routing security effort

I see what you did there!

"The truth is that the industry hopes good old-fashioned peer pressure will resolve most of the issues."

Astroboffin gets magnets stuck up his schnozz trying and failing to invent anti-face-touching coronavirus gizmo

Gotta love his partner

From the original article...

“My partner took me to the hospital that she works in because she wanted all her colleagues to laugh at me. The doctors thought it was quite funny, making comments like ‘This is an injury due to self-isolation and boredom.’”

Remember that clinical trial, promoted by President Trump, of a possible COVID-19 cure? So, so, so many questions...

Re: The most important statement in the whole article.

The number of times I've seen Trumpets flat out deny something even when theres video proof is incredible...