Posts by S4qFBxkFFg

Here's what we know about the DragonForce ransomware that hit Marks & Spencer

Re: And that's why you should NEVER pay a ransom...

Not to mention you would literally be paying criminals that you know have done crime, and it's very likely they're operating in a heavily sanctioned country; it's not a risk-free choice, legally.

"...some ransomware variants run checks on the OS or keyboard language to ensure it is not Russian before proceeding with encryption routines."

I wonder if it looks at the language actually selected at the time, or merely enabled in the keyboard locale switcher (or whatever Windows uses these days). Having Russian as the "main" language, while actually using your own, might be a low-cost way of making yourself less likely to be targeted.

Datacenters near Heathrow seemingly stay up as substation fire closes airport

Re: Questions will doubtless be asked

I found some numbers, but it looks like hundreds of kW per aircraft (and that includes main engine generators, not just APUs).

Let's say 100KW to be safe.

30MW (using the value another commenter posted above)/100KW = 300

Are there 300 airliners parked at Heathrow? I don't know, but even if you can send all of that power back down the connector which is designed to deliver power TO the aircraft, it seems inadequate.

Pornhub pulls out of Florida, VPN demand 'surges 1150%'

Re: Age verification mandates work like chocolate teapots.

"No sane person sends a scan of their passport or face to an online verification service."

Indeed, they borrow their mum's or dad's passport and use that.

Ransom gang claims attack on NHS Alder Hey Children's Hospital

We need a law against ransom payments (or more generally, paying anyone known to be committing serious crime), one which doesn't have any loopholes for the various "consultants" who take advantage of the victims.

There would need to be rewards for whistleblowers too. The idea would be to make it impossible for any organisation, private or public, to make a substantial ransom payment without the risk that (for example) a low-level finance employee will notice something funny and report it for the reward.

Why Google's Chrome monopoly won't crack anytime soon

Re: No one else can afford to maintain Chrome

"we have to wait until 2026 to even try it, it seems..."

Not exactly download -> install -> run, but it seems doable:

https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird/blob/master/Documentation/BuildInstructionsLadybird.md

ULA nears second launch of Vulcan Centaur in pursuit of US Space Force approval

After giving up the wait for Dream Chaser, which should arrive at some point in 2025, ULA is instead going to use a mass simulator along with some experiments and demonstrations to ease the vehicle's passage to US Space Force certification.

I have an (excessive?) dislike for this term: unless there is new physics involved, it doesn't simulate mass, it IS mass. It's like referring to an airworthy aircraft as a flight simulator.

My apologies to ULA if it is actually a very small box with several sets of switches and dials on the side, with labels "inertial", "passive gravitational", and "active gravitational".

(The term "inert payload", further up the article, is better.)

Lego's Concorde is the only supersonic jet you can build for the price of a fancy dinner

Be aware the performance is adversely affected; specifically, maximum speed being significantly reduced. I'd want my model to be the M2+ variant.

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/heres-why-pepsi-blue-paint-limited-concorde-to-mach-1-7/

Having its executioner's logo on the box is in poor taste.

Before we put half a million broadband satellites in orbit, anyone want to consider environmental effects?

Re: Blowing up a Starlink does not significantly increase the deorbit time

"For Kuiper I will wait for evidence they can manufacture multiple satellites per year."

That burn could achieve a graveyard orbit.

Too late now for canary test updates, says pension fund suing CrowdStrike

Re: Hurting investors

"Especially as shareholders also have a fiduciary duty to the companies they own."

I don't claim to be an expert in investment law, especially in the USA, but this seems odd. What exactly are the shareholders' duties to the company?

Secure Boot useless on hundreds of PCs from major vendors after key leak

Re: The only thing worse than bad security

Sometimes I wish all BIOSs/UEFIs/Bootloaders were replaced by a very small piece of code which simply does a breadth-first search on all attached storage and boots the first thing it can find.

Let the OS handle everything else.

Time Lords decree: No leap second needed in 2024

Re: The negative leap second

There can be 2 leap seconds too:

...

23:59:61

Oh that's even worse; I know if you're already accepting 23:59:60, it's not much worse, but it feels like it.

Re: The negative leap second

(I realise I made an incorrect assumption above, and addressed a point the other comment wasn't making, but it's far too late to edit now.)

Re: The negative leap second

"Someone, somewhere will have a loggable event at 13:04:58.99999 to the limit of precision of the clock."

This is like saying "Someone, somewhere will have a loggable event on the 30th of Februrary", something which can only happen if your calendar is wrong.

The point is that the clock in the system which is logging these events SHOULD never actually read 13:04:59 dot anything, and if you have such entries in your logs, something has gone very wrong.

This is an area for which the code in the libraries needs to be correct, and people should regard writing their own time/date code with as much trepidation as they would writing their own cryptography code.

Re: The negative leap second

"Removing a second would mean that a log (especially transaction logs) would have multiple entries for the same second, and then some more."

I may be wrong, but I don't think it works like that (or is not supposed to).

A "negative" leap second means one particular minute has 59, instead of 60, seconds.

For example, if it happened right now (13:04 on my clock), you would get:

13:04:57

13:04:58

13:05:00

13:05:01

In theory, good systems (modern RDBMSs and OSs) should know in advance that 13:04:59 isn't happening, just like the 30th of February, and therefore not log anything.

If you DO have stuff in your logs for that time, then yes, it's a headache, and probably means everything between then and the next NTP synchronisation is suspect (probably needing decremented by 1 second).

Encrypted mail service Proton hands suspect's personal info to local cops

"local law enforcement"

Multiple brands of this product are available: choose one that will never be interested in you (preferably one that is specifically uncooperative with those that are) and select an email provider in that location.

Ransomware ban backers insist thugs must be cut off from payday

Re: They answer is Psyops

Although I think the ban is better, I do like this idea; no-one is going to believe the ransomware gangs after all, if they even do protest.

FAA gives SpaceX a bunch of homework to do before Starship flies again

Re: Moon landing

> the problem of the fine particles of moon dust being sucked into those engines

That's not really an accurate way to think of the situation. These are rocket engines; they don't have external intakes, so nothing is getting "sucked" in. The high speed dust may very well cause damage to the hardware (some scientists have even expressed concern that the dust could achieve lunar escape velocity, and cause problems for orbiting spacecraft), but that's more of a sandblasting effect. ISTR a plan to have engines near the nose, pointing outwards/downwards for the last part of the descent (and subsequent initial ascent), which would cause cosine losses, but may be better overall for the health of the vehicle.

Alaska Airlines' door-dropping flight was missing bolts

"But.. why would the plug move up? I haven't looked at the altitude/pressure details when the door fell out, but.. Presumably to move up, it'd have to overcome any outward presssure from the interior being higher than the exterior. So moving up would need something to overcome that force, so maybe turbulence, or the aircraft becoming inverted and gravity doing it's thing. If the bolts had been correctly installed, the uppity door would have been prevented from departing the aircraft, but it did. So how was there enough force to defeat the stop pads?"

The forces from the pressure difference are perpendicular to the force required to move the plug up; it doesn't seriously resist or assist any upwards movement (there will be friction on the stop pads, which increases as the pressure difference increases, but given they're smooth metal, it probably isn't much). The springs at the bottom however, will be (constantly) exerting an upward force on the door, which is intentionally less than the door's weight. I believe the springs are to assist workers removing and replacing the plug: it will require less effort to lift it, and when replacing it, it won't drop into place as fast (possibly avoiding damage). It probably doesn't take much turbulence to provide the necessary force to "help" the springs push it up enough.

It (sort of, without the "wedge" part) is designed that way. When pressurised, the main forces operating on the plug are the aircraft internal pressure pushing the door against the frame (specifically through structures called "stop pads", presumably because they "stop" it departing the aircraft). This stops the plug moving out but (other than from friction) does nothing to stop it moving up, so if the plug moves up to an extent that the stop pads are no longer matching up, it's on its way. This upward movement is how it would be removed during checks/maintenance and is prevented by the bolts (which in this case were missing). Others alluded to this, but the reason emergency exits (and therefore also other-things-designed-to-go-in-the-same-hole) aren't simple plugs is because the new thinking is to throw them out the aircraft by the person opening it, rather than being pulled in and placed on seats, dropped on the floor, etc., possibly causing obstruction.

None of this is a problem if you put the bolts where they're meant to go.

Re: Major major cock-up

" triggered the pressure loss light (3 times!), but didnt lose the door in any of those occasions. Yes it finally did come out, but I still find it unbelievable that you can have a pressure loss light come on 3 times, and not pull the plane out of service for inspection. After the first time, you'd make sure that it's not a faulty sensor, after the second time, you'd make sure you can identify where the sensor is triggering. After the third time, you bloody well take the plane out of service and investigate!"

This issue seems to be unrelated to the plug loss. See http://www.b737.org.uk/pressurisation.htm AFAIU the warning light indicated the control system had a fault, and the alternate system (successfully) took over: at no time until the plug came off the aircraft, was the pressurisation incorrect (I'm speculating, but if the warning light was as a result of a leak making the pressurisation system unable to "keep up", the alternate system would have immediately failed in the same way).

We'll have a much more detailed explanation in the final report, but that's at least a few months away.

Ransomware payment ban: Wrong idea at the wrong time

Re: Hospitals

"That will just incentivise organisations to not report breaches and keep things hush hush."

Honest (although admittedly rhetorical) question: how many people need to know about a ransom payment for it to be processed successfully and covertly? Everyone involved would have to keep quiet, and more importantly, be certain everyone else who knows is keeping quiet as well. Throw in immunity for whistleblowers, and I think very few higher-ups would risk it.

This doesn't even address the fact that the data might not even be recoverable, no matter how much is paid.

UK signals legal changes to self-driving vehicle liabilities

Re: "Potholes"

The simplest solution would be to beef up the vehicles themselves. I don't know where the sweet spot is though, somewhere between a Land Rover and a Challenger?

NASA reschedules Boeing's first crewed Starliner flight for mid-April 2024

Re: Cutting corners?

"Such basic errors as using flammable tape"

Not sure I'd describe it as such, iirc, the particular tape involved has been used across the industry, without any problems previously being identified. They discovered, while testing the fire extinguishing system, that the glue could ignite if it came into direct contact with an uninsulated (e.g. damaged) electric wire.

AI girlfriend encouraged man to attempt crossbow assassination of Queen

"The Register has asked Replika for comment."

What about Sarai?

'Small monthly payment' only thing that stands between X and bot chaos, says Musk

There have been many premature announcements of Twitter's/X's impending doom, especially since Elon took over, but this might actually be the one. I'm not precisely sure how much I value using it, but it's definitely <£1/month.

Scared of flying? Good news! Software glitches keep aircraft on the ground

Re: At least three systems are required

"If one has two systems offering two different results, the simple and embarrassing question is which one should you believe."

neither

Nearly every AMD CPU since 2017 vulnerable to Inception data-leak attacks

"The bad news for sysadmins is that this could mean some downtime to apply the microcode BIOS update."

That optimistically assumes there will be any such updates.

Boffins snap X-ray closeup of single atom – and by closeup we mean nanometres

Yes, but what colour was it?

Amazon: Behold our antennas, which you cannot use just yet

Re: Excuse my skepticism

They also booked nine (the very last?) Atlas launches, which is as mature/reliable as you can get in the world of rocketry, so that should be enough to get them started.

I'm sure that if they're stuck, SpaceX will happily step up, but Bezos would probably exhaust all viable (and several non-viable) options before that.

Twitter rewards remaining loyal staff by decimating them

Re: Funding

"The question will be if Twitter can survive this. It won't be the first or last company to be sunk by the burden of interest payments as a result of a buy-out that massively increases a company's debt."

Presumably, if it goes bust, all the assets will then need to be sold.

In that case, what is stopping a Mr. E M from buying the brand and the data (at a much reduced price)?

Chinese surveillance balloon over US causes fearful gasbagging

Re: Why not shoot it down ?

Large balloons/airships are surprisingly difficult to shoot down. In WW1 it was discovered that exhausting a fighter aircraft's ammunition perforating the things simply doesn't cause enough leakage to deflate them before they complete their missions and return home. It was a different story once the fighters started carrying incendiary ammunition, but remember this was still when hydrogen was used to provide lift.

In summary, it would probably be necessary to use missiles, and that starts to become difficult to justify if the missiles cost multiples of the balloons.

(Unguided rockets might be a better option, but I don't think the fighters that go to those altitudes carry them as standard.)

Laser-wielding boffins bend lightning to their will

Would this work with the "lightning" produced by a tesla coil, i.e. directing it from the coil to a specific point on the ground?

Patients wrongly told they've got cancer in SMS snafu

Elsewhere on their site, they state they have working there: "1 full time salaried doctor and 8 contracted sessional doctors who worked at the practice for more than six months".

I don't know if this is "normal" or not.

Re: More money for the NHS?

I want more money to go to the NHS, but this is not the kind of problem that is caused by a lack of money. I'm speculating, but think this scenario is at least plausible:

GP practice decides to use its autonomy to independently purchase an SMS management service.

The partners/admin have no idea what this should cost, or what features they actually need, or even who in this sector are vaguely competent/credible. Why would they? Practising medicine, or managing an office, don't include effectively tendering for ICT services as one of their core duties.

Then, a janky excrescence that barely compiles is purchased, and/or staff are inadequately trained in its use. Somehow, a .csv of the entire list of patients is double clicked in the file selector for the "Message Patients" menu item, instead of selecting the "Message this Patient" option.

Europe's USB-C deadline: Lightning must be struck from iPhone by December, 2024

Re: Site radios?

Oh dear. It would have been fortunate indeed if the EU had accidentally forced standardisation on portable tool charging.

Starlink terminals reportedly smuggled into Iran amid internet shutdowns

"The effort to smuggle hardware into Iran did not involve the help of the US government nor SpaceX, he said."

SpaceX must be cooperating to some extent, if not, the dishes will be useless. Someone working at Starlink HQ will need to explicitly enable the cells (hexagonal areas of the Earth's surface) corresponding to Iranian territory, or the satellites will simply ignore dishes there.

Map of active/potential cells here: https://www.starlink.com/map

edit: amusingly, the above map implies that if you live on Rockall, you're sorted, but Knutsford and much of London are out of luck.

Unhappy about excluding nation-state attacks from cyberinsurance? Get ready to pay

Re: Burden of proof

There are cases where the (insurer's) government specifically stated "This is / is not a war." and the insurers were obliged to go along with that. AFAIR, this is why the Malayan Emergency was not called (by Britain) the Malayan War.

Janet Jackson music video declared a cybersecurity exploit

Re: Lay off Janet

Oh, well cast sir! That's a lot of bites.

US must adopt USB-C charging standard like EU, senators urge

Re: USB-C connectors suck

Informative, thank you.

Is there ever an issue with the "wrong" device charging? I.e. someone plugs a phone into a laptop (cable male USB C both ends) and the laptop starts pulling power from the phone.

Malaysia-linked DragonForce hacktivists attack Indian targets

I think my favourite track was "Soldiers of the Wasteland", but I've only listened to the "Inhuman Rampage" and "Sonic Firestorm" albums. Is their newer stuff just as good?

Five Eyes nations fear wave of Russian attacks against critical infrastructure

"These groups include the CoomingProject, Killnet, Mummy Spider, Salty Spider, Scully Spider, Smokey Spider, Wizard Spider and the Xaknet Team."

It warms my heart to imagine a senior manager in a very serious organisation drily reading that text as part of a powerpoint presentation, while any 4channers present engage in the worst struggle of their careers risking internal rupture due to laughter suppression.

Elon Musk won't join Twitter's board after all

Also, I think the board seat deal included a prohibition on him owning more than a certain proportion of shares: he may have decided it's simpler to eventually buy 51%.

Intel suspends all operations in Russia weeks after halting chip shipments

At some point, there are going to be questions asked such as:

"Why, in addition to sanctions, isn't the Intel Management Engine being weaponised to harm the Russian economy?"

From my (possibly incorrect) understanding of its capabilities, it can use the network independently of the main system, so if new firmware is loaded (obfuscated windows update?), it should probably be able to geolocate, and if in Russia, subsequently brick as many pieces of connected hardware as possible, ultimately including itself.

Would Biden consider that to be going too far, or worry about people shunning western CPUs?

Hooking up to Starlink might be pricier than you thought

Redundancy is one reason: consider ViaSat's latest satellites, each of the three is launching on a different rocket (Ariane, Atlas, and Falcon).

Russia is the advanced persistent threat that just triggered. Ready?

"their airforce doesn't seem to be up to the job of continuous, sustained attacks"

The theories I read say they can't rely on the mobile SAM launchers in the field being able to reliably distinguish between hostile/friendly aircraft, and shortages of precision munitions (quite a lot already having been spent on keeping Assad in his current position). If Putin decides he can tolerate the unintended damage associated with unguided weapons, expect that to change.

They're probably also not too happy at how many NATO surveillance aircraft are flying racetracks in Romanian airspace, the data probably going, without much detour, to Ukrainian air defence.

GPU makers promise relief is at hand over chip shortages, prices expected to fall in second half of the year

Re: Not a solution

It is a puzzling situation, but I think one simple thing holds true: unless manufacturing capacity increases significantly, there is no solution, even if you ignore mining, there is too much "normal" demand for supply to match.

I can only assume AMD/Nvidia are contractually prevented from raising their prices to a level that forces out the scalpers (imagine how it looks to shareholders when their company is selling product at a fraction of what buyers will pay); when those contracts expire, things might change, and the profits can go into capacity expansion (and yes, dividends too) rather than to someone with an ebay account and spare room full of cards.

Even if miners were to buy all the new stock, there will be a proportion of their old cards that are too inefficient to be profitable: assuming they can be bothered trying to recover some of the purchase cost, these will end up with the second hand retailers as well.

Russia's orbital insanity is almost beyond redemption – but there's space for improvement

You can look at the simulations and see what's happening: https://www.eusst.eu/newsroom/eu-sst-confirms-fragmentation-cosmos-1408/

For some fragments, what you say is true, but for some it's the equivalent of being boosted higher. Overall, it's much worse than keeping it in one big lump which is slowly deorbiting anyway.

Re: Yeah but yes, but no, but...

I can't remember what altitude the Kuiper (Amazon) ones use, but Starlink (SpaceX) uses an altitude which is deep enough in the upper atmosphere that even a dud satellite will naturally deorbit within months/years. I suppose it could be a problem if a satellite had its engine "stuck" while thrusting prograde but that's probably considered considered sufficiently unlikely the authorities are OK with it. Oneweb satellites are another matter, I think one of them has failed already, at 1200km up, so it will be interesting to see how they get it down.