Posts by ShortLegs

Maker of Chrome extension with 300,000+ users tells of constant pressure to sell out

Re: "Our focus is on user privacy"

Bash.org has been down for years. Unfortunately.

At least the Top 100 are still available via The Wayback Machine

RIP Kevin Mitnick: Former most-wanted hacker dies at 59

Another Legend passes. Another god from youngr, more innocent times.

Stephen Northcutt did an excellent dissection of Mitnick's hack against Tsuromu Shimomura's system in his 1999 book "Network Intrusion Detection" - and at that time, syn flooding and TCP hijacking was still possible. What is also worth noting, for someone who is described as not a particularly clever coder, Mitnick used routines to hide and obfusificate his source address, check the fake IP addressed he used is routable but not active, and so on.

L0pht - anther blast fro mthe past... L0pht Heavy Industries. L0phtcrack, an essential tool on every engineer's utility floppy disk. <- and I was old even then!!!

Barts NHS hack leaves folks on tenterhooks over extortion

Odd isnt it, that the very MPs who shrill "think of the children" and "but terrorism" over concerns regarding the erosion of privacy seem to forget about that when it comes to investing in IT security for anything that isn't spying on citizens. Like... IT security

Man who nearly killed physical media returns with $60,000 vinyl turntable

Re: Poor design in my opinion

Ceramic standoffs?

No, you need wooden cable elevators

https://www.russandrews.com/cable-elevators-set-of-4-42279990004/

No open door for India's tech workers in any UK trade deal

Re: This isn't the Brexit we voted for.

You seem astounded that politicians forget their promises the second the election ends...

Re: 21x population

Ditto

I wanted to do my job in Australia... but a client requirement is company employee, SC cleared and *UK based*.

Shame, as we have to provide 24/7 support.... I would happily do the graveyard shift, out-of-hours changes, etc, during my working day

Alas it cannot be

Two new Linux desktops – one with deep roots – come to Debian

Wow

I am loving that second pic, the GSDE screenshot, Liam

It reminds me soo much of MUI, AmiDock, and MagicWB running on an Amiga, with a hint of the desktop from HP UX

I have absolutely no need for it, but am tempted to spin up a VM just to install and gaze in wonder at it.

Nobody does DR tests to survive lightning striking twice

Re: At least you fixed the problem.

Now I really do not mind MKS. We have a DC there, staffed by a handful of great people.

The Stadium Hotel is great to stay at, there is an absolutely superb Turkish restaurant - Enfes - opposite (I really cannot stress how great this place is)

And lots of green cycling and running routes.

Always look forwards to a trip down south. But...

... we are moving to Slough.

Slough! Concrete boredom, the only place worse than Basingrad, as I used to refer to Basingstoke when with Global Crossing. For some reason people were not too happy with that label. No idea why :)

UK launches SKYNET – not a doomsday plot, just shopping for improved satellite comms

About 24 years too late

Whats the fuss? I was the Project Initiator for Skynet 5 back in 1999, as an external consultant for DERA in Farnborough

No Reg stories about it back then :)

Software rollout failure led to Devon & Cornwall cops recording zero crime for 3 months

Re: Unable to Upload data/stats?

"I dread to think what a Police Constable would make of Excel; most of them seem to struggle with concepts more advanced than a clockwork watch."

Really? What a stupid comment to make.

BOFH: Get me a new data file or your manager finds out exactly what you think of him

Re: Oh the pain!

FAQs.. most of which are never "Frequently Asked" because everyone knows how to access (for example) the MyPortal webpage; how to access the My Time Off webpage, or how to use the Chat button

Oh no, questions like "how do I remove this stale objective date 2019 in My Career" goes unanswered... and when you use the Chat function the response is "we are not contracted to deal with application problems"

Re: Oh the pain!

My favorite is the "Help" link that eventually takes you to the "community" where the same problem has been posted, numerous "me, too!" posts follow, and no solution ever provided, with several months or years between the posts."

Thats not the worst.. the worst are those forum that have the EXACT same issue you are having, with the exact same software/hardware/whatever... 2 pages of comments, and the last post from the OP is "solved it now" with no bloody indication of how they resolved it!!!

People like that need their feet nailing to the floor.

Cheapest, oldest, slowest part fixed very modern Mac

Re: Bridge technologies

Absolutely nothing wrong with SCSI.

From SCSI-2 devices in my Amiga in 1990, through UW-SCSI (ah, the Adaptec 2940UW, God's Own adapter), to U320 in the servers. Never a single issue.

Even mixing narrow 8-bit devices on a wide 16bit chain, provider termination was done right, all was well. SCSI was superb - timed server builds - netware or NT - between identical systems but one with an 8x SCSI CD ROM and drive, the other with a 24x IDE drive (and allegedly faster UDMA disk)... SCSI won hands down. The old Tyan Thunder 2500 (dual PIII) with a Ultra-2 (80mbit/sec) disk subsystem happily outperformed equivalent P4 systems for video editing.

Oh for those innocent days back in 1996-7 when a 'fast' PC had a 2940UW and a Matrox Millennium graphics card.

Im old... time for slippers and cocoa

Microsoft suggests businesses buy fewer PCs. No, really

Re: Didn't Oracle come up with a similar idea

Correct,. Oracle did.

I cannot comment on the Sun posts below, but Larry Elllison was selling the concept of the net-PC back around 1997/1998 cant be too precise over the date as a) 25 years ago now b) www was still fledgling then, and 99% of news came from /printed/ media liek Computer Weekly and Network News - which ran the story.

My employer considered it.. but realised that apps were not available of comms were not available, and HOW MUCH bandwidth would be required?!!! A 2mb Megastream was just about the bees knees then, and would not have sufficed. iitc we looked at E3 but Cisco were only connecting G703 interfaces.

We even looked at full-on ATM, but the interconnect was the weak spot. Bear in mind the employer at the time contributed 2.2% to GDP and had a £1billion cash to get rid of, they were not short of funds.

Neither the technical nor business model worked.

BOFH takes a visit to retro computing land

Please stop. Please

I lost my dual drive TRS-80 Model 1 Level 2, my Video Genie with 32K expansion box and disk drive, my beloved 3032 CBM (with v4 ROM and SYSMON ROM) in a house move, my C128

I foolishly sold my B2000 40MHz 68030, my A4000 with Warp Engine and Picasso IV, my A4000T PPC 603/060 and Cybervision 64, my A1200T/060

Not that I ever did anything on the old 8bit stuff after about 1999, nor used the Amigas in anger after 1996 (the AGA models cam later 90s) but they were all such a joy to just OWN.

The piles of PC stuff, including various "God" boards from the last 20 years (my god, are Opterons really 20 years old!), just dont have that same retro appeal.

Student requested access to research data. And waited. And waited. And then hacked to get root

Re: In Code We Trust

Hirens Boot CD.

Still have v15 ‘just in case’. VERY useful for clients who had forgotten passwords

BOFH: We send a user to visit Kelvin – Keeper of the Batteries

Keeper of Batteries? Kevins? Beancounters? I see all yours, and raise you...

- the G1098 storeman

- the SQMS (Squadron QuarterMaster)

- the RQMS (Regimental QuarterMaster)

A Royal Flush of "no".

Those from a Forces background will be all too familiar with reasons why one cannot have something

"Stores are for storing, issues are for issueing. That item [you require] is marked 'stores' "

"FOFAD" (F--- Off Fire At Donnington) heard in the 80s following a series of fires at the MODs main supply depot.

"Its the last one in stock, someone might need it" - Er yeah! Me!

But the RQMS was absolute God. He had to account for all stores items on Operational tours for example. Unlike an Exercise,which is just soldiers playing at being at war,. Ops are the real thing. Things can and do get blown up, destroyed, lost due to en action, etc. But that cuts no ice in the eyes of the RQMS. Every item lost to en action, every item lost to fire (friendly or otherwise) he has to account for. And they treat it as though its coming from their own pocket. Why? Its their OBE at risks if they have to write off too much kit.

Army - Be The Best At. At saying "no".

Cisco Moscow trashed offices as it quit Putin's putrid pariah state

Re: Fair comment

Once upon a British time tney proclaimed as such

Re: Fair comment

And once upon a British time they proclaimed such

Tech giants looking for ways to wriggle out of UK digital tax, watchdog warns

What is with the word "rightful" before 'revenue' in that article? There is nothing rightful about tax revenue.

FTX cryptovillain Sam Bankman-Fried charged with bribing Chinese officials

Talking of security.... my password manager is urging me to change my pwd for TheRegister.

(Apparently following a databreach at TheRegister two months ago.... oooh eer!)

Where? There is nowhere in settings that allows me to change my passord.

Why ChatGPT should be considered a malevolent AI – and be destroyed

Re: Colossus the Forbin Project

Author did not state that HAL was the first introduction to the rogue AI concept, but rather

' “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” These were the words that introduced most people in my generation to the concept of an AI gone rogue '

No where is 'first' used.

Did no one else, not even the author, see the irony in the opening paragraph of the article and the last section?

In 2001, HAL killed the astronauts to prevent them from discovering that HAL had been lying. HAL was, to all intents, doubling down.

Just like Bing.

Whether this was the authors intent I do not know, he never indicated. But the fact that Bing does double down and will even falsify "evidence" to support its own answers supports the call to erase it. No backups, no fixes or tweaks, but erase and start from scratch.

Now we're building computers from lab-grown brain cells

Re: What's going on in their minds?

"Does that mean it will be ethical to experiment on politicians?

I mean, the output is the same."

'garbage out' regardless of the input?

Bringing the IBM Thinkpad 'Butterfly' back to life

Not related to the article in any way, but an odd coincidence

The only person I have ever known with the surname Hruska was Jan Hruska from Sophos, and I havent seen him for night on 30 years.

Then thrice in two days the surname 'Hruska' pops up, once in this article, once in another, and a third time in credits on a film (or TV episode).

One of life's little coincidences.

Ford seeks patent for cars that ditch you if payments missed

Re: Tell me you're middle-class without telling me etc etc

That could have been a herd effect after one short sell however.

What is never posted is what else has ever been shorted, how many investors followed suit in shorting/dumping, and how often this has happened

ie its a dog whistle

Prepare to be shocked: Employees hate this One Weird Clause

Re: Training costs!

Back in 1997/8 my then employer gained the Investor in People award...

...without investing a penny in the people

Provided one had processes, training plans, procedures, staff reviews, etc, it was possible to achieve IIP without actually investing in staff.

Sema Group. Can name and shame as they no longer exist.

Re: Mental

The first clause would be unenforceable - you cannot sign away rights

And if you were sacked for refusing to sign, it would be automatic unfair dismissal

Gee, tanks: Russian hackers DDoS Germany for aiding Ukraine

JDSPorts

No coverage on the JDSports breach... where they were holding partial card data in clear?

This can’t be a real bomb threat: You've called a modem, not a phone

"The Army Bomb Disposal guys had rolled up and were about to perform a controlled detonation on the car to display any devices; fortunately they stopped when my wife identified herself as the car's driver"

Sorry, have to call that one out. EOD would not perform a "controlled detonation on the car to disable any devices", this is only performed on the device itself. If there is nothing identified, then there is nothing to neutralise. Otherwise, which bit of the vehicle would they neutralise...

Pad brats, not Army brats.

I would forward that the "5mins before" suggests that the teacher was acquainted with the Army habit of being places "5 mins before".

Linus Torvalds suggests the 80486 architecture belongs in a museum, not the Linux kernel

Re: Genuine question...

Because "run linux on an old 486 as a firewall" kinda died around 2005.

Long after using ipchains as a firewall died. Which was about 1999.

Re: <raised eyebrow>

"You sure about that RAM?"

I'm with you.. PC adverts those days advertised motherboards able to accept 64MB.

Whilst the 486 could address 4GB memory space, the memory controller was external.

In 1995 when Win95 launched, the "average" amount of RAM in a system was 4-8MB.

By 1996, 16MB was serious enthusiast territory.

And lets not forget, that 4MB RAM would cost you about £200 ($530 / £320 Oct 1995)

1GB? That would have cost an awful lot of money. 256 lots of £200.

Even when RAM fell to about £45 / 8MB, that's still £5750 worth of RAM

Loathsome eighties ladder-climber levelled by a custom DOS prompt

No. The 8088 had a 20bit address space, so the greatest number it could access is 1,048,576 (1 MB).

The IBM engineering team used the top 384Kb of memory for system use such as ROM, video, and future expansion memory - the Upper Memory Area. That left 640Kb available as general purpose RAM.

Why 384kb? Once told it was the boundary between 9FFFFh and A000, ie the boundary between 9 and A. No idea if true.

According to Guy Kewneys review, and quoted from C= at the time, it was a preemptive multitasking kernel.

And yes, it was available in 256kb on the original A1000. You just couldn't really do anything with that.. such as loadwb

True multirasking us impossible in less than 4MB

Again Mr Gates. Allegedly.

At a time when the Amiga was doing true pre-emptivemulti-tasking in 512Kb

Re: "Four Yorkshiremen" moment

And thats why Computer & Video Games gave away that highly useful piece of plastic with Issue 2; cunningly disguised as a, erm, something, it was an ancillary to cure the dreaded ZX~81 16k RAMpack wobble of death

What do you mean, you cant remember issue 1? It was only… er 1981

And suddenly i feel very old

Be careful where you install software, and who installs it

Re: Linux Bros'

No names, no comeback

I once worked at *cough*, and they used Windows, Linux, and Apple. IT used Windows, and refused to support the core team who used Linux, Two of the core team used Macs. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was rabid about their pet OS. Me,

I managed to annoy everyone by threatening to put one of each in a pile and set alight to it.

Tavis Ormandy ports WordPerfect for UNIX to Linux

Happy Days

WP5.1 probably the best WP I ever used, including many of the Amiga (true WYSIWYG) word processors... when Amiga WYSIWYG word processors finally became available, about 8 years after the GUI based Amiga launched. Prowrite was good, excellent printer support, but... text mode based. And no preview mode. WP4.2 on the Amiga was frankly beta-ware.

But WP5.1 DOS was awesome. IMHO, nothing on the the PC came close until Word 2 Windows: which imho had all the functionality 95% of word processor users ever needed. AmiPro may have been a contender, it sure looked nice, but crashed an awful lot. I have vague memories of Word Perfect for Windows doing the same, and it took a long time before what was long suspected to be confirmed; MS apps programmers were using secret API calls, and Windows was playing nasty with non-MS apps.

Shame, as WP for Windows may have been a killer app.

Never did get to try WP6.

British intelligence recycles old argument for thwarting strong encryption: Think of the children!

Re: Only the Guilty?

More so as even Swiss~German speakers from the Canton of Sursee cant understand the Swiss~German speakers from the canton of Sempach.

We've got a photocopier and it can copy anything

Recall when colour photocopiers first became commercially available back in the very early 90s, 92/93, at the likes of the CES show.

Cue smarmy sales types proudly boasting how it would copy anything, and everyone producing a fiver. The copies were superb. The only mechanism preventing ‘counterfeiting’? The heavy brass plate on the top front of the copier, stating it were not to be used for copying currency or passports.

BOFH: Where do you think you are going with that toner cartridge?

Re: HP Laserjet 5

My faithful 2100M, bought by the company so I could work from home back in 2000. Retired a couple of years ago in favour of the duplex capabilities and faster network interface of a 2055dn, but nothing wrong with it. It might only be 10BaseT, it might "only" be 8wpm, but its built like a tanks, runs forever, and - and I didn't actually know this - is capable of 1200dpi.

Its retired to the storage loft, in a ventilated bag with silica, but will never, ever be thrown. Its also a stated object in my will to a named beneficiary.

They can prise it out of my dead hands, but never take it away!

Uni team demo algorithm to shield conversations from eavesdropping AI

Pah, in Glasgow we dont need to do owt fancy to defeat AI....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAz_UvnUeuU&ab_channel=VideoFunStation

BOFH: The evil guide to upgrading switches

If Aruba are cloud managed... no no no no no

Merakis are cloud managed. That great, until someone manages to "disrupt" the outbound interface. Like, maybe, changing the port from "auto-negotiate" to "1gb". When the other end is a router with an interface that 100mbit.

Because Meraki has not SSH or telnet capability, so even though a seperate network may be unaffected, you cant ssh from another device to the Meraki and undo the well-intended but out-of-scope change.

Europe's largest nuclear plant on fire after Russian attack

LOAC

To all those poster apparently seeking to minimise the Russian attack on the power station.

Regardless of how large an area it covers, what damage was or was not caused, whether rounds would land in the vicinity of the reactors or the perimeter fence:

This was a clear breach of the Law Of Armed Conflict, which outlaws attacks on such facilities. A breach further compounded by continuing the attack when firefighters were attempting to subdue the fires.

The fact this was a /nuclear/ power station isnt a breach of LOAC - its just an act of pure idiocy.

Not surprisingly, not one mainstream media outlet has mentioned the LOAC breach.

Privacy and computer security are too important to be left to political meddling

@spold "the European view has generally been that Privacy is a basic human right"

Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights provides a right to respect for one's "private and family life, his home and his correspondence",

Thats rather more than a "general view". Its a fundamental right. And yes, despite leaving the EU, it still applies in the UK.

BOFH: What a beautiful classic car. Shame if anything were to happen to it

Re: No repercussions?

Because: revenge. Best served cold, and when least expected.

US Army journal's top paper from 2021 says Taiwan should destroy TSMC if China invades

The PRCs 'desire' to grab Taiwan goes back before Taiwan became an economic success, way before TMSC.

The Chinese view it very differently to us. For them, it is not invasion or [re-] unification, it is pulling an upstat province that illegally left the PRC back into the fold.

Remember Norton 360's bundled cryptominer? Irritated folk realise Ethereum crafter is tricky to delete

Re: Opt-in, my arse

Except for the basic underlying issue

Why the f*** do "I" need an EULA to use the TV I bought and legally own. Its mine. I never bought a licence to use the TV, I bought a TV.

And any EULA would be unenforceable as the EULA was never displayed at purchase. And I doubt no salesperson - ever - bought the existence of an EULA to a customers attention at time of purchase.

Hauliers report problems with post-Brexit customs system but HMRC insists it is 'online and working as planned'

Re: Hmm

"Just because you don't like what Blair and Starmer did, doesn't mean they lack integrity.

Blair made some dreadful mistakes - but don't forget, he couldn't go to war by himself. He had to get it through"

Im sorry, but that man has no integrity at all. A self-centered megalomaniac. Look at his *pre*-election speech when he referred to sending "*his* armies to war". His? They are The Queen's. He then tried to displace the Royal Family and lead the procession of the Queen Mother's funeral!

He eroded - no, assaulted - civil liberties on a huge scale. He refused to denounce the abhorrent treatment of Walter Wolfgang and then trivialised it with "look, you must remember I wasnt there".

When questioned about the loss of civil liberties from the SOC and Anti-Terrorist Acts in 2002, his deflected the question with a comment "if we suffer a terrorist attack, I think people will ask why we didnt have more laws".

13,000 new laws in the space of 7 years. Numerous laws passed when existing laws already defined the offences.

Refused to censor the slimeball who remarked "today is a good day for bad news" on 9/11.

Blatantly lied about immigration - a lie set right in Peter Mandleson's admission in August 2016 that multiculturalism was nothing more than vote-importation.

Blatantly misled Parliament and the British public over WMD and took us into an illegal regime change.

No. Integrity. At. All.