Posts by JCitizen

Another month, another way to smash Intel's SGX security. Let's take a closer look at these latest holes...

Re: I'm starting to think...

Maybe its time to go to the list of new ARM chips that are invulnerable to Meltdown and both Spectre variations.

Russia drags NASA: Enjoy your expensive SpaceX capsule, our Soyuz is the cheap Kalashnikov of rockets

You mean reuse both boosters, 1st stage, and capsule - right?

I thought it was a bear he was riding? Tee Hee!

Re: Foot in mouth

If I'm not mistaken, we will still keep the Russians on retainer for back up rescue flights; and will be paying millions of dollars for it.

Huawei launches UK charm offensive: We've provided 2G, 3G and 4G for 20 years, and you're worried about 5G?

Re: Code quality

Got to look deeper than code quality here; there is a good chance that dodgy chips make it into much of the equipment they sell. I friend of mine has examined some of that junk under a microscope, and seen some very questionable circuit paths going on in the CPUs and chip sets.

Because things aren't bad enough already: COVID-19 is going to mess up election security assumptions too

Get over it already!!

Election officials need to grow a pair and just go down to the election site and do their job - besides we have a good mail in election system in our state, and that is how I will be voting. The machine that counts those ballots is air gapped, and should not need input to work, as it is a simple photo counter and needs no updates. They should just switch to mail in ballots this election!

Don't panic: An asteroid larger than the Empire State Building is flying past Earth this weekend but we're just fine

Total destruction..

An iron asteroid only 40 feet wide traveling at typical velocities in space, would destroy New York city; so one the size of the Empire State would totally flatten it!!

Facebook to save US users from ads bought by foreign state-controlled media

Re: The Farce Continues

Its all just a US Democratic party paranoia about letting anyone have an opinion and openly express it. Even if you get rid of the foreign influence, comments made by US citizens on FB are shuttered, just because they disagree with the leftist agenda. I never hear complaints from my "progressive" friends about their comments getting stiffed by the FB moderation.

You got that right crayon..

nuff said.

Creeps give away money to harass recipients with abusive transaction descriptions on bank statements

Re: How hard is it to trace the source?

Criminals use breach dumps like the ones from the Equifax breach to attempt to verify bogus PayPal accounts, that make micro payments to verify. If the bank or victim doesn't notice, then they take out more money until they are blocked. My bank tells me they cannot trace these to an individual at PayPal, so there is no way to magically trace to identify anyone that is generally doing such transfers, unless, perhaps, they are intrabank transfers by another account holder in the same institution.

REvil ransomware gang publishes 'Elexon staff's passports' after UK electrical middleman shrugs off attack

Re: Why is passport data in a company server

Here in the US, everyone has to have a copy of their birth certificate, and a Social Security card, and a driver's license, if they do drive. It has been that way for 20 or more years now. No passport needed. If no DL is available a state ID will suffice; just for the official picture. Everywhere I was employed they actually checked the documents to see if they looked legitimate and matched each other on data points. One change that happened recently is that Medicare cards no longer pass for SS ID; because they changed the number on the Medicare cards to protect the SS ID.

Re: Log all the things

About 98% of ransomware attacks can be prevented by a complicated set of Microsoft Management Console configurations. I fount this out by testing such against the early types of ransomware by testing a product that does the setting by batch file, called CryptoPrevent; however they sold out to a new firm, and I don't know if I trust them yet. Hire a good Microsoft Certified Software Engineer and get the settings that way, and add heuristics on top of that. I think FooliSH-IT used Bit-defender for the heuristic control. That was the original company.

Remember when Republicans said Dems hacked voting systems to rig Georgia's election? There were no hacks

Re: A dry run for trumps loss in 2020

@LucreLout - In a way that is exactly what the US electoral college does. It allows for victory by popular vote as long as all opposing votes are in lower number that the popular vote for one candidate. In other words, if the opposing party and all other party votes add up to more numbers, then the college kicks in. Since all votes count; the representatives of the college cover all parties involved and can throw in for whatever candidate they think can still win. Even Hillary could have garnered that vote, but she pulled a beginners stunt and assumed she was so popular that the college didn't matter; that doesn't go down well with those representatives, that plan can backfire on you, and it did. There are several instances in US history where the college tipped the balance. I say it is a good system - especially when you get too many parties involved in the national general election. It is the same disaster that happened to the Weimar Republic.

To test its security mid-pandemic, GitLab tried phishing its own work-from-home staff. 1 in 5 fell for it

@doublelayer

Indeed! Back when PayPal used to put a lot of active graphic content in their emails. I received one that made it through Microsoft filters, because the miscreant copied the images correctly but they weren't active, so it made it to my inbox. Now of course, this email also had my full name on it (probably from the Equifax breach), and it fooled me thoroughly. However, after clicking on it, and noticing a totally legit looking login page, my password manager refused to fill the forms. SAVED BY MY PASSWORD MANAGER! *PHEW*!!!

I was never so embarrassed in my life! Needless to say, I reported it to PayPal's spoof address, and the technicians at PayPal were impressed with the caginess of this spoofer! I no longer get active image communications from PayPal, but I don't click on the one link they have either. I've also set my filter to exclusive, which is as high as I can go.

Phish report..

@It's just me

When I get a phishing email on my Outlook.com web based email account; I never again see the same email, or even close to it, right after I report it. I also get a response from Microsoft thanking me for doing it. I only get a phishing email maybe once a month on average. Other suspicious spam I only get maybe twice a week(ordinary type mostly).

NASA's Human Spaceflight boss hits eject a week before SpaceX crew launch

Re: Going while the going's good

@Timbo

Have you been reading the Sally Ride report? She recommended the same thing, and even suggested it was the best method of hopping to Mars.

UK takes a step closer to domestic launches as Skyrora fires up Skylark-L

Good to see..

I'm surprised to see this launch test story so soon after the article about the abandoned Blue Streak (or was it Black Arrow?)UK launch test center! I wonder why they couldn't just us that old facility. It already had the proper flame containment and everything. Or is this a strictly nationalistic move? I don't know that much about UK rivalries, so forgive me for my ignorance.

Tech's Volkswagen moment? Trend Micro accused of cheating Microsoft driver QA by detecting test suite

Re: They have a credibility problem.

Well - they do now - with me at least. Up until about 2005, Trend Micro was THE antivirus to use, and every office I worked in had adopted to it, so I also bought it for my machines. However it went down hill fast, and I've not seen any evidence it deserves retesting yet. However, I must also admit that probably NO antivirus is very good at detecting the new malware out there, and you are probably better off simply clamping down on vulnerabilities on the OS and all applications on the machine.

I can see Trend's frustration with this, and can even understand why they may have thought using underhanded methods was fighting fire with fire - but it just doesn't work out to be a success for the future. I haven't and won't be recommending Trend Micro for a great while now - they'd have to build up trust all over again for me.

Remember when Securus was sued for recording 14,000 calls between prison inmates and lawyers? It just settled

Re: A slightly different story but same Idea.

HA! HA! This is Kansas; we don't cotton to no damn Yankee's getting in our biniss here! LOL!

Magecart malware merrily sipped card details, evaded security scans on UK e-tailer Páramo for almost 8 months

PayPal??

Why would PayPal use a CVV code? Maybe they were directing PayPal to use a credit card on record at PayPal? Seems like using PayPal credit should have solved most of the problem - at least of getting any funds.

If they can attack a PayPal credit transaction like this without using a credit card, you would be better off using something like the browser app downloaded from Capitol One, that assigns payment to only the retail store you are doing business with. If the crook tries to use the same card data, even with the CVV code,l it will not work and the crook loses. I believe it is called Eno ®

There are several credit cards with similar features, and even a free well known web site that lets you create a single transaction credit file for doing the same thing. The URL escapes me at the moment, but any web search would easily turn it up.

India opens its space industry to private companies

Risk?

Guiana Space Centre - Isn't that controlled by the French? How risky is it for India to entrust their entire launch program to foreign soil locations?

You can't have it both ways: Anti-coronavirus masks may thwart our creepy face-recog cameras, London cops admit

Re: Why bother?

It is a wonder armed robberies haven't gone up now that everyone is wearing a mask; nobody would notice if a bank robber walked into a bank wearing one!

Quick Q: Er, why is the Moon emitting carbon? And does this mean it wasn't formed from Theia hitting Earth?

Re: It was the Apollo astronauts

I had a pellet cooker that made absolutely the best cook out quisine I'v ever consumed. It had a glow starter for the pellets, but was supposed to be a slow cooker, as that is what made the food so good. I just had to start a little earlier cooking, but a remote temperature gauge allowed me to go inside and prepare other items, so it didn't seem slow at all.

Re: And this is why it's always a bad idea...

I must say as a layman, and not a professional scientist, that it is easier to believe moons were simply separate bodies that formed apart from the host planet, when you are talking about gas giants. Such large planets could easily capture a moon and it could still be a stable orbit. But with Earth sized planets the moons of Mars are the most believable captured into orbit, because they are much smaller and less massive. To see our moon so large and so close to the Earth is a wonder of planetary evolution to someone like me.

Re: And this is why it's always a bad idea...

Now you've done it! You have spoiled my opinion of the BBC,which I previously thought the most truthful and unbiased news agency in the world! Oh woe is me! Is Al Jazeera the only one left? ;-)

Especially..

since something has to explain why Venus and Mars lost their molten cores at approximately the same time, or there abouts, and Earth didn't? The collision theory is the only one the makes sense at all. And no, I don't believe that water can act as a billion year space blanket to keep the core molten. In fact, if anything it should have accelerated the cool down.

Fake crypto-wallet extensions appear in Chrome Web Store once again, siphoning off victims' passwords

Re: That's a good idea

Well at least the same amount of people who think Chrome's password vault is secure! They wouldn't actually need your manager if they used the built in "service". /s

Now there's nothing stopping the PATRIOT Act allowing the FBI to slurp web-browsing histories without a warrant

Re: 1st Amendement

Pretty much like yelling fire in a crowded theater - the 1st Amendment does have its limits.

20 years deep into a '2-year' mission: How ESA keeps Cluster flying

Re: "It's a very strong design,"

LOL!! That was what I was thinking; it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to see such a good use of research money, and stretching it out so far, means science gets a BIG bang for the buck. I too would like to propose a toast to the boffins of this project. Here! Here!!

Hana-hana-hana: No it's not your dad trying to start a motorboat... It's Northern Gas, renewing its SAP software

Re: "a contract worth £5,985,385.60 over five years"

Northern?... Isn't that company the one that went under with Enron a while ago? With the price of natural gas being so cheap, I'm surprised they have any money at all!

Vietnam alleged to have hacked Chinese organisations in charge of COVID-19 response

Re: So just why it needs to look at China's virus-fighters is unclear.

I say more power to them - China could end up a worse threat than Vietnam ever was to the US. We are already nearing the same numbers as what we lost in that war, just with a viral outbreak. There is enough evidence to show that this pandemic is a little suspicious, but no real proof yet. I love the Chinese and Vietnamese people, but I don't hold the same regard for PRC leadership.

India says 'Zoom is a not a safe platform' and bans government users

Well.. It's safer than COVID-19

That is the reason most people use it - I doubt the gubbamint has enough smarts to set up a "secure" service like that.

Google: We've blocked 126 million COVID-19 phishing scams in the past week

And how does one verify a url before clicking on a link to it?

Several ways, but the two methods I use are to hover my mouse over the link to see what is the actual address; IIRC all browsers have this service, I look in the lower left corner of the Chrome window to see what the actual URL is, and see if it matches. Another method I use if they do match, is copy the link to a web search engine that supports Web Of Trust (WOT); this way I can see their reputation if they have one. So many new dodgy sites come up every day, that most of them will be unknown, but it is better than nothing. McAfee's Site Advisor used to be better, but the company has become a Potentially Unwanted Program (PUP) lately, and I just couldn't stand it any longer.

CORRECTION: the name was changed to "WebAdvisor". {McAfee}

Re: Pointless

That is exactly what I was thinking reading this article - if Google is so good at this game, how come they can't reduce the spam in my GMAIL account? In fact I quit using it, and just keep it as a junk email account now.

Windows gets a lot of flak, but their Outlook web based email at live(dot)com is the best I've ever used. I might get two to three junk mails every two weeks; but just lately I've received at least three PayPal phishing attempts in one week! I reported all of them to PayPal's spoof address, and marked them as such so Outlook would recognize them next time, and they have stopped for now.

NASA dons red and blue cardboard 3D glasses to drive Curiosity rover because its GPUs are stuck in the office

LCD glasses back in the 80's

That beats what I was going to point out, that I had LCD shutter glasses for my monitor, which was a 61" LED DLP HDTV bought in 2008 - you would think all devices are 3D capable by now. The cost wouldn't even be a problem because of the rule of manufacture by scale. It all seems so old now - but quite funny with the even older moldy oldie dual color cardboards!!

It's official! Space travel increases the brain size of astronauts, even when they're back on Mother Earth

Rotating stations..

I always liked the one in 2010 Space Odyssey called the Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov; it was voted by some group I don't remember, as being the most realistic space craft in sci-fi movies.

Astroboffins suspect twin-star smash may be the culprit for most biggest and brightest supernova yet spotted

More?

More bigglier? =)

Consumer reviewer Which? finds CAN bus ports on Ford and VW, starts yelling 'Security! We have a problem...'

Just a reminder here...

that researchers have proven they can access a car's auto park system remotely without physical access or permission, and invoke anything the car is capable of. Just imagine if they could over rule safeties and tell the vehicle to auto park while you are going 70 mph?!! No one has proven they can't as of yet. The police would simply list the accident as "driver lost control" and that would be it - no one the wiser. And you know they aren't going to check either.

Academic showdown as boffins biff-baff over when Version 1.0 of Earth's magnetic core was released

One question....er...maybe three?

Okay --- why have Venus and Mars obviously lost their magnetic fields long ago - probably longer ago than these recent guesses by geologists..? How old is the lunar soil? I thought this was already answered because of those three points. The Earth was completely reformed at the time period that is agreed on by geologists - however a giant collision reset the clock. The whole Earth Moon system was a giant blob of bubbling lava, the oceans just converted to steam like the atmosphere of Venus is now. If fact we would probably look just like Venus now, if some extraordinary realities were not present at that time.

If you change one factor just a little bit, it could be that water is the answer - maybe Earth had just that much more of it, and the collision was too slow to blow it all off, and so it enveloped the Earth Moon system in a black cloud until the lack of Sunlight froze the magma bubble into a sphere. Then by pure chaos, the water condensed from this frozen core and once again covered the earth - the moon however cooled too soon, even though it was every close to the Earth, and lost all its water by the Earth's gravitational pull, and the lack of a Van Allen belt. Its my theory and I'm sticking to it. The Bible arguments are so silly, when even a Christian knows they are just parables and nothing else - it wasn't necessary for God to explain himself, He is the Creator after all, He doesn't have to explain anything. I think I'll have a celebration tomorrow and have a pint to the Great One!

NASA reveals the new wavy Martian wheels it thinks can crush the red planet

Re: Air traffic

Where's your black helicopter badge?

Antarctic science put on ice by coronavirus – next summer's expeditions restricted to essentials and robots

Why is everyone concerned about TP,

when anyone with an ounce of intelligence knows a bidet is way cheaper? (and way cleaner - Doh!)

Atlassian issues advice on how to keep your IT service desk secure... after hundreds of portals found facing the internet amid virus lockdown

Re: Rather inevitable wasn't it ?

Too bad Secunia PSI has been shut down - it was one of the best for years at finding the vulns in apps and OS for years! Now I have to rely on OPatch to hopefully provide some minimal security!

Re: Just because you cannot see someone, does not mean they are not there.

Another example of dumb companies(corporations) that never take security seriously; aggravated by the COVID-19 reality - Oh Well!

Good luck pitching a tent on exoplanet WASP-76b, the bloody raindrops here are made out of molten iron

Re: Puzzled!

Thanks to HelpfulJohn and Cuddles for those responses, I now have a better grasp on orbital planetary birth, and the exceptions there of.

Want to see through walls? Electroboffins build tiny chip in the lab that vibrates at just the right frequency to do it

One negative consequence..

I can think of - is this could enhance the attacks nation state bad actors are using against diplomatic persons and their aids; like those we've seen in the news ; acquiring mysterious afflictions of bad health and resigning their positions stating they left because of these mysterious maladies caused by such attacks. The causes proposed by the news media included some kind of microwave radiation, or radar - Just a thought!

It's time to track people's smartphones to ensure they self-isolate during this global pandemic, says WHO boffin

Re: Absolutely every mobile can be tracked

Even back woods police departments in the US have that same capability, so they can find accidents without GPS. Like you said, if it is mobile, they can find you if it is turned on - and maybe if it isn't, if you have blabby apps on board. Yes, some older dumb phones have apps.

Remember that blurry first-ever photo of a black hole? Turns out snaps like that can tell us a lot about these matter-gobbling voids

Re: Nothing propagates across the event horizon.

I think I know just enough to make a short observation - I think we laypeople forget that gravity has a relatively short range - just looking at the equation shows that up - so this is why science has been in a quandary about dark matter, because the mass of the universe doesn't somehow track with what gravitational effects should be in that elusive "theory of everything" that physicists are endlessly chasing after. Or at least the movement of the galaxy doesn't track with gravity itself, it doesn't explain what is holding this whirlpool together.

Mine's the one with the .32 ACP pocket pistol please!

Broadcom sues Netflix for its success: You’re stopping us making a fortune from set-top boxes, moans chip designer

Re: Why not sue Youtube too?

For sure! What a load of bollocks! They might as well sue the cable companies too, because my cable went to streaming only, so now if you want "cable" TV, you just need an internet connection and either a PC, Smart TV, or one of those Fire TV stick type of wireless devices. I watch my cable on an "app" on my PC browser now. I like it MUCH better. No more renting DVRs or other boxes from the cable company.

Avast pulls plug on insecure JavaScript engine in its security software suite

ARRGGH!!

Avast ye matey - yer used ta be a fine warrior, ye wuz; but now ye must walk the plank!!

ExoMars team delays 2020 Red Planet road trip after failing to complete all necessary testing

Better to test than...

end up with a drill that can't even drill into the Martian surface. That one was pretty silly!