Posts by Mr Flibble

Vivaldi gives its browser a buffing, adds a dashboard

Well. 2-level tab stacking with compact display style is… broken, unless a non-stacked tab is selected.

And they moved the panel button from the status bar. Stupid. Anyway, I've moved it back.

Upgrading what might be the world's oldest running Linux install

Re: Triggers Broom

Copy for backup or to replacement storage devices, yes.

Copy when you can attach the existing storage to the new board? Pull the other one…

Reg reader returns Samsung TV after finding giant ads splattered everywhere

Re: Opted out

I've done much the same with the one smart TV in this house. It has access to the LAN so that it can see any local media servers which I may have running.

Not that that's particularly useful since the media which I exported from VDR and which I'm serving via minidlna it doesn't cope with all that well, often dropping audio at any point where I happen to have cut out adverts…

Has Apple abandoned CUPS, the Linux's world's widely used open-source printing system? Seems so

Plumbing the depths?

At the Linux Plumber’s conference in August,

Who is this Linux Plumber?

Very little helps: Tesco flashes ancient Windows desktop on Scan-As-You-Shop device

Checkout…

… clerk‽

No, seriously, why are you holding your phone like that?

How much flat has it laid?

Re: Talk like an Egyptian

Ah yes, the edge-to-edge displays. I'm convinced that they're intended to cause accidental clicks on adverts which convienently happen to be right at the edge of the display.

(Well, I say adverts. Could be anything.)

Farewell, Android Pay. We hardly tapped you

Re: Big Google Knows What You Bought

Maybe, but mostly they're not going to know what; just where, when and how much it cost. (Where they would definitely know? Google Play, mainly.) And I expect that the same restrictions which apply to banks or card issuers (as appropriate) will apply…

Kernel-memory-leaking Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign

Re: If these news came before xmas...

It did.

It's just that people were being fairly quiet about it all at the time, preferring to get the patches done…

Someone tell Thorpe Lane in Suffolk their internet sucks – they're still loading the page

That's… awkward to read because of the fact that your browser window was too wide.

Regardless, once you've ruled out local cabling etc., that's TalkBork's problem to fix. They're currently in the process of testing a new network, so (assuming that your problem isn't entirely between you and the cab or exchange) you should see some improvements when they roll that out for everybody.

Microsoft faces Dutch crunch over Windows 10 private data slurp

Re: Much a do

The word for which you're looking is “ado”.

Virgin Media admits it 'fell short' in broadband speeds ahead of lashing from BBC's Watchdog

Re: You get what you pay for

That's actually “up to” 55Mb/s and “up to” 80Mb/s respectively. Blame stupid OFCOM rules for that.

Alert: Using a web ad blocker may identify you – to advertisers

Firefox (stock build) demands that I install and use PulseAudio if I want it to play any audio. No, not doing that.

'Windows 10 destroyed our data!' Microsoft hauled into US court

Re: @Will

Assuming that I've somehow become the owner of a computer with Windows 10 installed for the moment (har har), if that option were removed, I'd expect Micro$ith to pay for its use of my 'net connection at peak times. (Yes, it's metered and yes, the effective cost is higher during office hours.)

Inside Confide, the chat app 'secretly used by Trump aides': OpenPGP, OpenSSL, and more

Re: So attacking the phones is the other attack vector for this stuff.

In the absence of hardened phones, I'd use ones which get regular security updates. My understanding is that this limits it to Google Nexus/Pixel and Apple. (I could well be wrong here, but somehow I doubt it.)

I should think that most of us only see the free services provided by Google (I have no experience of Apple in this respect, so I won't comment on that). I've not seen Google's business offerings; but since they cost actual money, I would expect a corresponding lack of information gathering for advertising etc.

_{I should mention that, for advertising, it's not the information which is sold (that would have huge ethical, not to mention legal, problems); what they sell is a service: matching up adverts to users and actually serving the adverts to those users. But keep thinking that they sell the actual info if it helps.}

New SMB bug: How to crash Windows system with a 'link of death'

Interesting… the bug was submitted to Microsoft, they ‘fixed’ it then released it anyway before applying the fix. Why not merely revert the bug or just not apply it to their code in the first place?

Or was it a bug report which was submitted and later released…

Trump decides Breitbart chair Bannon knows more about natsec than actual professionals

Re: We need a new icon

Unfortunately, it's only a matter of time now before this one is exactly enough…

Welcome to the Wipe House: President Trump shreds climate change, privacy, LGBT policies on WhiteHouse.gov

The Wipe House? Do they sell bog roll there?

Linux is part of the IoT security problem, dev tells Linux conference

Re: Open source, or not

Missing the point somewhat.

Those parts which are open source, ship as source code.

Those parts which are proprietary, ship as blobs ready for linking or executing, as appropriate.

Make sure that those who choose to rebuild the software can usefully do so, i.e. don't just do a raw code dump without any hint as to how to recompile it all. Makefiles, build scripts, build requirements.

Oi! Linux users! Want some really insecure closed-source software?

Re: Gotta wonder...

On Debian, it's flashplugin-nonfree. Assuming that you have the package installed, run this:

# update-flashplugin-nonfree --install

and (at the time of writing) you'll get version 24.0.0.186.

(That said: come on, BBC, stop using Flash.)

Top tech company's IP was looted by China, so it plans to hack back

That's “free rein”, not “free reign”.

Standards body warned SMS 2FA is insecure and nobody listened

Re: "the statement has had virtually no impact some six months after its announcement"

AIUI, the likes of Google Authenticator don't require a 'net connection except, occasionally, to ensure time sync.

A Rowhammer ban-hammer for all, and it's all in software

Re: Solution

Memtest86 has Rowhammer tests these days. I advise running that for several hours, at least; enough time to let it complete a few runs.

Microsoft just got its Linux Foundation platinum card, becomes top level member

Re: Embrace...

• Embrace:: choosing to support Linux-based OSes on Azure.
• Extend: the Hyper-V client code in the kernel.
• Extinguish: have they given up?

Security bods find Android phoning home. Home being China

Re: So...

If you gain root access, I would expect that you'll be able to see the files in one of the /data/app* directories. I'd not like to say for certain, though.

Those host names currently point to 118.193.254.27.

IPv4 is OVER. Really. So quit relying on it in new protocols, sheesh

Re: Consumer routers?

I've seen some labelled “IPv6 ready”. Unforunately, that looked just a little too much like televisions labelled as “HD Ready”, and as I didn't need anything like that at the time…

(The one which I'm using isn't claimed to be IPv6-ready. I'm only actually using it as switch and AP anyway as I usually find that these things are insufficiently configurable, particularly in the firewall department.)

Consumer routers?

Last time I looked at those available via the likes of PC World (okay, sample size of one, and a few years ago), they relied on IPv4 and if they supported IPv6 at all, it was either via 6to4 gateways or instead of IPv4. Which is not much use with ISPs such as the aforementioned less-cheap more-techy one.

Has the situation changed much?

We're going to have to start making changes or the adults will do it for us

“I really hate this damned machine

I wish that they would sell it.

It never does quite what I want

But only what I tell it.”

Re: Ok, so...

Tabs for block indentation. Spaces (after the block indent) for indentation within a multi-line statement. That way, you get the flexibility of however wide you want your tabs to be today without messing up intra-statement alignment.

Two-space indents? Been there, done that. Was useful where I used it.

Now, the pet hate: people using four spaces just because the tabs happen to look like four spaces. I normally have tabs set to every 8th column, but I will sometimes switch to every 4th. That shows quite nicely where the bad indentation is.

Linus Torvalds admits 'buggy crap' made it into Linux 4.8

Re: Screw up - 'fess up

Indeed. “Eating his own dog food”.

Re: Mouse bug ?

I've seen similar behaviour. In such situations, one very good thing to do is to log the input from the offending device; in my case, it showed clearly that the mouse had some… slightly odd behaviour in that, for certain buttons, it wouldn't indicate that the button was released until it was next pressed, which (of course) immediately triggered another button press event. That one got fixed in the kernel via the HID quirks mechanism such that the kernel will generate fake release events for the affected buttons, making them effectively instant-release as far as userland is concerned.

That headset sounds like it has the same issue; and the workaround which you found was probably a key combination which sent XF86Ungrab or XF86ClearGrab or similar.

Smartphones aren't tiny PCs, but that's how we use them in the West

Re: QR codes are a great way to point people at malmare

Barcode Scanner reads the QR code and, if the content is a URL, does an HTTP GET. It'll show appropriate information, if any – target URL (in the case that a 301 or 302 response was received) or the page title. Useful, but not quite ideal (could be a large amount of data being returned).

European Patent Office palace coup bombs

“with the authority to reign in management”

They have authority to be monarchs within management?

Brexit: More cash for mobile operators or consumers? Pick one

Re: UK legislation

“Letting self serving UK politicians have totally free reign”

Free rein. Why do so many people get this wrong…

Kill Flash now. Or patch these 36 vulnerabilities. Your choice

Slash BBC Flash

The BBC web site is the only good reason I have for keeping Flash around. They can't get rid of it too soon.

Crims set up fake companies to hoard and sell IPv4 addresses

Whut? You'd actually want CGNAT? I'll take a public IPv4 address, NAT that locally (as you'd do anyway, unless you should happen to have enough!) and an IPv6 block or 65536.

Incoming traffic gets firewalled (with holes as needed); and should there be an incoming DDoS, I expect my ISP to take care of blocking it. Regarding linking a domain with an IP address ‒ well, the IP address doesn't offer that correlation. DNS does.

Happy mode, sad mode, DevOps mode: Stop worrying and go bimodal

Peace? I don't think so.

What is it with these hippies and sticking two fingers up at people behind them…

Google doesn’t care who makes Android phones. Or who it pisses off

Re: Galaxy S6 runs Marshmallow

Is it up to date with security patches, i.e. is the patch level showing 1 June 2016?

TalkTalk scam-scammers still scam-scamming

Re: Just guessing

Or if you do give them access, make sure that it's to a sacrificial Windows installation. If you can fake a bank account login (false details etc.) when they ask, so much the better.

UK Home Office is creating mega database by stitching together ALL its gov records

“Next up will be your very own id number, expect it to appear on an official document soon.”

NI number?

(Why can't we use <blockquote>…)

Even in remotest Africa, Windows 10 nagware ruins your day: Update burns satellite link cash

I'm using a 'net connection for which download cost varies by time of day (and which day it is too). Were Windows 10 an issue here (it isn't, there being no machines to be updated to it) and I couldn't schedule the download for the cheapest part of the day, I'd be complaining publicly about it and billing Microsith for the extra data costs (unless I could successfully defer the download by temporarily blocking access to the update servers).

Milky Weigh: Galaxy in kg is...

Is it safe to mention that weight is measured in Newtons and that you're all actually talking about mass?

'Windows 10 nagware: You can't click X. Make a date OR ELSE'

I'm expecting WW Ⅲ sometime this century anyway, so I don't suppose that it matters all that much. Still, hopefully I'll be proven wrong about that.

Linux 4.7rc-1 shipped

Any last-minute changesets…

… or, rather, what would otherwise have been last-minute probably got missed out. I wonder if anybody got caught out…

Android Pay debuts in UK

As I understand it, Google will only know how much you've spent and where; not what you've bought.

I'd give it a trial run myself, but since my phone's running CM13…

Malicious Android apps slip into Google Play, top third party charts

CyanogenMod does have per-app options for disabling network access, accessible via Privacy Guard settings.

Popular cache Squid skids as hacker pops lid

Quoting from squid.conf:

SECURITY NOTE:

As described in CVE-2009-0801 when the Host: header alone is used to determine the destination of a request it becomes trivial for malicious scripts on remote websites to bypass browser same-origin security policy and sandboxing protections.

The cause of this is that such applets are allowed to perform their own HTTP stack, in which case the same-origin policy of the browser sandbox only verifies that the applet tries to contact the same IP as from where it was loaded at the IP level. The Host: header may be different from the connected IP and approved origin.

This new reported vulnerability sounds… rather similar, and very much related.

Google open sources Thread in bid to win IoT standards war

More standards!

(Also, “two complementary and inter-dependent parts”, unless they're saying nice things about each other…)

Blocking ads? Smaller digital publishers are smacked the hardest

Re: Ads on phones

Full-screen, sudden, in-your-face advertising on phones with click-on-this-pixel-to-dismiss – give them feedback. Complain. Tell them that it's annoying, intrusive, hard to dismiss without accidentally clicking on it at least twice and, consequently, it's driving you away from their site.

It's not long since that I complained to The Independent about one such. I didn't bother reading the rest of the article (and I did mention that I'd given up trying to read it due to advertising) and haven't visited The Ad-Dependent's site since.