* Posts by Kingston Black

51 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Feb 2013

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In real life, Q is a woman! Head of MI6 calls for more female techies at SIS

Kingston Black

Re: Are you sure that's MI6?

What they actually say is "MI6? No Sir. This is Universal Exports".

It's round and wobbles, but madam, it's a mouse pad, not a floppy disk

Kingston Black
Coffee/keyboard

Stiffies...

Since you brought it up...

Many years ago I had a attractive Namibian student working with me. She was studying at university in South African, but on year's training placement at the company I was working for in the UK. One morning, she came up to my desk and the following conversation took place:

Me: "Hello *******" (she shall remain nameless).

Her: "Hello ***, can you give me a stiffy please?".

A colleague promptly spits tea all over his keyboard and monitor.

Me: "A stiffy?"

Her: "Yes please, one of those" (pointing to a 3.5" floppy).

Her: "Those are stiffies, 5.25" are floppies."

Me: "Ah!"

Her: "What did you think I meant?"

Silence, except for choking noises from the next desk...

LAKE OF frozen WATER THE SIZE OF NEW MEXICO FOUND ON MARS – NASA

Kingston Black
Coat

Mud Then

"It's not pure ice, but about 50 to 85 per cent water, mixed with dust or larger rocky particles". Down on farm 'ere, I calls that mud.

Lester Haines: RIP

Kingston Black

Farewell Lester

and thanks for the many hours of enjoyment your garden shed boffinry and other musings brought us. My heartfelt condonlences to your family and friends. Take a crumb of comfort that many hundreds of people, most of whom who never met Lester, feel your loss as well.

RIP and may LOHAN finally fly in your honour.

Boffins: Comet Lovejoy is a cosmic booze cruise spewing alcohol across the Solar System

Kingston Black
Pint

To quote Father Jack..

"DRINK!"

Let's talk about that NSA Diffie-Hellman crack

Kingston Black
Black Helicopters

Ohttre...

Zl frpergf nera'g vg frrzf. Onpx gb gur qenjvat obneq sbe zr.

Pluto flashes its unusual pits

Kingston Black
Alien

Could they be...

Footprints?

Facebook's security now sexier, with killer curves

Kingston Black
Joke

Relevance?

The sight of a partial elliptit curve?

North Korea exploits 0-day in Seoul's favourite word processor

Kingston Black
Joke

Binoculars?

Should have gone to Specsavers.

Wileyfox Swift: Brit startup budget 'droid is the mutt's nuts

Kingston Black
Facepalm

Busby - "I also have a 13' tablet"

At 13 foot, I'm not surprised portability is not your main concern!

Pope loses grip on Antarctica: Clergy withdraw from austral landmass

Kingston Black
Coat

Father Doyle

Shirley no relation of Ted and Mrs D...

The one with the mind bleach in the pocket please.

Happy NukeDay to you! 70 years in the shadow of the bomb post-Trinity

Kingston Black
Mushroom

"test explosions should be resumed and held regularly with the world's politicians watching"

And, as seems to be the protocol at major political events, the leaders get to sit front and centre, nice and close...

IBM to offer breast milk delivery-as-a-service for staff

Kingston Black
Joke

Shirley the title should have been...

IBM to offer BREAST MILK express delivery-as-a-service for staff.

White House taxes Silicon Valley to skill-up American workers

Kingston Black

Re: Hey El Reg

Not 100% sure, but I think it may be Admiral Grace Hopper...

Worst … commute … EVER – Surrey to Sydney

Kingston Black

Re: That would be telling...

Perhaps the sentence "Simon's top tip on settling in? Find some friends pretty quickly. FOR BOTH OF YOU." contains the answer?

30,000 people buy a box of BOVINE EXCREMENT

Kingston Black
Facepalm

"you’ve been handling pooh"

What's Winnie got to do with this then?

Marriott fined $600k for deliberate JAMMING of guests' Wi-Fi hotspots

Kingston Black

Re: Oh dear

Were the owners watching re-runs of the Dick Emery Show?

Spies would need superpowers to tap undersea cables

Kingston Black
Big Brother

Landing Points

Shame about the apparent lack of fact checking and speculation in the article.

The discussion about the (un)feasibility of splicing undersea is a smoke screen. Google the landing points of the SCC - Hawaii (ex-home of Mr E. Snowden) and mainland USA. Much more favourable locations for a cable tap...

IT jargon is absolutely REAMED with sexual double-entendres

Kingston Black
Coffee/keyboard

Once upon a time

On one contract many moons ago, I had a young, female, attractive, Namibian student on an international exchange scheme working for me. One day she comes up to my desk and says "Can you give me a stiffy please?". It was at the time 3.5" floppy disks were all the rage. Apparently 5" disks are floppy...

Icon - that's what happened to the bloke sat at the next desk.

Crack team weighs LOHAN's substantial box

Kingston Black
WTF?

Double Entendres

Headline, check. Article, check. Bootnote?

Inside Facebook's engineering labs: Hardware heaven, HP hell – PICTURES

Kingston Black
WTF?

A server development board being tested (page1 pic)

On (what looks like) an anti-static bag. Really?

NASA promises balloon ride and über precise 'scope pointer for planet-gazing boffins

Kingston Black

Accurate, stablised pointing thingy...

Perhaps Lester should investigate giving LOHAN (and the flying truss) a good Walloping.

Sysadmins hail Windows Server 2012 R2's killer ... clipboard?

Kingston Black
Big Brother

Re: Security issue?

And can I just add:

Allowing one machine to read data direct from the memory of another via its network adapter, another NSA wet dream?

Kingston Black
WTF?

Security issue?

Allowing one machine to pump data direct to the memory of another via its network adapter, what could possibly go wrong?

Obama prepares to crawl up NSA's ass with microscope

Kingston Black
Big Brother

Re: Waffle

"Obama must think the American folk are a bunch of mugs if he thinks they are going to fall for this clapper-crap" sounds more like it.

Tat bazaar eBay takes a rest for 'scheduled maintenance', goes offline

Kingston Black
Big Brother

"The NSA wanted to plug in"

Quite possibly, or are they are busy "plugging out" - getting rid of the evidence fearing Mr Snowden has proof of their illegality?

British spooks seize tech from Snowden journo's boyfriend at airport

Kingston Black
Big Brother

These people really put the n in cuts

The spooks and their lackies must be running really scared - what has Snowden got that they're terrified the rest of us might learn?

This flagrant, state sponsored bullying makes one ashamed to be British...

DARPA calls Big Data boffins: Help us lock up everyone's privates

Kingston Black
Big Brother

DARPA calls Big Data boffins: Help us lock up everyone

I've shortened your title a bit - sums up our governments' attitude nicely...

Was going to use the joke icon, but it's not is it?

Infosec analysts back away from 'Feds attacked Tor' theory

Kingston Black
Big Brother

Re: "...their initial analysis of the malware was wrong"

I read Crypocloud's post as well. Seems they have good but not conclusive evidence that the ARIN records for the C&C server used for Torspoilt changed after they (and others) started to investigate. NSA offensive spookery is suspected...

Did a bunch of bankers fax a stranger's sensitive privates to YOU?

Kingston Black
Joke

A bunch of bankers

I think the correct collective noun is a wunch [of bankers]...

Edward Snowden skips into Russia as Putin grants him asylum

Kingston Black
Big Brother

The hare's bolted...

Now the 'Merkin spooks in Russia get to do some old fashioned spying along side their remote voyeurism, and the FSB will, no doubt, try to catch them at it. Game on, although I suppose it was never off...

Bonne chance.

Oz defence department: We don't have a ban on Lenovo kit

Kingston Black
Big Brother

The nausiating smell of FUD

The AFR article smells of yet more western spook FUD to me, along with a side helping of pro-'Merkin, anti-Chinese trade FUD; succinctly summed up as "don't buy Lenovo, buy Dell and HP instead", or "don't buy no stinkin' commie back-doored kit, buy good ol' 'Merkin back-doored kit instead". Ah, the hypocrisy...

AC posted 03:31, has an interesting point about Lenovo allowing legacy mode BIOS instead of UEFI.

Oh, and does anyone else find the expression "Five Eyes" just a little too Orwellian for comfort? Or is it an accurate expression of reality?

Western spooks banned Lenovo PCs after finding back doors

Kingston Black
Big Brother

Re: Unnamed intelligence and defence backdoor sources?

Do I smell FUD from the western spooks? Have they re-started trying to make out the Chinese are worse than them again? Pot, see kettle.

Unless of course, they are preparing the ground, fearing more revelations? From the resident of Moscow airport perhaps? Why do they have such enormous, disproportionate(?) downer on him? I'm beginning to wonder who is running scared here; is it us (the people) or them (The Establishment)?

So many questions, no answers, must go and buy some more tinfoil.

Assange™ names a Senatorial stand-in

Kingston Black
Big Brother

"Assange's Skype appearance at this latest launch crashed repeatedly"

Someone at the NSA having a laugh perhaps?

Senator: Surveillance state based on secret law 'has no place in America'

Kingston Black
Big Brother

Gardening Leave

One of the problems with these surveillance states is there are too many vested interests, not least of which is all the spooks who want their salaries, pensions, holidays in order to live. Dismantling the huge surveillance machine would result in many spooks out of work, which of course, they will do their best to resist.

Solution, gardening leave. Send 95% of them home on full pay, with pensions, holiday entitlements etc intact but insist they remain at home during office hours, doing no spying, for the rest of their working lives, unless they resign of course. Then close 95% of their offices, data centres etc. and save the the billions it costs to keep the infrastructure functioning - win win situation. By all means, keep a small, proportional, targeted, highly regulated and openly monitored surveillance operation, but get rid of the mass spying.

Oi, Google, you ate all our Wi-Fi keys - don't let the spooks gobble them too

Kingston Black
Big Brother

It pays to wear tinfoil

Being a user with a bit of a tinfoil habit (no, I'm not a nun), I've always used a second wireless router (configured as a switch) for my Android tablet, and it's only switched on when I'm actually using the tablet. Don't store any personal data on Android, so I've never knowingly used the backup feature, but I expect the NSA have a copy of the passphrase slurped via Google anyway.

Also, having a second, temporary WAP is useful when visitors request internet access, it stops their devices having a copy of your main router's wireless ID and passphrase.

ACLU warns of mass tracking of US drivers by government spycams

Kingston Black
Big Brother

Re: Why do they do it? Because they *can*

"Some of it's implementers may be just ordinary people earning a paycheck but the champions of this system have far more questionable motives" - quite so, very questionable it seems.

It strikes me that it would be easier and cheaper to do the inverse of what the ANPR system does at the moment. i.e. all license plate numbers captured to be compared real-time against a list of cars with out-of-date insurance and/or car tax, stolen cars, other cars of interest etc., and all non-matches (most vehicles) to be instantly forgotten about, no requirement for any storage of innocent data at all. Of course, that system would presume most people are law abiding citizens going about their daily lives. However, our control freak rulers need to try and keep themselves in power don't they? If only we had a B-Ark available, it'd be very full...

Bolivian president's jet grounded so officials can look for Snowden

Kingston Black
Go

Re: Non-story

They're probably just making sure they've enough fuel to stay well clear Merkin airspace.

FCC orders wireless carriers to protect customers' call info

Kingston Black
Big Brother

Re: Privacy?

"the USA has all but got cameras in every room of every house" - It probably already has cameras in many rooms, what with laptops, smart phones and games consoles (think Xbox One) left 'always on' </shiver>.

Osbo jacks up spending on spooks to keep us safe from TERROR

Kingston Black
Big Brother

An increase in funding?!

To the casual observer, it could seem that some of our politicos might have some juicy little secrets and that <insert TLA (or 4LA) agency of choice> have shown them the pictures...

Privacy expert dismisses PRISM-busting typeface as 'art project'

Kingston Black
Coat

"Ah! Carrier Pigeons..."

Somewhere in the bowels of the USA a new threat is perceived, and members of the Royal Racing Pigeon Association become "persons of interest".

The one with Trill in the pocket please.

El Reg rocket squad poised to select Ultimate Cuppa teabag

Kingston Black
Happy

Yorkshire Hard Water Blend

If you've got hard water, then Yorkshire's Hard Water blend gives an excellent mug of tea.

"no-IT-angle-whatsoever". Really? Not much programming gets done around here without a decent (see above) mug of tea...

Telefonica's new offering: We will penetrate you by surprise, every day

Kingston Black
WTF?

Cynical B*****ds

"Informatica 64 created the (free) FOCA toolkit, an open source tool used to analyse documents hosted on a web site in order to chart the network architecture hidden behind the corporate firewall."

and...

"Informatica 64 also sells "MetaShield", an application for stripping such data before the files leave the safety of the office, for companies concerned about the existence of FOCA."

In other words, we've created this open source toolkit that helps attackers penetrate your network, and surprise surprise, we've created a service that will help you mitigate the effects of our open source attack tool.

McAfee all-in-one security suite covers PCs, tablets, and smartphones

Kingston Black
Black Helicopters

WTF?

"Personal Locker – that allows online users to store their most sensitive documents, including financial records and copies of IDs and passports". Oh, that sounds like a really good idea then, with the added bonus that it's provided by paragon of software excellence McAfee... duh.

I expect <insert TLA agency of choice> are currently getting all excited again, and can't wait to get their hands on all that lovely new, very personal, data. Is it just me or will those of us who don't fall for this cloudy bulls**t soon become noticeable by our absence? "Excuse me Sir, you seem to use the internet everyday but don't store information in the cloud, you must have something to hide. Bend over..."

Builder-in-a-hole outrage sparks Special Projects Bureau safety probe

Kingston Black
Alert

Well...

does it work?

Icon - mouse over it...

RAF graduates first class of new groundbased 'pilots'

Kingston Black
Mushroom

"...required for safe and effective weapons delivery." - RAF

Is that:

a) management drivel;

b) another military oxymoron;

c) something Parcelforce should be doing.

Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

Icon: natch.

USA's H-1B skilled worker visa applications open

Kingston Black
Paris Hilton

"A year should be plenty of time for the average Reg reader to pull that off? ®"

Stop sniggering at the back. A year? More like a couple of minutes...

Paris - well obviously...

Facebook prepares to dominate Android

Kingston Black

"companion for people with a thirst for e-validation."

For some reason, I read that as "e-violation"...

Microsoft issues manual on Brits to Cambridge exports

Kingston Black
Pint

Re: "The local ciders are worth drinking as well."

"..as someone once said.. "mostly apples"."

Many locally produced ciders are excellent. The dirty secret big cider manufacturers don't want you to know - there's little or almost no apple juice in their products. It's just flavoured fermented sugar syrup, made in the shortest time possible (about a week). If it doesn't say 100% apple juice on the label then it won't be.

Note, I make traditional cider, 100% apple juice, see handle...

Icon - now I'm thirsty,

LOHAN hooks up with top-flight rocketeer

Kingston Black

Re: Great! - FIFY

Nice to hear that there was some stiff competition...

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