Posts by CommanderGalaxian

Physical locks are less hackable than digital locks, right? Maybe not: Boffins break in with a microphone

Re: So we need to upgrade the physical locks....

With a modest level of signal processing you'd be able to pickout the clicks from the background white noise. What you would actually want is something that puts our random fake clicks.

Breaching China's Great Firewall is hard. Pushing packets faster than 1Mbps once through is the Boss Fight

Once-upon-a-time import/export financial tariffs were imposed to ensure free trade.

Now it will be data flow tariffs.

China has taken the piss for too long. This is easy to fix though.

Oh what a feeling: New Toyotas will upload data to AWS to help create custom insurance premiums based on driver behaviour

Re: I'd much rather have my insurance rate...

They do now. Clearly you have been a maniac just waiting for the right time to outfox them.

GDPR says that people cannot be judged or disavantaged on the basis of automated algorithms. And that they have the right to opt out of such algorithms without prejudice.

Linus Torvalds banishes masters, slaves and blacklists from the Linux kernel, starting now

Re: Wishy washy

Except that doesn't capture the essence of the relationship - since it is the Slave (/Apprentice) where the bulk of the work is done - the Master is dependent on the abilities and knowledge of the Slave to do its job properly.

Splunk to junk masters and slaves once a committee figures out replacements

This would be funny, if it wasn't for the fact that the loony tamperers of language are actually serious (and seem to be in the driving seat).

Book burning parties can't be far off now.

ZFS co-creator boots 'slave' out of OpenZFS codebase, says 'casual use' of term is 'unnecessary reference to a painful experience'

Re: My first thought:

Loads. It is a common and well understood terminology in bus-based protocols. There's a gargantuan amount of code out there. People randomly changing terminology will cause a massive amount of confusion because one person's terminology will be meaningless to another person.

His choice of "dependent" is wrong as an alternative term for "slave" device. Slave devices are not dependent on the Master device to function - if anything it is the other way around - the Master device is dependent on the Slave device to be able do its job.

Something like Requester/Supplier keeps with the conceptual Master/Slave in terms of representing the functionality.

Slave devices aren't "dependent" devices though - if anything it is the Master device that is dependent on data from the Slave device.

Surely a better terminology would be Supplier (for Slave) and Requester (for Master)?

Switzerland 'first' country to roll out contact-tracing app using Apple-Google APIs to track coronavirus spread

Re: Why bother?

Dystopia, you mean.

Re: UK app

Why not just leave it at home?

Fancy some post-weekend reading? How's this for a potboiler: The source code for UK, Australia's coronavirus contact-tracing apps

"Not everyone, it needs about 60%."

Last time 60% was mentioned was with the government's scientifically illiterate "herd immunity" strategy.

Just saying.

"My previous comments about contact-tracing app vs privacy were viciously down-voted. And maybe I deserved it then. Before down-voting my comment (again), put yourself in the shoes of the people who have died and their family."

Anyone using emotional blackmail deserves to be downvoted for that reason alone.

(The fact that you even resort to emotional blackmail probably means your arguments are pretty shit too).

Source code for seminal adventure game Zork circa-1977 exhumed from MIT tapes, plonked on GitHub

GRTX (Glasgow Real-Time eXecutive) was much better than that Edinburgh pish.

India makes contact-tracing app compulsory in viral hot zones despite most local phones not being smart

Re: so what *is* the solution?

"Those who would give up essential Liberty,

to purchase a little temporary Safety,

deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Academics demand answers from NHS over potential data timebomb ticking inside new UK contact-tracing app

Re: I wonder whether they have actually thought this through?

They picked the same company that did the Vote Leave mega-slurp data hoovering to develop the app.

Re: Sunset?

Why don't they just use the same app as the Australina Gov is using - where everything is stored locally on the user's phone, and contact tracing can only occur if the (subsequently infected) user of the phone enters their password to decrypt the contact details and allow tracing to begin.

Ransomware scumbags leak Boeing, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX documents after contractor refuses to pay

Ransomware scumbags are indeed scumbags.

Exactly why contractors who are supposed to operate at Top-Secret level able to be hacked by some smelly teen in his mum's basement, is he real question that needs asking,

Google warns against disabling websites during Coronavirus pandemic

Nuke Google From High Orbit.

Am I alone in seeing the real problem here!?

Boris celebrates taking back control of Brexit Britain's immigration – with unlimited immigration program

Re: Good, good.

No, a bridge to NI is not a good idea - for one of the same reasons that HS2 is a bad reason - there's zillions of other things that urgently need doing and would generate a far better Return On Investment.

And good luck with high volumes of traffic trying to access a bridge via a glorified B road.

Of course, none of this actually required leaving the EU - well not unless you want to pay the imported Scientists from poor countries a fraction of what you would have had to pay before.

And how very neo-colonialist and parasitic of Boris - deplete developing countries of ttheir brightest and best for Make Benefit of Glorious British Empire 2.0.

Unlocking news: We decrypt those cryptic headlines about Scottish cops bypassing smartphone encryption

Re: People SUSPECTED of a Crime

You don't need to be arrested for them to seize items as evidence.

Re: What the fuck is...no comment

When Police Scotland was formed, the UK Gov/HMRC refused to make it VAT exempt (an issue that now appears to have been resolved - and an issue that was essentially nit-picking on technicalities by the UK Gov) - essentially because unlike the regional forces of Strathclyde, Lothian & Borders, etc., it was no longer a regional force that ultimately lay under the chain of command that ended at the MET/Whitehall - but now is classed as a national (i.e. Scottish) force.

Police Scotland is now in theory (hopefully) answerable to Hoylrood - rather than Westminster/Whitehall.

I have much (common) sympathy for your position and experience - however the issues with Police Scotland are largely inherited historic ones; in time, hopefully, things can be improved.

Re: What if..

Reading their brochure there is much to cause concern. It talks in parts about techniques that may be similar to the one you just described. However...

It also talks about not making modifications by virtue of the fact that it deletes anything it has to temporarily install.

Their caveat in that it claims it doesn't alter the "user partition": so ok to alter anything else then?: "Cellebrite ensures that the process is non-intrusive and that nothing in the device’s user partition is changed"

And even if it does alter the (alleged) crime scene - apparently that's not a problem because at least you know those are your footprints in the snow: "This type of installation is comparable to walking into a snowy crime scene to retrieve a murder weapon. The investigator may leave his or her own footprints behind, but this necessity is acceptable in court as long as it is carefully documented. "

No worries then about overwriting evidence that could prove somebody innocent!!!???

And that it does alter things permanently: "This necessitates rewriting the phone’s memory, permanently changing the device boot loader to Cellebrite’s own."

There's plenty of contradictions in the document to befuddle the technically unsofisticated - so that's you fucked if you are the accussed in any UK court then.

Love this humdinger though: "Some agencies, for example, may require examiners to always disable the “automatic uninstall” setting, declare and document its use and leave the client in place. Other agencies may require this action only for suspect phones, but allow the client to be uninstalled from a victim’s phone as long as its use is documented."

Did they actually just say "victim"!? So any alleged suspect is a "victim"!? Nice Freudian there guys.

Re: Just wait until after Indyref 2

You have issues, don't you?

I'm guessing you are somehow related to this Holocaust Denier (expelled from UKIP for it) - (and not forgetting the idiot holding the banner who got done for booting a pregnant independence supporter in the stomach during #IndyRef2014):

https://twitter.com/mankyjaiket/status/1187049382128041985

https://twitter.com/DgScots/status/1187315820931747840/photo/1

Re: What state is the device left in at the end of all these shenanigans ?

"Exactly the way it went in. Worked in cybercrime dept for 5 and a half years and in that time no phone or tablet that came in left in any state other than the same it came in."

Disagree, if the equipment in the article actually accesses moblies in the way described.

If you start tampering with bootloaders and and trying to root devices - it is inevitable that some phones will end up getting bricked or automatically wiped.

Sure, bricked phones can be got working again. But the chances of doing it without data loss are small, and it can take quite a lot of time, patience and knowledge - which the person using the Celebrite equipment is unlikely to have.

Re: What if..

Unless I am missing something, unless the bootloader is already unlocked, they won't be able to do what they claim.

Mine is currently unlocked - but that's for the convenience of being able to make random mods to my phone at a whim.

However, if I was getting up to anything illegal, then I would, of course, lock the bootloader - and, as most modern phones do, subsequent unlocking (by manufacturing design) would cause the phone to be automatically wiped.

Unless they are claiming they have a way to by-pass or disable the automatic wiping process that occurs at the point in time when the bootloader state is changed from locked to unlocked?

Re: IndyRef2

Just install LineageOS. Even you won't be able to access your phone via USB afterwards.

Hate speech row: Fine or jail anyone who calls people boffins, geeks or eggheads, psychology nerd demands

Jealousy is the sincerest form of flattery.

To be fair, those who use terms like "brainbox", "boffin", etc to describe those more capable than themselves are really only highlighting their ignorance and jealousy of others.

Junior minister says gov.UK considering facial recognition to verify age of p0rn-watchers

UK Gov double down on Dumb and Dumber.

ROFLMFAO.

Can't possibly think of how that form of verification couldn't be fooled.

TalkTalk still struggles to shut down legacy email addresses on request

8 years and counting.

I've still got a zombie email account from them from 8 years ago. I can't send emails via it anymore but it still receives email perfectly OK.

In the bag: Serco 'delighted' to grab £450m ferry and freight deal between Scotland and Northern Isles

Re: Do they have any ferries though?

No.

Re: Do they have any ferries though?

The Scottish Government have to abide by the rules (UK/EU) as they currently stand. There's an easy way to remove 99% of the problem at the next #IndyRef.

UK ISPs must block access to Nintendo Switch piracy sites, High Court rules

Re: Aren't UK laws optional these days ?

The U.S. doesn't rely on WTO rules - it strikes empire level trade agreements with subordinate powers. The UK will shortly be one of those subordinates.

Re: Aren't UK laws optional these days ?

You do have to wonder about the sort of nugget who downvoted such a tautologically true statement.

SpaceX didn't move sat out of impending smash doom because it 'didn't see ESA's messages'

MAD

1 in 10k chance of collision - and SpaceX plan is to launch 12k satellites. Nothing to worry about, move right along, nothing to see here, nothing to worry abo....<connection dropped>....

Can't bear to part with that well-worn copy of Windows 7? Microsoft might let you keep it updated an extra year

Re: At Eric, re: staying with Windows.

Shut up you fool and don't tell them that M$ have left in a backdoor way to upgrade for free. If too many use it they will yank it.

GIMP open source image editor forked to fix 'problematic' name

Re: Eh?

Mongol is one of my favourite films. Please don't be such a snowflake.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416044/

Biz forked out $115k to tout 'Time AI' crypto at Black Hat. Now it sues organizers because hackers heckled it

Magic Crystals anybody?

I have these beautiful pastel coloured magic crystals that can cure all ills...you are all so intelligent...you'd hate yourselves if you didn't talk this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy them...

Contractor association blasts UK.gov guidance on hated IR35 tax law's arrival in private sector

Re: Conflict withe GDPR?

There's no conflict with GDPR. It says that information that can personally identify somebody should be kept for no longer than absolutely necessary - it acknowledges that what is necessary may be defined by statutory requirments within a countries legal framework - e.g. keeping company records for 6 years, personal tax records for 22 months, etc.

Here's to beer, without which we'd never have the audacity to Google an error message at 3am

Re: Never mind the beer ...

To be fair, Jordan isn't that bad. It's when somebody (not infrequently a know-it-all "manager") googles and in that situation turns and says "Have you ever heard of this hosts file thing?"

And the most annoying thing is, the cunt will more than happily take all the credit for "sorting" the problem.

Apollo 11 @ 50: The long shadow of the flag

Re: The moon orbits the Sun

So does that mean the Sun causes bigger tidal forces on the Moon than the Earth causes on the Moon?

Re: Honking great metaphor for something or other

Because if it had been faked, it would still have been standing.

Incognito mode won't stop smut sites sharing your pervy preferences with Facebook, Google and, er, Oracle

There's a good chance they won't be able to track you. It's also odds on that you'll be looking at a blank browser with no porno content to bring about a happy ending to your day. And therein lies your conundrum.

You do realise that Facebook spams you with (ir)relevant adverts after you've bought something? Are you saying that you and your step mum have done the deed?

UK Home Secretary doubles down on cops' deeply flawed facial recognition trials

Re: Right...

Innocent people have nothing to fear - even when they are in a prison cell. Statis-testically facial recognition is accurate more than 50% of the time - so mostly crims can't have a complaint; the innocent simply have to accept their involuntarily altruism in ensuring the system works efficiently.

Non-police orgs merrily accessed PNC without authority, says HMIC

Re: Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

Funny. But the content hoster was YouTube. So clearly YouTube need access to the PNC to establish the facts.

Re: List

NATS (an air traffic control provider); = THE air traffic control provider in the UK.

To work for NATS (at least in the past) required an MOD check and signing the Official Secrets Act. No idea what the current requirements are.

Literally rings our bell: Scottish eggheads snap quantum entanglement for the first time

Re: Competing theories

There aren't competing quantum theories - there are, however, different interpreations of what the underlying physics and maths means for the nature of reality.

Re: How entanglement really works, how to prove it

Quantum entanglement hasn't actually made that claim - that you can communicate faster than light - because the entagled photons can only ever separate at the speed of light.

However, once separated, a measurement on one will cause the results of that measurement to be instantly known at the other - no matter how far they have separated. The information itself never separated at more than the speed of light, it's just that we don't currently understand how information can be encoded ahead of time.