Posts by Nearly Anonymous

Lavabit bloke passes hat for open-source secure email master plan

Re: hexadecimal?

Actually, previously I was converting your binary to hex, but the binary was wrong.

196608 == 192k

192k == 0011 0000 0000 0000 0000 == 0x30000

hexadecimal?

The hexadecimal equivalent is "c00". Still doesn't ring a bell for me.

America: Land of the free, still home of the BIGGEST spammers on the planet

which lists

"Third and fourth place on the list belong to India and Italy respectively, with both showing big increases in spam generation in the first three quarters of the year. Kuwait and Israel are new entrants to the Sophos list this quarter, holding seventh and twelfth place respectively."

This last paragraph is referring to different data lists. Third and fourth place, by volume, are India and Italy. Seventh and twelfth place, per capita, are Kuwait and Israel. The text is misleading.

NSA tactics no better than a CYBERCRIME GANG, says infosec'er

script kiddies

"The NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) unit, which runs Foxacid, has detailed rules of engagement and a well-thought-out procedure that allows relatively unskilled operators to act with subtlety and sophistication, Schneier adds."

This line made me think of script kiddies. It seems more plausible to me now that most of them are in zombie mode until someone like Snowden gave more thought about what is occurring. The whole situation just keeps getting worse. Will no one think of the children?

Two years after Steve Jobs' death, how's that new CEO working out?

quicktake

The QuickTake line was introduced in 1994 while Gil Amelio started in 1996. I recall my CS prof having one and taking photos of us. Anyhow, associating Amelio with the QuickTake's development is grossly unfair to both.

CERN releases retro 'Line Mode' browser

Development on both Pine and Alpine have officially stopped; so from that perspective, the author is correct in wanting to bring back Pine. However, they are succeeded by Realpine. UW did not want to fund further development, so it was off-loaded to be entirely volunteer maintained though not much actual progress. I'm hoping it gains better integration with g/pgp.

Facebook gov surveillance data kept locked inside, er, Facebook

Re: A spokesman said

They do have FAQ and guidelines pages linked from the report which almost answer your (and my) thoughts. However, in my rough paraphrase, FB does their level best, honest, to scrutinize every single one of the ~30k account requests (over six months) for legal liability, and we reserve the right to do as we please to the extent we don't anger any clients, er, governments. Oh, and we may charge you shipping and handling fees, or not, depends on how we feel we can get away with.

Hm, I was able to access the page without logging in to FB. Wonder why El Reg claimed otherwise.

NSA to world+dog: We're only watching 1.6% of internet, honest

spin doctors

“According to figures published by a major tech provider, the Internet carries 1,826 Petabytes of information per day. In its foreign intelligence mission, NSA touches about 1.6% of that. However, of the 1.6% of the data, only 0.025% is actually selected for review. The net effect is that NSA analysts look at 0.00004% of the world's traffic in conducting their mission – that's less than one part in a million.”

I'm concerned about the numbers along with several others. I would quibble with an order of magnitude.

0.025% of 1.6% is 0.0004%

That would be 4 ppm, not "less than 1 ppm." While an order of magnitude doesn't mean much when talking about millions, saying "less than 1 ppm" sure sounds good.

However, a larger issue, as others have noted, is disingenuously using percentages to distract from the actual numbers. The NSA is still collecting 29 petabytes while reviewing 7 terabytes - *daily*. As for the 1.6%, about ten years ago, I heard a telecomm researcher say about 70% of all network traffic is P2P. I think it's not too hard to ignore several other broad categories of traffic and realize that 1.6% represents important communication. The NSA spin doctors are twisting and misreporting (or miscalculating) the numbers.

Posh potty owners flushed by dodgy Bluetooth password

Re: Same toilet less than half the price in the Philippines.

I think you mean P99,000 is about 1,500 UK pounds.

While that still seems awfully expensive to me, I'm doubtful they would sell the exact same model for half the price just to be kind to the Philippines. Less than 1% of the Philippine population could reasonably afford such a toilet, plus they could also afford to pay the same price as in the UK. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'll believe it when I see it. Much more likely is an inferior imitation product.

Step into the BREACH: HTTPS encrypted web cracked in 30 seconds

what is he saying?

“There’s a small, but definite chance that RSA and non-ECC Diffie-Hellman will not be usable for security purposes within two to five years,” said Alex Stamos of Artemis Internet, a division of iSEC Partners. “We’re not saying this is definite," he added.

So which is it? Small but definite, but not definite? Sounds like a candidate for political office.

Terror cops swoop on couple who Googled 'backpacks' and 'pressure cooker'

... the other time

"... and the other 1 time falls on our day off. It probably would have been nothing too, you know, past performance being a predictor of future behavior, so we KNOW there is a 99% chance of nothing. We are pretty confident of that. Yep, we spend our time on nothing, nothing at all!"

'Mm, we do love tweeters' private info, we'll take 40% more,' say world's g-men

lost in transmission

Could there be some things lost in transmission? Let me help.

"We [NOW] believe it’s important to be able to publish numbers of national security requests – including FISA disclosures – separately from non-secret requests. Unfortunately, [SINCE THE TIME WE WERE OUTED,] we are still not able to [EVEN PRETEND WE CARE ABOUT USERS' PRIVACY TO] include such metrics ," manager for legal policy Jeremy Kessel said.

Indian military pondered attack on Venus and Jupiter

Re: Tactics.

Except that flying on a path in line with some object depends on line of sight to the observer(s). If in doubt, you'd like to triangulate with and confirm from multiple observers. So you can't fly on a hidden path to all observers. To the point, trying to disguise yourself as a planet (moon) sounds like you have bigger tactical ambitions and belong with the Imperial Galactic Empire.

Dear Linus, STOP SHOUTING and play nice - says Linux kernel dev

Re: Passion is one thing

Look at El Reg forums - there's a button to Report Abuse. Does that imply some measure of civility or politeness?

People can buy an argument, but most people won't buy abuse.

US gov SMASHES UP TVs and MICE to nuke tiny malware outbreak

I'd like to buy an argument ...

After the equipment is smashed,

CIO: Hold on, is this the Economic Destruction Agency?

Secretary: No sir, you want the office next door.