Posts by 9Rune5

Warning: Malware, rogue users can spy on some apps' HTTPS crypto – by whipping them with a CAT o' nine TLS

A local hack, for local people, we'll have no trouble here

From 'The League of Gentlement"? https://youtu.be/meF7NmfnXZ0?t=47

Dog with 'psychotic tendencies' escapes home to poop on his neighbours' pillows

I don't think you understand how a protection racket works.

"Trick or treat", etc.

In memoriam: See you in Valhalla, Skype Classic. Version 8 can never replace you

Re: "rumuors of Microsoft embracing open Source"

It looked far too nice for Delphi as I remember it, or am I doing Delphi a disservice?

Yes you are.

Many moons have passed since I last used Delphi, but I remember working on a skinnable GUI back in the early 2000s. There were lots of great third-party components, often with full source provided. (We used https://github.com/plashenkov/TBX FWIW) Even if you shunned third-party components, it was very easy to get a decent looking GUI up and running.

Re: Integrations

Viber is a mixed bag as well IMO.

I have to run it in compatibility mode. Part of its user interface disappears on my 4k laptop screen.

Viber also fails to integrate well with my headset. Skype OTOH understands that when I switch on my headset I probably want to use it for my next call. Viber OTOH barely remembers what device I set in my previous session. At least, AFAICT, Viber has dropped the annoying habit of automatically switching device mid-call...

Skype 8 was a disaster, but I still prefer it over Viber.

Congrats from 123-Reg! You can now pay us an extra £6 or £12 a year for basically nothing

Snake oil sales men

Twenty years ago I needed a cert for my employer's website.

I don't remember if I was talking with VeriSign or Thawte, but in any case they had a superspecial offer that cost about 50% more and I had to ask about what the benefits were.

Turns out that the extra fee entitled the vict...customer to put a "Verified by ..." sticker on the vict...customer's web site. "So you are basically charging extra for advertising your services to my customers?" I asked. The reply was of course enthusiastically enumerating all the benefits of doing exactly that.

Being young and naive I immediately wrote them off as 'idiots'. It is only now, years later, that I realize I am the idiot for not coming up with similar near-fraudulent schemes. My way results in less income, so there is probably a lesson in there somewhere.

Erm... what did you say again, dear reader?

then the perfectly correct "coud" should match them by changing to "could".

Shirley, you mean "cloud"?

Yale Weds: Just some system maintenance, nothing to worry about. Yale Thurs: Nobody's smart alarm app works

and the recovery plan was stored only on the system that crashed

I thought they stored the plan on an airgapped server safely tucked away in a small room secured with one of those fancy Yale locks (the ones that require an app to open).

Microsoft Windows 10 October update giving HP users BSOD

HP keyboards are special?

"HP keyboard driver file HpqKbFiltr.sys"

They need their own device driver because ...? Their keys are bigger or faster somehow?

Attempt to clean up tech area has shocking effect on kit

Re: No clip

A couple of years ago I had a nice long chat with a guy who was SAAB's "fuel guy". His team, among other things, re-did the filler tube when SAAB adopted ethanol (E85).

One of the stories he told me was that E85 is extra easy to ignite when the fuel temperature is about -8 to -12 degrees Celcius (or thereabouts). So, assuming all the involved components hold that temperature, a static spark near the filler cap could potentially reach all the way down to your fuel tank.

SAAB, he informed me, chose to mitigate by adding a few extra twists, whereas Ford/Volvo (he politely coughed) chose to not make any design changes at all. (only fair to mention that Sweden switches to E75 during the winter, which does not have this problem)

The ethanol gas guns lack the clip, but regular gasoline guns usually still have them (here in Sweden).

YMMV.

Couldn't give a fsck about patching? Well, that's your WordPress website pwned, then

Re: These scammers do not like me.

banking_details.doc.exe with the extension hidden and a word doc icon.

Shirely, for that to do any permanent damage, it would need to run elevated. They didn't ignore the elevation prompt, did they?

I ask, because... Sounds like a fun hobby.

You're alone in a room with the Windows 10 out-of-the-box apps. What do you do?

Re: Oh God

SteveT is one of the good guys. I believe the outcome will be just fine.

First Boeing 777 (aged 24) makes its last flight – to a museum

Re: Feeling old yet?

~2.5 hours was what it took to cross the pond... back when I was young.

and if you tell that to the young people today, they won't believe you...

NASA 'sextortionist' allegedly tricked women into revealing their password reset answers, stole their nude selfies

Re: And service providers...

What you choose to tell service providers is your mother's maiden name can be a secret.

Am I the only one suffering from password reset angst?

My reasoning is this: They ask these silly questions because it is their only way to reset my password. I.e. if I forget my mother's maiden name, my account details will be lost forever and an ogre will eat my dwelling.

Of course I have tried supplying smarty pants responses to those stupid questions. And of course those smarty pants responses are completely forgotten one week later.

I am much more comfortable with 2FA. As long as I don't forget my mobile phone anywhere.

Too many leftover screws? Ikea website backend goes TITSUP

Save your visit for the storm season

Aggrieved Britons, deprived of the opportunity to engage in the marriage-destroying activity of assembling furniture in accordance with pictorial instructions

AFAICT, the problem arises inside the warehouse (as per the linked article).

The assembling bit of it all is easy enough (I say whilst nervously eying my Algot wall mounted shelves that are perhaps holding more weight than they were designed for).

Meanwhile, back here in Sweden, IKEA has been running a month long promotion of free shipping. A welcome peacebringer for this home.

Pro IKEA tip: Wait for a heavy winter storm. I went to my local IKEA (an hour's drive away) during a particular hard winter storm. One other car in the parking lot, and I did not spot any customer inside the warehouse (except when passing through the mirror department). It was bliss inside whilst a blizzard was raging outside. Much recommended.

Supermicro breathes in, shimmies a PB of Intel flash into one rack unit

Re: eswan

I wonder how much you could store uncompressed.

Depends. Gay or straight pr0n?

Besides, this 1PB storage unit classifies as hw pr0n. So... If you store pr0n on a hw pr0n device, will there be a rift in the space-time continuum? A 'pr0n hole' if you will.

You want to know which is the best smartphone this season? Tbh, it's tricky to tell 'em apart

GPS

I do not care much for mobile phones, but I am holding out for a handset with improved GPS performance.

Broadcom made a splash in the headlines about a year ago (e.g. https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/design/superaccurate-gps-chips-coming-to-smartphones-in-2018) and since then... total silence.

It was mentioned at the time that Broadcom isn't very popular among the handset makers, but I assumed other chip makers would add support for L5. Or maybe they already did. These specs aren't terribly easy to come by on shopper's websites that compare very short spec sheets.

Enabling GPS on my current handset results in me having battery angst. So I frequently do a little GPS dance number every time I find myself lost in a new place (as recentlly today when trying to figure out if there was a pharmacy in the shopping mall I was currently trapped in. Turns out there was... about 5 meters behind my back. D'oh!)

Hey you smart, well-paid devs. Stop clicking on those phishing links and bringing in malware muck on your shoes

Re: This problem

Right at this moment, there are dozens of suspicious looking files in my home directory on my laptop. A bunch of cryptically named .xls and .mdf files, even though I don't even have Excel or Access installed.

Who put them there? Malware you think?

That was my first hunch and I spent about an hour troubleshooting this. Turns out my brilliant benevolent sysadmin installed a honeypot system that relies on these files to detect malware...

All that anti-malware they have forced me to run for the past nine years have caught nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip. They have however caused me quite a lot of needless headache.

Sysadmins need to STFU and let me get on with my work.

Re: Not a problem for Node.js

Starting around 1996 and for another ten years or so, I had JS disabled in my browser (except for sites I trusted / had to trust).

I have since given up on that strategy, but not because I disagree with you. At some point, the benefits outweighed the risks.

The browser makers have taken steps to mitigate some of the spectre concerns. My guess/hope is that this time the mitigations arrived before any exploits did.

But yeah, patch early and often.

Re: Sysadmins + Devs = possibility for the perfect mixture

What developers can live without net access in this day and age?

Documentation, code samples and libraries -- it's all on the net. Heck, some of us are using (or is going to use) off-prem version control systems and build servers because internal IT are too lazy to administrate our servers.

Reminds me of a friend who as he turned up for his new job, was told about some ridiculous net restriction, upon which he simply turned around and left while the idiots tried negotiating an increase in his internet allowance. He realized he could probably get the ban lifted for himself, but he was convinced that they clearly did not know what they were doing so he simply did not want to work there.

I would be very surprised if any higher caliber developers are going to accept such working conditions. Must be paid an insane amount of money in that case.

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

Re: Damn

People who think their energy supplier can only want to known about their energy usage for marketing purposes demonstrate massive technological illiteracy.

Which reminds me of a former colleague who faces a £1000 bill because the smart meter kit is too big for his enclosure.

So now he is trying to push his doctor to diagnose him as sensitive to electricity and radio waves... As that is obviously cheaper than embiggening what needs to be expanded.

Smart meters are all fine and dandy until you look into the economics. Better to go all nukes and push down the price of energy.

When Google's robots give your business the death sentence – who you gonna call?

Re: @Hamish Sadly Not Really New

wrong terms (SLAs)

...google has a cheap SLA that says "we will routinely nuke all your data, but at least we won't charge you an arm and a leg for providing this service"?

Sounds a bit like those cryptovirus providers.

A £1.3m prize for a plunging share price at BT? Not so fast...

Think of the children

down 25 per cent - so giving the former CEO a wheelbarrow of cash to push through the door on his way out stuck in the craw somewhat.

But, but,but.... Think about how much the share value would have dropped if the CEO had not had a fat bonus to look forward to?

Seriously though: I have long wondered how much of a role a CEO plays in any organization. If a well-paid CEO was all it took to become a success on the stock exchange, then surely everybody would be doing it? (I suspect most companies are doing this and that the positive effect is randomly distributed)

Automated payment machines do NOT work the same all over the world – as I found out

Easy. Use two zeros.

Uncle Sam is shocked, SHOCKED to find dark-web bazaars trading drugs, weapons, etc

Re: "... the Darknet invites criminals into our homes ..."

Well, they are obviously vampires. Vampires, as you well know, cannot cross the threshold of one's home unless invited.

That is why we need good people like Buffy. Preferably in the nude. I think I lost my train of thought now, but you get the idea.

HTC U12+: You said we should wait and review the retail product. Hate to break it to you, but...

Re: 40 Year Old Lesson?

If I could afford my own F-16 I wouldn't bother much with phones (hapless or not).

BOFH: Is everybody ready for the meeting? Grab a crayon – let's get technical

Re: "I prefer not to answer that but suggest you wear gloves to work."

The current head of my department is the greatest boss ever.

She used to have a shepherd that we all loved. One day I nodded off at the keyboard and suddenly the dog walks into my office and woofs. I got up just in time before the main boss arrived. That dog treated me and my colleagues as his herd and he protected us against people from other departments and especially anyone smelling of management.

Good dog that one. Very good dog. He is sadly missed. (stupid vet didn't want to continue treatment, in retrospect we should've gone all out BOFH on his rear)

BOFH: Got that syncing feeling, hm? I've looked at your computer and the Outlook isn't great

Re: Careful what you wish for

Oh great. Now I too want a badger icon.

That said, has anyone else noticed how, on imdb, even the greatest movies of all times manage to land a small number of voters (among imdb's top 1000 voters) giving out a score of one?

It makes me wonder if they *always* vote like that, or if there is something else sinister going on. No wonder there is war in the world.

Softbank's 'Pepper' robot is a security joke

Uploading plain text is bad, mhkay?

As a matter of fact, we were able to upload images, text files which extensions have been modified to images, and even plain text files without performing extension editing

The significance of this escapes me.

Yes, it accepts bad input, but what happens next? A badly written parser can be susceptible to buffer overflow attacks and similar, but a file's extension is irrelevant. So, what are the researchers trying to tell us here?

FBI to World+Dog: Please, try turning it off and turning it back on

Re: reconnect to host website?

If the FBI now have the host,

They have the domain, not the host.

My guess is that infected routers will have cached the host address. A reboot effectively resets the DNS cache allowing the new A record to be used instead. Not a cure, but might provide a little bit of relief.

Astronaut took camera on spacewalk, but forgot SD memory card

Re: The man is 53, for god's sake!

I'm 44. Daftness sets in around 39-40. Scientific fact. At least it was a scientific fact back when I was still young and promising.

Tech support made the news after bomb squad and police showed up to 'defuse' leaky UPS

Re: Free UPS!

"and a cheap one at that. My home network switch is also a castoff 10/100 from the same generous folks."

I consider myself cheap as well, but last year I bought a fanless managed 24p gigabit switch for roughly £100. I could have taken a few switches off the hands of my employer's IT guys, but when I realized how cheap switches are these days and that the old switches weren't fanless, I decided against it.

HP Ink to compensate punters for bricking third-party ink cartridges

Re: Canon run a different con

"use bulk ink tanks or cartridges. its so cheap to buy the raw ink bottles that it doesn't matter."

I tried some cheap third-party ink in my MG7550 inkquaffer, and photo prints turned out with wildly inaccurate colours.

In the end I gave up and bought Canon's own ink which must be distilled from liquid gold given the price they charge.

Oh. Why do I even have this printer you may ask? It was a "gift" from a "friend". I should have thanked her and let it go straight to the bin. Bloody rubbish. Except I would like to print photos... Preferably without the printer ending up weighing ten kilos more than when new (due to all the ink soaking up in its belly).

In any case: Any luck out there with non-Canon ink in a Canon printer (quality wise)?

Intel admits a load of its CPUs have Spectre v2 flaw that can't be fixed

You b..... you just killed Bloomfield!

"oldies that went on sale between 2007 and 2011, so it is likely few remain in normal use."

Ah good, so my i7-920 is covered then? Oh, wait... Bugger.

That should teach me buying a CPU from a reputable vendor such as Intel. 'cause AMD supposedly was much worse at this lark.

Europe dumps 300,000 UK-owned .EU domains into the Brexit bin

Re: Iceland and Norway have EEA membership

I was surprised to read comments here to the effect that Norway weren't keen on letting the UK join EFTA, but according to https://www.aftenposten.no/norge/politikk/i/bpXJd/Norge-vil-ikke-ha-britene-i-EOS---men-kan-gjore-lite-for-a-stoppe-dem that is currently somewhat true.

What is interesting though, according to that news article, is that none of the nay-sayers believe we can actually stop UK from joining. And quite a few voices here in Norway would actually encourage UK to join.

I suspect that the pro-EU voices in Norway don't want to acknowledge that there are alternatives to EU membership, and thus do not want to evolve EFTA into a more viable option.

OK, deep breath, relax... Let's have a sober look at these 'ere annoying AMD chip security flaws

Re: Israeli security startup CTS-Labs

What you are describing is security by obscurity.

I really don't care. If you manage to get to root level on my box, then it is game over for me.

Besides: Ahem... If you manage to get to root... AFAIK you have kernel access. Which means you are free to install whatever device driver you like. Which in turn... Tadaa... you can flash whatever you can flash from a DOS boot device, be it your old trusty floppy or SD card.

Re: Israeli security startup CTS-Labs

For many years the only way to flash BIOS was to boot from a floppy disk with a minimal OS

Sure, and at some point they stopped making floppy drives, which kinda forced everyone to use more convenient ways. Not to mention that very few laptops today could even fit a 3.5" drive inside even if we wanted to.

And hey, it is not as if nobody were ever infected by leaving a diskette in the drive before restarting.

In all fairness, compared to the 80s and 90s, I think we are better off now security wise.

2 + 2 = 4, er, 4.1, no, 4.3... Nvidia's Titan V GPUs spit out 'wrong answers' in scientific simulations

Re: no mention of bitcoin mining

My guess is that we will have to reinstate the bite-test and carefully inspect each and every bitcoin we handle.

Mine is the one with dentures in the pocket.

Uber breaks self-driving car record: First robo-ride to kill a pedestrian

Re: You surrender your sovereignty with self-driving cars

I'm pretty sure the "powers that be" can find easier ways to switch you off.

Re: Who sets the speed?

I am more curious about how they measured the speed.

Reminds me of one of the stories as told by one of the engineers working on Saab Viggen (the car, not the fighter jet, although that engineer had also worked on the jet back in the day). They were racing against a similarly specced Volvo. When the Volvo's speedometer was showing 220kph, the Viggen was showing 200kph...

So take that 38MPH with a grain of salt.

And finally: At least when driving here where I am, if you drive 50 kph in a 50-zone, cars will start queuing up behind you. 54 kph is a safer speed IMO. The AI could have picked up on similar patterns.

Guess who else Spectre is haunting? Yes, it's AMD. Four class-action CPU flaw lawsuits filed

"looks to recover cash on behalf of shareholders who bought AMD stock between between February 21, 2017 and January 11, 2018."

Feb 2017? Almost half a year before Anders Fogh' hypothesis that speculative execution would be possible?

Oi! Verizon leaked my fiancée's nude pix to her ex-coworker, says bloke

Re: former coworker

"ANY women's naked body looks TWENTY THOUSAND times better than a guy's"

No. Just plain wrong.

Reminds me of the time my wife and I argued for a week about the gender of one of our neighbors. I was convinced it was a bloke (it probably wasn't). Either way, I think we both agreed on not wanting to see ANY naked pictures of that person, on the internet, in an art gallery or anywhere where our travels may take us. I am a staunch supporter of data security now that I come to think of it.

Further more, men are more handsome by default. As proof I offer you the sales statistics from the cosmetics industry, which is heavily reliant upon women buying their crap by the bucketful.

A Hughes failure: Flat Earther rocketeer can't get it up yet again

Re: 1,800 feet

"Rubbish! Everybody knows 1,800 feet isn't high enough to observe the Great A'Tuin in all its majesty"

That is one way of describing the act of looking up the business end of a turtle to determine its sex (AKA "The Big Bang Theory").

Oh brutah how I miss the smell of a freshly printed Discworld novel. Today was perfect reading weather and here I am with one less favorite author around. 'Buggrit.

'The capacitors exploded, showering the lab in flaming confetti'

Re: Improbable

It has been a long time since I dabbled with (very simple) breadboard designs, so I won't comment on that aspect.

However, about 15 years ago, there was a loud "pop" (or maybe "bang") from my computer that was standing on my desk, with black smoke emanating from its floppy drive. I unplugged it and we evacuated the room. After only a few hours of venting out the room, the smell of burning electronics was nearly gone and we felt reasonably safe to resume operation. My little 3.5" floppy drive however was clearly pining for the fjords. IIRC we replaced the PSU and ditched the floppy drive, and my PC was operational again (I do not remember exactly what we had to replace, but we were operating on a tight budget and I do not think we would have forked out for a brand new computer)

My point is that if the standard components found in PCs at the time, could do all that relatively unprovoked, then I have no problems believing things could turn really ugly if you poke the monster's eye with a sharp stick.

Besides, computers are scary. There are tons of documentaries on this subject: "War games", "Terminator" (1 through 4) and The Fly.

Proposed Brit law to ban b**tards brandishing bots to bulk-buy tickets

Re: Small bands

Not all of them.

Last summer I bought some "Lucky Dip" tickets for two Rolling Stones shows. "Lucky Dip" is basically a lottery. You will always get two tickets, but you might get the worst seats in the house or find yourself situated right next to the stage. I experienced both ends of the spectrum. At the second show my dad and I got pit access for a fraction of the normal price. Felt like winning the lottery (or so I imagine, having never won the "real thing").

The "catch" is that you (and your companion) have to pick up the tickets in person on the concert day, you are then marked and can't transfer/sell the tickets to a third party. Thus it isn't practical to do this with everyone.

In any case, I did not put in a lot of effort to get these tickets. Win-win afaict.

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

Re: I finally switch from AMD to Intel, and this is what happens.

2017 was truly AMD's year. First they introduced several interesting CPUs (if you are into multi-core designs), followed by some decent GPUs, and now this.

I switched from AMD when Intel introduced Core 2 Duo. This year I think i will switch back to AMD. Finally some competition (again)!

Last week: Microsoft accused of covering up rape claim. This week: Microsoft backs anti-cover-up law ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

No existing laws?

I am obviously not a lawyer, hence the question: Are there no existing laws?

What if coworker A killed coworker B? There would be no doubt that the authorities would have to get involved, right? So how come it is possible with a slightly less serious crime?

Abolish the Telly Tax? Fat chance, say MPs at non-binding debate

Re: Threatogram received from Crapita today

"I don't go to school. I think it's an utter outrage that my taxes should support those who do.

Being fit and healthy, I don't use hospitals. They should all be abolished."

I agree. The government should focus on the important stuff, and leave the nonsense public broadcasting lark to the private sector.

Microsoft's memory randomization security defense is a little busted in Windows 8, 10

Re: Well...

Either way, a BSOD is caused by either a bug in a device driver, faulty hardware or, as AC correctly points out, unsupported hardware. That a particular OS setting delays the time it takes before you hit a BSOD is neither here nor there: you haven't solved anything.

The only sane options (in no particular order):

1. Use Linux

2. Upgrade to Windows 10

3. Change hardware until you find something that works

Run various benchmarks that stress CPU (SuperPI) and memory (sysinternals might have something, can't remember) and you'll probably be able to reproduce your BSOD quite readily. Or it is something completely different, like a naff NIC device driver.

I used to be a Win7 holdout too. I upgraded to Win10 and never looked back. Win10 is a noticeable improvement and I highly recommend it.

Insisting on running an OS that is on the fast track to obsolescence strikes me as a decidedly bad strategy.

You're doing open source wrong, Microsoft tsk-tsk-tsks at Google: Chrome security fixes made public too early

Re: Does Microsoft's approach not imply...

"the issue that an update available doesn't mean it is applied "

...is still a lot better than having a documented issue out in the wild but no patch for users to apply.

Plus, it takes time to develop an exploit. Giving black hats an entire month to perfect an attack is just bonkers.