Posts by Doctor Syntax

My MacBook Woe: I got up close and personal with city's snatch'n'dash crooks (aka some bastard stole my laptop)

Re: So you lost all your research on .....

"Just where was Steve Jobs when all this went down"

Lying low.

Re: That is why...

"Notebook for Android from the Soho corporation is good enough to write an article you can later export somewhere else."

At a fraction f the speed/accuracy of typing on a real keyboard. And then there's being able to consult all the reference material you might need. Yes, you can do that on the phone as well but again it's going to be a lot slower than having a document open beside the one you're typing into. It's horses for courses.

OTOH I used to have one of those Nokia Communicator bricks. Absolutely ideal for dialling into modems to do remote support of clients' Unix boxes. That also was the appropriate tool for the job.

My future son-in-law had his car nicked in Manchester. When it was recovered he spent a few days hoping to hear the insurance would write it off - which they did - as he wanted to buy and MGB. As he said, most girls' fathers wouldn't take kindly to boy-friends with MGs but he knew I'd had one myself.

I thought of that one. In fact a lot of USB keys have some sort of loop which would allow them to be attached to a cord. But the likelihood is that the thief wouldn't have heard of such an idea, wouldn't have encountered such a set-up before and never would encounter one again so the only difference in outcome would be a dropped and smashed laptop vs a stolen one. That's where the second part comes in. It needs to be a very visible and different-looking device whose vendor has gone to some trouble to publicise as an alarm so the value is in deterrence before the event rather than not much protection after.

There are a couple of additional twists. You need to think about how it's attached to the table or the owner. If it's a simple clip the thief might take the extra second to unclip it. So it needs to be made physically tricky to unclip (as someone else suggested in relation to a locking device) or the gadget needs to be able to make the laptop aware that it's been unclipped so that unclipping requires telling the S/W first. It needs a similar defence against the cable being cut.

Re: The "Cowards" comment

I'm tempted to say some take longer than others but IME it's only the sudden deaths that end up there. The rest just go direct to the undertakers.

Re: "nobody moved to stop a thief"

From an Anthony Price story partly set in Georgia: "It's right there in the Constitution, the Right to Get Shot except they call it the Right to Bear Arms".

Re: "nobody moved to stop a thief"

"However, the truth is that for practical purposes, handguns cannot legally be carried by anyone other than the SFPD"

And nobody intent on stealing laptops would dream of doing anything illegal.

Re: Indeed

"Not sure exactly what they had nicked, but I had enough time to see him running down the corridor, with a couple of guys obviously in pursuit"

How did you know it wasn't two bad guys with murderous intent chasing a victim?

Re: There will always be thieves :(

"My car was also beat-up and *big*, even the black cabs did not mess with me!"

When driving in London (now a long time ago) I always wished I was in an old Landrover that had spent the last 40 years on a farm and showed it.

Nearly downvoted you for using an OS that's been pottered about with. https://github.com/Xylemon/xlennart

Re: Cowards?

"I might, possibly, consider stepping in a perp's way in a coffee shop in, say, Shrewsbury."

By the time you'd considered it he'd be gone.

I'm not sure a device fitting into the USB would be a good substitute for a Kensington lock. However, combine this with one of Kieren's other actions...

A similar but active device that fits the USB socket and S/W that monitors its presence. The instant the device is jerked out the laptop starts a continuous alarm sound. The likelihood is, of course, that the thief would then drop the machine on the floor which would be just about as bad. But make the device conspicuous so once the device's existence is well known it becomes a deterrent.

Anyone want to manufacture one? Extra points if it's also a storage device with auto-save pointed at it.

Re: That sucks.

Let el Reg do the line breaks. Returns are for paragraph breaks.

Re: Sad

"They don't generally think they'll get caught."

This is the crux of it. And the trouble is that they're almost certainly right.

Re: Indeed

"The fact that nobody moved to stop a thief is a sad indication of the morals of our society today. That only one guy stood up after and offered help is good on him, but it would have been better if someone had tripped the thief."

In reality, people's reactions aren't usually that fast. The thief was acting on a pre-determined plan, he knew he was going to snatch and run. Everyone else, even Kieran, would have taken a little time to realise what was happening. Occasionally someone does react fast enough (and too fast for the thought "Is he armed") but that's the exception.

Re: Better off...

In this situation it seems to be just what the Chromebook was for so why the troll?

Overseas investors eat the UK tech sector for Brexit: More cash flung about in 7 months than the whole of last year

Re: In reality...

The USA seems to think Greenland is up for sale. At least its POTUS did a few days ago. He probably thinks something else is now. Maybe the next bright idea will be to make Huawei the 51st state.

Re: Wouldn't you say . .

I think BoJo and his mates actually expected Cameron to stay on and implement what they wanted but hadn't a clue how to make work. Frankly I don't blame him for telling them to sort it out themselves and clearing off. After all, he didn't want to leave.

Didn't you get the message? We're taking back control.

A challenger appears: Taiwanese devs' answer to Gemini PDA wraps a Raspberry Pi in a tablet

As the Pi 4 is reported to run rather hotter than the 3 the latter is probably more appropriate to be wrapped up in a tablet quite apart from battery life considerations.

Brits are sitting on a time bomb of 40m old electronic devices that ought to be recycled

Re: contain elements that could run out in the near future

"They even have a rule that you are not allowed to give away old (but still functioning) TV's, cause, yep, they make $$$ of it."

Who's "they"? The local authority?

Re: Want my old devices? give me money

if these elements are rare then the companies can just well pay us a reasonable amount for our old gadgets in a proper trade-in deal.

The trpuble with that is in this quote from the article: "even if recycled it is still extremely difficult to recover some of these elements from unused devices."

Difficult also means expensive. Only when the elements become rare enough for the expense of recovery to fall below the expense of mining will it become economic to recycle things. The best option might be to keep storing stuff until that day arrives.

Don't panic! Don't panic! UK IT job ads plummet as Brexit uncertainty grabs UK tech sector by the short and curlies

Re: And the NHS is doomed

"No mainstream politician of any persuasion has ever argued with the principle of free at the point of delivery. Ever. Nobody. "

Up to now I'd have said the same thing.

But we live in strange times.

It's an interesting comparison with Y2K. You'd think there'd be a flurry of jobs as systems are adapted to deal with whatever comes next but, unlike Y2K, nobody knows what comes next.

There's nothing like good, careful planning and this is nothing like good, careful planning.

Re: Part-time jobs seem to have disappeared altogether

Contracts with SMBs might be a possibility.

How four rotten packets broke CenturyLink's network for 37 hours, knackering 911 calls, VoIP, broadband

Re: "each packet was sent only one hop"

Infinera: maybe the clue's in the name.

Re: Going Postal?

"The network was recovered by turning all the routers off and back on again - not something that would be easily possible today."

My immediate reaction to the story was that turning it all off and on again is just what should have been done. Assuming, of course, that turning it all off doesn't preserve state.

Re: ...they were generated by a switching module in a node ... for reasons still yet unknown...

Obviously a Huawei box must have been involved. No good ole American kit would ever do such a thing.

KNOB turns up the heat on Bluetooth encryption, hotels leak guest info, city hands $1m to crook, and much, much more

Re: NOB!

"Knob - Door handle thing"

In this case one that opens the back door.

TSO Host no closer to solving customers' email issues as Brit firm pops up on more blacklists

"they know hosting back to front apparently"

Perhaps it would be better to know it the right way round.

Breaker, breaker. Apple's iOS 12.4 update breaks jailbreak break, un-breaks the break. 10-4

Re: So, unc0ver is open-source ?

And didn't bother with regression testing.

It will never be safe to turn off your computer: Prankster harnesses the power of Windows 95 to torment fellow students

Re: More chaos

Or one girlfriend with multiple birthdays?

Re: BOFH potential for sure

It sounds as if the difference between that and TFA is that in your case there was someone, you, who understood what was happening. In the TFA it cost the school money that could have been better spent elsewhere calling in someone to fix things that were perceived to have been broken.

Re: We once...

But only really works if your name actually is Dave (or Rodney, of course).

Canadian ISP Telus launches novel solution to deal with excess email: Crash your servers and wipe it all

It's somebody else's computer

If you want to be sure of access to your own email save it locally and do whatever you feel necessary to back it up. Otherwise you're reliant on what somebody else thinks is adequate.

The Pwn Star State: Nearly two dozen Texas towns targeted by tiresome ransomware

Re: Officials suspect a coordinated extortion campaign

I suppose it's a bit like why armed robbers hit banks rather than, say, second-hand bookshops. It's where they keep the money. If city administrations are poorly defended and provide essential services it's going to be more lucrative than going after Joe Soap's holiday snaps.

Linux Journal runs shutdown -h now for a second time: Mag editor fires parting shot at proprietary software

Re: Yes , there are a few in print

A very wise move.

"they'll come begging you to fix it (with money)."

More likely they'll just take it over.

Re: Yes , there are a few in print

Let me throw in another old-time memory: Unix Review, especially for Stan Kelly-Bootle's column.

Arrow? More like Boomerang, amirite? Computacenter buys back tech disposal biz it disposed of

Re: I just love it

Have to agree but they're amateurs. Consider the BT -> O2 split -> acquire EE at the cost of giving Deutsche Telekom a pound o shareholders' flesh.

Science and engineering hit worst as Euroboffins do a little Brexit of their own from British universities

Re: Well, you're leaving

There's an element of the previous Prime Minister in your argument with your "you(plural)". We didn't all vote the same way and it's unreasonable to base an argument or, indeed a policy, on that. Even a lot of former Remain MPs seem to have adopted that over-simplification. The fact is that the country was split down the middle. The Remain half is not going to let BoJo have an easy life when reality becomes unavoidable and no doubt that Remain half is somehow going to be rather more than half when "but we never voted for this" becomes a factor.

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

"Google does still support some rudimentary Boolean logic in search terms"

But they're doing their best to fix that.

How powerful are Russian hackers? One new law could transform global crime operations

How about using some of those wonderful Boeing hardware filters to control all connections to Russia from the outside world. Stop malware but allow good connections.

Ransomware attackers have gone from 'spray and pray' to 'slayin' prey'

"it seems like a lot of organisations never learned."

I'm sure they did. The hard way.

WTF is Boeing on? Not just customer databases lying around on the web. 787 jetliner code, too, security bugs and all

Re: Irresponsible

"You should not try to rely on security by obscurity."

And even if you rely on that you've at least got to make a better attempt at obscurity than putting it where somebody can find it.

Re: At what point...

"or even scarier for Boeing, let them be present, let them prevent the hackers from exploring certain areas"

That assumes they even know where the problems are.

Re: certification

It's self-certification all the way down.

Re: One Network to Rule Them All

Since when did vendors need a legitimate reason if it might affect convenience and costs?

Transport for London Oyster system pulled offline after credential-stuffing crooks board customers' accounts

Re: We encourage all customers not to use the same password for multiple sites

You know the Iron Triangle for development? Security is an Iron Line: Convenience, security, pick any one.

Re: We encourage all customers not to use the same password for multiple sites

Unfortunately all too often "Contact us" is a web form.

Re: We encourage all customers not to use the same password for multiple sites

For the real win, the CEO's email address if you can get it, failing that marketing.