Posts by Doctor Syntax

Trouble brewing as iThing coffee machine seems to be hackable

Presumably all this wifi enabled stuff, routers, kettles, webcams or whatever, has to have FCC, UL & a stack of other approvals. That provides a chance to introduce a very simple rule. When first installed factory settings only make provision for setup. Only when it's been configured to at least some degree of security does it start to route, boil water, show pictures or whatever.

Re: Pot, kettle ..

"Idiots make these things and other idiots buy them."

Second part right, first part wrong. If you know you're selling to idiots it's common sense to put as little effort as possible into making the thing. Why do more work if it doesn't improve sales?

No, the EU is not going to make hyperlinks illegal

If companies choose to put stuff on the web without understanding how it works then they've got nobody to blame but themselves.

Drop the obsession with Big Data, zero days and just... help the business

Bingo

"infused priorities switch towards supporting the business"

Infused priorities switching?

TalkTalk hired BAE Systems' infosec bods before THAT hack

Same old same old

"TalkTalk takes cyber security extremely seriously and we have increased investment in this area by a third over the last three years"

1. Increasing expenditure by a percentage is only meaningful if you say what the previous expenditure was. And even so....

2. It's not the inputs that matter, it's the outputs, in this case the security of the systems.

And that's ignoring the usual ritual "we take it very seriously".

Do these MBA types actually believe all this stuff they spout or does it just flow from textbook to mouth without passing through the brain?

Microsoft rolls out first 'major update' to Windows 10

Re: Why is an OS update changing my applications?!

"You could not make it up."

Far from it. It's common to large organisations of all kinds. They are unable to learn from experience. The people involved in one cycle might be badly burned enough to learn but next time round they've gone on to other employers or left to spend more time with their money. There's no mechanism which records "we don't do that because..." so a whole new lot of people come along to make the same mistake.

Of course there may well be people in the organisation who do remember but they're in pay grades which rate their knowledge as irrelevant.

Re: Oh yeah, enterprise, almost forgot about them...

"I really don't understand Microsoft on this."

It's not difficult to understand. Enterprise doesn't want untested software so the little people get to be beta testers. It's not enterprise coming second, it's non-enterprise clearing the minefield first.

Re: Work In Process

"Thus W10 will act more consistently like a very late beta/release candidate over time; which is the nature of rolling release Linux distros."

AFAICS that was the plan for the consumer versions. The business versions get the fixes after the beta testers have checked them out. They've learned from Red Hat/Fedora.

Re: Work In Process

Software is usually work in progress and people sneer at it for not being finished. When it stops being work in progress it gets called legacy & people sneer at it for not being new shiny.

DNA based login

PostgreSQL learns to walk and chew gum

Re: MySQL versus PostgreSQL comparison

"MySQL will make smart guesses about what you mean"

In my book this is a bad thing.

Your taxes at work: Three hours driving to turn on politician's PC

Back when ATX PSUs, Win95 etc were new I was just leaving the client's premises for the night & got waylaid by the MD - or maybe he was just the FD back then. His PC wouldn't shut down either by software or the power-button-that's-not-not-really-a-power-button-but-just-sends-an-interrupt-to-the-motherboard-if-it's-listening. That sort of thing happened back then. Windows PCs weren't really my thing except that Windows was good for lots of Telnet sessions to the Unix box. But I wandered over to take a look. As he said, it wouldn't shut down from the button or anything else and you can't do "shutdown -g0 -i0 -y" on Windows. So I just leaned over & unplugged the mains from the back. Cue a silent "why didn't I think of that?" expression.

Re: Really - there wasn't a cleaner or anyone else in the building...

Maybe a good engineer would have pointed out that it should have been "We mere mortals".

BOFH: We're miracle workers. But you want us to fix THAT in 10 minutes?

Re: Last minute

"a small computer company called SCO"

You mean a small litigation company. I think by that time they'd mostly lost sight of being a computer company.

Ex-competition watchdog and TalkTalk adviser calls for Openreach split from BT

Re: why oh why?

According to the article he's ex-head of the Office of Fair Trading so maybe he's advising them on the fair way to deal with customers who want to leave.

German ATM displays bank’s network config data to infosec bod

"Bank Sparkasse has reportedly pushed out updates that fix the issue"

Presumably they became vulnerable again during the update.

IT contractors raise alarm over HMRC mulling 'one-month' nudge onto payrolls

The problem is that HMRC is staffed by salaried people with secure employment contracts. They've designed an income tax system for salaried people with secure employment contracts because that's what they understand. I have a slight variation on this which might help here. Firstly everyone pays income tax on receipts which is what HMRC want and understand. We then treat security of employment as a benefit in kind and tax that. BIK is also something HMRC understand so they shouldn't have a problem with that. Because part of the tax is being collected as BIK the tax on income can be at a much lower than at present. It works out reasonable equitably. Zero hours contracts have no security at all so they have no benefit. A contractor on a 3-month gig with an easy termination rate will have some security so they pay more tax than the zero-rate.

It shouldn't raise political problems. MPs should like it, they have a 5-year fixed term contract with no guarantee of renewal so their benefit is also limited. Ministerial appointments such as the Chancellor's are essentially at the whim of the PM but usually there aren't more than one reshuffle a year so this can be taken as a 1-year rolling contract so the cabinet would approve.

Really secure jobs provide the largest benefit so they have to pay more tax and, for this to be tax neutral, the overall tax paid by those holding such jobs would end up more than is paid at present. The unfortunate side effect of this is that HMRC staff would end up paying much more than they currently do. However, as this is the consequence of a fairer tax system I'm sure they wouldn't mind.

Re: I'm sure I'm missing something but...

"Your not contracted to them now (mostly), you're contract is with your agent"

They'd probably weasel themselves out of the way.

Re: @Ian 45: Long overdue

"I look forward to your hopefully lucid replies..."

That would be a lot different from his original post. Don't hold your breath.

Microsoft capitulates, announces German data centres

Re: UK customers?

"But even if it did do you really think that the Home Secretary and minions will not be making a MITM attack as soon as it goes live?"

That's the problem with any country whose govt doesn't grok privacy. It'll probably need someone to take them to the ECJ. I think we'll probably see a few iterations of that before govts. start to get the idea.

The first of many

The use of non-US intermediaries has been on the cards for a good while now. Customers are starting to be concerned about security from spying, hence the the appearance of end-to-end encryption, Google pushing for HTTPS everywhere and so on.

The Irish access case has been a wake-up call for MS who must have been thinking about it since before the ECJ decision on Safe Harbour. The only surprise is that they now seem to be looking at establishing data centres to serve individual EU countries rather than just setting up a fire break for the Irish operation. Given the amount of time they've had, however, they've probably taken a lot of legal advice as to the best way to achieve their objective under German law. They may take different approaches in other countries.

I think we'll see other US corporations looking at similar solutions. There's been a window of opportunity for EU companies to get a slice of the action as well. I hope some of them take it.

Re: Good job...

"are unable to lie to their customers"

AIUI they are required to lie to their customers. That's part of the problem.

Re: UK customers?

When the details of the UK data centre are revealed I wouldn't be surprised to see something similar, at least in principle. As I've written here a number of times since the MS/Ireland case started, it's the obvious solution - set up a legal firebreak. A franchise operation is the one that comes to mind but presumably the trustee arrangement is one appropriate to Germany.

As MoD are being talked about as an initial customer for the UK site it seems likely that they've looked at what's proposed. Unfortunately they might be comfortable with an arrangement that gave GCHQ access so it might not be ideal for everyone else. If I were in a business looking for a secure hosting company I'd still be looking at Switzerland as a preferred location.

Re: How is this different?

"MS could do something similar by spinning off their Irish datacenters as local businesses except that might unravel a lot of their current tax avoidance schemes."

I doubt it would unravel it by much. The obvious approach would be to have an Irish company, not owned by MS - repeat for the hard of reading NOT OWNED BY MS - as the intermediary operating as a franchise. Franchise operations seem to have worked pretty well for Starbucks as a mechanism for handling tax avoidance. I'm sure MS can find a few lawyers not too far from home who can advise them on such details.

Re: How is this different?

"What's to stop the US government simply forcing Microsoft HQ in the US to hand over all the data anyway?"

RTFA!

Big Bang left us with a perfect random number generator

Re: How random is random?

"These days it's common to use the thermal noise generated by a zener diode"

Yup. Reading the article it seemed likely that they could have dispensed with the dish bit of the radiotelescope & just used the noise of the input stage of the amplifier.

Got a time machine? Good, you can brute-force 2FA

Re: This might be useful

"Mote likely your gadget doesn't know what time it is."

No, more likely my bank!

This might be useful

The only time I had to use my bank-provided 2FA gadget it didn't work. I can only assume that my bank doesn't even know what time it is.

UN privacy head slams 'worse than scary' UK surveillance bill

Re: "Reading is fundamental" too....

"ISP's have to log activities because YOU voted for the idiots who made that a law that they collect the info."

Dunno about your environment but here the effective choice is between two parties each of who will put either such an idiot into the Home Office or at least one who will promptly go native.

Boffins teach Wi-Fi routers to dance to the same tune

"Frank lives in a Faraday cage so no use to him either"

OTOH if Frank lives in a Faraday cage there's not a lot of interference between his network and the neighbours.

"an FM baseband receiver that's either lying unused in a device, or could be cheaply added to it."

Oh yes? Here's a device without an FM receiver. Now how do you propose to cheaply add one? Soldering iron, piece of twin-flex & a cheap tranny? Or is "add" an abbreviation for "throw it away & buy a new one"?

Most developers have never seen a successful project

Re: Success is whatever you define it to be

"You deliver what the customer asked for, but that's not usually the same as what the customer wanted."

Which in turn isn't what they eventually discover they needed.

Re: But... Linux isn't finished yet

Software development is the process of launching a product into the maintenance phase.

Re: Needs just a tweak.

"On civil construction / arquitecture[sic], normally, the project is sucessful when the building stands the test of time (aka doesn't fall due to structural flaws)."

The ratio of design/physical construction phases are very different.

The civil engineer/architect team draws up a design & then hands it over to the construction contractor who in turn hands over to the direct labour to the brickies, sparkies, plumbers etc. but a good deal of the detailed design to the host of manufacturing companies who make the bricks, the cement, the screws etc. (and good old nature which has been in the wood making business for millions of years).

In software the physical construction is trivial. The design team is responsible for a much higher proportion of the work. Where pre-built components (libraries) are available the effort needed by the design team in understanding their interfaces is much greater (how complex is the interface of the common house brick?).

There is also a difference in the regulative environment. The building client can't decide that proper lintels, electrical insulation and ventilation aren't needed but nobody will stop the software client deciding to forego proper encryption or sanity checks between the web front-end and the database.

TalkTalk boss: 'Customers think we're doing right thing after attack'

I posted a comment under the T-Moblie/Experian report to the effect that one solution to dealing with major corporate failings would be that adopted after the Apple ebook pricing case: the appointment by TPTB of a competent, independent auditor/inspector to be paid for by the company. The role would be to investigate thoroughly and require any remedial action. I'll extend that idea to include vetting any statements made by or on behalf of the company during and after the event and to correct them and censure the spokesperson where appropriate.

"some customers had initially attempted to kill their contracts immediately after TalkTalk revealed it had suffered a security breach, only to apparently change their minds"

s/apparently change their minds/be threatened with penalties/

T-Mobile US megahack cost Experian $20m, class actions coming

Maybe the way to deal with this would be similar to the conditions imposed on Apple after the ebook pricing business. TPTB impose an auditor who the company has to pay for who can go through everything they consider relevant to the issue - in this case security - to ensure appropriate action is being taken.

TalkTalk to swallow £35m ‘financial impact’ after attack

"But you can bet that once it happens, I'm out of there."

Why wait? When the sale of Be to Sky was announced I just upped & left.

Re: "TalkTalk takes the security of customers’ data extremely seriously"

This is statement, devoid of meaning, ritually uttered by any large company run my marketeers. Its antiphon is "Your call is valuable to us".

"we're not waving exit fees"

They seem to be waving exit fees at anyone who wants to leave. They're not waiving them.

Re: CEO

"She chose not to give a meaningful answer."

This seems to be her standard MO.

Tim Cook: UK crypto backdoors would lead to 'dire consequences'

Re: Weak crypto

@A/C

I think things are more nuanced than you imply. For a start some of the problems we've seen recently were implementation problems, Heartbleed for example. Then there's the question of computational resources and message value & currency.

Consider, for example that an announcement is due to be made tomorrow which will affect a company's share price. If you could get the content now you could make a killing but the message is encrypted with a system it would take you until next week to decrypt then you won't get any benefit. If it used a system you could decrypt in the next minute you could. According to your definition both would be broken but one is strong enough to do the job it's used for and the other isn't.

Anything AWS can do: Microsoft announces UK data centre region for Azure cloud

Re: Not worth a penny until MS Dublin is sorted out...

It depends on the legal small print. Can they have a legally air-gapped company set up to own and run it?

NHS IT must spend a fortune to save a fortune, says McKinsey

Re: own the software

"Unfortunately that usually means that controlling software HAS to be what the manufacturer supplied and has to run on the manufacturers choice of platform and will never be updated."

This is a case for source escrow. TPP anybody?

Re: Delivery...

"Smart guys, but on another planet."

With a business model like that, smartest guys on this planet.

Re: own the software

"they could easily have bought the tiny backstreet company."

But that would have involved headcount, HR and whatnot. HR would then probably end up making the only people who understand the code redundant because they don't fit into NHS pay scales - or pissing them off so much the just leave.

GCHQ director blasts free market, says UK must be 'sovereign cryptographic nation'

One thing that needs to be clarified. If a password is demanded and given then any attempt to use the data obtained via that password should be counted as self-incrimination and not usable as evidence against whoever gave it.

How Twitter can see the financial future – and change it

TheConverstation?

Suddenly we're getting all these items republished from this other site. Is this because the regular columnists have been shoved out? Maybe we should just go there in future instead of el Reg. After all, they have https.

Facebook conjures up a trap for the unwary: scanning your camera for your friends

Re: well done!

"Couldn't devise a better pro-privacy campaign."

I doubt it. AFAICS the mentality of the Facebook generation is such that they'll lap it up.

Untamed pledge() aims to improve OpenBSD security

"most applications with FreeBSD compatibility"

This is OpenBSD. Either FreeBSD would have to (a) add it to their kernel (preferred option), (b) add a dummy call or (c) expect their users to #ifdef round it.