Posts by jjcoolaus

Would you like to know why I get a lot of action at night?

Re: UDP VPN

I've found several open wifi hotspots in airports but also in corporate environments that block UDP VPNs

TCP VPNs on the other hand, usually do work fine. I've never come across a network block I couldn't get around, however, note that the lack of speed can be a real issue in some situations. For downloading small files though, it's fine.

The "client VPN" referred to in the article is probably using dead technology like IPSEC or L2TP or PPTP

That's easily blocked. Microsoft's SSTP and OpenVPN are designed to work over ports that usually open like 443 and 80. It's very difficult, even for China, Syria, and the UAE, to block these.

VPN provider claims Russia seized its servers

This is good news

and it's why i'll keep paying PIA.

They provide a secure service that is proven and has worked well over many years.

Smartphones aren't tiny PCs, but that's how we use them in the West

QR Codes are still around....

<blockquote>After a brief heyday of experimentation, they’ve vanished from public spaces in Australia and America</blockquote>

No they haven't. I still see QR codes almost daily. Bus shelter ad spaces have them a lot.

Netflix in Australia slower than Mexico, Chile or New Zealand

60th in the world

Australia is ranked 60th in the world for broadband speeds, so while in Netflix stats we might be compatible, Australia is not at all competitive in regular download speeds of things that are not streaming video.

OnePlus X: Dinky little Android smartie with one or two minuses

OK for US/EU but won't suit those in the southern hemisphere

I'd like to support oneplus, and more independant manufacurers in general, but LTE band support is very lacking in this segment.

In particular those of us living in the southern hemisphere need band 28 support, unless your living in a major city and your carrier has loads of 1800/2600 to throw about. For rural areas though, and for getting inside buildings in areas of low tower density, LTE 700 is critical and in most of Asia and South America that means band 28.

Unless your china and can put up millions of cell towers anywhere, they can use high band LTE without any worries.

The paperless office? Don’t talk sheet

A clean desk policy forces it by stealth

Having a clean desk policy, which is the idea that no paper is to be left on a desk overnight, certainly forces you to think about printing less, and if you really need to print something at all,

When I go to a meeting I take the laptop now. There is wifi throughout the building that works well, so the only time I print something these days is when other people ask me to, which is also happening less and less.

My organisation has reduced the number of office printers in recent years, and I can see that happening more as more of us move to hybrid devices and laptops, rather than desktop machines.

So if you want a paperless office, introduce a clean desk policy under the guise of security of information. It forces everyone to think twice (or 3 times) before they print anything.

Telstra proclaims free data day to make up for epic TITSUP

Re: Surprised?

Unfortunately those things cost money and reduce profits, which are two things telstra always puts before it's customers.

No escape: Microsoft injects 'Get Windows 10' nagware into biz PCs

Re: Clueless in Redmond

Surely you could run those mission critical apps in a VM until the issue is fixed, even on the local machine?

For the seriously small business with no IT support and a mission critical app that doesn't run on 10, well I guess there is some opportunities out there for SaaS vendors out of this.

It wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft has a backroom bribe/deal with a large SaaS vendor to do this deliberately, and then design a marketing campaign around how to fix it. (ie let us run that software on a VM of WinServ2k8/Win7 for you"

Whilst I agree with you, who will you use instead?

Thanks to UEFI it's very difficult to boot linux these days, and those thousands of "just curious" users providing a tonne of information about their hardware with every install must be having an impact on the compatibility of modern hardware.

If your organisation has upgraded to surface pro etc then I guess your a bit screwed anyway.

Then again linux does work well with older hardware so if your all running the same x-brand laptop from 3 years ago then could be worthwhile, save for any unique business applications.

The way the big corporates see the world now is that there is 2 operating systems for PCs (microsoft or mac) and the hardware you buy determines which one you use. Then there are 3 mobile operating systems with no great difference between the privacy aspects of any of them (that is: you have none)

Who would win a fight between Cortana and Android?

Re: For Windows 10 integration

For the record, I've never used voice activation services - I think it's just a bit wanky to talk to your phone unless it's ultra useful, like when you are driving for example.

I too prefer to use to-do-lists and I use google keep to remind me of what needs to be done and when.

Re: @jjcoolaus

Apple sells a lot less information than the other companies, sure, but they still sell information about app purchases as a good example.

Not sure if we are allowed to link here, but this article explains in detail what each company does and doesn't do with data it collects about you:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2986988/privacy/the-price-of-free-how-apple-facebook-microsoft-and-google-sell-you-to-advertisers.html

For Windows 10 integration

The idea behind having cortana available on iOS and Android is the dream of having seamless voice activation between all your devices. That is the utopia that Microsoft wants to achieve so that more advertising revenue comes it's way.

Google makes money from android by selling you (the apps you use, the sites you visit, the words you type in e-mails) and recently Apple and Microsoft have wanted a piece of that pie too.

Microsoft has this idea where you saying "hey cortana I need to visit shop x at 12pm tomorrow, remind me on my phone and give me directions" on your PC could then seamlessly have cortana on your phone do all the same things.

Likewise they want "hey cortana remind me to send an e-mail and produce a sales report for Joe in Excel using the jo-report-template next time on my PC" is something someone could say and all those things would happen.

My imagination isn't quite there with this, apparently there is pretty cool integration where you could do all sorts of stuff with it but you get the idea.

Netflix launch brings Australia's biggest ever download deluge

From 30GB per person to 110GB per person

Amazing, it wasn't long ago that the average download use per month across Australia was less than 30GB, but now it's 110GB.

What's even more incredible though, what really makes the mind boggle, is why The Register chose a telephone from the 1960s as the cover image?

OpenWrt gets update in face of FCC's anti-flashing push

It's more like...

...they want routers that have backdoors, and logs that are verbose enough for US authorities to drop by and have a poke around if they need.

The point around security is a good one though, especially as most vendors are pretty careless about keeping their routers up to date, and most don't have an automatic update function that happens without the user triggering it.

The thing around WiFi bands is a convenient excuse to hide the fact that what they really want is control over the point of internet connection in every home across the US.

Wanna harvest a stranger's Facebook data? Get a mobile number and off you go

They have it all wrong!

People who are concerned about their mobile number leaking aren't so worried about average joe spammer getting them because those same people have probably signed up to dozens of newsletters and other things with their mobile number & e-mail address.

People are worried about "that creep" or "my ex partner" or "my ex friend" or "my bully" or whatever finding out.

Data rate limiting preventing mass export isn't going to stop those people.

I'm glad I deleted my facebook account 2 years ago. Never looked back. (and ensured it was properly gone too)

A dual-SIM smartphone in your hand beats two in the bush

They will send SMS

A problem that has plagued many dual sim phones in the past is that the 2nd SIM slot is 2G only, as in it can't do 3G text or calls.

So when the 2G networks go dead, those dual sim phones will be pretty useless won't they?

Australia and Singapore are planning to shut down 2G within the next year, but in the case of Australia it's only 1 carrier (Telstra) and fortunately they don't have the largest 2G coverage in the country anyway.

Taking Australia as an example, 3G coverage far outstrips 2G coverage by a 3:1 ratio at least, aren't there other countries where this is a problem also (ie networks stopped putting up new 2G cells years ago in favour of 3G/4G only rollouts)

Not so fast on FM switch-off: DAB not so hot say small broadcasters

No natural disasters in Norway then?

Does Norway never see a wild fire or other natural disaster? What about a nationwide blackout caused by a terrorist attack?

The closure of FM (and what about AM by the way) can have serious consequences.

One FM or AM radio can last for months playing 24/7 on a set of batteries, and emergency (or "wind up") and solar radios can theoretically go for years (or even decades)

A DAB radio wouldn't even last a week on batteries. Some would barely last a day.

The content business wants Netflix out of Australia

Without VPNs there is no business or government transacted over the internet

Business and government rely on VPNs everyday.

Not just the content industry, but every form of business and government organisation has some kind of VPN in place daily.

These idiots need to:

1) learn something about the internet

2) compete with it

3) give their CUSTOMERS what they have wanting for years - easy DRM-FREE access to content at a REASONABLE price.

Look at netflix - they are a billion $ company and they charge their users $12 a month. All these studios could be making billions from customers as well, unfortunately they have allowed these middle-men "distributors" to get rich on their content, and that's unacceptable to the 21st century consumer who will just keep on trucking in the piracy until these idiots wake up.

$10,000 Ethernet cable promises BONKERS MP3 audio experience

I'm an audiophile...

...but also not an idiot, so I won't be buying this.

PEAK WINDOWS 7 may well be behind us

Linux and Chrome OS could explain some of the difference...

If Windows 7 share is dropping off a bit, those people could be moving to Linux, if they are individuals or businesses without specialist applications.

Windows 8.1 buyers, who find the system difficult to use, may be getting advice from tech savvy relatives or friends to install linux in the form of ubuntu or mint. Those without help installing it, might have taken the PC back to the store and bought a chromebook.

Chromebooks are great for individuals and they are great travel PCs too. They are cheap, light weight, have a long battery life and if you spend all your time online in the browser, they are a great alternative to Windows.

I would like to see the same 2 agencies release numbers for Linux and Chrome OS on the same chart.

Possible Lizard Squad members claim hack of Oz travel insurer

Re: People still buy travel insurance?

If you can't afford to buy travel insurance you can't afford to travel, especially these days.

The following events, which can happen to anyone, are all covered by a DECENT travel insurance policy:

- terrorist attack or rebel siege at your hotel, on your airport, etc

- planes running late or schedules otherwise changing

- extra nights in hotels due to planes running late

- medical emergencies such as heart attack, stroke, etc - stays in hospitals anywhere in the world are expensive

- vehicle & pedestrian accidents (though if you were driving the vehicle, you might not be covered)

- having to cancel a whole or part of a holiday because of drama at home, because you got sick, because you got injured before your trip and several other circumstances.

In short, if you DON'T have travel insurance, your a dead set idiot and I will be PMSL when I hear on the news that an aussie traveller is stuck in Thailand or US or wherever with a $40k hotel bill and no way to pay.

If cities want to run their own broadband, let 'em do it, Prez Obama tells FCC

Obama for Australian Prime Minister in 2016 please!

Our current one believes that:

- climate change doesn't exist

- the current internet speed of 6mbps average is fine

- actual broadband is a "video entertainment system" that serves no useful purpose to the economy

- TV shouldn't be broadcast over the internet, so you don't need that high speed fibre

- satelite TV is king

- anyone building new infrastructure should be regulated out of business, so that Telstra stays rich

- cyber security in Australia isn't an issue

- recording everyone's upload and download amounts is a great way to catch copyright infringers

- having a climate change minister is a waste of money (position cut)

- having a science minister is a waste of money (position cut)

and so on...

Uber BLOCKS COPS to stop stings

Like any industry, adapt to 21st century tech, or die

The taxi industry is doing a good job with apps, safety improvements, etc but they still have one big problem that uber doesn't have.

CABSHARE - this is the evil, monopolistic, rip off everyone they can find company that provides credit card facilities in cabs.

Yes you can sit there and say "well why don't you pay cash instead"? Yes of course I can pay cash, if I'm happy to carry around $80 in spare cash every time I go somewhere a taxi home might be required over and above what might be required where I am going. Then you have separate issues around safety.

Welcome to 'uber-veillance' says Australian Privacy Foundation

Samsung already penalises you for non-disclosure

You can't add weather to the lock screen on a Galaxy Note 4 unless you have location services turned on.

I leave location off 99% of the time because a) the battery hit; and b) I don't need google recording where I go every minute of the day; and c) you can't selectively opt-out which apps should have location data and which apps shouldn't; and d) I know the data isn't private, available to anyone who asks pretty much.

Well I've punished them, by disabling s-health (stop the pedometer count as well) and I might even change a different launcher or lock screen that can provide me with weather data for a city I specify.

Australia ignores data retention in summer slack-off

They will do it anyway and we'll just get VPNs

Is what most IT minded people are probably thinking.

We have seen it so many times in the past, that we know no matter how much public opposition there is to something, the govt will press on with it anyway or the best we can hope for is reduce it a bit. For things like PPL (paid parental leave) scaling it back might be fine - but data retention is really a all or nothing proposal.

They just keep telling us that this will fight terrorism, and your un-australian if you don't want to fight terrorism.

TPG unplugs NBN rival fibre to the basement service

This headline is wrong

They are not "unplugging it" nor are they "not proceeding" with it.

They have simply delayed it's expansion and stopped selling new services, until they meet the new requirements.

This is required under the law. It will be back.

Cheap Android phones? Bah! How about a $29 mobe from Microsoft?

No 3G? Useless in some parts of the world...

...which are moving to shut down 2G services.

Telstra in Australia is doing it by December 2016, AT&T in the States will have it done by 2020, and there are rumours about many others.

Do yourself a favour and pay the extra $20 for a 3G device.

Acer to unveil a 15.6-INCH Chromebook WHOPPER at CES

No numpad?

The most disappointing part of the leaked photos of this for me are the fact the keyboard doesn't have numberic keys.

C'mon Acer - EVERY 15.6" notebook, especially one weighing in at 2.2kg, should have seperate numeric keys.

Do you know how difficult it is to do 2-factor authentication everyday without numeric keys? You have to peck and hunt at the top of the keyboard for the elusive 6 digits you are after.

Reg Oz chaps plot deep desert comms upgrade

When hardware replacement occurs, chromebooks?

Interesting set of articles in this series.

When the machines reach the end of their useful life, I wonder if they would be replaced by Chromebooks perhaps? Very cheap on electricity, google is very good at compressing web pages and reducing data use, etc.

I can't imagine there would be a huge number of windows specific apps that need to run, but this could be done in a VM to one Windows machine on the premises (all within the local LAN, so latency doesn't impact it), Surely that would be a cheaper hardware replacement route?

VPN users reckon Netflix is blocking them

This is how you treat paying customers?

Arr! Back to piracy it is, me matey!

Clearly the copyright cartels don't realise that generation y-not will pay for a good service, until it doesn't have the content they want, then they will just go to other places that DO have it.

They will never ever slow down piracy by discouraging people who want to put their hand in their pocket.

When hulu did this, they annoyed a lot of people, blocked some legit users in the USA, and then after all that the vpn companies (providing this access is part of their use case and business model) still found ways around it anyway and it's still possible to use hulu over vpn.

Christmas Eve email asked Oz telcos for metadata retention costs by Jan 9th

I'm no ISP expert, but...

...why is there all this talk of access sessions and log on/log off times.

My modem last logged off during a planned maintenance session on 25 November 2014. Let's say it's next log off is during another maint sesh on 25 June 2015.

Is the 7 months one session? I don't get it.

Fake Android The Interview app actually banking Trojan

Re: Installing an app from a random torrent is definitely smart

Do South Koreans even use google play?

If they do, Google has a feature where it can scan any app you manually install for malware, and prevent it's installation if it finds any, but you have to agree to this scanning the first time you install a non-market app.

Plus it's a good idea to have a security client on your phone like lookout, avast, avg, or norton. Some are free and some only cost $30 AU per year. Not that much to secure a phone that could have cost up to $1,000 and of course internet banking fraud will cost you a lot more than that.

Australia's future tech news headlines ... for 2016!

TPG will be the buyer, and competition is not foxtel's worst enemy

TPG or IINet would be the natural buyer IMO for the FTTP. TPG already have it's own rollout and iinet have no aversion to buying up ISPs in the past. Both have a lot of cash. Perhaps they could make a joint venture and buy it together?

Both charge significantly less for Internet than Telstra does, so the competition watchdog will be loving it.

Meanwhile, competition is not the worst enemy of foxtel. Access is. All the other streaming services allow any android tablet or smartphone to tap into the same account, but Foxtel/Presto only allow this on a handful of devices.

There are 2 other realities holding back any foxtel demise:

1) foxtel have all the sports rights in Australia - well all the rights that most Australians care about anyway, and they have successfully bribed Cricket Australia and AFL to limit the streaming bitrate in apps and Cricket won't show international matches at all. AFL is limited to 600kbps at 480p.

2) Telstra have loads of cash and a huge marketing budget to push foxtel hard and offer big discounts on contracts just before Netflix & Stan hit the market.

HE'S DONE IT! Malcolm Turnbull unites left and right with piracy policy

At least there are plenty of tutorials...

...for those new to VPNs, proxies, SSH tunnels, seedboxes, usenet over SSL and the like.

I remember back to TV news video of large groups of senior citizens learning how to bypass the government's internet filter (back in 2006 when an "internet filter" was a policy looking likely to happen) - all of those people can now apply the same lessons to their use of torrents, if they are using them.

In 2012 I thought we maybe had heard the end of the filter, when the policy was abandoned by the then labour government. Here in 2014 we are talking about it again, but instead of a focus on child pr0n we now have a focus on pirates.

Just like in the UK though, don't expect anything to be filtered until after the next election in 2016 - there is a small window of opportunity early next year where we could see it pushed through, but it seems there is enough opposition to this from enough senators to hopefully block it's passage for long enough that the government looks up, sees an election coming like a freight train, and ducks for cover on the issue again.

I hope.

For the sake of the uninformed Internet user anyway. We have enough a problem with the cost of living in this country as it is, without struggling low-middle income earners losing it at their teenage kids because they have a legal letter demanding $5,000 in payment that they don't have, and subsequently turning off the Internet all together, which leads to it's own set of problems (every one less connection to the Internet is a problem).

If that doesn't happen, then what happened in NZ is probably what will take place here:

Suddenly, connections of encrypted tunnels will surge and nobody (in the mass media) will be able to explain why. (since the mass media are the ones who bribed the pollies to have this reality in the first place, they will never admit they were wrong)

Toffee, Apple? U.S. fanbois get their sticky fingers on Nork-teasing flick The Interview

I enjoyed this movie...

...and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

(unlike a lot of these other commentators who have probably watched it 5 times since release but claim they hate it just to look cool)

I don't normally like this style of comedy, but this movie was engaging right to the end, had some genuinely funny moments and while there were definitely bits of the story that I thought were just completely stupid and shouldn't have been there, overall I thought it was a pretty good movie.

Sony would be $15 richer if they decided on a worldwide release of this movie, like they should have.

What were they thinking for a US only release when Australians are such huge bittorrent users?

Telstra to KILL 2G network by end of 2016

They will send SMS

Previous communications, such as the shutdown of the 3GIS network it purchased from 3, was done over SMS to affected phone services and this will be no different.

Also, Telstra's 3G network maps tend to be a bit conservative. A "blue tick" phone (that is one recommended for rural coverage) can often get reception on areas where the map shows they should have none.

There are not very many areas where 2G at 900mhtz works but 3G at 850mhtz does not. For the less than 0.5% of the population that might apply to, a few extra towers can be built, or new antennas added to existing sites.

This shutdown is nowhere near as significant as the shut down of CDMA was, or the shut down of AMPS (analogue) before that.

There is a 3rd option not mentioned in the article - those affected could move to Optus. Optus has the largest 2G network in Australia - it is geographically much bigger than Telstra's because since 2005 Telstra has been pouring all new money into 3G and Telstra's 3G network now covers over 2.3 million square kilometres.