Posts by Gecko

JavaScript, GitHub, AWS crowned winners in massive survey of 32,000 developers

Re: A survey of nearly 32,000

They can probably stretch to 64k as they could get away with using an unsigned integer.

The M in M1 is for moans: How do you turn a new MacBook Pro into a desktop workhorse?

eGPU maybe

Does the M1 work with eGPUs?

My Linux Huawei laptop uses an eGPU as my main ride.

One usb-c connection gives me power, external NVIDIA gpu with multiple screens, network, USB ports for kbd/mouse etc.

Look! Fitbit's made a watch that doesn't suck!

Once burnt...

Switched over to a Fenix 5 after my Pebble Steel, averaging 12 days between charges. I'm not rushing back.

Can't really see the market for a 4 day watch, it's not smart enough to compete with Android or Apple devices, and it doesn't have the fitness smarts of a Garmin, Suunto, TomTom etc.

Samsung's Galaxy 9s debut, with not much other than new cameras

I really wish they'd commit properly to the dex device and add proper Linux support. It immediately changes the phone from just a phone to a dual function unit that justifies the extra cost.

Keeping Android up to date is another must have feature now. If Google and now Nokia can do this then Samsung will have to up it's game.

TfL to track Tube users in stations by their MAC addresses

Anonymous mac

It is my understanding that most modern phones now Amanda's their mac addresses when negotiating with access points - specifically to stop shopping malls etc from tracking them. This will also apply to the underground network. They won't see the same device id entering and exiting. They'd better check this before they invest too much.

AWS: We're gonna make mobile apps great again with Lambda functions

Re: Lambda your API

Lambda in this sense is the AWS lambda service rather than the programming pattern of lambda functions. An AWS lambda service is a serverless piece of code written in Node.js or Python typically. It's entry point is exposed via API gateway as a restful end point that your mobile app consumes.

Inter-bank system SWIFT on security? User manual needs 'revamp’

I'm surprised that banks are still capturing messages directly on SWIFT terminals. I'd expect they'd have all moved to STP (straight through processing) by now. Using this, the core banking app will validate all components of a transaction and it will be consistently reported and reconciled. Using a dual capture channel for messaging will always be a security risk as there's too many places to hide things. SWIFT's network is pretty robust, but at some point there is human input and banks should assume responsibility for guarding those points. Disclaimer - I built STP functionality between SWIFT systems and banking apps for a 3rd world bank 20 years ago, so this is not something new.

Perth SmartRider public transport cards popped by student researchers

For a government that claims to be committed to innovation this is really silly. We need to stop shooting the messenger. It's the criminals who are secretly using these vulnerabilities we should be targeting. I bet these students are finding our what an exciting time it is to be an Australian.

How Apple's early VR experiments accidentally led to RSS

I'm surprised your article makes no mention of Aaron Schwartz, as he's frequently quoted as the inventor of RSS, but he would have been about 14 in 2000.

Oz propaganda lists 'alternative music, environmentalism' as TERROR THREATS

Free Karen

You can watch this whole saga unwinding hilariously on Twitter: #freekaren

Oz metadata retention won't include URLs: report

It's just the last mile

Just finished reading the pdf.

Basically we can reasonably assume that they are capable of capturing the full flow of internet traffic on there own.

What had always been the hard part is to trace back from a dynamically assigned ip address to a physical Mac (or IMEI on mobiles). This allocation, and it's relation to a username and billing contact always occurs inside the isp and is invisible to gov unless they specifically request it. Once they get this, all data can be traced to a named individual.

This is why they can state that they don't want the url or ip addresses - they already have that.