Posts by herman

I want to buy a coffee with an app – how hard can it be?

Hmm, ten years ago, my bank had two factor authentication with a security token and everything worked nicely - I could pay bills online and transfer money to other banks for about 2 years of happiness. Then, they started to improve the system security and features. Now, nothing works and I have to use an ATM to get cash, to take to an exchange service to pay bills or send to another bank...

Tech to solve post-Brexit customs woes doesn't exist yet, peers say

It sounds like Blighty needs to revive some gubmint officials from the 19th century to teach the children how to rule the waves again.

Developer goes rogue, shoots four colleagues at ERP code maker

Well, it is hard not to gloat when Americans are killing Americans, since it is much preferable over Americans killing other people elsewhere in the world.

30-up: You know what? Those really weren't the days

DnD - That is Dungeons'n Dragons innit?

Flying to Mars will be so rad, dude: Year-long trip may dump 60% lifetime dose of radiation on you

It may make things a lot easier if we would move Mars into orbit with the Moon.

Oi, you. Equifax. Cough up half a million quid for fumbling 15 million Brits' personal info to hackers

So, the credit history and ID of the Cockney is worth about a tuppence. That sounds pretty high innit?

How an augmented reality tourist guide tried to break my balls

For Mme Dabbs

Some balls are held for charity

And some for fancy dress

But when they're held for pleasure

They're the balls that I like best

My balls are always bouncing

To the left and to the right

It's my belief that my big balls

Should be held every night

Microsoft accidentally let encrypted Windows 10 out into the world

Ayup - I'm a Windoze Insider, but W10 only gets installed on a virtual machine on a Mac.

Chromebooks gain faff-free access to Windows file shares via Samba

Marvellous. Konqueror could do that 15 to 20 years ago already.

Skype can now record your 'special moments' in front of the computer

Eh? On any half decent computer it is trivial to record video/audio.

European nations told to sort out 'digital tax' on tech giants by end of year

GST vs VAT

GST voids profit shifting. VAT encourages it.

Microsoft gives Windows 10 a name, throws folks a bone

Re: May I humbly suggest...

Here, there be dragons.

‘Very fine people’ rename New York as ‘Jewtropolis’ on Snapchat, Zillow

So, who took exception to that - the Jews or the Gentiles?

Spies still super upset they can't get at your encrypted comms data

Re: Wack a Mole

"Nobody should "homebrew" crypto." That is a very tired and elitist attitude.

You are basically saying that everybody is stupid, except you.

Fast food, slow user – techie tears hair out over crashed drive-thru till

Re: @ Douchus McBagg

Eh? Your tea is sitting in the retractable cup holder under your desk...

Salesforce boss Marc Benioff objects to US immigration policy so much, he makes millions from, er, US immigration

Re: US born workers. I only have one question for you.

...or an Americunt...

Re: Help from a broad

I think you mean 'a broad'.

Re: Not talking about "Mexicans" here

"Mexican engineers" - they can get a NAFTA work visa on entry to the US or Canada.

UK getting ready to go it alone on Galileo

You can use a backstaff or a sextant. Then you need not look at the sun.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backstaff

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sextant

It doesn't even need batteries.

Re: UK has the resources

Do you realize that the UK existed and was very successful a long time before the EEC/EU?

Dropping the continental bunch of socialists isn't exactly an earth shattering problem.

It may be poor man's Photoshop, but GIMP casts a Long Shadow with latest update

Re: Forget the geeky stuff, sort out the user experience.

I never used Photoshop and once when I tried it, the UI was bloody awful. The GIMP is so much more logical and intuitive and it is properly designed for use on three screens - try to use Photoshop on three dissimilar screens - a total disaster.

London's Gatwick Airport flies back to the future as screens fail

ADS-B

Hmm, where is my RTL SDR dongle and adsb program when I need it?

Gartner's Great Vanishing: Some of 2017's emerging techs just disappeared

Trough

Obviously the trough of disillusionment has a big drain that ideas go down in.

Distro inferno: Debian's still rocking at 25

Re: Stable for servers

For maximum stable servers with uptime requirements of several years, I prefer OpenBSD and Slackware. For personal machines, I prefer Kubuntu or Fedora though.

Three more data-leaking security holes found in Intel chips as designers swap security for speed

Re: Going a bit overboard, El Reg

No, RIM folded when they subverted their own security and gave keys to their servers to the UAE and India. When their users realized that there is no security advantage anymore, they left RIM and bought iPhones and Androids. So RIM got a few payments from a few governments and lost their whole business.

Hackers can cook you alive using 'microwave oven' sat-comms – claim

I actually build microwave radios and wish it was so simple to cook things with it. It would make the work a lot more fun.

Intel: Yeah, yeah, 10nm. It's on the todo list. Now, let's talk about AI...

Tiny elephant

10 nm is a very tiny elephant in the room. Intel's problems is really only a trifling matter. No biggie.

Just pocket change. Nothing to worry about.

Top Euro court: No, you can't steal images from other websites (too bad a school had to be sued to confirm this little fact)

Re: Prepare for...

Agreement in 'principal' - Well, you know, publick skool edumakashun, no child left behind and all that...

Going public again would swell profits by two-thirds, claims Dell

Pump and Dump on a Grand Scale

Repeatedly ripping off the public in this way is legalized robbery.

Researcher found Homebrew GitHub token hidden in plain sight

Re: wow.

...and how likely is it that hundreds of individual devs will be targeted and compromised by the NSA/GCHQ/FSB...?

Top tip? Sprinkle bugs into your code to throw off robo-vuln scanners

The old honey pot defence. It only works if the added cruft is actually safe, otherwise, it provides a very large number of unlocked back doors into your system.

In general, a honey trap toy can be great fun to play with, but usually requires a lot of work to maintain.

Chip flinger TSMC warns 'WannaCry' outbreak will sting biz for $250m

Re: Tool?

Ayup - it sounds like they have quite a few tools in their IT department.

Re: so installing critical security patches

Microsoft's other operating system is rather more stable and secure than Windows.

AI on Raspberry Pi, Waymo touts robo-rides to Arizonians, and more

Fake news detection is really easy. Does it come from any American source? If so, then it is Fake News. Does it come from anywhere else? If so, then it is also Fake News. La voila.

Build your own NASA space rover: Here are the DIY JPL blueprints

Re: Launch Vehicle?

Here is a launcher for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZxCEkGk6HI

New Zealand school on naughty step after ransomware failure

This kind of shit is stopped by SELinux and AppArmor. Windows also has mandatory access control, but it is (obviously) not implemented correctly.

Facebook deletes 17 accounts, dusts off hands, beams: We've saved the 2018 elections

Wells Fargo

What is to stop Facebook from going all Wells Fargo and create thousands of fake accounts themselves, only to delete them publicly later?

Maybe I should suggest it to them...

FBI boss: We went to the Moon, so why can't we have crypto backdoors? – and more this week

Re: @LeeE -- Man on the sun

Transparent Aluminium exists actually. It is maybe better known as saphire or ruby.

Re: even if you can survive the heat and radiations, and be able to decelerate enough in such g

The sun indeed does have a very solid surface. See this very nice astronomy web site: http://thesurfaceofthesun.com/

Re: Man on the sun

Err... the sun does have a very solid surface. See this, it is a very nice astronomy web site: http://thesurfaceofthesun.com/

Re: Eggs out of pancakes

Eh? Didn't your mommy teach you that white cows make white milk and brown cows make brown milk?

The internet's very own Muslim ban continues: DNS overlord insists it can freeze dot-words

NSL?

This actually reeks of a National Security Letter.

The Solar System's oldest minerals reveal the Sun's violent past

100 micron meteorites

You can actually sweep up meteorite dust from your home roof. Fresh space dust is always sifting down on us.

Ecuador's Prez talking to UK about Assange's six-year London Embassy stay – reports

This bloke really overstayed his welcome. He should be extradited to a nice little volcanic island off the coast of Antarctica.

Sysadmin trained his offshore replacements, sat back, watched ex-employer's world burn

Re: Not in IT...

I think it is obvious that when a Personnel Office gets renamed to Human Remains office, that things will be going down hill.

Some of you really don't want Windows 10's April 2018 update on your rigs

Windows is the VW Beetle of operating systems. It is always broken, always needs maintenance and everyone always tells you how wonderful it is.

Oracle Database 18: Now in downloadable Linux flavour

"The RPM download will take a couple of weeks": Wow, Oracle Linux is that slow?

You can take off the shades, squinting Outlook.com users. It has gone dark. Very dark

Hmm, where is my Hercules card, green monitor and log printer...

ReactOS 0.4.9 release metes out stability and self-hosting, still looks like a '90s fever dream

Doubt? The fecking floppies didn't work reliably in 1995, so I don't expect any of them to work now.

Form an orderly queue, people: 31,000 BT staff go to Openreach in October

Re: Step 2.

No.

Step two is Launch.

Step three is Arrive at a mouse infested planet and create a pension fund from leaves.