Posts by Wayland

GitLab reset --hard bad1dea: Biz U-turns, unbans office political chat, will vet customers

Re: I don't understand people - Identity Politics

There is a difference between serving gays and baking a gay cake.

If what the gay is asking for is to store his source code on your server then that should be the same rules as for a straight.

However if that code is for a computer program to brainwash young children into having a sex change then I can see why one might want to disallow that.

The policy should be based on the actions the company is participating in when serving the customer not the customer's identity or what they do outside of their deal with the company.

In the case of the gay cake it was to feature the marriage of two men. The bakery would be promoting gay marriage by producing a cake like that. They would have felt the same had a straight person ordered the gay cake.

Re: Congratulations

I think depends on how much of what the customer does is brought into what the supplier is expected to do. Refusing to serve someone because they are gay or they eat babies is personal. Were as refusing to produce a gay cake or a cake featuring a baby being eaten is a business choice. If you don't know they are a baby eating gay then you won't express prejudice against them so best not to know unless it's necessary to know.

Any finger will do? Samsung Galaxy S10 with a screen protector reportedly easy to fool

A fingerprint is your ID you cannot change and which you leave copies of on everything you touch. Not a good choice for your secret password.

Re: Simple solution

Snowflake in this context means young person who never had a phone without a fingerprint reader and thinks Steve Jobs invented the Internet way back in 2009.

Re: In other words....

When you register the 'finger print' you are just registering the pattern produced by the screen protector not the finger. Any finger will do because it's only scanning the same screen protector once again.

It's not detecting a fingerprint

It's detecting the screen protector each time a finger is placed on the sensitive area. Since it's the same screen protector it scanned when it was set then of course it matches.

We're free in 3... 2... 1! Amazon unhooks its last Oracle database, nothing breaks and life goes on

It's not necessarily about money but strategy and policy. Being locked in is not a good position. What is learned in the process of migration maybe more valuable than the cost. Propitiatory solutions can mean an advantage but when I see statements such as "AWS does not have database technology as capable as ours" it assumes that Amazon is even using those capabilities.

Visual Studio Code gets more touch-feely, new Windows Server builds arrive for brave admins

Re: what, no "feature creep"?

2D FLATTY-ness? That's so Windows 2000 server.

How bad is Catalina? It's almost Apple Maps bad: MacOS 10.15 pushes Cupertino's low bar for code quality lower still

Re: Someone's been watching "Silicon Valley"

Windows Vista bad?

Well even Vista is better than Windows 10.

Get Woke, Go Broke

"Apple management, it seems, need to grow up if they can't handle the truth."

It's CurrentYear$ and feelings Trump facts. Tim Cooking Apple is an LGBT or something. Apple logo used to be a rainbow apple, I expect they will bring that back rather than fix the bugs.

Re: Scanner problem

A few years ago customer of mine bought a new printer from PC World which worked well on his MAC. Then he asked he to help with a major update. After that the printer would not work and was obsolete.

Re: You're holding it wrong!

He's taking the piss, he's not actually an SJW like Tim Apple.

Father of Unix Ken Thompson checkmated: Old eight-char password is finally cracked

Re: few days?

We know what the original poster was referring to but that was an artificial situation not real world.

If you lock something valuable with a crypto-key which takes 80 years to crack with present hardware it does not mean you have 80 years. That's the important point here.

Re: few days?

"Applying Moore's Law, that's about 25 cycles of exponential performance improvements. I.e. today it took 4 days, but 18 months ago it would have taken 8."

That's pretty good. The fastest hashing AMD GPU 18 months ago was an R9 390x with half the hash rate of the VEGA which came out about then. VEGA also uses about half the power to work twice as fast.

There are farms of these VEGA cards mining crypto. Even a 4 card rig could probably do it in a day.

So if anyone has already built such a Rainbow table then we're looking for a computer the size of several universes.

Your password cracker should be programmed to try 1,11,111 and 1,12,123 type of variations first before going through the whole ASCII set.

Re: DES

Yeah so you're forced to include a number when you created the password but your usual password is not working when you come to log in. That is sort of the point.

Windows 10 update panic: Older VMware Workstation Pro app broken

Re: it works on up to date versions

"Why are people running the old one?" in the article it said that the new VM may not run on the old hardware. Yes people should have spotted this coming but probably were timing it with their hardware refresh cycle. 'when we get the new hardware we will install the new VM ware'. Microsoft has forced their hand.

I expect they will be able to fix this by fitting new CPUs but it's a real hassle.

Re: And I was going to upgrade one of my home machines

No the deal breaker is that they still have not fixed Windows 10, it's still in beta.

Re: And they say Win10 is stable?

"Because Businesses run on Word, Excel and PowerPoint."

People love their MS Outlook 2010 even though it's a really poor IMAP client compared to say Thunderbird. Familiarity has locked them in more than any actual functionality.

There are features of MS Office that if you need them then you have no choice. For most people these probably aren't features they have ever used. Look how much people seem to be able to do on Smartphones these days. I personally feel like the phone is far too basic compared to any personal computer.

Re: @Boris - And they say Win10 is stable?

"When was the last time an important customer (not like you or me) ditched Windows in disgust and sent a note to Microsoft to let them know about it ?"

Pretty much everyone who surfs the Internet does so on a non-microsoft OS.

Many people using Windows don't need to, their computer came like that.

I downloaded a little Autocad DXF-PDF tool so my client can see Autocad drawings as PDF. My client does not use Autocad which I think only works on Windows but this little Windows tool downloaded, installed and ran on my Linux Mint PC just like it would on a Windows PC. WINE did it all without me doing anything.

It is the software developers keeping people on Windows but they don't even have to learn Linux to write programs for Linux. They just gotta make sure WINE can handle them.

Windows is living on it's fading legacy. Windows 7 is the last Windows for many people.

Re: And they say Win10 is stable?

"Are you too young to remember Vista? Or the original release of Win'95?"

With Vista we still had XP and then Windows 7. With Windows 10 we have Windows 7 support ending soon and no sign that Windows 10 will ever be fixed. It's well established that Windows 10 works this way. Get some updates and loads of things stop working and require time and effort to fix. You can't even control updates any more.

Windows 95 was a massive upgrade from Windows 3.1 for workgroups. but was eventually replaced by the NT4 line of OS.

Windows 10 offers nothing that cannot be done in Windows 7 except those things imposed on us. It takes away things which used to work fine such as storing files on a LAN server, much more difficult and frequent problems.

IR35 blame game: Barclays to halt off-payroll contractors, goes directly to PAYE

IR35 really screwed up contracting 20 years ago

Now they are trying to screw it up some more.

It's interesting how a company is an entity in it's own right like a person but IR35 is to undermine this.

A company is able to offer it's resources to the client such as computers and software it owns as well as perhaps more than one person able to work on the project.

The problem is the client really just wants a talented person to come and be an employee for a while.

The D in Systemd is for Directories: Poettering says his creation will phone /home in future

Re: That was a serious breath of fresh nerdiness

With Windows 10 the drive is often encrypted.

If it was by default them most people would encrypt their laptop drive. Different on a server as someone has to be there to unlock it, which they already are with a laptop.

The desktop is less of a problem since less opportunity to steal it. The password in RAM is a lesser problem with the desktop because you cannot suspend to RAM and then steal it.

Switch about to get real: Openreach bod on the challenge of shuttering UK's copper phone lines

Re: 'Open'reach?

Over Reach

Re: Bye Bye Fax

I think FAX machines have protocols that work over VoIP.

Stallman's final interview as FSF president: Last week we quizzed him over Microsoft visit. Now he quits top roles amid rape remarks outcry

Re: He should have stuck to what he knows

"I know plenty of people who are on the Aspergers' spectrum and who are perfectly social, friendly people without the sort of ideas that Stallman has not been able to shake his whole life." hardly an argument, there are plenty of smokers who live to 100.

Two years ago, 123-Reg and NamesCo decided to register millions of .uk domains for customers without asking them. They just got the renewal reminders...

Re: Inertia selling

"Since it is fraud: why not also report it to the police."

That idea is not as stupid as it first appears. The police have a sworn under oath to God and the Queen to issue the victim with a crime number. This is then an official record that it was reported. It will then come in handy when you take the case further.

Re: Inertia selling

Amazon Prime do a similar thing. Keep offering you Prime until either one day you click accept or they click it for you. Then it's free for a while but when £7 appears on your bank statement you don't notice.

Re: Shopping cart

It seems to be a thing with organizations these days to assume you're only in it for selfish reasons. They will whittle down your complaint to just that which affected you personally. I think that's why so many complaints we read about are were the person was traumatized. It's the only way you can get them to listen is if you threaten to sue them for mental anguish or racism or something else that's trendy. Sue them for money and they give you your £15 back.

The Great British domain name rip-off: Overcharged .uk customers help pay for cheaper .vodka

Re: Not expected?

The biggest selling point of the new TLDs is not to widen the choice but to increase the risk to existing businesses. The idea was isellfridges.co.uk would have to buy isellfridges.uk isellfridges.biz isellfridges.me and so on seemingly without limit. They shot themselves in the foot because in the old days you might have bought 3 others if you were paranoid but there are so many now that it's not a viable option. No one is going to buy isellfridges.tv and claim they are the real one when isellfridges.co.uk exists.

Re: Purely naive but...

I would say it's OK to operate this as a business but as the comment below puts it they are operating it like a mafia. As well as the service which we are happy to pay for they are generating situations where we are forced to buy something we don't want just so no one else can have it.

It could be worse. They could put your domain name up for auction to the highest bidder. There you are running your shop but every few months you have to out bid your competitors for your domain name.

Re: You missed to Primary/Only reason for this behaviour.

In principle it would be nice to shorten co.uk to .uk and that's how it was marketed. I thought that 123-reg would simply mirror anything I did on .co.uk into .uk without me having to do anything. I thought that practically they were the same domain.

It turns out they are entirely separate and the .uk names were mass generated based on .co.uk domains. I've not seen them do this before except when you seek a name and it offers alternative top levels like .eu and .biz.

It really is nothing more than a scam based on the threat of losing the name. Had they never created .uk in the first place no one would have missed it.

Re: Do not mis-type '.co.uk'

The rules would reduce sales. Not by much since as soon as you own xo.uk you can set up the hostnames for free. No where near as lucrative as .UK.

"Surely the answer there is just to police it better." yeah they will do that if there is money in it. There is money in letting people cybersit and money in people buying the name to prevent cybersitting. If it was policed then that's a lots sale.

Yes they made it easy to find oneself owning a .uk domain name for free. It made sense to stop cybersitting but should one actually make use of this handy free service? I have one customer who preferred the .uk name but generally .co.uk is an established tradition. Now do I let them lapse and hand them to the cybersitters or do I keep them?

Facebook: Remember how we promised we weren’t tracking your location? Psych! Can't believe you fell for that

Re: Interesting phrasing

I think you need to update yourself on that. Your IP maybe dynamic but your ISP provides a hostname to that IP. That hostname is not dynamic, it's yours, you can use it in place of having a static public IP which is handy. It also means since they can idividually ID your connection they can gather more and more info about you from where that hostname pops up. You will see it in the headers of emails so anyone will access to emails will be able to build a picture.

Re: Interesting phrasing

If you've got nothing of value you have nothing to fear from crooks.

Call Windows 10 anything you like – Microsoft seems to

Write to Bill Gates, I think he has that model printer.

Re: I've come to expect a certain amount of snark from El Reg, but this...

Using Apple is an active choice. Using Windows is the default.

Re: Given

"2) They are the only game in town for most businesses. Linux just isn't there yet for most of them."

It's a case of weighing up the costs and benefits. For some people Windows is the only choice but even for them they may not have to use Win 10. For other people it maybe that they think it will be too hard to move to Linux but it would actually be worth it.

When it comes to working with other people then it depends if you're calling the shots. If you can say "We're using Libre Office, get used to it" then other people can fairly easily switch to Libre whilst staying on Windows.

Effort needs to be put into WINE to make important programs work perfectly. The developers themselves could do this more easily than a 3rd party. However I suspect there is some kind of Microsoft Developer lock-in that prevents them from making their DLLs available under Linux WINE.

Re: "Naturally, all user data is wiped with this option"

"They don't what you to put your data on the HDD but in their cloud."

This is shown by how hard it is to network Windows 10 compared to Windows 7.

1. In Windows 7 they have something called Home Groups, not something I use but it's there to assist normal users with file sharing over the LAN. They've got rid of it in 10. I don't even think WORKGROUPs work any more.

2. If Windows 10 machine crashes or is turned off when running then the next boot it has a major fit. It will attempt to repair and then fail, losing users data and OS. This was a problem in the days of DOS but was fixed with NTFS so why is it back again?

Biz forked out $115k to tout 'Time AI' crypto at Black Hat. Now it sues organizers because hackers heckled it

Re: music’s infinite variability

I expect they are using music CDs as seed numbers.

Re: Why would you take that talk to BlackHat?

If they really are mathematicians then they could have shown the maths and the Black Hat nerds could have tested it.

Re: Why would you take that talk to BlackHat?

Strung along is exactly it. The plan to put it in front of some serious techies would show investors that you're serious. Actually doing it was a mistake.

Re: Look into my eyes

Like those people who make an entire video explaining the benefits of running your car on water without proving that they have it working. I think we know what the benefits would be, what we want to know is how to do it.

Re: quick, hide.

Translation: "This video is purely bullshit"

Staged Event

So they paid $115k to stage their disruptive technology event which was disrupted. It seems they can dish it out but can't take it.

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

Startling Windows

My brother set all the computers he touched to say Startling Windows instead of Starting Windows.

Re: @Pascal Monett -- BOFH potential for sure

"Type anything you want, you can't break it." was true of the home PCs where you could not save data or programs accidentally.

I think you can actually set fire to some computers by typing something. Like a crypto-mining rig that needs an instruction to lower the power usage before hammering the GPUs at 100%.