The choice of just a leading underscore to avoid the chance of clashing with existing records seems a bit silly anyway. Why not e.g. digicertdcv_123456789.example.com or similar, so (a) there's even less chance that someone would have created any such record for any other purpose, (b) it's immediately obvious what that record was for when you later look at the DNS zone, and (c) the lack of the prefix would be far more visually obvious than just an underscore missing?
Posts by David Precious
21 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Feb 2007
DigiCert gives unlucky folks 24 hours to replace doomed certificates after code blunder
Popular password protection programs p0wnable
Password generation instead of storage?
This is a reason I use a password generation tool (PasswordMaker, to be precise) rather than password storage - the tool, given the master password and the domain you're trying to access, generates the password you'll use to log in. You never need to store that password, as all you need to find out what it was is the master password and the domain (along with the settings you use - e.g. which hashing algo, password length and which characters are acceptable), and the master password never leaves the device.
It allows per-domain specific settings overriding elements of the defaults, too - so if a site you used it for is compromised, you can create a custom config for that site which causes the password generated to be different to what it was before.
Lawyer sues Microsoft rather than slot an SD card into his Surface
El Reg in email address blunder
AlertMe network power-meter kit: Suitable for techies?
Turning stuff off and on?
You briefly mentioned:
"AlertMe can track energy use for the whole house online, and I can turn stuff on and off from my phone or laptop while I'm out to confuse would-be burglars."
How's that work, then? You didn't mention that in any further detail at all. Obviously that can't be achieved via the clamp sensor thingy - does it mean that if you have the plug-in monitoring widget, you can turn whatever is connected to that on/off remotely?
Agreed, why subscription?
I'd be more likely to consider something like this if the "hub" stored the data and provided an internal web interface. £20 a year for that data to be sent up to their servers (where it's out of your control) so you can use their pretty web interface doesn't sound too appealing to me at least.
Xboxer SWATTED by armed cops after online spat
He wasn't the target of social engineering...
The impression I get is that the social engineering techniques weren't used on *him* - they were likely used on Microsoft's XBox support people, contacting them and pretending to be him, and convincing them to reset the password / disable the account / whatever.
If that's the case, there's not a lot he could do about it, and needs to be having words with MS.
Of course, I suspect that there's a fair chance he's doing something to make himself a target, by pissing people off unnecessarily.
Nokia E6 smartphone
No USB charger?
I'm mildly surprised that Nokia continue to use their own proprietary charger plugs, rather than using mini/micro USB sockets like pretty much everyone else seems to have standardised upon these days. Mini/micro USB chargers and leads are pretty ubiquitous these days, making it easier to borrow a charger/cable when needed. (Granted, Nokia chargers were everywhere at one point when Nokia ruled the mobile phone market, but not so much any more, at least in my experience.)
XXX domain names go live
Weak protest
Not sure giving them your money to register some .xxx domains is a particularly effective way to protest against them :)
Unless you registered, say, howtoblock.xxx, and put up a website with lots of clear instructions to help the average parents to block access to anything in the .xxx TLD.
Not that that would help anyone much of course, as all the porn sites already using .com/.net etc aren't going to suddenly move to .xxx domains and drop their old domains!
Photoshopped image scam used in rogue Facebook app trap

"No malware is getting spread through the ruse, at least at present."
Um, no malware? I'd say the "rogue application which sends messages to their contacts via the social network's IM feature, thus continuing the infection cycle" could certainly be considered malware, even if it does no direct damage to the host or attempt to steal information at present.
Kentucky man denies drunk driving, blames blow job
Huawei to gift underground coverage to London
Kid spanks a grand on Xbox using Mum's bank card

Plans to contact a solicitor?
For f**ks sake, take some personal responsibility for your child's actions rather than trying to blame someone else. Of course "Barclays and Microsoft both deny liability over the already-paid bill", and quite rightly so.
You set your kid up with an XBox Live membership (for which a cursory Google would suggest the minimum age specified is 13 anyway), input your card details for him to use, and then get all upset that he used them?
Where's the old-fashioned ideas of supervising your children so you know what they're doing, and taking responsibility for their actions? Grow up woman.
Sainsbury's techie jailed for loyalty card scam
Victimless?
Victimless crime? I'd say the victim is Sainsburys, from whom he stole ~8k. Yes, it's a large company and the effect of that isn't going to be as big as if he'd robbed little 73-year-old Edna of her life savings, but he was still stealing money, in a continuous and pre-meditated fashion (i.e. it wasn't a spur of the moment act of desperation or any such thing).
Certainly won't argue that there's plenty in society who deserve the punishment more than he does, though!
Nominet forgets what the first .uk domain name was
Q: Why pay for DNS?

Incorrect route announcements != DNS
I'm sorry, but what does a dodgy Chinese ISP incorrectly announcing IP ranges have to do with DNS?
It's all fine and dandy if your DNS resolves correctly, but if someone else has announced that IP block and the routers between your users and your servers route the customer's traffic the wrong way based on that announcement, DNS isn't going to help you there, no matter how much you might be paying for "premium" DNS services.
Cable broadband shines in Virgin Media Q2

Fast for me
I'm on the 20Mbps package, and I regularly get 2MB/s from decent sites.
When I first upgraded to it, I was disappointed that it barely seemed to reach half that speed - then I realised the NIC in my gateway connected to the cable modem had negotiated at 10Mbps rather than 100Mbps - so there was no way I could get full speed until I forced it to use 100Mbps.
I wonder if some of the people complaining about low speeds have similar problems? NICs running at 10 instead of 100, or using old 802.11b (11Mbps) wireless kit, and wondering why they're not getting 20Mbps? :)
BOFH: PFY's mum pays a visit
MySQL is the company's SQL now...
Don't overlook PostgreSQL
If you want a serious database (for something a little more involved than just storing basic data for a simple web app) don't overlook PostgreSQL (www.postgresql.org).
PostgreSQL is a much more serious database which has had full ACID compliant transactions, triggers/stored procedures, constraints, foreign keys... all the "enterprise class" features which enterprise users want.
It also doesn't mangle your data to fit, unlike MySQL.
Like MySQL, it's free and open-source, although you can go and pay for commercial support if you feel you need it.
BTW No offence intended to MySQL, it's a great project, a very fast database server which powers so many websites and projects, but I wouldn't use it for something where data integrity is critical.
Cheers
Dave P
(no connection with PostgreSQL other than being a happy user)