Posts by //DLBL SYSRES

Apple's T2 custom secure boot chip is not only insecure, it cannot be fixed without replacing the silicon

A handy hack for security services but they already know...

Capita's bespoke British Army recruiting IT cost military 25k applicants after switch-on

Does anyone know if Capita have ever delivered a working system, on time and on budget?

When a deleted primary device file only takes 20 mins out of your maintenance window, but a whole year off your lifespan

That feeling ...

Hit CR key

2ms later bowels turn to water

1 sec in, can’t focus and it feels like head is in a clamp.

2 secs start thinking like you’ve never thunk before ...

Analogue radio given 10-year stay of execution as the UK U-turns on DAB digital future

Nice

This is one of those very rare occasions on Reg when (nearly) everyone agrees. DAB as implemented is crap.

Hello, support? What do I click if I want some cash?

Re: Barclays don't dogfood their IT

ISTR that engine liked its oil changed frequently otherwise the crank oilways got clogged with muck.

Fancy that: Hacking airliner systems doesn't make them magically fall out of the sky

Re: Natural vs. artificial intelligence

These are an aid, a convenience, they're not needed to fly an aircraft safely although they can take guesswork out of the procedure. Counterwise, they can make for lazy pilots. (I have a pilots licence some years ago).

Microsoft's little eyes light up as Oscar-winning Taika Waititi says Apple keyboards make him 'want to go back to PCs'

Re: Show a PC keyboard?

Still have a few working, they need and adaptor or two but they are soooo good.

We are absolutely, definitively, completely and utterly out of IPv4 addresses, warns RIPE

Re: SimonC

*the* Reg response of 2019. Top bloke.

Chancers keep buying up dot-UK company name domains: Got a problem? That'll be £750 for Nominet to rule on it

I have personal experience of this. I as a classic case of passing off, it was obvious but Nominet made me jump through some very expensive hoops to secure the name. It had been registered by a Panamanian company. The most recent event was much more simple, a very similar name was taken by a UK competitor, a simple letter from our solicitor put the fear of God into them, the company name, website and limited company had been taken down within a week.

Nominet are hugely unethical, they should never issue a trademarked domain name to anyone other than the tradmark owner.

Helen Fospero makes yet another Brit telly presenter to win IR35 case against taxman

HMRC are heartless, vindictive and believe themselves to be above the law. Many years ago I had a long running fight with them. They'd decided that as I'd earnt 100k one year and paid tax on it voluntarily I'd earn the same the following year. Without any checking, form filling or request for information they issued a bill for 36k which they insisted I paid. Long story short, it took a year to sort out, massive accountants fees, endless meetings and one hell of a lot of stress. I think is cost me personally 5k in professional fees overall.

It ended in a final meeting at the Accountants office where they settled for a 150 quid liability. This wasn't really owed but was agreed so they could save face and say they'd got a positive result from an investigation. Agreeing this went against the grain but it got them off my my back for a few years. Arrogant doesn't begin to cover it.

COBOL: Five little letters that if put on a CV would ensure stable income for many a greybeard coder

Re: About 10 years ago...

Was that at JCCC in Southend? The Ekco social club ...

Re: First language

Parity errors. It was a long time back but parity errors popped back in to my aged head. They where a PIA.

Wanted: Big iron geeks to help restore IBM 360 mainframe rescued from defunct German factory by other big iron geeks

Re: A couple of potential problems

The 360/20's worked ok in large office environments, as long as there was a high ceiling and opening windows.

The very machines on which I started in computing. All punched card, no mag stuff. Marconi Marine, Chelmsford. Wipes tear from eye.

Brit broadband download speeds are still below the global average, hoots Ofcom

No one ever mentions the port contention at the exchange. It’s akin to putting a set of traffic lights at major motorway junctions. It’s the thoughput of the ports on the switch that really matters, business accounts do better than home accounts. It’s all pretty much a con.

It's alive! Hands on with Microsoft's Chromium Edge browser

Re: Privacy? We've heard of it,

Firefox does a decent syncing job between disparate devices,

Brit broadband giants slammed as folk whinge about crap connections, underwhelming speeds

Re: Gmail?

I've a few GMX accounts, never had a problem with them. I use Microsoft for my primary email, again I've never had a problem. I've never used ISP emails, that way madness lies. Doesn't Yahoo! provide email hosting for BT?

Nobody in China wants Apple's eye-wateringly priced iPhones, sighs CEO Tim Cook

Re: Overpriced kit

I’m sticking with Windows phones for as long they’re available. Picked a brand new Lumia 950 for £90 in December. It does more than I need. Can’t be doing with Android flakeware and Apple atttude is annoyingly arrogant.

Did you hear? There's a critical security hole that lets web pages hijack computers. Of course it's Adobe Flash's fault

Irony alert.

Trustwave, a PCI validation company used by PayPal amongst others to ensure that online stores and shops with credit card terminals are PCI compliant use Adobe Flash for their GUI.

https://login.trustwave.com/portal-core/home/

RIP Charles Wang: Computer Associates cofounder dies aged 74

I recall CA-Sort being a massive improvement on the IBM DOS sort. Rapido.

Sure, Europe. Here's our Android suite without Search, Chrome apps. Now pay the Google tax

Quite surprised as to the number of people who believe Chrome to be a good product.

Re: Is this a joke?

Aquamail is a decent product. Gmail is far too intrusive.

Re: Is this a joke?

I've pretty much de-Googled my life now, the last Android phone only used Play. Purchased a Lumia 940 for very little money and find it much more usable than the mess that is Android. Google are the new Evil Empire - it used to be IBM back in the day.

Re: At least Google have put a price on how slurpy Chrome is

Only for compatibility testing

Google taking action against disguised code in Chrome Web Store

Again...

First 'issue-free' build of Windows 10 October 2018 Update arrives

Re: No, I will not switch out the lights.

I've just switched from Android back to WM10 as I was sick to the back teeth of Android and its tracking crap amateur apps. I purchased a "refurbished" (new) Lumia 950, 32Gb for under a £100. This appears to be considerably better built than the Sony it replaced - even if the Sony was considerably tougher than than anything that Samsung produces. Performance is pretty good too.

Banking apps I can live with, it's one thing less to worry about if the phone gets nicked. Which reminds me, the Lumia facial recognition is PDG.

A third of London boroughs 'fess to running unsupported server software

We kept a 2000 server alive until this year solely for the free TS licences that were transferable to Windows 2003. Saved a few quid, now dead,

Unpicking the Pixel puzzle: Why Google is struggling to impress

Such is my dislike of Android and all its Google influence, I went and purchased a second hand Lumia 950 for very little money. It does all I need a phone to do but above all, answering a call does not require a five finger shuffle and it's simple and intuitive.

Have to use SMB 1.0? Windows 10 April 2018 Update says NO

Some small Kyocera lasers are also SMB1. Took me an age to work around that problem on 2008 with RDP on Windows 10 clients.

IPv6 growth is slowing and no one knows why. Let's see if El Reg can address what's going on

I have just done a tiny bit of reading up on IPV6 - delayed because I don't research until I really need too. Could they have actually made it any more complex? It's akin to jumping from a 1950's car that is perfectly functional into some Dan Dare vehicle that is equally capable of queueing in a traffic jam down the Marylebone Road or nipping over to Alpha Centauri for lunch, via the Marianas Trench. This must have been defined by the committee normally responsible for creating tech European legislation. The fact that it's so hard to understand must have been a factor in the low uptake.

Google's socially awkward geeks craft socially awkward AI bot that calls people for you

Knowledge is power and Google are certainly sucking up a lot of personal data.

We sent a vulture to IBM's new developer conference to find an answer to the burning question: Why Big Blue?

Ignoring the rhetorical nature of the headline, I always thought they were called Big Blue (aka It's Being Mended) because their kit was usually blue, grey and cream and it was a stonkingly large and powerful company.

You need to think in 1970 terms. No one got fired for buying IBM.

Cryptocurrencies to end in tears, says investor wizard Warren Buffett

What on earth do you spend crypto currency on? Not seen any supermarkets take it, or any car dealers, or house builders. It all seems rather risky and above all pointless.

French gov files €10m complaint: Claims Amazon abused dominance

Re: It seems...

Speaking from personal experience, their treatment of companies using their services is dire. It’s expensive and painful but great for the consumer. The on costs and commissions charged are extortionate.

We have introduced product that wasn’t on their site that once it proved to be be a good seller, Amazon started selling the same thing, bypassing us. Unethical gits.

Customer satisfaction is our highest priority… OK, maybe second-highest… or third...

Re: Public wifi?

Cash is expensive to bank and bloody inconvenient for retailers.

"How much for cash?" can and should result in a more expensive bill.

Re: "coffee please"

In Hoxton: "Nice Apple Watch bro, is that the ceramic one? What beard oil are you rocking?"

Someone on the pull there.

WTF were you doing in Hoxton anyway?

Linux, not Microsoft, the real winner of Windows Server on ARM

This subject needs a reality check.

We run windows servers of various types and will do so for as long as we need to support legacy software. There is no way on Gods good earth are we going to change a stack of perfectly good software that works day in and day out without problem just to get down with the freebie kids.

It'll be a waste of time and money.

ISIS videos, adtech, and the 'smartest guys in the room' (Google)

Google are just weird, hypocritical extortionists who pay lip service to safety. On our Google shopping data feed, we cannot list sailing knives, liferafts (because they contain flares), pyrotechnics and anything else slightly pointy. We can however list aluminium powder which can be used as the basis of a very effective explosive device.

OT - we now cannot have copyright notices on product graphics. Having one on the image will result in a ban.

I fucking hate Google and all their works.

BBC to demand logins for iPlayer in early 2017

The licence fee should be scrapped and the BBC made to use subscriptions and/or advertising to generate cash. It seems unreasonable that you cannot view any broadcast TV without it, bearing in mind all other broadcasters have to raise their income from advertising.

I gave up on Broadcast TV and the BBC licence a few years ago as I spend six months a year out of the country. The Numpties enforcing the fee (Crapita?) could not understand my reluctance to pay for a service I was not receiving, so I abandoned negotiation and told them to poke their licence where the sun doesn't shine. This has lead to a series of interesting, yet threatening letters which stop just short of a delivering plague of boils.

I now subscribe to Netflix and use radio and internet as a news source. I cannot say I miss BBC TV (or the others) one little bit and I get the added benefit of a monthly enforcement letter from the goons. This month, it features a threat to turn up with a search warrant. They never give up, they just recycle the letter series.