Posts by steviebuk

IoT CloudPets in the doghouse after damning security audit: Now Amazon bans sales

And this will continue...

...with all IoT. Security is expensive. Most people don't bother with security or assume an IoT is secure because they aren't a tech or both. The amount of times I've tried to explain simple security processes to people for them to visibly stop listening to me makes me give up.

Them - "The login is saying Other User".

Me - Yes that's a security feature so it doesn't show the last person who logged on. So they don't have an account to then attack.

Them - "But I don't want to be a Other User".

Me - No it's because....oh never mind. Just type your user name and login.

Buy your IoT but don't say I didn't warn you when someone does a DDOS on your IoT lights and you now find out you can no longer turn them on, so have to sit there doing a poo in the dark.

At last: Magic Leap reveals its revolutionary techno-goggles – but wait, there's a catch

What shocks me...

...is how someone can sit in front of the camera and lie/mislead so easily.

You must be desperate for a pay cheque to be able to sit there and talk bollocks, knowing you're talking bollocks but feel nothing.

Or maybe that's it. You just feel nothing so don't care what you say. Don't care if its misleading or not, as long as you get paid.

The Q&A was funny though. As they made questions up, reading the comments about the made up questions was funny. Well if you're going to continue trying to sell made up tech, of course you're also going to make up questions that were never asked.

I have a question...

Will Magic Leap stickers be provided?

Watchdog slams TSB boss for underplaying extent of IT meltdown

Same old.

I hate that saying, but then I hate most sayings for some reason. But it fits well. I bet it's the same old issue of under funded IT.

When will they learn? Never, while they can still get away with it.

Visa Europe fscks up Friday night with other GDPR: 'God Dammit, Payment Refused'

Didn't think I got hit....

...my M&S lunch sandwich payment went through on that Friday. But then last night looked at my GSuite account last night and noticed payment had been rejected. I was confused. My credit card is fully paid off. Was about to talk to them today until I double checked. Then realised it was rejected on the Friday, during the "Great VISA crash". So that explains it then. As my bank gave Google "No reason for rejection" at the time of rejection.

SAP hopes to blow the doors off Salesforce with a block of C/4HANA

Hmm...

...I already see it as a fail due to the shit name

C/4HANA

What?

Ex-CEO on TalkTalk mega breach: It woz 'old shed' legacy tech wot done it

So...

...business bods are expected to listen to a person who didn't appear to give a shit about security despite said company having been hit before and someone who, it sounds, was clearly cutting IT budgets.

Bet clueless directors and execs will go away from her talks thinking it was great ignoring the fact massive security breaches happened on her watch that should never have.

Schadenfreude for UK mobile networks over the tumult at Carphone

I haven't....

....for years purchased a phone that wasn't unlocked. So carphone warehouse haven't done anything wrong there. If I can't afford a phone unlocked outright then I don't buy it. I'm not paying a network to get the latest phone for it to only be locked to them and at the end of the contract know you paid more for the phone than if you'd got it unlocked.

NASA spots asteroid on crash course with Earth – with just hours to go

The only site that...

...I forgive for clickbait headlines.

Nadella tells worried GitHub devs: Judge us by our actions

Re: "Judge us by our actions"

I was gonna say something similar. Considering, although Windows 10 is good, he rammed it and continues to ram it down peoples throats we will never trust him. Not until he gives as back control of Windows updates.

Like the laptop at work today I was working on. Moved it to an OU with no policies. Then wondered why was going a little slow. It decided it was going to download 1803 and install it without asking. Lucky I caught it as it was downloading and not installing. The app packages he forces on work machines. Why does an office laptop fucking need xbox shit and minecraft.

Although they didn't kill the sysinteral tools, thankfully, I suspect they will fuck up github. If they do, expect the share holders to start looking to kick SatNav out.

Microsoft commits: We're buying GitHub for $7.5 beeeeeeellion

And another thing....

...although reading they will be staying independent it looks like Chris will become a technical fellow at MS so will have to work for them.

This happened with WinInternals. When they got bought out by Microsoft it made Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell rich men (I assume). However, both had to become Technical Fellows at MS first for a few years as part of the deal. Appears Mark enjoyed it and is still there. But Bryce, the day the clause was up, retired. Whether that's due to not enjoying working at MS or just deciding he'd rather just enjoy life and the money he now has only he knows.

Hmm...

....not sure about this. I think Nadella will balls it up and instead of leaving it as is, with interfere with it making it worth a lot less than what they've paid for it. Especially if he turns it into a subscription based service, then he'll knock billions off it's worth.

I assume all the competitors code will be staying? Or will they have to pay a fee? Like GAM for GSuite that is run by an independent but for Googles E-mail system instead of Exchange.

Help, I'm being held prisoner in a security camera testing factory. So please read this...

I want a camera....

...with my own storage. I don't want to have to buy a camera and then have to pay a sub for cloud storage. Although I have been disparaging before, I think Smartwater is also a good idea now. Just using a UV pen is cheaper but the easy of just slapping Smartwater on anything makes it easy to use. The part I don't like is the yearly sub. And the fact you're "licencing" their stickers that they give you. If you stop the sub, you have to remove all display stickers. How they'd police that is anyone's guess (essentially they can't police it). So if you can get hold of the stickers, although technically against their rules (I don't know what law you'd be breaking if any), you could just stick "Protected by Smartwater" stickers in your windows. Apparently most burglars avoid places with Smartwater. How true that is I don't know.

Ex-US pres Bill Clinton has written a cyber-attack pulp thriller. With James Patterson. Really

Sounds...

...bad.

For some decent books like this but still slightly cheesy check out Mark Russinovich's books. Start with Zero Day.

Serverless Computing London: Time running out on blind bird tickets

So is this just....

...£600 for adverts. So these "speakers" get to sell you their bollocks warez or their "ideas" so you then use their "consulting" service.

Maybe I just get annoyed as I'm unable to be a consultant who makes loads of money talking bollocks because I have a conscience.

Doctor, doctor! My NHS Patient Access app has gone TITSUP*

That's more than likely management refusing to pay people for overtime or to be on call. So, quite rightly, all the engineers will refuse to work unless paid or given time off in lieu.

VMware declares energy-guzzling blockchains 'immoral'

Software As A Service ):o(

The cloud although useful annoys me. Maybe as I have a massive fear of being made redundant because of it. But also, Directors who haven't got a clue believe in the bullshit consultants tell them. Believing that putting EVERYTHING in the cloud will be cheaper (it's not).

So SaaS, to be blunt, fucking annoys me. There needs to be two options. SaaS and pay once use forever copy like in the "old days". I can see SaaS being useful for moments when you want to use Adobe stuff just for a month then not use again, it's cheaper. But if you're a company and need to use it every year, you end up paying more for it because it's now a yearly cost instead of that one off cost. What about the times you're aware with shitty broadband or even no network access, you then can't use your SaaS.

Yes, I do fear of being in an industry where it looks like I'll eventually be made redundant and that could be a big part of the annoyance of Cloud but I still feel people are relying on it too much.

If there is a massive attack on the Internet. That's quite a lot of SaaS (not Students Award Agency for Scotland) that could be lost because of the downtime. How will the glossy magazines then photoshop their models with Adobe down.

Britain mulls 'complete shutdown' of 4G net for emergency services

WHAT!?!

The NHS EE contract is pissing bad enough. Why would you go with 4G? What am I banging on about? Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton. It has virtually no mobile signal anywhere let alone 4G. And take an EE phone there, you get sod all signal so how did they get the contract? And how is using 4G going to be reliable considering the likes of Three, who I'm with, have piss poor 4G signal in most places, especially the Isle Of Wight.

New UK drone laws are on the way – but actual Drones Bill still in limbo

Erm...

"It's not going to be a comprehensive solution to the problem of people flying drones illegally ... hopefully, as happens in society in general, society will tend to self-regulate, so once people become more aware of what is required, other people will start to approach people flying and say hey, have you done your tests, or have you registered your drone, and then society starts looking after itself because it's been given the tools to do so."

And most people will turn and say "Fuck off". Maybe I just see the bad in people but unless you have someone who is flying who is genuinely nice who'll thank you as they didn't realise, most will just tell you to fuck off.

US-China trade war is back on: White House repeats threat to tax Middle Kingdom imports

I wouldn't trust Trump to make a deal at a car boot sale...

...considering he's the man that managed to make his casino go bankrupt. How does anyone make a casino go bankrupt. So allowing Trump to decide on trade is a mistake.

Quick, buy all your hard drives NOW!

If magnetic hard drives are going to increase in price. Trump really is an idiot. That means the cost of online storage and even onsite storage will probably increase now if those prices go up. Although surely, if we deal direct with China, surely we'll be OK and get them at the same price and not the jacked up prices they'll be in the US?

ISP popped router ports, saving customers the trouble of making themselves hackable

This is why I feel....

...I'm justified in paying a bit of money to buy my own quality router instead of using the ones provided by ISPs. I've done that for years. In the new house, that will be the excuse for wasting over £200 on one. Can't use my old one as the new place will have fibre.

You know that silly fear about Alexa recording everything and leaking it online? It just happened

It will all kick off...

....when one day while talking to your wife/partner etc. who happens to be called Alexa you say "Alexa. I had a call. John from work. The new boss, he's an arsehole. Told me to send a message. But I'm busy so he can wait"

At which point you find your Amazon Alexa has just sent a message to your boss saying he's an arsehole.

President Trump broke US Constitution with Twitter bans – judge

Well maybe....

...they are going for something easy to pin on him. After all they took down Capone for income tax evasion.

Brit water firms, power plants with crap cyber security will pay up to £17m, peers told

Re: Its not just that...

If only my phone had grammer and spell checking.

Its not just that...

...when they say "Because of difference in margins, in my experience it is more difficult for a water company, say, to hire a top cyber security team than it is for a bank. There is that industry challenge."

Its also because some companies like to cut cost for greed. And they see IT as a blocker so outsource it instead. Then big the cheapest option.

Boffins: Michael Jackson's tilt was a criminally smooth trick

WHAT!!! Annie? Really?

Since I heard that song in the 80s to this very day I thought it was "Are you OK Eddie?"

Life is now totally different!

Microsoft, Google: We've found a fourth data-leaking Meltdown-Spectre CPU hole

Re: Its quite depressing really

Might be because, as an engineer said to me the other day, she said "Maybe I don't see these things as I'm not criminally minded". This was as I was talking about potential exploits in some software we were using.

Maybe the engineers that design the CPUs think the same. They just want to design the fastest chip possible and not have to think about the security of it.

In my mind. As an engineer theses days I think you, unfortunately, do needed to think criminally in your work but only in order to protect yourself from what you think criminals might exploit.

Blood spilled from another US high school shooting has yet to dry – and video games are already being blamed

Re: Early information

Invest in a quality gun safe with the parent only have the key and not leaving it in a place where the kid can get it. If you leave it in a certain place, move it each week in case the kid has worked out where the key is.

Look how modern we are! UK network Three to kill off 3G-only phones

How's that gonna work....

... considering their network is shit and you lose signal in shops and along the sea front near me on their shitty 4G network. And being on a walk at a National Trust site with no signal the whole time. Being in the woods had nothing to do with it as the GF is on Vodafone and had signal.

Brit prosecutors fined £325k after losing unencrypted vids of police interviews

UK's Crown Prosecution Service fined £325k after...

....using the password

password123

for their new digital delivery system of interview footage and leaving it on a PostIT note stuck on a monitor in the police station reception in view of all the members of public coming in to report stuff.

"Because everyone kept forgetting the password and it was easier than calling IT to have it reset".

I bet we'll be reading that next.

Lawyers for Marcus Hutchins: His 'I made malware' jail phone call isn't proper evidence

Is that just because he's a minor person on his own? If he was working for a big security company would you then believe he didn't do it?

On that note Mark Russinovich must be the creator or helped create the Sony rootkit that he found years ago on a CD he purchased when he was running 2 man only company. But we clearly know he wasn't.

Some people are just good at finding and fixing shit like this.

Are you one of the FBI agents?

Considering the FBI...

...still believe in using polygraph tests when they have been proven over and over again to be bullshit. Any evidence collected by the FBI should be thrown out.

Zero arrests, 2 correct matches, no criminals: London cops' facial recog tech slammed

But that IS a false positive

"Officers can quickly establish if the person has been correctly or incorrectly matched by traditional policing methods, either by looking at the person or through a brief conversation," a spokesperson said.

"If an incorrect match has been made, officers will explain to the individual what has happened and invite them to see the equipment along with providing them with a Fair Processing Notice.”

The very fact you have to tell the system it was wrong is a false positive. You've stopped a person and had a "chat" at which point you realise the system is wrong. So that IS a false positive and should be recorded as such. Because you've wasted that persons time.

And what government body pays an admin £35k a year to do that job?! The most they'd pay is £21k so that's them lying to justify not having to pay for someone to do it.

Apple MacBook butterfly keyboards 'defective', 'prone to fail' – lawsuit

Not surprised...

....just take a look at Jessa Jones on iPad Rehab on YouTube. She has been screwed by Apple just for replacing iPhone screens. She sends the original LCD with the cracked glass to China, the same place in China where they are manufactured as they make the best glass. They replace the glass and ship them back clearly marked as REFURBS. Yet Apple asked US customs to confiscate them as counterfeit.

So is repairing our own kit with after market parts counterfeiting now? Next up, all garages to be sued for creating counterfeit cars after repairing them with after market parts.

Apple needs to be stopped regarding this practice and the art of getting away with making shit that breaks soon after purchase.

Wah, encryption makes policing hard, cries UK's National Crime Agency

Re: Ridiculous!

To add to the ban list to stop criminals using them we need to include:

Cars

Bicycles

Clothes

Banks

Money

Water

Paper

Pens

Pencils

Crayons (very important)

The use of ancient Latin (in case they try to communicate in that).

Life

Existence

The Register

'Alexa, find me a good patent lawyer' – Amazon sued for allegedly lifting tech of home assistant

Surely...

...Gene Roddenberry owns most stuff with all the ideas he and his team came up with on Star Trek. Especially the natural speaking to the computer. Sadly it appears if someone patients it after you, they get the credit.

UK government's cloud spending hits saturation: Love of Microsoft endures

Re: £751,000 on Office 365

Have you taken into account local gov, charities and central gov get discounts on the listed prices?

UK Home Office tiptoes back from slurping immigrants' NHS files

Re: Windrush

Yes and when you make a joke it is ONLY a joke if you use laughing emojii's. As David Baddiel said on Richard Herrings Podcast when talking about Twitter. Someone either had a go at him or another comedian for not pointing out that their "joke" wasn't indicated in some way so that people knew it was a joke.

:)

Windows Notepad fixed after 33 years: Now it finally handles Unix, Mac OS line endings

I try to...

..avoid Notepad and use Notepad++ wherever I can. The best part is you can put a note in it, close Notepad and it will still be there when you start up. No need to bother saving if it's only a temp note you want for a few days.

UK age-checking smut overlord won't be able to handle the pressure – critics

Re: The Government* response?

And yet they then complain about so much flesh on show. I can't stand that paper. I also can't understand why my parents read that shit.

Virgin Media to chop 800 jobs in Wales call centre

Weren't virgin

Media deemed one of the shittest in customer service recently? So to make it worse they'll farm it out to India?

Waymo van prang, self-driving cars still suck, AI research jobs, and more

Re: Dumb drivers

There have actually been 2 deaths.

Sir Clive Sinclair dragged into ZX Spectrum reboot battle

So....

....soon we'll be seeing them on "Can't pay, we'll take it away". Keep an eye on Channel 5.

Cambridge Analytica dismantled for good? Nope: It just changed its name to Emerdata

I still am waiting...

...and I know nothing will probably come of it, for someone to investigate the local rag sites like the Argus. Visit them and see how many ads you're hit with. Visit them on an Android (probably the same on Apple) and see how many ads you get hit with that redirect you to bogus AV sites or direct to the Play store to install whatever crap the advert was for.

I bet they are collecting as much data on their sites as Facebook. And I suspect not nearly as secure. Worthing Herald is notorious for these bogus ads.

HP Ink to compensate punters for bricking third-party ink cartridges

How is this not...

...seen and taken as anticompetitive behaviour so should be ruled illegal world wide.

DIY device tinkerer iFixit weighs in on 15-month jail term for PC recycler

Re: Prison is to harsh but...

Microsoft has made dick moves but appears not here as they were just a witness.

Prison is to harsh but...

....he did copy free cds, which is fine, but then printed Dell labels on the CDs so they looked like the originals. There was no need for that. And if he really did charge others for the CDs then he's fucked up there as well. Should of just given Linux away. Probably would of saved hassle and prison.

Microsoft still dicks though. As the saying goes "Microsoft, that was a dick move".

Who will fix our Internal Banking Mess? TSB hires IBM amid online banking woes

Also concerning is "Staff were trying to cope with a completely new system". TSB have never heard of training then.