* Posts by iron

2172 publicly visible posts • joined 25 May 2017

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson moves to shut Parliament

iron Silver badge
Mushroom

"when it starts encroaching on my IT sites"

From the article: "The Reg has written 720 articles concerning or mentioning Brexit"

NOW IT STARTS ENCROACHING ON YOUR IT SITES?

NOW?

iron Silver badge

It's about time the Queen stood up and used her constitutional powers to tell BoJo to feck off.

Failing that, they should be open again on the 5th November so we could express our disgust with this dictatorship in the traditional manner.

Harvard freshman kicked out of US over OTHER people's posts on his social media

iron Silver badge

Re: So to gain entry into America you MUST......

You forgot fingerprints. Even air passengers just passing through an airport have to give fingerprints to the screws guarding the land of the free.

Dixons hits back at McAfee's £30m antivirus sueball: Your AV didn't work on Windows 10S

iron Silver badge

Re: Windows 10S...as useful as a chocolate teapot

I wouldn't buy a bag of crisps from DSG or McAfee, let alone a computer product.

Electric cars can't cut UK carbon emissions while only the wealthy can afford to own one

iron Silver badge

Electric cars can't cut carbon emissions while your burning fossil fuels to power them and mining rare earth minerals to make the batteries can't be good either. Add in price, lack of range, lack of charging stations, time to charge, etc, etc and they are a technology that is just not viable in its current state.

'Not productive for our business'... Michael Dell urges end to US-China tariff tit-for-tat spat

iron Silver badge

Give him time. The road to workhouses may take more than one term.

Leaked EU doc plots €100bn fund to protect European firms against international tech giants

iron Silver badge
Mushroom

Why do we care what the news is in USA, Russia, China, Australia, South Africa or Kazakhstan?

Because we're all part of the same planet and what happens there affects us too.

US regulators push back against White House plan to police social media censorship

iron Silver badge

I guess the DMCA doesn't exist?

Electric vehicles won't help UK meet emissions targets: Time to get out and walk, warn MPs

iron Silver badge

Re: Hydrogen? Seriously?

Ever seen an e-vehicle go up? There's nothing left in a very short time and often firefighters can do nothing to put it out.

What is it with hosting firms being stonewalled by Microsoft? Now it's Ionos on naughty step

iron Silver badge

"Now 4,823 and counting auto-response emails bounced back to our inbox... great start to our day!"

That's an awful lot of emails to one provider in one morning. Maybe @BritTravAwrds is the problem.

There once was a biz called Bitbucket, that told Mercurial to suck it. Now devs are dejected, their code soon ejected

iron Silver badge

Git really is awful, from the complicated command line to the poor Windows support (back when I was choosing a DVCS).

I much prefer bzr but even I'm having to use git for open source contributions and sooner or later I will probably end up converting all my repos. :'(

Welcome to Hollywood, Claranet-style: You've (not) got mail, or hosted sites for that matter

iron Silver badge

Claranet have always been poor at updating status pages and I've known of issues that never appeared on them. But, when you call you can speak to an engineer, not a call centre thousands of miles away, and they are good at resolving problems quickly.

So your Google Play Publisher account has been terminated – of course you would want to know why exactly

iron Silver badge

I've read a number of similar accounts recently and they all claim to have done nothing wrong but I'm not convinced. "Dynamic bytecode loading from a local app resource" that triggered AV warnings sounds dodgy to me and is going to look very dodgy to Google's automated scanners. Every similar report I've read has included questionable behaviour either from the app or the dev. The biggest problem really is the lack of a support rep you can contact to resolve possible false positives.

Another thing I've seen reported a lot recently is people claiming newly published apps and updates are now taking 3 days to go live. I can't comment on newly published apps but none of my updates this month have taken more than 3 hours. Again I suspect the people experiencing 3 days have been pushing the boundaries of what is allowed so have a bad rep with Play.

Apple's WebKit techs declare privacy circumvention to be a security issue

iron Silver badge

Re: Have been playing with a Pi-hole

And all the tracking that doesn't happen in my browser isn't just when I'm at home.

'Deeply concerned' UK privacy watchdog thrusts probe into King's Cross face-recognizing snoop cam brouhaha

iron Silver badge

I foresee dazzle camouflage facial tattoos becoming popular in the near future.

HTTP/2, Brute! Then fall, server. Admin! Ops! The server is dead

iron Silver badge

But... but... Google designed HTTP/2 to be secure!

/s

Apple is a filthy AWS, Azure, Google reseller, gripe punters: iPhone giant accused of hiding iCloud's real backend

iron Silver badge

I dislike Apple as much as the next man but this is just ludicrous nonsense.

What's next, "I bought a video streaming service from Netflix but it turns out they use AWS so I'm gonna sue!?!"

iron Silver badge

Re: But you're an Apple user.

Personally I prefer things that work well rather than just working.

Donald Trump blinks in his one-man trade war with China: US govt stalls import tariff hike on Chinese phones, laptops, electronics

iron Silver badge

Re: 'preventing further unfair transfers of American technology and intellectual property to China'

Just because you're receiving a dose of your own medicine doesn't make it wrong.

It's a God-awful smell affair.... is there life on Mars? Rocks ruled out as source of mystery methane on Red Planet

iron Silver badge

Re: Tautology alert!

Pat's tongue is the best for tasting.

Web body mulls halving HTTPS cert lifetimes. That screaming in the distance is HTTPS cert sellers fearing orgs will bail for Let's Encrypt

iron Silver badge

Re: Certificate transparency/logging and CAA DNS records better than shortening cert lifespans?

Because your gran is going to love and understand that checklist and make an informed choice. Oh yes.

Looming US immigration crackdown aims to weed out pre-crime of poverty. And that may be bad news for techie families

iron Silver badge

BTW BoJo is the British Prime Minister, that's like a president to you. So NHS was the right term.

Science and engineering hit worst as Euroboffins do a little Brexit of their own from British universities

iron Silver badge

Re: Brexit bollocks

Much easier if they sell it as not having to put up with BoJo, Rees Mogg, that twat at health, etc. Independence is a much easier sell when you have the Tories in charge in Westminster.

I could throttle you right about now: US Navy to ditch touchscreens after kit blamed for collision

iron Silver badge

Re: Based on my (Citroen) in car touch screen

Its almost as if they don't want you to use the touchscreen while driving because its a dangerous distraction or something.

Linux Journal runs shutdown -h now for a second time: Mag editor fires parting shot at proprietary software

iron Silver badge

"Eric Raymond wrote... about the problem of critical internet services being dependent on unpaid volunteers... The big corporations will always step in to fix things, but to Raymond that is part of the problem. "Wouldn't you like to have an internet that's less beholden to the mercy of large corporations and governments?"

Unpaid beardies who can't afford to keep services running or corporations that can. Pick one, you can't complain about both Eric.

Reminder: When a tech giant says it listens to your audio recordings to improve its AI, it means humans are listening. Right, Skype? Cortana?

iron Silver badge

Duh and or I can't do that Dave.

How the hell did you think it worked? Magic pixie dust?

Captain, we've detected a disturbance in space-time. It's coming from Earth. Someone audited the Kubernetes source

iron Silver badge

Kubernetes... originally designed by Google, the company that loves to announce other companies security issues before they have time to release a patch.

Google to offer users a choice of default search engine on Android in the EU – but it's pay to play

iron Silver badge
Flame

No thanks

Once a user chooses a search provider...

it will be set on the home screen - I don't want any search provider on my home screen

as well as becoming the default search engine for Chrome - not much use since I never use Chrome

It will also install the search app from the chosen provider - no fucking thanks, I chose what apps I want to install there is enough pre-installed crap as it is

All this is going to do is annoy the hell out of me as well as giving me ANOTHER app to uninstall.

You'll soon be fragging noobs on Kubernetes with Google's cloudy take on game servers

iron Silver badge

Re: Is this new?

Taiwan, Singapore, Sweden, Denmark, japan, Netherlands, Switzerland, San Marino, Norway... basically anywhere that isn't a 3rd world country like USA or UK.

NASA trumpets Orion completion as India heads to the Moon

iron Silver badge

Re: 50 years since landing on the moon...

Because landing on terra firma really cripples Soyuz at launch.

Capital One gets Capital Done: Hacker swipes personal info on 106 million US, Canadian credit card applicants

iron Silver badge

No bank account numbers or Social Security numbers were compromised, other than 1,220,000 of them.

Some great maths they've got there, must remember next time they want me to pay my bill that 0 = 1,220,000!

Dear hackers: If you try to pwn a website for phishing, make sure it's not the personal domain of a senior Akamai security researcher

iron Silver badge

Re: Informative blog link

Same here with a slightly different ref.

Access Denied

You don't have permission to access "http://blogs.akamai.com/sitr/2019/07/criminals-using-targeted-remote-file-inclusion-attacks-in-phishing-campaigns.html" on this server.

Reference #18.b6cd417.1564406891.12d47b72

GitHub builds wall round private repos, makes devs in US-sanctioned countries pay for it

iron Silver badge

What do we do now?

You could try not re-electing Trump for a start.

Brit infosec firms urge PM Boris to reform the Computer Misuse Act

iron Silver badge
Facepalm

Here's hoping they don't wish they'd kept their moths shut once Boris and the Blue Noses do their usual trick of shitting all over everything. They'll probably make it illegal to port scan your own server and mandate back doors in all encryption.

Low Barr: Don't give me that crap about security, just put the backdoors in the encryption, roars US Attorney General

iron Silver badge

“We are not talking about protecting the nation’s nuclear launch codes,”

No, my data is a lot more important and secure than 00000.

"a terror attack or some such may conveniently swing the population toward outlawing strong cryptography"

The CIA have something in the works do they?

Ron Wyden seems like a good man, whenever I hear of him he has something intelligent to say. I don't suppose he feels like becoming British PM?

Braking bad? Van with £112m worth of crystal meth in back hits cop car at police station

iron Silver badge

Nah a pro would have hid the meth, burned the van & had an alibi that said he was somewhere else and his van was stolen.

Silly money: Before you chuck your chequebook away, triple-check that super-handy digital coin

iron Silver badge

Re: I like proper cash

I would laugh at them and walk out the door.

iron Silver badge
Big Brother

"multiple, global digital currencies available for payments, working seamlessly within our smartphones"

Sounds dreadful. How is requiring my phone to be present, working and charged an improvement over unpowered cards & cash? And, how am I going to buy milk, bread and other daily sundries when most of the local shops near me don't take cards and those that do have a minimum spend of £10?

"Digital currencies, built on blockchains, will leave a transaction record of everything"

The more you data fetishists tighten your grip, the more people like me will slip through your fingers.

Checkmate, Qualcomm: Apple in billion-dollar bid to gobble Intel’s 5G modem blueprints, staff – new claim

iron Silver badge

Re: As long as they don't use their CPUs..

Plus Apple already use Intel CPUs in their desktops & laptops and obviously are not about to ditch their home grown ARM CPUs in mobile devices.

Hi. Sorry, we're still grinding Huawei at this: UK govt once again puts off decision to ban Chinese giant from 5G

iron Silver badge

Re: 3G - interesting...

The article does not say when, it could have been 15 years ago.

'Cockwomble' is off the menu: Uncle Bulgaria issues edict against using name in vain

iron Silver badge
IT Angle

Katie Who?

'nuff said.

BT staffers fear new mums could be hit disproportionately by car allowance change

iron Silver badge
Devil

If you are on maternity / paternity / adoption leave then you are not travelling to work. So you don't need any car allowance.

A car allowance is for spending on work related travel, not a couple of extra grand to spend on whatever you like.

Apollo 11 @ 50: The long shadow of the flag

iron Silver badge

"elements important for sustainability, such as the Gateway, get scaled back"

Gateway is not required for sustainability. It is only required to force NASA to use SLS and keep the pork rolling.

iron Silver badge

Re: The most expensive dick swinging contest in history

Explain being able to bounce a laser off the reflectors they left behind.

2025: HELLO? WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU, I'M ON THE TUBE. FULL 4G NOW. NAH, IT'S CRAP

iron Silver badge

So backward you Londoners, the Glasgow underground has had 4G for years.

Incognito mode won't stop smut sites sharing your pervy preferences with Facebook, Google and, er, Oracle

iron Silver badge
Gimp

Re: Hmm

Data fetishists the lot of them.

Microsoft demos end-to-end voting verification system ElectionGuard, code will be on GitHub

iron Silver badge

Re: There's always paper

"there's no reason *not* to have online voting... tax discs... state pension... online benefit application, etc"

Except for the people who don't have internet access which is most likely to include the old and poor such as those on state pension or benefits. And, that's before we get into the problem of verifying your identity for an ANONYMOUS vote.

Red flag: Verify to be marked 'undeliverable' by gov projects watchdog

iron Silver badge

Verify is due to be h̶a̶n̶d̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶v̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶s̶e̶c̶t̶o̶r̶ cancelled next year.

FTFY

Don't give it away, give it away, give it away now, bot busting biz tells reCAPTCHA data serfs

iron Silver badge

Re: Whatever happened to reverse CAPTCHAs ?

That's what the 're' in reCAPTCHA stands for! Based on my own lack of ability to pass them anyway.

Fresh stalkerware crop pops up on Google's Android Play Store, swiftly yanked offline

iron Silver badge

Re: Grey area?

Presumably those apps are not installed from the public Play store but via enterprise deployment tools. No doggy shenanigans required.