Posts by Dillon Pyron

iPhone's keyboard prompts patent violation suit

Economic damages?

What damages? Have they been prevented from selling their product? Seems like a case of another patent troll. And, of course, Apple will roll over for them.

VeriSign worker exits after laptop security breach

Yes, cupid stunts

I can only agree. If you don't want confidential information getting out, don't put it where it can be leaked!

I was once told by a CIO of a large bank that they didn't worry about that kind of data getting out because all of their laptops were password protected. So I grabbed his laptop, pulled the drive (2 minutes, I'm slow), plugged it into an external drive enclosure (1 minute, these are easier) and was reading data in less than 30 seconds (it's an old laptop). He said they were going to require encryption on all laptops. Just like VeriSign.

AK47: the open-source weapon that took the world by storm

7.62x39 vs 7.62NATO

The Soviet 7.62 x 39 is an inferior round to the 7.62 NATO (aka .308). The 39 is okay to about 100-150 m, while I regularly shoot .308s out to 300-400 m with a high degree of accuracy. The .223 (5.56 NATO) is also a 100-150 m round. A very nice rifle in .308 is the L1.

.308 holes make invisible souls.

.50BMG, reach out and touch someone

Public internet threatened by private telcos

Telcos vs cable

There are two major classes of broadband provider in the US. The telco and the cable company. Any have your choice of one each in most locales. Assuming you have a choice at all.

Recently had my cable interrupted for three days when my telco, while in the process of installing fiber in the neighborhood (they just installed a new CO), dug up the cable backbone. And the other good news is that the cable company will be installing fiber, along the same ROW, in about three months.

And we have our choice of four major wireless carriers, all with vastly different technologies. All closed.

With the carriers whining about charging for bandwidth, one of two things will happen. Either we'll start paying for services from providers like Google that we've been getting for the price of reading ads, or we'll start paying more, lots more, for our internet access (or not getting as much, if we choose not to). Either way, guess who loses. Third choice, third party providers go out of business and the carriers become out sole source for these services. Things like IPTV. Which is exactly what Congress has had in mind. Of course, we'll pay a hefty fee bump, since they still have to expand their infrastructure.

Vodafone pulls Facebook ads

Ads

I, OTOH, wouldn't miss sites like Facebook.

Epilepsy-triggering advert given the green light

Kid's show

There was a kid's show a few years ago that was pulled because the bright flashing lights triggered several seizures.

In the mid to late 70s, most US railroads fitted their locomotives with flashing lights. Some were in the trigger range. It didn't take long for them to be changed. About two years ago a police light bar manufacturer had to pull one of their products for the same reason.

Spammer gets 30 years in the slammer

Facing additional charges

He's also facing charges for fleeing, which could add an additional 10 years to his sentence.

And Federal time is long time. No parole. All he can hope for is about 5 years off for good behavior.

Of course, he'll go to a minimum security prison. Unless he's convicted of witness tampering with the addition of making threats of violence.

He was originally charged with several hundred counts of illegal delivery of a prescription drug.

And he was a fool to come back, even for a moment. Of course, he's lucky that some bounty hunter didn't try his hand at "extraordinary rendition". That's been done before.

Flash: Public Wi-Fi even more insecure than previously thought

POP3 with SSL

If you use POP3 with SSL, it's encrypted from the beginning. And the good news is that once you download the message to your own machine, you can (and should) delete it from the server. HOWEVER, how many sites use SSL?

Gotta wonder, do the RNC and DNC even encrypt their email servers? Or traffic? That would be a fun attack.

Fun with passports and paperclips

Illegal hacking tools?

And just what tools will they class as illegal? nmap? Nessus? Perhaps Netstumbler?

Almost every hacking tool has a valid application as a security tool. You need to test your software for known vulnerabilities.

As if a hacker would worry about legalities. Guns are illegal in Washington, DC. Look at their gun related crime rate.

US considers $33bn sci/tech funding package

But what are universities doing to help the situation

I just heard where several universities have decided to tier tuition rates, with majors like engineering and science paying more than liberal arts, since the former majors will have better paying jobs. Now that's a great way to encourage technology related study.

Oklahoma offers War on Terror numberplates

Tejas tags

Tejas has a bunch of those type of tags, too. God Bless America, Animal Friendly, Texas A&M University, Horned Toad and Wild Flowers, amongst others. We also have Purple Heart and Medal of Honor tags, both free. Oh yeah, DUI tags. Which cost a ton of money and also have to be "earned".

I've seen World War II Veteran, Korean War Veteran, Viet Nam Veteran, Desert Storm Veteran, Iraq Veteran and Afghanistan Veteran.

Cheesed-off spooks give up on duff spy-sat

Inclination

An observer can tell the inclination of orbit within about 3 minutes of the launch. Even when they are launched from the Air Force's West Coast center, people can get close enough to see enough. So the orbits aren't really all that secret. That's why they have so much maneuvering fuel. So the Air Force had its "ah shit" moment very early on.

David, when the bird reaches a retrievable orbit, it won't be going too fast. Each orbit has one and only one velocity.

SEASAT 1 went black after about a minute. Rumors abound as to what happened there. But the Navy was managing the early stages of activation.

Brian May going for astronomy PhD

You're late

I read about that in June. I guess I need to get back to work on my PhD.

Google builds own phone

Archived data and ads

You don't think AT&T, Orange, Virgin, T-Mobile, etc don't keep your phone records and text messages?

If they want to send me ads, they had better pay for them. My broadband effectively makes the transmission of those ads "free" and there's enough real estate on my monitor to ignore them. But I'm paying by the KB for data on a phone, or by the message. And the screen is small enough that I can't ignore the ad. If this is Google's business model for the mobile business, I give them two years.

In the US, 3G, two carriers. GSM, two carriers. And only one does both. And they already have a premium glamor phone.

Scientists force confessions from mucky fingerprints

Gloves?

Okay, ever heard of gloves? The smart cookies even double glove. Nowadays, nitril is all the rage in the US.

With shows like CSI, juries are putting an unreasonable burden of proof on the prosecution for technical evidence. TV makes it look like a PM can be done in a day and DNA tests happen in a couple of hours. Most PMs take at least a week unless somebody REALLY rushes it. DNA tests can take up to a month or longer. And toxiology screening takes a minimum of 72 hours, assuming there's not a queue. AFIS can take as long as a week to run. But TV land solves crimes the same day.

This fingerprint chemical analysis will probably have very limited usefullness. But somebody will get creamed.

Nokia ships 100 million phones in Q2

ok phones

Basically, everybody makes an ok phone. It's just that none of them really set my heart a thumpin' . All have some nice features, but they all have problems that are sometimes worse. The recent (today in the US) Reg piece on the latest Nokia Communicator is a good example.

Notice for a moment that the iPhone is only sold in the US at present. How do Nokia's sales, for a much larger product line, compare? Now take like phones, smartphone to smartphone.

Apple only wants to sell 10M phones next year. But I bet their margins are a lot higher.

Given all that, I won't buy one. Not at those prices.

Laptop industry hit by components shortage

Parts availability

Two years ago, Blue Mountain Avionics had a severe problem when prices went up for their displays due to increased demand for them in the automotive industry.

http://www.bluemountainavionics.com/

Pretty neat products, I've flown in a couple of planes with them.

Man cuffed over 'cycling cheat' email hack

Unlocked door

If I leave my door unlocked, does that mean that you didn't enter illegally? For that matter, if I leave the key under the doormat and you use it, does that mean you didn't enter illegally? Both of these are considered settled law in the US. And the answer to both is no. If you enter without invitation or permission, it's illegal.

Intel revolted by its own 'insensitive and insulting' ad

African-American

That's okay. After he won at Indy this June, Lewis Hamilton was described at "the first African-American to win a race at Indianapolis" in several newspapers around the country.

First of all, he's not African-American. Second of all, it's not really Indianapolis, it's Speedway, Indiana. But it's the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Second Life will dwarf the web in ten years

Amazon and SL

First of all, what's Second Life?

Second of all, I bought $300 worth of text books from Amazon in under 3 minutes. And I didn't have to pay (how much, really) $15 to do it. And I didn't need to upgrade my laptop to some huge machine (same reason I'm not going to Vista).

SL will lose its charm once all those 15 year old boys get tired of twirling their tits around.

I have stock certificates from a number of companies who proclaimed, in 1999, that e-tailing (argh, Reg, is this on your banned list?) would be the way of the future and they were leading it. Most of them are in the bathroom in case we run out of toilet paper.

Like I've said in the past, I'm waiting for Web 2.1.

'Ads-funded' Microsoft Works pilot barges onto your PC this year

Re: Has anyone actually bought Works?

I have a friend who almost did. I had a spare copy of Office 2K lying around, so I mailed it to her. I bought it OEM through one of those pricing engines. I think I paid $35 for it. Probably got ripped off. MInd you, this was before OO had really taken off.

Use of web archive was not hacking, says US court

Timing

So, they put the robots.txt file on "the 7th or 8th". And the defendant viewed the archived copy on the 9th. Who knows when they were archived? It could have been a month previous.

As many others have pointed out, there is no obligation to observe an robots.txt file.

Victim turns to Facebook in hunt for brazen burglar

Narrowing down the suspect list

Well, with those sunglasses, we can narrow down the suspect list to about a million.

And the car was probably stolen. Maybe even returned before its owner missed it!

I agree, the construction workers should have been just a tad more suspicious. Are they so thick that they couldn't give a reasonable description to a police sketch artist?

Worm threat forces Apple to disable software?

InfoSec Sellout is evil

They seem to be nothing more than extortionists. Although it appears that they have, for the moment, disappeared from the face of the Earth. Windows apologists just shrug their shoulders and wait for the next Patch Tuesday (and Zero-Day Wednesday). Apple apologists go out and buy guns and knives. They take their OS seriously. And imagine their reaction if God, erh Jobs were to be slammed.

Seriously, how many times has Apple had to issue patches for OSX? How many times has MS had to issue patches for 2K/XP/Vista?

Linux phanboi. Linus is God.

Making open-source browsing safe for the masses

Other platforms

OS X. Does Safari get passed this "malcious code" and is there a know (KNOWN) exploit for it?

Linux. Plenty of other browsers. Same question.

Teachers vote to ban internet

Just block the sites

My current customer has a proxy that blocks sites like YouTube and Facebook. It also blocks all IMs. And I'm lucky to get el Reg and /., since they sometimes present ideas that might be controversial or cause me to think.

And I think the WiFi thing has been throughly debunked. Or does the PAT only believe research that fits their views? That case might cause them to be called "the religious right" in the US.

Google: Kill all the patent trolls

Protecting IP

I'm an IP holder (patent and copyright). A patent costs a ton of money to get. When I got mine, the application fee was $10,000. The average small inventor doesn't have that kind of money. So you have to go to one of these patent houses, where you license the patent to them for the patent costs plus some sort of fee. Some of them require you to sign over the patent rights (ie, they are the actual patent holder). In my wife's case, her employer has absolute rights, while she is merely listed as the inventor.

There are two problems in the US. The first is "first to invent". I don't have to file for the patent. I just have to document when I invented it. Then when someone else comes along, I can file and prevent them from profiting from the fruits of their independent research.

The second, which is Google's real problem, is software patents. I point to patents for linked lists and bubble sorts. Plenty of prior art (Knuth, for example). There are a couple of organizations that are fighting these, but it's a long, steep slope.

Patents are supposed to be for ideas that are novel and non obvious. But the patent office is so overwhelmed that they can't do much more than look at a few of the references for prior art. And can't determine the novelty and obviousness of the invention.

Sometime in the 70s, the PTO dropped the requirement for a working prototype. For all but a perpetual motion machine.

I paid for my patent. Manufactured it and sold it for about 9 months. I was then approached by another company which offered me a significant amount of money for a license. More than I could make selling it on my own (it costs them less than half to make it and they sell it for the same price). Should my rights be taken away from me?

My story was sold to Ben Bova's magazine, but I retained all rights to it. This resulted in a lower payout (about 30% less). But I sold it to an anthology about a year later and made the difference and more. But I've never published it on my own. Should those rights be taken away from me?

I've trademarked my business name, logo and several of the service names I offer (some are actually service marked, but the process is identical).

Patent trolls suck. I agree, unless they are actively making the product, or have licensed it to someone who is, they should lose the rights to it. Vtech here in Austin made tons of money licensing "its" patents. After suing. But now those patents are running out and they have little future revenue stream.

When HP sues Acer (or is it the other way around? I forget), that's probably a legitimate suit. It's when a company that a) didn't exist six months ago or 2) only makes their money suing; that I feel twists the system.

UK payment service outage leaves users fuming

Five nines

Several years ago, HP pushed out the concept of five nines and "the industry" embraced it. Well, other than Microsoft. Financial institutions really have to keep high up time. And have to do it 24x7.

To be down 12 hours is totally unacceptable. A small shopkeeper might do a couple of hundred (name your currency) and hour throughout the day. That's still 2400 that he/she is out on sales. And a customer who may go to another store the next time. Imagine if you ran a bar and were unable to process transactions for even half that down time. That is real money. Even the least expensive processor is still pretty expensive. We pay $10 a month, $.25 a transaction and 3.2%, and this is for a non profit, which gets a discounted rate.

I wonder if there will be any litigious fall out from this.

Thirsty Koreans fight duff whisky with mobiles

Blends?

WTF drinks blends and thinks they're getting a quality drink? That's like drinking a Gallo cab and thinking you're getting a Petrus. Or worse, drinking a white zin.

I agree, if you can't taste the difference between rot gut and even a good blend, then either you have no taste for whisky, or you have no taste for whisky. But if you're buying a blend, then ...

That's like the saying "There's nothing like a good margarita and a frozen margarita is nothing like a good margarita".

Could live P2P video be the antidote to YouTube dross?

One more thing

Dissing? Doing any kind of PR? What a name.

Solution in search of a problem?

I agree with many here. The demand, and content, will likely be nil and crap. Crap University (an NCAA class C school) won't be able to afford the TV system necessary to put together a show that the fans will want to watch. Unless they sell advertising. In which case nobody will watch it.

250 Kb/s? Sure, I can do that on my cable. 6Mb down, 720 Kb up. Of course, it's only a matter of time before TW starts shaping. Probably not down, but definitely up.

US gov dangles $50bn IT pot over 29 companies

Yes, really

"ANSWER (Applications 'N Support for Widely diverse End user Requirements - no, really.)"

Didn't you know that there's a black agency with a multi billion dollar budget that comes up with these acronyms. It used to be that we had to be satisfied with TWAs (or TLAs), but now we can get enormous words, and even phrases. And before long, entire sentences. They have a 6 million square foot server room chock a block with super computers. The White House has been concerned for several years about the acronym gap.

Apple squeezes out iPhone update before Black Hat

Blackhat is not the worry

Blackhat should not be the Vegas conference that Apple is worried about. The vulns that will be discussed at Blackhat were only covered "in general" up to now, although I suspect we'll get details.

Now DEFCON is what they should be sweating. Any vulns there will be zero day, with full disclosure and probably proof of concept code.

Wi-Fi spam man avoids can

Open wireless

I wonder if the owners of the networks he hoped on to have any cause for suing. Of course, this is America, where you can sue anybody for anything. Or nothing.

As far as open wireless is concerned, remember that it's not a defense anymore. If someone puts kiddie porn on your machine, you can likely be accused, tried and convicted.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/25/open_wi-fi_child_porn_case/

eBay rethinks firearms policy

Magazines!

They're magazines, not clips. I have clips for my M1, but magazines for my 1911.

I buy almost everything from Cheaper Than Dirt.

I guess eBay will shortly be banning the sale of OEM Microsoft products. When I bought my W2K CD, it came with a 32MB DIMM, that may or may not have worked.

Adobe embroiled in War of the Fed-Ex Kinko Button

I just don't use them

I haven't used Kinko's in a long time. Probably 7 years now. They are usually higher priced and don't provide any services that I can't get elsewhere. And my preferred printer now has a secure ftp site (you need to have an sftp, they provide one on their site). So I don't even need to burn a CD. Besides which, they're a local company.

I do use FedEx for shipping, so it's not a boycott against FedEx. It's not really even a boycott. It's purely convenience and pricing (Kinko's is five or six miles away, my local printer is about two).

A Defcon survival guide

Defensive measures

My first DEFCON, I didn't even turn on my laptop. Since then, I have always taken a sacrificial laptop. I pack a DVD with a system image and load it up again every night.

I also have created a throw away email account on something like yahoo or hotmail. Usually sheep with a password of baabaa. It usually gets some laughs. But if the important stuff isn't encrypted, I don't send it.

Wish I was going this year, love to see how far Vanna gets.

Sony faces case for 'Cell' patent infringement

Patents

I thought only the patent holder could sue. An exclusive licensee can sue the patent holder for breach of contract (if they license to someone else, for instance), but I didn't think they had any claim to the patent rights themselves.

Tyler. Hmm, must tell sister and brother not to mention that my wife designs Power PC based processors (and worked on multiple versions of the PPC itself). Tyler and Marshal. Both almost zero tech.

Reg health roundup: good and bad news today

Next? CFLs?

Don't fluorescent lights put out more ultraviolet than incandescents? With the wide scale adoption of compact fluorescent lightbulbs, it seems to me that this increase in exposure to UV rays will increase the rate of skin cancer. Of course, going outside to get away from them just exposes you to more UV. And covering yourself with UV blocking layers of clothing will just heat you up so much you'll get heat stroke.

We're all doomed. Might as well just walk off that cliff with all the lemmings.

Intelligent Finance upgrade downs web service

Re: The Good Old Days of Banking

Yes, Dave. And it wasn't all that long ago. Heck, I remember when we (US) got two mail deliveries a day, M-F.

And what if a holiday fell on a Monday or Friday? Three days without banks, what a horror!

And ATM's. What did we do without ATM's? Other than write checks and get the money from the bank M-F, 9 to 4 (at least those were the hours when I first started using banks. But at least they had drive throughs by then).

The BBC iPlayer 'launch' that wasn't

Good TV?

"Given the lack of anything decent on TV these days I find dual tuners is sufficient."

Giles, Giles, Giles. Don't you know that everything worth showing on TV is either copied from the UK or simply rebroadcast? After all, where do you think we got Big Brother and Eastenders from? </sick humor>

BTW, is Hustle still on? AMC will run 3 or 4 episodes, then stop, then run a few more. I don't know if we're tracking the current season or if this is from a thousand years ago.

Facebook security glitch exposes user in-boxes

In box?

I've never used Facebook, so I don't know. Wouldn't having access to a person's in box reveal the contact information of everybody that sent them a message? So the only person NOT affected would be the exposed person. Were I to go trolling for addresses, many is always better than one.

Of course, this might not be the case. I'm just not a fan of Web 2.0. I'm waiting for Web 2.1. Never use the dot zero release of anything.

SMEs embrace wireless broadband

Access at work

"At 72 per cent, employees of small construction firms are the least likely to be able to use the internet or email at work."

Just how often is a carpenter going to send an email from the job site? "Pass me up that stud. LOL"

eBay 'Buy It Now' button survives latest attack

Patents, defensive and software

Dump software patents. That will save us tons of time and expense. Many software patents are for obvious ideas. Or not very novel.

Defensive patents are a real pain. What's even worse are defensive ideas. Don't bother with a patent until someone else files, then claim "first to invent". The US needs to follow the lead of the rest of the world. "First to file". My wife holds 8 EU patents, but only 2 of those have been filed in the US.

ICSTIS wants your views on anonymous SMS

Paying for them?

In the US, most plans make you pay for incoming text messages. Which has pissed me off on a few occasions when I've received spam messages.

Is there a "Do Not Text" list? We actually need one in the US. Of course, we also need a Do Not Fax list, but that's been killed several times.

OECD: broadband is unequal

This and that

I get 6Mb down, 720 Kb up. For $45 a month. I know a guy in Tampa who has just had FiOS installed and Verizon is claiming that he will get 54. I don't know if that's bidirectional. And I haven't asked him if there's a limit. So far RR hasn't told me about any download limits. I've been told by techs (but never officially by RR) that the upload limit is to make it harder to do P2P or serve up websites.

AT&T is installing fiber to the house in our neighborhood right now. TW is supposed to do it "some time soon". Of course, the right of way goes through our herb garden in back. I wish they could both do it at the same time and not tear things up twice.

Panasonic zooms in on HD camcorder market

First available?

"available in Europe in September". Does that mean you folks will get it first, or that you guys, like the iPhone and the Xbox 360, will be trailing behind? Are those "real" prices (announced by Panasonic as MSRP) or are they converted from one price?

Tossfest 2007: are you a hardened open sourcer?

Are you kidding?

In Bang kock? The capital of all things carnal? No need to toss when you can buy it for $5. And a double condom.

McKinnon earns Lords appeal

"I'm a bumbler"?

So he says he's a "bumbler" and not a real criminal. So I say I didn't really know how to handle a gun and it "just went off" and killed someone.

If you walked up to a house, tried the door knob and the door was unlocked, would it be legal for you to go inside and rummage around?

Would the US extradite to the UK? Well, they have.

As far as making extraordinary demands, consider what the French did before extraditing a convicted murderer back to the US. Ira Einhorn. I knew his victim and dated her sister, Meg.

Worm eats music on infected PCs

Re: I have a list of suspects

Not Sony. The rootkit was too simplistic. I've analyzed the "worm", it's pretty well written. Contract job? We already know that some Vx'ers do work on spec for various criminal elements.