Posts by GeekyDee

Computer security world in mourning over death of Dan Kaminsky, aged 42

RIP Dan, your spirit was rare. His response, "not only would that have been morally wrong, he didn't want his mom to have to visit him in prison" was what set him apart from, if not above, most of his peers. You, and your skills, will be missed.

Belgian cops crack down on encrypted phone network Sky ECC in 200 overnight raids as firm denies criminal ties

Re: 17 tonnes?

As a loose tea loving person, I kept a small jar of Gunpowder Green Tea on my desk at work. Every once in a while a "friend" in security would send a newbie by to investigate it. We had a hot water heater (89C) in the break area that was great for tea. Love that tea, but it does look a bit, off?

Calls for 'right to repair' electronics laws grow louder across Europe

Re: @Dwarf

We really need to force them to defend their "safety issue" rationale in a court somewhere. I am sure they will just say it's just too hard to explain to you and that you will never understand. Patronising prigs

Base IP on Tech lifespan?

So, you say your gear is obsolete after 2 years? I guess your patent should only last that long. New fridges and major appliances going out after 3 years (real world anecdotes -brother had a washer last 3 years, washer and fridge lasted a little loner at ~4.5)? Maybe we should put an environmental tax on planned obsolescence, with the money refunded (pro-rated) to the consumers who bought the trash, er, items when turned in for recycling (tied to serial numbers to prevent theft). The ability to repair can extend the lifespan of items many times over.

Data protection scofflaws failed to pay £2m in fines from UK watchdog – and 68% of penalties are still outstanding

call scammers?

Need to hold the companies providing the IP telephony gateways to them liable as well. Also need to really either create a secure system to consumers or create a true ip verification pingback to verify the calls

Lee Kun-hee, who transformed Samsung into a global electronics titan, dies at 78

Re: Not really on-topic, but...

Thanks! Will have to look for them, I rather enjoyed their Steel Rain action movie

'This was bigger than GNOME and bigger than just this case.' GNOME Foundation exec director talks patent trolls and much, much more

Re: The main problem with making a mobile OS...

I really need to get rid of my 10 year old Blackberry Bold 9700, but it makes such a great alarm clock and camera for around the house. And I like the little things I can do with it for such a tiny phone. Remember when a phone was a phone?

First analysts, now YouTubers put you on blast. Do you A) take it on the chin or B) up fire up the DMCA-o-tron?

If we keep digging, we'll eventually have a mountain high enough to climb out on!

AT&T’s CEO has a solution to US broadband woes despite billions sunk into the problem. You’ll never guess what it is

this again? The US will never learn, even 24 years on, from the 1996 Telecommunications Act; 200B US$ and no fiber laid... /sigh

If the Solar System's 'Planet Nine' is actually a small black hole, here's how we could detect it... wait, what?

Re: Ah, so 5-10 *earth* masses

So, if that is thhe case, just what is the delta of the CMB? Or is there another function I am missing?

Re: At what mass do you orbit

Don't you hate it when that happens?

CEO of motherboard maker MSI dies after plunging from headquarters' seventh-floor

One has to wonder

Was it due to receiving bad 2nd quarter financials, or due to being given a "choice" to "assist" the Ministry of State Security in a project?

Wailing Wednesday follows Patch Tuesday as versions of Windows 10 stop playing nicely with plugged-in printers

Re: Yep, here we go again!

Maybe in a pre-emptive protection attempt against CallStranger? https://kb.cert.org/vuls/id/339275

Frenchman scores €50k compensation for suffering 'bore-out' at work after bosses gave him 'menial' tasks

Re: Sooo....

Give them a job solving captchas...

IBM blames 'external' network provider, incorrect routing, traffic flood for its two-hour cloud outage

BGP hijack?

Wan't there a BGP hijack of mobile data last year around this time for 2 hours? Odd coincidence. Ah well, at least it wasn't a round 2 on its anniversary...

California bigwigs rule Uber, Lyft dial-a-ride drivers are employees, not contractors

Re: I know many people who work so-called "gig economy" jobs here in California.

they just need to sharpen the teeth of tax evasion and insurance fraud. I know of 2 people that love driving and don't pay their employer taxes or other required paperwork. One still drives, the other totaled his car and the insurer wouldn't cover any part of the vehicular damage due to the insured's saying he didn't drive for others. Too bad for him he committed fraud. Too many want to get rich quick and avoid taxes; maybe someone should create a service that takes their pay and takes their taxes out for the proper agencies?

It could be 'five to ten years' before the world finally drags itself away from IPv4

Re: Don’t stop now

edlin! /snerk

Maybe force/confiscate the hosting providers of scam sites to give up their (over)abundance of addresses?

Quick experiment

disable IPv4 at your router, fiddle with all your connected devices. How many still work? This is nothing more than the digital television debacle part 2 :(

ps I have found I will need to replace both televisions, 8 computers, 4 laptops, 1 printer, and not even going to attempt the connecting of the trash-80 coupler to the mess... All these wonderful promises, very little delivery after the changeover (I get 1 OTA channel now v. 5-7 before the digital switch); the solution? Buy all new devices! Think of the boost to the world (Chinese) economy! Get off my LAN! mumblegrumble

Re: What has it got in its pocketses?

If only there was a way to have a switch/router do network address translations...

OnePlus to disable camera colour feature with pervy tendencies in latest flagship smartphone

Well at least they are being transparent about the issue and not trying to hide it like most other companies would do...

UK judge gives Google a choice: Either let SEO expert read your ranking algos or withdraw High Court evidence

Re: The Hobson Black Box

It's not like they are creating Rehoboam or something...

Your Agile-built IT platform was 'terrible', Co-Op Insurance chief complained to High Court

Re: We see only green here sir...

So IBM had no F's to give? odd, that

Google reveals the wheels almost literally fell off one of its cloudy server racks

Re: What were they thinking?

And remember, mop strings are not conducive to your health in chair races!

Australian privacy watchdog sues Facebook for *checks notes* up to £266bn

Re: up to £266bn

Well, it does seem a bit excessive; should limit it to 20% of global net worth, just don't let them pay with Libra's

Shouldn't do the crime if'n ya can't afford the fine...

Now Internet Society told to halt controversial .org sale… by its own advisory council: 'You misread the community mindset around dot-org'

poison pill time?

Require it to remain whole and intact, and any attempt to sell all or part of it causes the .ORG registry to revert back to ISOC and PIR. That is what Capital people do, load with debt, pay themselves exorbitant salaries, sell off the profitable parts, and then go bankrupt.

It's Becoming Messy: Judge says IBM's request to shut down age-discrimination lawsuit should be rejected

IBM's sole defense is its claim that age was not a factor in its decision to dismiss Langley.

"Honest, your Honor, it wasn't about age, it was about the bottom line and making us more money and bigger bonuses."

Fake Google robocallers hit with $3.4m fine – but it turns out that the joke's on you

Re: Appropriate punishment

Tell me how you all really feel.

"He's nothing but a low-down, double-dealing, backstabbing, larcenous perverted worm! Hanging's too good for him. Burning's too good for him! He should be torn into little bitsy pieces and buried alive!"

Maybe they would try to collect the fines if their budget were to be reduced by the amount of the fines issued divided by two? With the cuts to start at the top people in the agency's org chart hierarchy?

Oracle asks Supremes to snub Google's Java API copyright protest – and have a nice cuppa tea, instead

Let's start copyrighting the alphabet! I will copyright the letter A, anyone else want in? Makes about as much sense /s

Russia: The hole in the ISS Soyuz lifeboat – was it the crew wot dunnit?

Re: Air is leaking out of the Soyuz capsule

While the puns may be spiraling out of control, I raise a flute to you who would stick your neck out to land the puns, and do not fear a shank...

Safari, Edge fans: Is that really the website you think you're visiting? URL spoof bug blabbed

I don't know

They could probably fix it by hiding some of the URL with some more code, maybe?

Official: Google Chrome 69 kills off the World Wide Web (in URLs)

Re: Full URL

Are we running short on screen space for URLs now?

Silly Badger, that space will soon be used for micro-ads!

Chap asks Facebook for data on his web activity, Facebook says no, now watchdog's on the case

Dear user,

We collect everything because we can and noone can stop us as we have all the money

Regards, Mark

'Oh sh..' – the moment an infosec bod realized he was tracking a cop car's movements by its leaky cellular gateway

Re: GPS location on the router home page.

The first bit should be easy. It's usually the latter (and tracking all of them together) where it get tricky.

Easy, seed with long passcode through a proper algorithm using the serial number/device name/etc. and spit out a somewhat secure password, not the greatest but better than default and easily tracked down/ recreated if needed