Posts by STOP_FORTH

Deepfake 3.0 (beta), the bad news: This AI can turn ONE photo of you into a talking head. Good news: There is none

Not to mention Einstein a go go.

Easy to spot

The lip-sync is far too good for these to be real videos.

(Disclaimer - disgruntled broadcast engineer.)

Cyber-IOU notes. Voucher hell on wheels. However you want to define Facebook's Libra, the most ridiculous part is its privacy promise

Re: I wouldn't even call it that.

Or supermarket trolley tokens.

Youtube Queue Chrome extension booted out of store for search engine hijacking, revealing Google's lax dev checks

Re: so tempting

They will have whitelisted doubleclick. The swines!

Ahhhhh! What year is it?! Users left without direction or clue after Google Calendar 404s

Have a hardware backup

Stonehenge?

Smash GandCrab: Free tools released to decrypt files scrambled by notorious ransomware

Re: Why is this still a thing?

If the XP laptop stops working the pump/monitor/leech-prod during my (obviously major) operation, that's a calamity.

If it causes someone else's iron lung to catch fire that's obviously not so important.

(N.B. I am not a medic, medical advances may have rendered some of these devices redundant, unlike, say, Windows 95/ME/NT.)

Exhibit A

And there we have it. Solutions exist but corporate inertia and processes prevent their use. Managers are like inductors - they hate change.

Hey I think I worked at [RedactedCo], have we met?

Re: Why is this still a thing?

Being slapped by a Crypto attack is not actually proof that the correct group policies are in place, surely?

If an organisation has a mish-mash of old hardware running a variety of OS at different patch levels things will go wrong. Old medical equipment may require ancient versions of MS products to drive it simply because the drivers have never been written for newer versions of OS.

The current computing eco-system is a horrible mess. Bad actors will take advantage of this.

I seem to be out of step with reality here. I'm not sure that this is my problem.

Re: Why is this still a thing?

I know that anyone can have an off-day and respond to a phishing mail or enter data on a convincing look-alike website. Even security professionals probably fall for this stuff sometimes.

My point, though, is that for this particular problem (ransomware) there is a solution. You either implement policies that prevent the stuff from running, buy anti-ransomware software (free, slightly hobbled version still available) or use anything other than Windows. This is all detailed in the original Reg article from years ago.

I realise that home-users might not know about this stuff but there is no excuse for anyone running a business IT function to fail to fix this other than incompetence or laziness.

Buck up IT guys and gals, there are plenty of nasties you can't protect against, but this isn't one of them. Oh, and back up.

Why is this still a thing?

The Reg had an article on anti-ransomware techniques years ago. For individual PCs (not on a Windows domain) they (or possibly a commentard) pointed to FoolishIT and their free CryptoPrevent software. FoolishIT is now called d7xTech and their free version of the software is now on an obscure corner of the website (or was last time I looked.)

Or you can, umm, just not use Windows.

Anyone in a corporate environment should not have a problem. (Again, details on how to protect corporate machines was in original article.)

This whole ransomware scourge saddens me.

Freaking out about fiendish IoT exploits? Maybe disable telnet, FTP and change that default password first?

admin is a silly username/password combo

Many companies use the hackerproof tactic of using CompanyName/CompanyName but ALL IN LOWER CASE! How can this possibly fail?

This isn't Boeing to end well: Plane maker to scrap some physical cert tests, use computer simulations instead

Pre-Darwin

Or a Darwin award for hubristic, intelligent people who think they are special and can cut corners?

Appropriate nomenclature

Boeing Starfighter

Boeing Pinto

Boeing Cost Benefit Analysis

Flight simulators are not perfect

My father worked in flight simulation for about twenty years. These were analogue computers and took up a lot of space with their pots, actuators, perspex cams and other arcana.

At one place he worked the pilots used to tease him about his "lousy Comet IV

simulator" because the plotter pen always drew their flights slightly wrong on the vertical map outside the fake cockpit. (There was a vertical map with a perspex cover and the plotter pen drew the flightpath in red ink. This could be wiped off after the exercise ended.)

This annoyed him for a long time as he could not find the source of the reported error.

Then, one day, some RAF Nimrod pilots turned up and had a go on the old jalopy. All the red lines were in exactly the right place, all the turns were made exactly on the beacons etc. They did point out, however, that it was a lousy Comet IV simulator because it wouldn't do barrel rolls properly.

Bloody users!

Things don't always work the way they are designed.

I remember reading about some testing performed by Boeing in a wind tunnel. Wind tunnel models are normally scaled down, otherwise you would need enormous wind tunnels. You can further reduce the size of the model by only building the left or right half meaning that your wind tunnel only has to be half as wide. This assumes that air flow actually flows along the centre line of the aircraft.

Every test was tickety-boo. When the 'plane went into service they found that it had two stable attitudes and it flipped between the two. The tail was something like eight feet to the left or right of the direction of travel and the 'plane yawed between the two every so often. (It wasn't the same size of offset in both directions for some reason.) So all of the wind-tunnel tests were meaningless. (Note, this was a physical test, not a simulation.)

I think the model was the original 737.

I'm sure everything will be fine as long as they don't make any unwarranted assumptions.

The Romans used to do this with architects and bridge designers. The grand designer had to stand under the arch/lintel/whatever as the wooden scaffolding is removed. This didn't guarantee structural integrity but ensured that unsuccessful designers didn't inflict any more unsafe structures on the public.

Politically linked deepfake LinkedIn profile sparks spy fears, Apple cooks up AI transfer tech, and more

Careful now

Down with this sort of thing.

Also, I'm Brian, and so is my wife.

Apple strips clips of WWDC devs booing that $999 monitor stand from the web using copyright claims. Fear not, you can listen again here...

Re: Streisand Effect

That's a great question.

What if every country had ninjas but they were eliminated by the pirates?

Except in Japan, because their pirates were crap?

Emperor's new clothes

I don't have much personal experience of using Apple products. I can remember using a IIE and have seen other people's iPads, iPods, iPhones in use.

The booing of the faithful is akin to the little boy in the crowd piping up with "He's got no clothes on."

When the crowd turn it is going to be very ugly.

Re: Will Google "demonitize" all of YT?

As I understand it (disclaimer, not a Yank) the freedom of speech provisions in the US prevent the government from smashing up printing presses and prosecuting journos, editors and publishers under certain conditions.

They do not, and never have, compelled a particular publisher to publish a particular document/book/pamphlet/video/whatever.

The fact that Youtube, and others, pretend to be light oversight platforms but actually are starting to censor stuff due to commercial (and, now, political) pressure is a different issue.

If you are an American you should already know this.

If you are a Kiwi I'm not sure you have these provisions in your system. (Cool PM, though.)

Whooshing effect

What is that noise?

Also, well played - twice!

Re: 10% may have bought the stand

Well, here's the thing .............. Apple's objects of desire may have a price tag that bears no relation to their actual BOM cost.

I know, I was shocked when I first realised this.

Re: 10% may have bought the stand

Wouldn't sky-hooks be cheaper?

Hongmeng, there's no need to feel down: It's patently obvious this is Huawei's homegrown OS

Re: Here at last!

Well that would certainly explain why my Android 'phone and desktop behave differently from every other Linux/UNIX/BSD device I have ever touched.

Thank you very much for the heads up.

Re: Here at last!

I have been using many flavours of Linux at home and work for fifteen years, although I occasionally used it before that. Not to mention Xenix, Solaris and real time UNIXy operating systems.

Crikey, I even remember using computers before MS was a thing, CP/M mostly.

Although I first got my hands on an analogue computer (a proper flight simulator, with a cockpit) in about 1969.

If I'm late, what did I miss? Turing's Bombes? Babbage's Engine? The Pascaline? Tidal predictors?

Here at last!

The year of Linux on the palmtop.

Large Redmond Collider: CERN reveals plan to shift from Microsoft to open-source code after tenfold license fee hike

Re: Not a few?

OK, it might be Windows Server of some flavour, but the black hole they are working on will kill us all anyway.

Re: SMTP and Outlook

Well, that is a surprise.

Empty docx, rtf and txt files are all zero bytes. Oddly enough empty rtf files take up 7 bytes on the disk.

Even more surprisingly, a single byte docx file occupies 11.1 kB.

Back in the good old days doc files were 64kB if I remember correctly.

That's pretty good text compression, better than five to one!

I'm just going to check out this zip file with 70 bazillion Zs.

SMTP and Outlook

A place I used to work allowed SMTP messages on the Outlook system. (I don't know if this is the default or whether it has to be configured that way.) Systems and devices in the labs used to use SMTP to send results and debug messages to the developers' machines overnight and at weekends.

I once fired up Wireshark and looked at the difference between an SMTP session and a simple Outlook e-mail exchange.

Try it for yourselves. I haven't been so surprised since I first found out how large a Word document was with a single character in it.

Not a few?

I counted two definite and the rest are possibles. Grey background doesn't necessarily mean Windows NT does it?

This is grim, Vim and Neovim: Opening this crafty file in your editor may pwn your box. Patch now if not already

Re: Smug

You are being too prescriptivist. If I want to use my chisels as screwdrivers and my screwdrivers as bolsters, that's my look-out!

Oblivious 'influencers' work on 3.6-roentgen tans in Chernobyl after realising TV show based on real nuclear TITSUP

Re: On the bright side

Upvote for Roadside Picnic mention. Top Sci-Fi.

Bear insistent on playing tonsil tennis with you? Just bite its tongue off

Re: Need a bigger sample

I'm not volunteering but am prepared to hold someone's coat for them.

Pro tip:- Polar bears favour their left arm (which makes them "southpaws", I know, you couldn't make it up). Not sure if this applies to other bears. (Grizzlies and polar bears are very closely related.)

HTH

Re: Need a bigger sample

Won't necessarily work. You'd need best of three.

Mystery GPS glitch grounds flights, leaves passengers in the bar

Re: Time

Back in the day (50s and 60s), flight crew consisted of Pilot, Co-Pilot, Flight Engineer and Navigator. The last had the sextant and maps.

It's official! The Register is fake news… according to .uk overlord Nominet. Just a few problems with that claim, though

Re: Nice write up! Excellent fact checking!

Depends on whether it is criminal or civil libel. I believe the latter allows the defence of "it was true". (Ex-PE subscriber, my memory of libel law may be rusty. I think there was something about bananas.)

Re: I am tired of you bringing up Trump for no reason.

More credibility than Trump himself? You've set a high bar for a bunch of talentless hacks. Not sure the journos on here would aspire to such greatness.

(Joke icon 'cos, you know, Merkins read this site.)

fake gnus - Red Hat, Ubuntu, Linspire, SCO?

I seem to have wandered off topic.

Re: Bah!

I think anti-Gitface laws would be a wonderful idea. I can't think of a single country in the world that would introduce them.

Re: The problem with "fake news"...

Absolutely. A principality is not a kingdom. (cf Monaco)

Re: Nice write up! Excellent fact checking!

This may also depend on the jurisdiction.

A number of family butchers in Scotland called McDonald's received cease and desist warnings from an obscure burger flipping chain from the US.

Scottish legal system was unimpressed.

Re: Speaking of "fake news",>>>here's a wikipedia article>>>>

Is streisand.uk available?

UK's internet registry prepares a £100m windfall for its board members – and everyone else will pay for it

We may need a whole bunch of new TLDs for pieces of the former UK soon.

I think the upvotes were from Glaswegians.

Would gettaef.uk nominet be better?

Re: Hey www.theregister.co.uk

Try using lighter material.

gettof.uk nominet

Uncle Sam wants to read your tweets, check out your Instagram, log your email addresses before you enter the Land of the Free on a visa

Re: terrorists

Wasn't it also Peter Ustinov playing Maximilian Rodrigues de Santos in the film "Viva Max!"?

Use lube

It's not a question of whether you'll be allowed in, more of will you be able to get in.

Northrop Grumman has nozzle nightmare, Soyuz brushes off lightning, and updates on Crew Dragon 'anomaly' probe

Re: a scientifically intriguing dark spot?

I told them they should have buried it deeper.

Chinese bogeyman gets Huawei with featuring in EE's 5G network launch thanks to bumbling BBC

Re: Reserved

I realise that. I don't know why I sparked a downvote frenzy. I was trying to point out that Asians don't usually fly off the handle for no good reason, unlike some Occidentals.

My encounters with professional engineers in Asian countries have usually left me with the impression that they are capable, well-educated, intelligent people. I don't always get that impression with engineers from other parts of the world. Guess which country I am thinking of in particular?

Down with knee-jerk downvoters.