* Posts by PhoenixKebab

59 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Sep 2019

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Woman stuck upside down under rock for hours after trying to retrieve dropped phone

PhoenixKebab
WTF?

The important question is...

What phone did she drop?

Reddit hopes robots.txt tweak will do the trick in scaring off AI training data scrapers

PhoenixKebab

Re: robots.txt is a machine understandable copyright notice

Agree 100% on the point that robots.txt is a technical file, not a legal contract.

"In any case, technically there should be no need for a copyright notice — all content is protected by copyright by default, notice or no notice."

True, but the existence of a copyright notice is making it clear that you are staking your claim to be the rights owner.

ByteDance 'would rather' torpedo TikTok than sell it off

PhoenixKebab
Terminator

But C3PO was referring to trash compactors, while social media is all about trash expansion.

IT consultant-cum-developer in court over hiding COVID-19 loan

PhoenixKebab

Re: That'll teach him, won't it!

His company was in "E Marketing" which by itself tells you it is not related to IT.

His job was just parting companies from their money. Then the government.

NASA and Japan's X-ray satellite space 'scope sends first snaps of distant galaxies

PhoenixKebab
Coat

I thought the picture was...

just a beaten up Mars looking through some window blinds.

Europe's largest caravan club admits wide array of personal data potentially accessed

PhoenixKebab

"The organization has asked members not to make contact regarding any possible personal data security matters as it ***will be contacting affected members directly***, should the data be eventually found to be compromised."

So they'll let people know their data has been compromised by using exactly the same contact information and other data that any phisher now holds.

Fake LastPass lookalike made it into Apple App Store

PhoenixKebab
FAIL

Confusing developer name on the Apple store

"There's also the developer name, which in LastPass' case should be "LogMeIn, Inc.," not a random person. "

NO! It should be "GoTo Technologies USA, Inc.", which is used on the Google app store. This is current name of the organisation, and has been for 2 years, not the old name that the Apple store uses. I assume there's either a hefty fee, or it is a lot of aggravation to change the developer name with Apple.

It's one thing to say the user should check the application is from the right company, but that is incredibly hard when the company does not use their current name on the Apple store!

Also there are two types of users of password managers, those who are technical enough to check the details before installing, and those that were advised by someone technical that they should be using a password manager. Family members or friends of techies are less likely to check the details before downloading, and are most likely to be tricked by these fakes. If it has a close-enough name and icon, that must be the right one.

Virgin Media comes top of the flops for customer complaints

PhoenixKebab

Similar experience.

My street was built in the 70's/80's and was cable TV from the beginning.

When I moved in 8 years ago BT could only offer me a not guaranteed 2Mb/s. Today their checker says 10mb/s possible.

Virgin broadband is 350Mb/s and I get all of that all the time.

The only time I called support was when the drive in the TIVO started failing. Engineer visited 3 days later and it was replaced.

YouTuber who crashed plane for sponsorship dollars earns 6 months behind bars

PhoenixKebab

Re: Curious

That would need to cover 6 months of his time plus the cost of the crashed plane, retrieval helicopter, future insurance costs etc.

Wonder if he also made a fraudulent insurance claim for the aircraft too?

Okta tells 5,000 of its own staff that their data was accessed in third-party breach

PhoenixKebab
Black Helicopters

Missed opportunity

They should have started by claiming it was a "sophisticated attack from a state-level actor".

That makes it sound like you have a least some security measures in place.

Ofcom attempts to thread the needle in net neutrality update

PhoenixKebab
Meh

"Between the two extremes, Ofcom seems to be trying to tread a pragmatic path."

The prime concern for any of the regulators, is to ensure their own survival.

Apple blames iOS 17 bug for overheating iPhone 15 woes

PhoenixKebab

As the Major said...

"We have top men working on it right now."

Metaverse? Apple thinks $3,500 AR ski goggles are the betterverse

PhoenixKebab
Stop

Been there done that.

I claim prior "art" on this.

Regards,

René Magritte.

PhoenixKebab

Re: Vision Pro?

Laziest day ever for the Apple product naming division.

There's 1000's of products and companies out there using the Vision Pro name.

Basecamp details 'obscene' $3.2 million bill that caused it to quit the cloud

PhoenixKebab
Thumb Up

Re: "Most of that spend – $759,983 – went on compute"

"... arse-kicking machine."

Another example where local hardware wins over the cloud.

Royal Mail, cops probe 'cyber incident' that's knackered international mail

PhoenixKebab
FAIL

Based on the accuracy of their parcel deliveries, I'm sure that if it was Evri (formerly Hermes) that tried to hack the Royal Mail servers, they would have hit the servers next door instead. Or none at all.

BOFH and the office security access upgrade

PhoenixKebab
Unhappy

If only

I wish our company processes were as easy to use as that app.

Fraudulent ‘popunder’ Google Ad campaign generated millions of dollars

PhoenixKebab

All annoying online advertising is because of the advertisers using more and more insidious ways to push ads to people who don't want to see them.

I have zero sympathy for the advertisers themselves getting scammed.

McGraw Hill's S3 buckets exposed 100,000 students' grades and personal info

PhoenixKebab
FAIL

Published but unread

That's not much of an endorsement of the AWS Security books that they publish.

In praise of MIDI, tech's hidden gift to humanity

PhoenixKebab

Re: Nice to have.

Me and a friend from 6th form wrote a two-player game that used MIDI as the network connection between 2 ST's.

The game was terrible, but was the first 2-player game we experienced that did not rely on split-screen.

Nvidia H100-based Henri supercomputer tests AMD’s claim on Green500

PhoenixKebab
Mushroom

Are they underclocking it?

As they are only demonstrating <40% of the theoretical performance, I wonder if the server cards are having similar power delivery issues as RTX 4090 desktop cards?

Obviously the connectors should be better, but these new ones are 700w cards compared to the previous generations 400w or 350w.

YouTube loves recommending conservative vids regardless of your beliefs

PhoenixKebab

Yes, Prime Minister

Hacker: Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers. The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by the people who actually do run the country; the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; the Financial Times is read by people who own the country; the Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country, and the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.

Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?

Bernard: Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits.

AMD was right about chiplets, Intel's Gelsinger all but says

PhoenixKebab

Anyone that thinks Moore's law is dead...

... isn't trying hard enough to redefine the terms.

Teardown shows Apple iPhone 14 Pro is not pro-repair

PhoenixKebab

Re: No. It isn't hard to make something pro repair and anti-theft.

Good idea. The only issue is how to "transfer" the scrap phone in Apple's system so that:

1) The previous owner cannot deactivate the parts after selling it to someone.

2) The new owner cannot do a chargeback/dispute after it is received and the old owner can no longer deactivate it.

Linux may soon lose support for the DECnet protocol

PhoenixKebab
Facepalm

Re: Protocol wars over?

Well we need to finish one protocol war before starting the next else things could get confusing.

AMD reminds everyone it's still doing Threadrippers

PhoenixKebab
Devil

Re: Alright, I'm outta here

But "in VR" is how you attract the funding. Other alternatives would be "using AI", "with Blockchain", etc.

Journalist won't be prosecuted for pressing 'view source'

PhoenixKebab
Trollface

Re: Transcendental question

If you're going to mix up units then just remember that a circle of radius 1 foot has a circumference very close to 1 metre + 1 yard.

How can we recruit for the future if it takes an hour to send an email, asks Air Force AI bigwig in plea for better IT

PhoenixKebab

The government/DoD does have more money than a billionaire. But they never work out the cost/benefit ratio of the spending.

Wages for 700,000 staff at a miserly $2,000 per month = $1.4 billion per month. But they're only 50% effective due to bad IT.

It's a bigger waste of money to have those 700,000 staff working at 1/2 speed for a few weeks than it is to get new kit.

Return of the Mac (mechanical): Vissles keyboard for fans of keeping a low profile

PhoenixKebab

Low Profile 85 keys?

Brits complained a bit less about connectivity when they were allowed to go outside and see people in the flesh

PhoenixKebab

Re: Oh...

VM cable user here for last 6 years when I moved to this address. Choice was VM (any of their offerings up to 200Mb/s at the time) or "BT/Openreach" (offered up to 2mb/s and could not even guarantee that).

VM is mostly reliable except for the occasional area-wide problem that always coincides with brief power-cuts to a nearby town. I guess the power-cuts are knocking out some VM equipment until it can reset after a few minutes.

I've also just had free upgrade as I also have an O2 mobile contract and VM/O2 have partnered up. Double the data allowance on my mobile and the broadband has been upgraded to the next speed up. The download speed does not really matter, but the faster uploads help.

Hitting underground pipes and cables costs the UK £2.4bn a year. We need a data platform for that, says government

PhoenixKebab

Re: Costs

If your service is listed as being in a place that someone else digs into, that's the digger's fault.

If a place is apparently free of your service and someone hits something you didn't record, well tough. The company that failed to update their records should be liable for cost of repairs.

That's the only encouragement they need.

Israeli firm Bright Data named as enabler of Philippines government DDOS attacks on opposition groups

PhoenixKebab

Re: "formerly known as Luminati Networks"

That name looks designed to entice Apple into buying them.

Somebody is destined for somewhere hot, and definitely not Coventry

PhoenixKebab
Joke

Re: The Usual Suspects

"Oddly, it didn't find Clitheroe to be a problem."

Apparently it is like Guitar Hero, but with only one button.

$28m scores mystery bidder right to breathe same air as Amazon kingpin Jeff Bezos in Blue Origin flight

PhoenixKebab
Mushroom

I assume Bezos has ordered a self-destruct mechanism to be wired into every Amazon warehouse and employee. To be triggered if his vital signs cease.

Guy who wrote women are 'soft, weak, cosseted, naive' lasted about a month at Apple until internal revolt

PhoenixKebab

Not much point writing a book saying how rich and successful you are unless it has your name on it.

Watch this: Ingenuity – Earth's first aircraft to fly on another planet – take off on Mars

PhoenixKebab

Re: No doubt the conspiracy theorists will be calling 'fake'!

Off-the-shelf Lidar apparently: https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/general/garmin-on-mars/

In the absence of any additional hardware, my original guess would have been the scale of own shadow in downwards facing camera. Assuming it stays in shot, this would be ok for the altitudes they are working at.

Is it still possible to run malware in a browser using JavaScript and Rowhammer? Yes, yes it is (slowly)

PhoenixKebab
Meh

Maybe the situation is now better/worse than when they started writing the paper?

"For our proof of-concept exploit, we target the latest version of the Firefox browser at time of writing (v. 81.0.1) running on Ubuntu 18.04 with the latest updates and Linux kernel 4.15.0-111-generic installed."

So, early October 2020?

But some of the bits of Appendix C indicate that the paper was still being worked on in 2021. e.g. "Kali Linux 2021 W02" gets a mention. The references were updated February 2021.

Wouldn't it be a scientifically sound idea to retest with the latest Firefox, Ubuntu and Linux kernel just before publication and not rely on 4 month old test results.

Airline software super-bug: Flight loads miscalculated because women using 'Miss' were treated as children

PhoenixKebab
WTF?

That's a terrible way of working out female passenger weight.

What system of titles are they using to work out male passenger weight?

With Nominet’s board-culling vote just days away, we speak to one man who will publicly support the management

PhoenixKebab
Thumb Down

Nominet: the UK org that hates UK companies.

So the biggest known supporters of the current setup are registrars from Ireland, Germany and the USA.

The main opponents of the current setup are from the UK.

Disgusted to see Nominet management being of more benefit to non-UK companies than local ones.

Whistleblowers: Inflexible prison software says inmates due for release should be kept locked up behind bars

PhoenixKebab

Normally when doing the work for free when legislation changes, both the supplier and the customer have no control over the legislative changes.

In this specific case, the customer gets to decide the legislative changes. That would be unfair on the supplier - though it looks like the rates they charge could provide a bit of a cushion for this.

Hero to Jezero: Perseverance, NASA's most advanced geologist rover, lands on Mars, beams back first pics

PhoenixKebab

Re: "If we see a hedgehog, we would know there’s current and certainly ancient life on Mars"

Dinsdale?

Australia facepalms as Facebook blocks bookstores, sport, health services instead of just news

PhoenixKebab

Re: Screw Australia's clumsy attempt....

But some content is needed to make the link meaningful. But how much?

None at all and just show the raw URLs to the users.

Just the TITLE tag. Maybe scrape the headline from the article. That will just encourage more clickbait from the news sites.

First paragraph. Is that all people need to know about the article so no clicks (as was the previous situation), encouraging news sites just hide all the details until the second paragraph?

I can't stand Facebook, but they have been told that if they do X they need to pay. So they decided not to do X, and a lot of unexpected things have been caught in that due to the poor definition in the law. I expect attempts will be made to force them to carry certain "news" AND pay for it.

If any country wants to declare Facebook an essential service (and I really hope not), that country should pay for it.

Texas blacks out, freezes, and even stops sending juice to semiconductor plants. During a global silicon shortage

PhoenixKebab
Black Helicopters

Re: Wind farms

That information appears to vary depending on the political bias of your US news source.

A lot of cold-weather turbines are equipped with a heating system to prevent freezing. Often just in the housing to keep the bearings working, but can also include warm air circulated inside the blades to prevent ice build-up. I don't know if the turbines in Texas have any of these measures in place.

Of course this means that in cold and still weather, turbines are a drain on the grid. Probably insignificant when offset against the days they are working optimally.

UK dev loses ownership claim on forensic software he said he wrote in spare time and licensed to employer

PhoenixKebab
Facepalm

Previous employer tried to issue me a contract that was not just restricted to software. Any copyrightable work had to be offered to the company for first refusal. The contract looked like a cut/paste/edit job from a generic HR book.

As a serious amateur photographer I could take a few hundred pictures a week. Every single one of which is immediately copyrightable, even if just a holiday snap. I pointed this out to HR and the contract was amended (before signing).

The process for submitting your off-time works to the legal team was not geared up for bulk submissions and would have taken up my entire working week, every week.

Someone tried to poison a Florida city by hijacking its water treatment plant via TeamViewer, says sheriff

PhoenixKebab
Joke

Re: Lye?

I assume if you put "soda" anywhere on the container, someone will try and drink it.

And sodium hydroxide is a name that only geeks would understand.

Ever wanted to own a piece of the internet? Now you can: $1 for a whole gTLD... or $2.8m if you want a decent one

PhoenixKebab

Re: .com, .org, .gov, .edu

Because they don't sit under a country TLDs, those are all technically world-wide (why stop there?) TLDs.

Every one of which is overseen by an organisation in the USA. So are they global or not?

They are an inconsistency in the naming scheme.

So what can we expect from a Joe Biden White House when it comes to tech? We'll try to answer that right now

PhoenixKebab

Standby is incredibly useful for people with certain disabilities.

Low-power or battery-backed standby is a good compromise.

TikTok to be hit by a UK class-action-style lawsuit backed by the Children's Commissioner

PhoenixKebab
Facepalm

I don't use TikTok (and based on some of their other actions, I wouldn't want to defend them), but I've just checked and their relevant terms of service appear to be:

Minimum user age 13, and anyone under 18 needs parental consent.

Don't see how a 12 year old should have any case against them. Another case of someone circumventing the rules and later on getting upset that they were allowed to. I feel that this is another attempt by the Children's Commissioner to force mandatory age checks (that cannot be lied to) everywhere online.

Suckers for punishment, we added a crawler transporter to our Saturn V

PhoenixKebab
Flame

Re: But...

A lot of the stationary Mamod steam engines could be used with Meccano. I had an engine and lots of Meccano when I was much younger.

However the lure of Lego and electric motors was too great for me.

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