Posts by DS999

Want to pwn a satellite? Turns out it's surprisingly easy

Ground station as a service

Perhaps Amazon and Microsoft ought to require some sort of proof you are authorized to communicate with a given satellite before allowing their dishes to do so?

That seems like a fairly minor hoop for a company (or research group in the case of cubesats) that would rather not operate their own ground station, or contract with Intelsat, to save money.

Just because I pay for their service, I shouldn't be able to point to one of Directv's satellites and hack into it, or spam it with garbage until it reboots or hangs (ala kernel fuzzing attacks) Plus I imagine Amazon would be in a LOT of trouble if they allowed someone to point at an important DoD satellite and try the same!

Co-founder of Yandex – Russia's Google clone – denounces war on Ukraine

Timeliness

Maybe he didn't want to say anything when the invasion started because he'd burn his bridges with the government over nothing had been over as quickly as most assumed. Why he waited 17 months instead of 2-3 months when it became apparent it was going to be a long slog for both sides, who knows.

Lock-in to legacy code is a thing. Being locked in by legacy code is another thing entirely

What he should have done after emergency services hung up on him

Was call back and say he saw a guy wearing a mask and carrying a gun walking down a hallway, and now he's hiding in an office. Bet the police are more interested in showing up then, and if the guy with the gun is not there when they arrive oh well I guess he stole whatever he came for and left!

CISA boss says US alliance with Ukraine over past year is closer than Five Eyes

The US is benefiting at least as much as Ukraine in this

Russia is all-in in this war and will be holding little or nothing back as far as its toolkit of ways to wage technological warfare not just via software exploits but stuff that involves both hardware and software - the exploit that bricked those satellite terminals shortly after the start of the war being a good example.

I'm sure they're learning a lot about Russia's capabilities and we can put defenses in place against tools that Russia could have used to compromise the systems of the US and the Five Eyes. And on the bad side, probably figuring out "hey they had a good idea here but they didn't realize this attack could be a lot worse if they did this instead" and enhancing our own offensive toolkit.

There's a good chance your VPN is vulnerable to privacy-menacing TunnelCrack attack

Re: Network routing working as intended

So many examples have demonstrated, time and time again, that vendors or code writers priorities changes when the bug or exploit is actively/aggressively being engaged

As it should be. There are so many bugs, and only so much engineering bandwidth to fix them. I'd rather they prioritize the ones being exploited over the theoretical and frankly not very worrying at all ones like this. Especially if they are being exploited by repressive governments seeking to find and silence journalists, activists, etc. or have the potential to become the first smartphone based mass attack that affects millions.

Re: Network routing working as intended

Yeah the fact you need to know the IP address of their VPN makes this really only suitable for a targeted attack - someone specifically wants to attack YOU because you have some data they want.

I can see why vendors aren't treating it with much expediency, there are a lot bigger issues out there that deserve their greater attention before they worry about this corner case.

Calling it a "nothingburger" is going too far, but isn't something I'm going to lose any sleep over or be upset if the platforms I use don't fix it.

India launches contest to build homegrown web browser

Re: Our global internet is being killed off by governments.

Only if they require this and only this browser can be used. They going to arrest anyone using Edge, Safari or the Chrome comes installed on their PC/Android?

They might be able to make it difficult or nearly impossible for someone to use any other browser when connecting to Indian government sites, and put pressure on Indian companies to do the same I suppose. But since most of the internet is outside of India they either need to criminalize use of another browser or create their own Great Firewall if they want to do what you're saying.

Re: Nationalism for the sake of Nationalism?

The desired browser will have its own trust store, use a root certificate from India's Controller of Certifying Authorities

Do they even need a new browser for that? Couldn't they just download Chrome and replace what Google has in there with what they want? That would probably be an afternoon's work. OK India we've met your requirement and we're using our own certificates - still totally dependent on Google for what the browser can do, what the rendering engine can support, and so on but hey if that's all you wanted someone is winning this competition the day entries are open!

Re: I wish them luck

You might be right, but I hope they consider that by using Chromium they would not be making a "homegrown web browser" but just slapping a sticker in the form of a new name and modified GUI on Google's work and doing nothing to affect Google's / US tech industry monopoly which I assume is the real reason they are concerned.

It would be like someone concerned about the Android/iPhone duopoly and their response is to make an Android clone with the Googly bits removed. From a "I want the ad revenue to go to me instead of Google" standpoint that makes sense. But it reinforces the duopoly, and unless you make a hard fork you're still dependent on Google for feature updates and most fixes.

Re: I wish them luck

It sounds counter-intuitive at first but I seriously worry that Apple might be barred from requiring the use of the WebKit engine

I think that would be bad as well, because it would make it WAYYYY too easy for websites to pull the old "best viewed in IE6" thing from days past, updated for Chrome. If too many sites stopped working in Safari, all iPhone/Mac owners would be forced to download Chrome to access the web and Google would have a total monopoly on the client side of the web which is far more dangerous to the health of the internet than their already existing near monopoly on search.

I wish them luck

The world could use an alternative browser, especially in the non-Apple world where Chrome or Chrome clones like Edge almost completely dominate. Firefox has unfortunately been bleeding market share for years thanks to Google's monopolistic tactics helping push Chrome and Mozilla's engineers prioritizing dumb things like UI changes to be more Chrome like rather than the original goal of a fast browser with a consistent interface.

Even if this was only adopted in India, the size of the country using this alternative browser would mean Google couldn't exercise as much control over web standards as they have been attempting (and often succeed) in doing.

Don't shoot! DARPA wants to capture future spy balloons in one piece

By announcing it they have made it irrelevant

If I was China I would include a big capacitor next to the device's flash memory connected to an altimeter, and unless its radio receives a password to disable the function the capacitor will be released to fry everything the instant altitude drops below say 10k meters. Multiple capacitors if they have anything else sensitive they want to protect like the image sensor, specialized radio receivers or whatever. Though I imagine most if not all of it is off the shelf technology, and it is the programming and collected data the US would really like to see.

Had they kept this project secret they might have been able to collect one or two of them before they were modified with the brain zap technology.

Shifting to two-factor auth is hard to do. GitHub recommends the long game

You complain about the insecurity of mobile phones and then want to use a solution involving browsers which are far far less secure than phones?

For all the security issues regularly fixed in phones the number of actual exploits against them is pretty low - they are almost always targeted attacks or it is some Android app no one has ever heard of that affected a few thousand people in China. There has never been some sort of mass exploit on a phone affecting millions of people even one time, but that's happened with PCs countless times. So unless you are the type of person who would be chosen for a targeted attack on a phone, using an app on your phone (NOT SMS!) as the second factor is quite reasonable. It requires someone be in possession of your phone and be able to unlock it, so even if the 2FA is to a website you're opening in the phone's browser it is secure enough that real world exploit is quite unlikely.

If you want greater security than that use a separate 2FA device - which could be a second phone with no/minimal connectivity that is used only for 2FA and absolutely nothing else.

Larry Ellison a major contributor to Blair Institute vaccine database plan

No he was worse, he added a chip able to run Java code!

Lawsuit: We've got the stats to prove Twitter ax fell unfairly on older, female engineers

Of course the agreement doesn't obligate you to work those hours, they put it out there to encourage more quitting since their initial 50% layoffs weren't enough for the level of cost cutting Musk wanted. If your boss put that in front of you and you don't want to do it, you aren't going to say "hey this isn't legal" you're going to see what kind of company it is turning into and either quit immediately or just work normal hours while conducting a job search with the expectation they will eventually fire you for the unforgivable sin of taking weekends off.

Re: I would have thought the opposite?

What "asymmetric circumstances" are those? Unemployment is still at record lows in the US, and tech unemployment is even lower. Anyone working at Twitter male or female would be able to find another job in no time. Maybe not with the same salary if they were getting overpaid for what they did, but even then you don't really HAVE to work those long hours. Just say you will and see how long it takes them to notice, and use the extra time for a longer job search with the expectation that eventually they'll fire you for not demonstrating sufficient worship of god king Musk by working 100 hours a week in his name.

Re: A tough sell

I'll go out on a limb and guess that the 50 year threshold was chosen by the lawyers because it had the largest disparity, versus using 45 or 55.

Re: A tough sell

The age discrimination one is kinda flimsy. 54% vs 46% is not a big difference, especially when you account for the fact that the older ones were almost certainly paid more and THAT was probably what they discriminated on (and discriminating on salary alone, without intent to use it a as a backdoor method of discriminating by age, is perfectly legal)

Most distant observed star is blue – and it isn't alone

Re: The universe is so old its getting wrinkles?

Bet you'll have a few wrinkles too when you're 13 billion years old!

Apple, Samsung, and Intel to invest in Arm IPO, and emerge with some control: report

Re: “Apple, Nvidia, and Samsung have all bet big on Arm… “

Nowhere does it say that, it says it is unknown what Softbank may end up holding onto.

If they can't collectively buy 50% then at least a couple of them will want to buy enough to have a board seat so they can be aware of dumb stuff they're planning to do in advance.

Re: “Apple, Nvidia, and Samsung have all bet big on Arm… “

There's also Qualcomm.

If each of those five bought 10% they'd have enough voting power collectively to veto anything particularly stupid ARM's management tried to do. And they all have enough money that they don't have to care about long term return - it would be more of a protective move than an investment expecting direct ROI.

Digital Realty: We hear you like your racks dense, how does 70kW sound?

Re: 250kW per rack

Didn't I readsomewhere that people were being offered servers in their houses to use the waste heat?

I'd sign up for that so long as they only expect their servers to operate about four months of the year!

Amazon has more than half of all Arm server CPUs in the world

Re: Wasteful?

Why would the e-waste be any different than if they used x86 chips? Obsolete hardware is eventually going to be scrapped no matter where it came from. Since Amazon is designing not only the chips but the entire server package which is several orders of magnitude more potential waste, we can hope they are designing them with efficient recycling in mind. That will be a lot easier with a handful of standard form factors they choose to match their recycling capability than buying stuff off the open market that's designed purely for cost without regard to how easy it will be to recycle at EOL.

It is also clearly a lot better for the world to provide performance 'x' with less energy, especially at Amazon's scale.

One weekend's TwitX chaos brings threats from Japan; indemnity promises for users; prominent account seizures

Re: This is the one time I'd root for Zuck

You can get into "reasonable shape" as far as better muscle tone in that time but it won't help your athleticism. Stuff like balance, reaction time, etc. take years to develop. He's not going to beat Zuck through strength, Zuck will be running rings around him landing blows then dodging away before Musk can react. I predict it would be over in 2-4 minutes.

I'm guessing Musk's lie about his "chronic pain" may have been due to bringing in someone similar to Zuck in size and skill and sparring with him, and learning how woefully outmatched he will be.

As others have said, a man who can afford the best medical care in the world living with "chronic pain" for years that could be cured with a simple surgery is an all time laugher!

This is the one time I'd root for Zuck

Just because you know Musk would be a total crybaby about losing, full of excuses, asking for a rematch, claiming there was cheating. It would be epic! If Zuck loses he probably doesn't say anything and just hides out for a while, but Musk could never manage to go even 24 hours without attention.

I'm laughing thinking of the idea of Musk "training". Someone who is as out of shape as he is can't get into shape in a month or two, especially when he probably listens to a personal trainer for about 10 minutes before he gets all ADHD and pulls out the laptop to start reading emails.

Techie's quick cure for a curious conflict caused a huge headache

Re: I have zero sympathy for him

There's a difference between an honest mistake borne of ignorance and rank stupidity. One type learns from their mistakes, the other repeats them again and again.

That is a management lesson you learn the hard way - by giving a stupid person several chances and getting burnt over and over for your trouble. Only then do you see the difference and know which type of person is capable of learning from their mistakes and which will be doomed to forever repeat them.

I have zero sympathy for him

Choosing the name of the company as a "temporary" name is the most colossally mind-numbingly stupid idea I can't even. If he worked for me I would have fired him, not for the result of taking down the entire corporate network but because after exhibiting such poor judgment I would know it was only a matter of time before he would do something equally stupid again in the future!

Cops cuff pregnant woman for carjacking after facial recog gets it wrong, again

We needs laws governing the use of facial recognition

Dumb cops don't understand its limitations, and think "hey my iPhone recognizes me perfectly so clearly it is a highly accurate technology". If they had one specific suspect, or a handful of specific suspects, to match to a high quality image of the criminal then yeah it'll work. Saying you are you when unlocking your phone is very easy compared to what police are trying to use it for. Used to trawl through countless thousands of mugshots or driver's license ID photos hoping to match to an image of the criminal (especially if it is of lower quality like in this case) makes it about as accurate as hiring a psychic who says the criminal's initials are "A.F." and putting people with those initials in your lineup!

The dumb cops don't even understand the limitations of lineups, having arrested her based on someone picking her photo out of a lineup (an eight year old photo but that's a separate issue of stupidity on their part) If you present photos with the tacit assumption that the real criminal is or is highly likely to be found in the set of photos the witness will feel forced to pick one. But they don't match on the face, since most people don't remember faces they only saw for a moment very well, it is just a gut feeling and once they get they do like they are told countless times throughout their life and "go with their gut". They might recall (perhaps not even consciously) that the criminal was wearing a light blue shirt, and choose a lineup photo because that person happened to be wearing a light blue shirt the day they got their driver's license renewed!

Of course there's no way we'll see any national legislation on this, because republicans like having black people harassed by police. That's being "tough on crime" in their books, so they'd filibuster it. If some wrong people are arrested that's better in their mind than the chance that taking away "tools" like facial recognition means a few real criminals remain on the loose. But legislators in the state of Michigan could at least fix the problem there.

Scientists strangely unable to follow recipe for holy grail room-temp superconductor

Based on what I've read of its atomic structure

It sounds like even the original team may not quite know how to make it - i.e. there is some element of luck getting the lead atoms to get to the right place throughout the entire material, without which it will not work (or may only partially work if enough of the crystals are correct)

So I think it is premature to rule it out, just like it was premature to publish. Unfortunately one of their number deciding to publish before they were ready (which may have taken years longer given how long they've been working with this material) forced the issue.

That may be better in the long run though, with others working on it results will come more quickly if there's something there. Even if there's nothing there LLNL seems to believe the atomic structure is interesting enough for further research, and it may point us in new directions.

ChatGPT's odds of getting code questions correct are worse than a coin flip

Pretty sure everything ChatGPT knows about programming

It scraped from stackoverflow!

The problem is it does so without understanding, so it can combine correct and incorrect information in a nice wordy way that I guess people like? I suppose if you're knowledgeable enough to know what bits it got wrong you'll be fine. Though if you are that knowledgeable you probably don't need its programming help...

Two US Navy sailors charged with giving Chinese spies secret military info

Re: Does the US pay that badly?

Uh oh someone is crying that his orange Jesus is going to prison!

Re: Does the US pay that badly?

Based on their surnames they have Chinese heritage, and may still have relatives living in China. Even if not a patriotic appeal to support the country their ancestors came from may have played a bigger part than the money.

I have to think there was also a large element of "there's no chance I'll be caught" and "even if they catch me I'll be able to talk my way out of it". A lot of criminals think they are smarter than everyone else, or at least smarter than law enforcement.

We'd pay good money to see... oh dear, Elon Musk 'needs an MRI scan'

The weasel is weaseling out

To no one's surprise.

I hope when he makes his weaseling official that The Register gives him a permanent nickname in all future articles referencing him to commemorate his cowardice.

Trump promised to pay the legal bills of his supporters

Back in 2016, if they "roughed up" anti Trumpers at his rallies.

Then when he called the mob to try to help him overturn the election in 2021 he got over 1000 of them (and counting) arrested, and all he has done is say that's unfair and saying he will pardon them if he's president again. But despite all the money he's collecting from suckers supporters and spending on legal fees for himself and legal fees for people who he wants to keep silent and not testify against him ($40 million in the first half of this year alone!) he hasn't helped out a single one of the Jan 6th rioters.

Musk's promise is likely worth exactly as much as Trump's.

Out of nowhere, India requires PC and server makers to get an import license

Re: Bulk of India can’t afford smartphones ?

The most telling stat I saw was that Apple has 5% of the smartphone market in India, expected to be at 7% by the end of the year. Not nearly as large as their share in China, let alone the US but the article said that most of them were iPhone 14 & 13 with a smaller and smaller share being SE every year. iPhones aren't cheap, and the exchange rates probably make them more expensive in India than in the US.

I'm sure there are a lot of people who can only afford the most basic phones, but there are Android smartphones selling for under the equivalent of $40 now (and would be far cheaper when they're a couple years old) so I doubt there's anyone who "can't afford" a smartphone anymore. Some people must looking at the prices smartphones are selling for in the US and think the cheapest price they see is as low as they go.

Apple would not have been stating over the last year or two that they expect to see their biggest sales growth over the next few years in India if they didn't know there were enough consumers who can afford them, or will be able to afford them as they get older and their earnings increase. The pivot from the west being overly dependent on China is probably already providing a pretty good boost to India's GDP. Those younger people you're talking about are in the right place and the right time to benefit from that the way China benefited over the past few decades.

Re: It worked for phones

Foxconn assembles from the parts Apple sources in whatever location, but they make some of them on site like the exterior/case. Sure the supply chain in China is a separate issue but India didn't say phones could only avoid the tariffs if every part was made in-country. Sure more of the parts may come from China than other countries but iPhones couldn't be assembled from Chinese only parts anymore than they could American only or Indian only.

None of the main chips (SoC, cellular, wifi/BT, DRAM, NAND) are made in China, they're made in Taiwan/Korea/USA. Neither are the cameras (Japan) or the display (Korea) so while it is likely the majority of the parts by number come from China the overwhelming majority of the parts by VALUE come from outside China. Of course some of those parts may be made from subparts that come from China (i.e. maybe Sony gets some of the parts used to make the cameras from China and I believe they get the lenses for at least some of the cameras from Germany) and some subparts have sub-sub-parts...

It worked for phones

The main reason Apple set up some manufacturing in India was because India levied quite heavy taxes on imports that were waived for locally manufactured products, though Apple has expanded their Indian factories beyond in-country consumption levels due to wanting to diversify their manufacturing from being quite so heavily dependent on China.

India is now Apple's fastest growing market, and they had 5% of smartphone sales in India last quarter, and projected to be 7% by the end of the year. Which doesn't sound like a lot, until you consider the size of their population.

I'm not sure about the sales potential for Macs there, but it would seem to be worth the while of the big PC makers to set up some manufacturing there if they haven't already. If for no other reason than to diversify from China, which is where the overwhelming majority of PCs and servers are currently made. I have a feeling the applications for those import licenses will run into a lot of red tape unless they do lol

This isn't a trick every country can pull, but a country the size of India and that can easily compete with China in manufacturing cost can.

How to get a computer get stuck in a lift? Ask an 'illegal engineer'

Re: Not a lift but…..

I owned a bar/restaurant in the past and dealt with that "no tail lift" when heavy stuff was delivered a few times. They said "you're supposed to have a loading dock" and I said, how many restaurants do you know that have a loading dock? In some cases I was able to recruit enough guys to help us lift it down, but at least once when that wasn't feasible I made them return to their depot and come back in a proper truck.

Stories like these

Make me wish camera phones had been a thing longer than they have. No one would pull something crazy like that now when they have the paying customer's employees recording it to show to their bosses next Monday, who will show it to their bosses etc. until someone near the top sees it and shows it to someone near the top of that "contractor" company when the invoice for that "service" arrives.

Even if the SAN still worked I would be very worried that we'd be seeing drive failures at a much higher rate going forward.

BOFH: WELCOME TO COLOSSAL SERVER ROOM ADVENTURE!!

"No one else has access in OR OUT of the room"

I thought that 'or out' was going to be the basis for the story - the BOFH and PFY not entering the room for the next week and the H&S guy found dead with claw marks around the door handle - because one of the safety issues he didn't note was the lack of a drinking fountain in case someone was locked in and no one knew!

Google Street View car careens into creek after 100mph cop chase

Re: Florida driving license

How are you going to see traffic signals at night that aren't lit/flashing?

Re: Florida driving license

I came up to the stoplight at the NE corner of town and noticed it wasn't working

Was it flashing or was it out completely? If the latter the fault is on the town for not putting up temporary stop signs.

Since whether or not the car was Google's had absolutely nothing to do with his decision to pursue it I don't understand why you are so exercised over that trivial detail.

Orkney islands look to drones to streamline mail deliveries

How far apart are we talking, and how high are the highest points?

Perhaps a cable strung between the islands might work better than trying to fly drones in weather so bad that ferries can't operate?

Re: risks Yeah, bad weather is a problem

Sure deaths are avoided but you feel that package is time critical you might prefer they wait a few days for better weather than have it end up on the bottom of the sea!

Tesla steering problems attract regulator eyes for second time this year

Re: I've rebooted my 2021 Audi's electronic systems

I've never had power steering in a car fail on me.

You've never had the engine die on you without warning while driving and had to muscle the steering wheel to pull off to the side of the road? You must not have owned the obligatory junker as a teenager!

I've rebooted my 2021 Audi's electronic systems

I was having issues with Carplay trying to take over from the radio even when nothing was playing and no apps were running. I'd see a message "unknown artist" "unknown song" instead of the usual artist/song information, and there was no audio. Not every time but most of the time. I had to manually switch back to the radio which required a single touch on the touchscreen - so obviously it was nothing major, just a tiny bit annoying. I sought help on a Facebook group for that vehicle type and someone suggested I should reboot the MMI and provided instructions on how to do that. I did so, but it didn't help.

Turned out iOS 16.6 fixed it, as it hasn't happened since I updated my phone.

But I agree, rebooting a car's entertainment system is very different from rebooting the entire car in the hope that fixes an issue in something as critical as steering! If that had worked to fix the Tesla's issue, I would feel like I needed to reboot the car every I time I started it "just in case".

China floats strict screentime limits and content crimps for kids

Re: Meanwhile, the Guardian angle.....

China's leaders don't care if the share price for the parent companies for WeChat etc. take a hit from proposals like this, because there is no opposition party to paint it as their fault and hurl complaints of "anti business policies".

Re: "We're raising generations of unimaginative, absent-minded, drama-starved psychopaths."

Its another counterculture thing like goth or punk or previous niches among younger people as far as back history was written who don't want to follow the masses and instead be seen to be stand out as "different" from their peers. Presumably it is the kids who had already rejected social media, this is just a visible manifestation of it they can make sure others will see.

Re: "parents everywhere might just welcome the Communist approach"

Whither are the manly vigour and athletic appearance of our forefathers flown? Can these be their legitimate heirs? Surely, no; a race of effeminate, self-admiring, emaciated fribbles can never have descended in a direct line from the heroes of Potiers and Agincourt…