"Tesla added it plans to add the security researchers to its Hall of Fame."
Is that a euphemism for "call them paedophiles on Twitter"?
Posts by DavCrav
3894 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Nov 2007
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2-bit punks' weak 40-bit crypto didn't help Tesla keyless fobs one bit
Guess who's still in charge of your gas safety, Brits? Capita
Wednesday 12th September 2018 10:08 GMT
"You'll come home from work to find your driveway and front yard dug up. A too-cheerful guy will be there to inform you that per your work order in their systems, the mains gas service you requested is ALMOST in place. It will only be a 4-5 business days until the required parts arrive so they can complete the installation, they'll need access to the inside of your house until then, and the computer says that your first bill that includes your 11,000 Sterling installation charge will arrive in a couple weeks."
Thames Water recently dug up the front of my driveway to add a stop cock to the house water supply. I found this out when I came back home and asked why they had dug this deep hole. "We can't seem to find your water pipe", they said. I replied, "well, you might have trouble there. It enters through the back garden. And already has a stop cock."
Wednesday 12th September 2018 10:05 GMT
Re: If ever there was a time... to get your facts right
"99% efficient? I don't think so, but feel free to provide evidence to correct me."
The inefficiencies would be lost as, well, heat. So it's as efficient as the insulation is. So I can well believe 99%, although I'd play it safe and say 97%.
Boffins bash Google Translate for sexism
Wednesday 12th September 2018 06:49 GMT
"Modern Italian (probably the nearest thing to a direct descendent of Latin) has a different issue. Pronouns are gendered, but take the gender of the object, not the subject. So english "His House" would take a feminine pronoun to match the feminine "La Casa" - the house, whereas "Her Apartment" is masculine."
I think most do that, no? Whenever I translate sentences into other languages in my head, I always get worried. And in this case I cannot use Google Translate to check! I think it works that way in German, French and Spanish.
It's here! Qualcomm's new watch chip is finally here! Oh, uh, never mind
British Airways hack: Infosec experts finger third-party scripts on payment pages
MPs' proposal to cash in on public-private algos given a solid 'maybe'
Tuesday 11th September 2018 15:07 GMT
Actually, this gets quite depressing.
Liz Kendall has a degree in history and then was a politician. Stephen Metcalfe was a printer.
First scientist! Carol Monaghan did a degree in laser physics, then became a science teacher at a school. I mean, I'll take whatever I can get at this stage.
Damien Moore did a history degree and then was a store manager at ASDA. Neil O'Brien did PPE and then became as far as I can tell a political parasite. Martin Whitfield was a lawyer and primary school teacher.
Graham Stringer is the only actual genuine scientist in the group. He studied chemistry, and then worked as you know, a scientist.
In future, the S&T Select Committee should just be Graham Stringer, with occasional visits from Carol Monaghan.
Tuesday 11th September 2018 14:41 GMT
The chair is Norman Lamb. He was a solicitor before becoming an MP. His science connection is that his father was a professor and his great-grandfather was a famous mathematician.
The next one on the list is Vicky Ford. She was a banker, but is married to a doctor, who's almost a scientist. Both of her parents were doctors too.
Third on the list is Bill Grant. He used to work for the Fire Brigade. And he likes motorbikes, which have technology in them, so that's the link I guess?
Darren Jones is next. He's the closest to science that I have found, because he has a degree in something sciency. Human bioscience, followed by work in the NHS for a while, and then, well, solicitor.
I haven't bothered looking further down.
$200bn? Make that $467bn: Trump threatens to balloon proposed bonus China tech tariffs
Sunday 9th September 2018 21:32 GMT
Re: The cost of theft
">You build a consensus and present a united front.
The important thing with China is that it is not a democracy and can afford not to care about niceties such as united fronts. That is why Tibet is in its present situation."
As the rest of my comment clearly implied, the consensus you build is international. Then it's World vs China in a trade war, rather than Trump vs World, which it is now.
Saturday 8th September 2018 21:04 GMT
Re: The cost of theft
"That is a massive assumption for which there is no basis. Chinese companies are famous for outright piracy and the tech transfer is also sanctioned by Chinese government, something Trump has protested but EU is hesitating about, most likely since they do not want to be seen to support Trump."
China steals everything that isn't nailed down. This is true. How do you stop them? Not by going full retard and attempting to raise tariffs unilaterally. You build a consensus and present a united front. The EU chafes at Chinese exo-scale theft as well, but Trump had to be a massive dicktwat about everything, and got everyone's backs up. You'd think someone who wrote a book about dealmaking was at least mildly good at it, but you know, Trump is too stupid/corrupt to get it.
Y'know what? VoIP can also be free from pesky regulation – US judges
Sunday 9th September 2018 08:34 GMT
Re: Emergency service
"But this 'power failure' argument doesn't wash. Most people have a cordless phone at home, which, guess what, has a base station that isn't battery-powered, and will not work in the event of a power cut."
I have a cordless phone, yes. I also have a cheap corded one in a box upstairs. In case of, you know, a power cut.
Vodafone hounds Czech customers for bills after they were brute-forced with Voda-issued PINs
Friday 7th September 2018 17:38 GMT
Re: 1234 as a pin
"Surely what counts here is the ease of web-based brute-forcing rather than a specified "1234" PIN. If the pins were computer generated with an even distribution, then trying any particular PIN combination would have been equally successful."
So obviously no. The point is, all of the PINs are 1234, so you have a 100% success rate if you guess a mobile number correctly and the person hasn't changed it. With random PINs you would have a 0.01% success rate (1 in 10000) after you guess the number correctly and it wasn't changed.
European nations told to sort out 'digital tax' on tech giants by end of year
Wednesday 5th September 2018 14:49 GMT
Re: taxation vs economic activity
""Corporations" don't pay tax. It's the people who OWN the corporation [through stock, equity, etc.] that pay the tax. Many of these people are regular working stiffs with a retirement portfolio. Think about it. And if a tax increase on a corporation causes them NOT to hire [or to do layoffs], you get what you deserve, more people demanding unemployment compensation."
Fine, but these are corporations based overseas, so it's wealthy foreigners who would pay the tax.
I'm not too bothered about making American hedge fund managers pay tax on the profits shovelled out of EU markets.
Anon man suing Google wants crim conviction to be forgotten
Tuesday 4th September 2018 14:54 GMT
Re: Right to be forgotten
""And society judges people rehabilitated once they have served their sentence or paid their fine"
Arguably, "Society" does not. Bleeding heart left-wing politicians, maybe.
A conviction for fraud, for someone who seeks to raise funds from the public? He can f*ck right off."
I suggest you look up the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, and then come back and apologize.
Lyon for speed, San Francisco for money, Amsterdam for fun: the best cities to be a techie
Spies still super upset they can't get at your encrypted comms data
Saturday 1st September 2018 09:12 GMT
Re: "No homebrew" is NOT elitist
"How about something encouraging like: "Well, when it comes time to check your algorithm, make sure that [short description of mathematical algorithm or procedural test] does [whatever result you should get for good encryption]
Otherwise, it sounds like the usual negativity ninnies. Just sayin.
[and I'd be interested in what tests you WOULD recommend]
icon, because, I hear from negativity ninnies all of the time. It's irritating at the least. Why discourage those with enthusiasm? Instead, point them in a direction that's actually HELPFUL."
1) Start by reading Silverman 1 and 2. That will give you some idea of the Mordell--Weil group of an elliptic curve and what on earth is going on.
2) Read Ireland and Rosen. It's a basic book on some modern number theory.
3) Do a PhD in number theory. This will take a few years, but you'll get a good solid background in number theory, which you'll need for the next bit.
4) Overturn a century of modern mathematics. Most of modern mathematics rests on the idea that there are no general purpose algorithms to attach problems of a standard kind. For example, no there is no general procedure to solve Diophantine equations, or to solve the halting problem, and the decision problem. With these in mind, mathematics now becomes something that cannot be given as a list of instructions, but is much more intuitive, and then sometimes counter-intuitive. Solving problems requires ingenuity, not simply reading off a checklist.
Saturday 1st September 2018 09:03 GMT
Re: Wack a Mole
" "Nobody should "homebrew" crypto." That is a very tired and elitist attitude.
You are basically saying that everybody is stupid, except you."
Nobody should do their own cryptography because it's difficult. It's absolutely an elitist attitude, because difficult things need attention, experience, and talent. If you homebrew it, you are highly likely to have none of those qualities.
I don't see why 'elitist' is a bad thing. People rarely go round saying tripe like 'Brain surgery isn't too hard. It's a very tired and elitist attitude to say that you shouldn't homebrew neurosurgery'.
Just as an example: you should choose primes a and b for your public key. How do you protect against a Fermat attack? You want an elliptic curve for your shiny new cryptosystem. Do you want it to be supersingular, or not to be supersingular? Should you assume the existence of a discrete log oracle when doing complexity analysis for your new system?
All of these questions are stupid, and the answers are incredibly obvious. Here's a less obvious one: you want some random noise somewhere. Will an LCG do, or a QCG, or does it have to be 'more random'? Rolling your own random number generator is incredibly difficult.
We're all sick of Fortnite, but the flaw found in its downloader is the latest way to attack Android
Give yourselves a pat on the back, top million websites, half of you now use HTTPS
Tuesday 28th August 2018 14:49 GMT
Re: I'm not surprised.
"Just because a site doesn't need a secure connection to serve its pages, that doesn't mean you should assume you're safe when you visit it."
Since they were talking about the Daily Mail, I think the bad actors have already injected nasty stuff into the pages. In fact, hackers are likely to make the page better, not worse.
UK getting ready to go it alone on Galileo
Tuesday 28th August 2018 13:43 GMT
"And where's the threat supposed to come from since the Soviet army bankupted [sic] the USSR?"
I don't know. You could try asking the people of Georgia, the Crimea, Ukraine, Estonia, Moldova, and so on, where they see some military threat.
"De-escalation is a very reasoanable [sic] tactic."
Then you will support the UK pulling out of NATO, as mission accomplished, right?
Tuesday 28th August 2018 13:41 GMT
"Get back in your box, Donald. Leave international affairs to adults who understand what the phrase 'long-term interests' means."
It's not in the UK's long-term interest to leave the EU. But if we're going to do that, we seriously need to be saving money. Long-term interests are one thing, but spending billions on international aid and Europe's defence when we will need that to pay for medicine and food for the destitute millions is not a good idea.
Tuesday 28th August 2018 08:18 GMT
"The UK Government has found it difficult to understand that if one stops being a member of a club, one loses access to that club’s facilities."
Considering we are still part of NATO, it's more like telling the fire service they aren't allowed access to your water to put out a fire in your building.
I have no problem with the EU chucking the UK out of Galileo, but then the UK (and the US) should send a bill to the EU for their defence (and their defense), and if it doesn't get paid, pull out. It's just a form of insurance.
Keep yer plastic, says analyst: eSIMs aren't all they're cracked up to be
Tax the tech giants and ISPs until the bits squeak – Corbyn
Friday 24th August 2018 12:46 GMT
Re: Wolfetone
">Calling them Nazis or comparing them to Nazis - ... , is surprisingly very offensive to them.
Who exactly is them?
I have known German Jews (many now dead but who decided to live in the UK) - yes those that had first hand experience of the Nazis - who quite happily compared the Zionists behind the modern state of Israel to the Nazis..."
Good for you. I suspect I can find a lot more Jews who are a bit unhappy at it. I am sure I can find black people who don't mind a different word beginning with N, but that doesn't mean it's open season.
Friday 24th August 2018 12:43 GMT
Re: Roj blake
"You miss the point are other countries that act shitty aren't trying to get laws passed/rules by politicians that stop you from talking about them for being shitty? No."
This isn't a law. This is 'what is a reasonable definition of someone being a Jew-hater?' And one example might well be 'talks a lot about how the country full of Jews is really terrible all of the time'.
When you have people who talk about Israel being a human rights violator, and talk often about it (for example, the Rt Hon. J. Corbyn), then that's fine. But when they give scant attention to, just off the top of my head, the human rights violations in the Philippines, Venezuela, Mexico, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Australia, the United States, Poland, Hungary and Turkey (I only chose, to varying extents, democracies, to fit in with the definition, as otherwise it's just too easy to list countries), it all seems a bit dodgy.
You never see people specifically campaign against one other country like you see against Israel. You have general human rights campaigners, like Amnesty International, who criticize Israel. They also criticize many other regimes. They are rarely called anti-Semitic because the charge wouldn't stick.
But many people focus on Israel. They criticize them, and often only them, repeatedly. Sometimes lip service is paid to other countries' problems, but the overwhelming output of their campaigning and complaining is against one country. Given Duterte's war on People Who Cross Him, where is the daily outrage? Given China's occupation of several areas, including a recent report suggesting an internment camp with one million people in it. why no BDS campaign against China?
One answer is that Israel's crimes are uniquely horrible, that they are so absolutely evil that they deserve especial opprobrium. Another is that these people just hate the Jews.
Thursday 23rd August 2018 20:20 GMT
"I don't drive a car but I still help pay for the roads…"
1) Non-drivers don't pay for the roads. Road users subsidize everyone else. I think the rate is £6 tax raised per £1 spent.
2) You certainly use the roads, every time you have something delivered, get on a bus, in a taxi, go to the shops (whose goods were delivered by road), depend on the emergency services, etc. and so on.
Thursday 23rd August 2018 20:18 GMT
Re: Roj blake
"One part of the IDA being objected is
"Applying double standards by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation."
So I can be Antisemitic for not criticising other nations for their shitty acts or not criticising them as much as Israel."
If someone constantly criticizes Israel for its human rights violations, and ignore any other countries', then, you know, there is probably a reason for that.
Fire chief says Verizon throttled department's data in the middle of massive Cali wildfires
Wednesday 22nd August 2018 09:29 GMT
Re: All these people agreeing with Verizon...
"Repeat after me "Testimonial is not the plural of data"."
From your comments on here you are clearly an idiot. But we can add 'illiterate' to the list. Testimonial is not the plural of anything, you fuckwit. You meant, 'The plural of testimonial is not data', but you failed even to manage to type an insult correctly.
Wednesday 22nd August 2018 09:24 GMT
Re: What do you expect?
"RTFA. "This customer purchased a government contract plan for a high-speed wireless data allotment at a set monthly cost. Under this plan, users get an unlimited amount of data but speeds are reduced when they exceed their allotment until the next billing cycle" They received exactly what they paid for. How can you possibly fault the vendor for delivering on the contract?"
OK. Fire service's response is now: "This is a state emergency. We are now comandeering your premises for the duration of the emergency. We will return it to you when the emergency is over."
Connected car data handover headache: There's no quick fix... and it's NOT just Land Rovers
Gartner's Great Vanishing: Some of 2017's emerging techs just disappeared
Monday 20th August 2018 15:17 GMT
I think more appropriate is the Plane of Bullshit. On the x-axis is the amount of hype, and on the y-axis is the amount of actual real stuff being done with it. As time moves on, each concept plots a trajectory on the Plane of Bullshit. Each concept traces out a different route, but there will be some clustering, common paths that ideas take. One such path is the Pure Bullshit, or All Talk No Trousers. This is a horizontal path starting bottom left, move to bottom right, then back again.
Gartner's idea has some merit, but it's a 3-d graph, not a 2d one.
What happens to your online accounts when you die?
Sunday 19th August 2018 08:41 GMT
Re: Society devolving back to feudalism
"there are accounts that need to be passed on though. Think of online insurance portals, my other half is covered under my car insurance for example. Or the family annual holiday insurance. Netflix is another and so is the gas and leccy. Plenty are "in my name" for the online account but not necessarily in just my name for the ownership."
It's not obvious to me that car insurance, even if it covers two people, is transferable upon the death of the person who signed the contract. Unless you both signed it, which I don't think you did, because that's not how insurance normally works.
Rejoice! Thousands more kids flock to computing A-level
Friday 17th August 2018 08:26 GMT
"Over 9,000 boys took computing exams in 2018, though the gender imbalance was stark with just 1,211 girls sitting it this year – one girl for every 10 boys."
Unless 'Over 9000' means 'around 12000', it isn't one girl for every ten boys. But it's not like we're talking about a subject where numeracy is important.
You: 'Alexa, open Cortana.' Alexa: 'Who?'
Florida Man laundered money for Reveton ransomware. Then Microsoft hired him
Prank 'Give me a raise!' email nearly lands sysadmin with dismissal
Clap, damn you, clap! Samsung's Bixby 2.0 AI reveal is met with apathy
Monday 13th August 2018 08:05 GMT
Re: Where's MY AI?
"As a corollary, I would love to see a film where the hero is constantly telling his AI sidekick that no, he doesn't want to go to a restaurant and does not want to order a fucking book from Amazon."
The live-action version of Transformers gets close; while under attack, one soldier tries to call the Pentagon for an air strike because the radio is out. He then has to listen to a sales pitch from an Indian call centre.
Space, the final Trump-tier: America to beam up $8bn for Space Force
Friday 10th August 2018 09:15 GMT
Re: What are the five existing armed forces?
I can only assume that the Marines and Coast Guard are separate because nobody could decide if they were land or sea, so belonged to the Army or Navy.
"Where should we put the Coast Guard? Army or Navy?"
"Are they guarding the coast from the land or from the sea?"
"I guess both."
"Erm... Can we make it a separate branch?"
UK.gov to tech industry: Hands up who can help cut teachers' admin
Top Euro court: No, you can't steal images from other websites (too bad a school had to be sued to confirm this little fact)
Wednesday 8th August 2018 14:55 GMT
Re: A bit much...
"@Jason but there's already laws in place which detail how he should have gone about this. He's actually bypassed existing laws in order to create a situation where he'll make the news."
If there were already laws and everything was so clear, why did we have to get right the way up to the ECJ? The school, then the city, then the state, should have folded at the earliest possible opportunity because it knew it was in the wrong.
But NRW didn't, they took it all the way to the ECJ because they had the cash and wanted to grind an independent photographer into the dirt instead for having the temerity to assert that the law is still true. And it backfired.
Wednesday 8th August 2018 14:52 GMT
Re: Wikipedia, yawn
"This is all old news for us Wikipedians. We have created a special website for images, called the Wikimedia Commons. Only free-licensed and out-of-copyright images are permitted. "Don't know" is likely to be taken down for the well-worn legal reasons just discovered by the school."
Got any photos of monkeys on that website? Oh, I'll just look: oh yes, yes you do. Because
"This file is in the public domain, because as the work of a non-human animal, it has no human author in whom copyright is vested."
which, as was noted on The Register before, is bollocks.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
