* Posts by Roger Stenning

338 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Apr 2008

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Five Totally Believable Things Car Makers Must Do To Thwart Hackers

Roger Stenning

Re: God luck hacking my wagon...

"I will raise you an ANPRC 10 for your A41 ;)"

LOL! Already have a UK/PRC-320 thanks ;-)

Roger Stenning

Re: God luck hacking my wagon...

""Allegedly" you can jump start it without even having access to the inside by removing "one of the front bulbs" and applying enough electrickery, so not that difficult... :)"

AFAIK, that's an urban myth. Interesting way to go about frying oneself, mind ;-)

Roger Stenning

Re: God luck hacking my wagon...

"A squaddie can roll anything... as evidenced by the many photos on this page (scroll down for the better ones):

http://www.nmbva.co.uk/REME%20photos.htm"

Yeah, in the days of national service, those were. I've seen some rather more spectacularly messy ones myself, though not, thankfully, with Landies.

Roger Stenning

Re: God luck hacking my wagon...

"Hmmmm, heard on a military comms net many moons ago "Rolled the rover over, over". These damn things flip at a moments notice in my experience."

As I mentioned earlier, Land Rovers are no more unstable than any other MTV. If you allow stupidity to overcome common sense and training then yes, you can do terminally stupid things to gain a Darwin Award for yourself. The trick to keeping yourself and your vehicle in single pieces is to maintain proper control of the vehicle, drive within your limits, and also within the limits of the place where you are driving, as it is, indeed, with any other form of motorised transport.

Oh, and I've heard that one on the batphone too ;-)

Roger Stenning

Re: God luck hacking my wagon...

Yes, the panels are aly, but I think you must be thinking of the range rover. Series landies have a pronounced steel welded chassis, and are no more unstable than any other MTV on the roads. As a result of their height off the deck compared to the majority of other cars on the road, other cars are more likely to hit the chassis than the bodywork, and thus come off worst. As to the suspension on a series wagon, they have a rather hard suspension through the use of leaf springs, hence the so-called 'land rover backside' after a long drive ;-)

Hmm. Reliant Robin. Painted yellow, I trust? ;-)

Roger Stenning

Re: God luck hacking my wagon...

Bravery has nothing to do with it: It's instant revenge if some idiot is dumb enough to crash into it - they'll ALWAYS come off worse ;-)

Roger Stenning
Devil

God luck hacking my wagon...

I drive a Series 3 Land Rover :-D

NASA tests crazytech flying saucer thruster, could reach Mars in days

Roger Stenning
Go

Even accounting...

...for the fact that conventional rocketry would be needed to bring it to orbit, this is quite something. I hope the scaled-up version exceeds the promise of the model they constructed.

I can only see one potential problem: It's using microwave energy to produce thrust. If that casing leaks (micrometeorites etcetera), everyone on board the ship it's pushing is likely to wind up as rubber chicken, unless there are some significant Faraday cage considerations given to the crew compartment.

Never the less, let's hope this works - I want to see us establish a permanent, fully manned, and expanding, facility on Mars before I pop my clogs!

EE rolls out London bus pay-by-bonk app – only fandoids need apply

Roger Stenning
Coat

Re: fandoids?

{robotic voder-altered voice} yes {/robotic voder-altered voice}

*add obligatory insane giggle here*

'We screwed up' sighs Sony bigwig after gaming portals collapse in DNS cock-up riddle

Roger Stenning
Meh

Well...

...at least he stood up and admitted there'd been a TARFU.

Watch: DARPA shows off first successful test of STEERABLE bullet

Roger Stenning
Black Helicopters

Tom Selleck must sue!

They're using the idea from his movie "Runaway"! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_%281984_film%29)

hang on. what's that drumming sound, getting louder? OHSH-

Teensy card skimmers found in gullets of ATMs

Roger Stenning
Thumb Up

Re: It might actually help...

No, I'd not clocked that, thanks.

Roger Stenning
Flame

It might actually help...

...if they post those photos on publicly viewable, rather than subscription-only, sites: Prevention is better than cure, and it'd be useful for us unwashed masses to know just WTF we're looking for, when trying to prevent ourselves from being fleeced by these feckless buggers, after all.

FAKE Google web SSL certificates tip-toe out from Indian authorities

Roger Stenning
Thumb Up

There's another reason...

...that I use Firefox.

Judge says there's no such thing as a 'Patent Troll'

Roger Stenning
Facepalm

I'd personally go with...

"Oxygen Thieves", but Judge Koh might take issue with that, too!

UK govt preps World War 2 energy rationing to keep the lights on

Roger Stenning
Flame

Ye Gods.

This has been on the horizon for HOW LONG?

I want to see NONE OF THE ABOVE on the next ballot papers, because they're all just fucking incompetent, and shouldn't be left in charge of anything more complex than a wooden spoon.

UK govt 'tearing up road laws' for Google's self-driving cars: The truth

Roger Stenning
Meh

I'm against it at this time. here's why...

The road traffic conditions here are vastly different to those in the USA; our roads are generally more congested, the driving standards are variable at best, and frankly, I - and I suspect many others - don't trust the level of reliability on the highly complex electronic, mechanical, and computing solutions that would be required for the extremely active and reactive systems that would have to be 100% reliable fully automated travel on our roads.

In addition (and Suricou Raven, we were typing at the same time, looks like, you beat me to this just now!), there's the legislation and litigation angle to consider: There has to be a human to take responsibility for the movement of a vehicle in a court of law should something go irreversibly wrong; vehicle-related deaths, injuries, and such like, can generally be taken to have been caused by a Human, not a machine - indeed, the percentage of Road Traffic Collisions caused by purely mechanical failure are remarkably small these days; taking the human out of the loop means that should a computer or technological error creep in, human responsibility may not properly be apportionable; thus without a Human in the control loop, any prosecution resulting from a smart-system-related RTC may be immediately doomed to failure.

Don't get me wrong: I'm all for technological advances, but you have to consider that even unmanned aerial vehicles have humans in the control loop; if they require a human on the controls, then surely road-going vehicles require this as well?

EBay, you keep using the word 'SECURITY'. I do not think it means what you think it means

Roger Stenning
Facepalm

After the horse has bolted...

...been recaptured, stuck in the next door cell in the sables, and the door roped closed without even so much as a new Abloy padlock...

...I pre-emptively changed my password. No email to tell me to, of course. Heard about it on the radio, of all things. Oh, and YE FESTERING AND SUFFERING GODS they took HOW FRAKKING LONG to tell us about this TARFU?!

And to those who bemoan their fiends - I mean friends - and mutants - I mean relations - not having a ruddy clue what to use for a password, tell 'em to get their passwords from here... http://strongpasswordgenerator.com/. Seems to have worked with those who hitherto didn't know what I meant, and couldn't understand how I explained it - thus, there is no longer any excuse NOT to know how to generate a strong password.

Remembering it afterwards, of course, is another matter altogether...!

FINGERS CROSSED: Apple and Samsung said to be hammering out settlement

Roger Stenning
Coat

It's the commercial version of...

..the Cold War. It'll be Brush Fire (litigation) battles all over the globe, until one of them falls over into bankruptcy, and the world suffers the fallout.

Still, the longer it takes, maybe the milder the overall effects may be.

All hail the Silicon Curtain!

OK, sod it, reaching for my coat already ;-)

FCC mulls two-speed internet, axing net neutrality ... unless you convince it otherwise

Roger Stenning
Flame

And the..

...backhander of the year goes to...

THE FCC!

Fuckwits. They just broke the internet.

GCHQ's 'NOSEY SMURF' spyware snoops dragged into secretive tribunal

Roger Stenning
Meh

It'll be found to be legal if...

...someone actually asked for a warrant - which in this case does NOT need to be signed by a magistrate or judge, the Secretary of State (or an authorised 'senior official' under his express authority) may issue such warrants.

See the Sections 5 & 6, Intelligence Services Act 1994 (1994 c. 13), "Authorisation of certain actions"

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/13/crossheading/authorisation-of-certain-actions

In short, the tribunal is unlikely to find in favour of Privacy International.

What, you were expecting a fairy tale ending for the small guy? Welcome to reality, feller.

eBay cops $3bn tax bill after moving its profits back onshore

Roger Stenning
WTF?

Wot, no comments...

...on how they actually PAID some tax this time?

Wow.

I'd have thought congratulations were in order for a large multinational corp actually contributing to society for a change by paying tax - even if they did do it in the USA, rather than over here in Blighty.

Now, can more of them follow suit, but over here, please?

Firefox, is that you? Version 29 looks rather like a certain shiny rival

Roger Stenning
Flame

WTFFFFF?!

Why the **** can they NOT let us have consistency? WHY must the ALWAYS bugger about with something that is NOT broken?!

FFS LEAVE IT BE - IT WORKS!

Reg probe bombshell: How we HACKED mobile voicemail without a PIN

Roger Stenning
FAIL

EE: "First and foremost it’s illegal to access a voicemail account without the owner’s permission." As if that's going to stop a hacker. Come on, how can a network be so sodding naive and/or lazy?

As to Three. ouch. Not at all good.

Windows 8.1 Update: Throws desktop drones a bone but still as TOUCHY as ever

Roger Stenning
FAIL

Touchscreen is fine and dandy...

... for a mobile device like a PDA, mobile (Cellular) phone, and phablets, but NOT, say again NOT for a desktop machine, where keyboard shortcuts, F keys, etcetera are often in regular usage; the Win8 environment is just not keyed up (sorry, couldn't help it) for this at all.

I appreciate that they wanted to keep it effectively to something like "one system to rule them all", but in the real world that's just not going to happen. Two versions, minimum, was what they should have aimed at; Mobile and desktop.

The end result: They've pissed off a fair slice of their formerly loyal following.

My new notebook came with In8 as standard. It took some modding (OK, a quick search and a simple download and installation of IOBit's "Start menu 8") to add the functionality of the windows key and start bar (3rd party application), but I've got it to where it's usable.

But the next upgrade I have in hardware WILL be for a Linux machine, and the hell with Windoze.

'Graceful' solar flare erupts from surface of Sun – NASA vid

Roger Stenning

I did like

the music. Sounded like something from a movie. Any ideas as to what it was?

Google teases more modular smartphone details in run-up to dev meet-up

Roger Stenning
Go

Interesting concept...

...I like it. Hope it actually gets off the R&D desk and into production for us in the real world to play with :-)

Bank-raid ZeuS malware waltzes around web with 'valid app signature'

Roger Stenning

Name and shame?

So that the rest of us know who screwed the security pooch?

Judge strikes down Apple attempt to bar Samsung's 'untrue' patent comments

Roger Stenning
Flame

Will someone *please*...

..just bang their damned heads together and yell so that their ears reside six feet inside their skulls "PLAY THE FUCK NICE"?

I'm getting so fucking tired of this crap is almost makes me want to dump them all - no matter who the hell they are - into a sodding blast furnace, and turn the dial up to "vapourise with intent".

Get ready for software-defined RADAR: Jam, eavesdrop, talk and target ... simultaneously

Roger Stenning

Re: Interesting...

Frankly, yes, that IS a problem; in an aircraft capable of supersonic flight, any opening to the ambient supersonic air has the potential to rip the fuselage wide open due to the forces involved. Yes, you could potentially bleed air into a cooling vent via a secondary intake from within the air intakes for the engines prior to the air entering the turbine blades, but then the problem becomes one of slowing this resulting air down to manageable velocities to be useful in any cooling system. A friend of mine worked for many years as an avionics technician (and later as a team leader) in the RAF for many years, and I'm reliably informed that this is a very real problem.

Roger Stenning
Boffin

Interesting...

..but I can't help but wonder how much of a service life (mean time between failure) such kit would have; given the multitude of activities that the equipment would have to be servicing, the duty cycle of all components in the kit would have to be near 100% when switched on and operational; that would require some serious over-engineering to take into account the heat build-up that this would generate. On ground-based kit, that wouldn't be so much of a problem, as fans, cooling systems, et al, don't have to be that small in that location - but in a small place like a military combat aircraft? That's going to be a challenge to overcome.

Bletchley boffins go to battle again: You said WHAT about Colossus?

Roger Stenning
Happy

Re: Willy waving

I corrected it for you...

3 - see the important exhibits taken to the Science Museum and the Bletchley Park site put up for sale with the proceeds going to the Royal British Legion.

AT&T and Netflix get into very public spat over net neutrality

Roger Stenning
Meh

"Someone must pay a cost".

Hmm. I could have sworn that some folks already do pay a cost.

Oh yeah! They're called "customers".

Maybe you should think about providing them a little better service for the money they give you, instead of squeezing them for everything they've got without improving anything?

Just saying.

MPs urge UK.gov to use 1950s obscenity law to stifle online stiffies

Roger Stenning

Add metadata to the headers?

Um... they are aware that the entities running these sites are under no obligation to follow UK law if they aren't (1) British Subjects, and (2) in the UK, and that the internet does NOT stop at the 12-mile territorial limit, right?

Mozilla takes Windows 8-friendly Firefox out back ... two shots heard

Roger Stenning
Facepalm

TWO shots?!

At that range?! Jeeze. Someone needs some range practice.

Backdoor snoops can access files on your Samsung phone via the cell network – claim

Roger Stenning
Meh

Am I being cynical...

...or does Replicant, screaming "SECURITY HOLE! (you can avoid it with OUR operating system)" just sound a little bit like sensationalist panic-driving advertising?

Reference (para 10): "The solution, Kocialkowski says, is to replace the device's stock Android firmware with a purely free-software OS, such as Replicant."

Meh. Because, well.

Twittapocalypse! Twitter implodes, locked out tweeps around the world

Roger Stenning
Meh

Re: I hadn't

Neither did I. Using it all day to track the Bob Crow & Clause 119 stories. There was a slight slowdown this afternoon, but nothing came crashing down.

Must've been lucky, I guess.

Heroic Playmonaut wowed by LOHAN's bulging package

Roger Stenning
Facepalm

It is indeed right and proper..

..that the pilot have a good old cup of tea to hand, but how the heck is he going to drink the rapidly cooling thing, if he's got his brain bucket on his bonce?!

It's cruelty to playmonauts, that's what it is! Give the poor pilot a straw, for heavens' sake!

Hey, MoJ, we're not your Buddi: Brit firm abandons 'frustrating' crim-tagging contract

Roger Stenning

Yes, but the crux point here is that the MoJ did NOT appear to want to pay for the development costs in the NEW specification of the contract.

Looking at the whole article (I *DID* RTFA!), it seems that the MoJ wanted not to amend the terms of the existing contract, but to have Buddi agree to what would amount to a completely new contract to develop tech that the MoJ wanted, that would pay Buddi exactly the same as the old contract, AND at the end of the contract period lose them all the IP involved in developing the new technology that the MoJ wouldn't then be paying for.

That is, if not illegal, certainly immoral. You do NOT expect people to work for nothing, after all.

I can see why Buddi threw their toys out of the pram. Entirely reasonable response, IMHO.

Passenger jet grounded by two-hour insect attack

Roger Stenning
Thumb Up

Re: Brings a whole new buzz...

Well... not so new after all! Thanks for the heads up :-)

Roger Stenning
Coat

Brings a whole new buzz...

...to the phrase "there's a bug in the system"!

Awright, I'm getting me coat ;-)

NHS England DIDN'T tell households about GP medical data grab plan

Roger Stenning

Re: Forget about whether we had the leaflet or not

Wouldn't mind that info too.

Scotland to test mobe signals slammer jammer

Roger Stenning
Thumb Down

It's a good idea, but...

...the laws of physics being what they are, there's no way that they can assure us that any jamming signal they broadcast will remain within the walls of the clink in question.

There will inevitably be leakage, and people who are merely walking or driving past any nick using this system in a built up area (can you say Brixton, Holloway, or even Wormwood Scrubs, just to name a few in London) will be affected by this system - this is especially worrying, as any of those people may be calling the emergency services for some reason when they get hit by the leaked jamming signal.

Any cellular jamming system used therefore, must be installed in a building that can be completely shielded (Faraday Cage, as mentioned above) so as to prevent such leakage. And for a prison, the costs are just too prohibitive to retrofit each building with such a cage.

There has to be something done, obviously, but a blanket jamming signal is NOT the way to do it.

Angry anti-NSA hackers pwn Angry Birds site after GCHQ data slurp

Roger Stenning
FAIL

Re: Keep on popping those NSA piggies

Didn't take you long to break Godwins Law did it. Naughty web tangler. Go to the corner and put on the Dozy hat, there's a silly boy now.

Elderly Bletchley Park volunteer sacked for showing Colossus exhibit to visitors

Roger Stenning
Mushroom

Bloody outrageous.

Revisionist History, blot out what won't sell "merchandise", and **** those who want to tell actual history as opposed to goodfact. Makes me want to puke.

A real life Romulan-Klingon alliance: Google, Samsung sign global patent pact

Roger Stenning
Trollface

Re: Hardly a surprise...

Yea, verily, the troll icon did its' work *smirk*

Roger Stenning
Trollface

Hardly a surprise...

...for all their public comments over the last few years, the fruit firm appears, instead, to be intent on world domination and mind control. Just look at how their fanbois carp on and froth at the mouth, and you'll see how pavlovian things can get ;-)

Alcatel-Lucent and BT unveil super fat pipe, splurt out 1.4Tb per second across London

Roger Stenning
Go

So, realistically...

...we're talking three times the throughput at the termination point (the customer), without any expensive and long-term road and pavement works to replace cabling and roadside boxes?

My only niggle is wondering how long it'll take the relevant parties to roll this out into the real world.

Still, when all's said and done, it's nothing to be sniffed at, when you think about it.

Scientists discover supervolcano trigger that could herald humanity's doom

Roger Stenning
Coat

So, boiled down, then...

... it'll bulge, then pop? Is this scientist is comparing a supervolcano to a super-sized lethal zit?

If this is the case, then the solution's simple: Mega-Zap those Mega-Zits with a mega dose of Oxy!

ahem.

OK, I'm going, now...!

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