Ugly bags of water
AI generated CGI
Posts by Quotes
81 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Nov 2008
Vote now on who should take the lead in Musk: The Movie
Threads versus Twitter: Shouldn't we be happy the wheels are falling off antisocial social media?
Anyone want an International Space Station? Slightly used
UKCloud acquired: Public sector specialist finally bags investment from current chair and private equity after reporting steep losses
What will life in orbit look like after the ISS? NASA hands out new space station contracts
Server errors plague app used by Tesla drivers to unlock their MuskMobiles
Amazon textbook rental service scammed for $1.5m
The unit of measure for fatbergs is not hippopotami, even if the operator of an Australian sewer says so
Restoring your privacy costs money, which makes it a marker of class
Five words everyone wants to hear: Microsoft has 'visually refreshed' Office
Wednesday 30th June 2021 11:43 GMT 
Run Fast
"This new version of Office," said Microsoft engineering manager Mike Smith, "is designed specifically for the next version of Windows on Arm. It has been recompiled for the Arm architecture to run fast, bring greater memory availability, offer better support for large documents, and maintain compatibility."
... because it is always such a struggle to find software that will keep up with my typing skills
I was targeted by North Korean 0-day hackers using a Visual Studio project, vuln hunter tells El Reg
Wednesday 27th January 2021 09:01 GMT
Zero Day
"Normally they're most interested in so-called zero-days: previously unknown vulnerabilities that have existed since "day zero" of a program’s lifespan, as Reg readers know."
I prefer the Kaspersky definition of Zero Day - A zero day exploit is a cyber attack that occurs on the same day a weakness is discovered in software. At that point, it's exploited before a fix becomes available from its creator. https://www.kaspersky.co.uk/resource-center/definitions/zero-day-exploit
You would expect a qualified electrician to wire a building to spec, right? Trust... but verify
The Curse of macOS Catalina strikes again as AccountEdge stays 32-bit
Friday 17th January 2020 16:47 GMT
MYOB 1996-2020
I purchased MYOB for Mac in 1996, and upgraded to Mamut Accountedge 2008. There were some file verification issues following the splitting up of the UK vs Australian MYOB business but to their credit Mamut eventually took on the legacy server. MYOB (2008) still works reliably on Mac OS 10.8.5 and iMac 2007 and is free of any running costs.
The shift towards making tax digital means the MYOB software will not be compliant. I considered moving to MoneyWorks but decided it would be better to buy into the annual Mamut support contract which would provide the latest version of Accountedge and add this capability, releasing the legacy hardware. However if the roadmap for their software is a dead end it looks like I have dodged a bullet.
Thank you to The Register for this timely news... I now know my MYOB-2008 is not going to survive another incarnation and I will be looking for a fresh start with another accounts package. Thank you MYOB, it's been emotional.
Backup your files with CrashPlan! Except this file type. No, not that one either. Try again...
Tuesday 21st May 2019 16:45 GMT 
BackBlaze
I used Crashplan for years and was very happy with the policy of unlimited data without filters. Then they started getting sniffy about what I could and couldn't back up and put up prices. I moved to BackBlaze. They don’t back up all files either, however they are a bit more sensible about it and just exclude system and application directories. If you really want to back up that data you can always archive them to .zip and put it somewhere else on your disk. BackBlaze online backup is just £5 per month.
The also do 10GB of free cloud storage. You can link this with your backups. Backups are normally kept for rolling 30 days, so if you want to protect old versions of files you can put them into cold storage and it doesn’t cost you a penny. And if you have loads of data and want more cold storage the monthly costs and retrieval fees are cheaper than other cloud services.
Even if you don’t want or need BackBlaze the availability of 10GB of free public/private online storage is worthwhile. If you have good FTP software that might be all you need, and backup for free.
A few reasons why cops didn't immediately shoot down London Gatwick airport drone menace
Friday 21st December 2018 12:42 GMT 
Eye In The Sky vs Drone (Robot) Wars
The drone doesn’t need an operator for control (it could be pre-programmed) but it does need one for battery charging. So we need an Eye in the Sky military drone to video the entire airfield and surrounding area, and when it appears you rewind the recording to find it’s origin.
Or when it appears we send up a fleet of drones for aerial combat. Drones could be deployed to different areas in readiness, or they could maintain continuous monitoring at close quarters, and follow the thing home.
Farewell, Android Pay. We hardly tapped you
Tuesday 11th December 2018 16:29 GMT
RFID Blocking
"Keep your debit card in an RFID blocking wallet or sleeve"
Some blocking wallets and sleeves can be bypassed with a stronger signal. To get round this a new generation of blocker cards are available which use the energy from the scanner to generate a blocking signal. Early models used to set off store door security scanners. New ones are okay. Just slip the card into the wallet and you are covered.
New RFID Blocking cards include Blockr Ultimate, and Savisto. Prices are usually around £8 per card but at the moment you can get a twin pack of Savisto from Amazon for £5.95 with free delivery. Orders limited to one per customer but you can re-order. https://amzn.to/2RMpdO9
Namecheap users rage at domain transfer pain, but their supplier Enom blames... er, GDPR?
HostingUK drops offline after losing Farmer vs Fibre competition
Wileyfox goes TITSUP*: Smartmobe maker calls in the administrators
Russia threatens to set up its 'own internet' with China, India and pals – let's take a closer look
AI hype surge numbers, robo-radiologists, Apple voxels, and lots more
Does UK high street banks' crappy crypto actually matter?
Thursday 16th November 2017 14:53 GMT
Cipher Selection
@Alister mentioned the SSL report from Qualys SSL Labs for HSBC. It does cause concern to see a "B" rating, and inclusion of the TLS_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA (0x5) cipher which is insecure.
I would be mortified to get a B rating. I have always looked at the Twitter and Google reports to see what their cipher selections are like and configured my servers to a similar spec. There are a couple of "weak" ciphers to fall back on but this is still acceptable and they are at the bottom of the list.
But HSBC using an Insecure Cipher - surely that is unforgivable?
And why aren’t they using Perfect Forward Secrecy?
Openreach pegs full fibre overhaul anywhere between £3bn and £6bn
Monday 7th August 2017 13:50 GMT
Internet is now a utility
Does anyone remember 28k modem connections and the transition to 56k? Or how Freeserve changed the cost of dialup services? We now have broadband speeds of 1MB, 10MB, 100MB and nobody looks back and says faster speeds haven’t been beneficial.
Just like the new global positioning satellite network, faster Internet access is an enabling technology. But the market is fragmented by the haves and the have-nots. The government needs to lay down a public utility standard - that says fibre to every premises that has an electricity supply within 5 years.
A technology business that delivers services that benefit from faster internet connections is not going to be interested in investing if only 1% of the country can use it. We need a universal standard and the performance has to be improved.
BT's Ryan Reynolds helicopter Wi-Fi ads 'misleading', thunders ad watchdog
Hasta la Windows Vista, baby! It's now officially dead – good riddance
Your internet history on sale to highest bidder: US Congress votes to shred ISP privacy rules
Wednesday 29th March 2017 09:31 GMT
TalkTalk ISP Privacy Invading Bot - still active
https://www.abuseipdb.com/check/62.24.181.134 - This IP address has been reported a total of 58 times. 62.24.181.134 was first reported on 26 Sep 2015. The most recent report was 17 hours ago.
However it looks like the IPs starting with 62.24.* are the ones to be concerned about. Ignore the others.
Wednesday 29th March 2017 09:02 GMT
TalkTalk ISP Privacy Invading Bot
I am not sure if this is still active but TalkTalk have a privacy invading bot. When you make a visit to a web page the URL is passed to the Bot, and then the Bot visits the same page, presumably to scrape the content. I noticed this when I spotted double-hits in my web server logs.
In response I have blocked the following IPs so they can no longer access my server. For this reason, I don’t see them visit any more, and that is why I am unsure if they are still active. I assume they are.
Note: TalkTalk employs a Chinese contractor to do this for them - huaweisymantec
62.24.181.134
62.24.181.135
62.24.222.131
62.24.222.132
62.24.222.133
62.24.222.134
62.24.252.132
62.24.252.133
69.28.58.3
69.28.58.41
69.28.58.43
69.28.58.5
69.28.58.6
80.40.134.103
80.40.134.104
The scenario in the US reminds me of the gold old days of Phorm intercepting UK traffic.
Last Concorde completes last journey, at maybe Mach 0.02
Wednesday 8th February 2017 13:15 GMT
G-BOAF flew to DC
Extract from http://www.concordephotos.com/history-of-concorde.html
7th Nov 2001 - Air France and British Airways restart Concorde services to New York. Air France Concorde F-BTSD, as Flight AF002, departs Paris Charles De Gaulle at 10:30 local time arriving at New York at 8:20EST. British Airways Concorde G-BOAE departs Heathrow Terminal 4, as BA001, at 10:30 local time and it arrives in New York at 9:10EST. Later the same day Prime Minister Tony Blair flies to Washington DC onboard Concorde G-BOAF to meet President George W Bush
WileyFox Swift 2: A new champ of the 'for around £150' market
Monday 14th November 2016 15:43 GMT
Another happy customer
I have an original Wileyfox Swift and I am very happy with it. The dual SIMM is very handy for PAYG - you can keep an existing PAYG number from a previous network and then add another SIMM for PAYG mobile data (Three do 1Mb for 1p). There have been regular system updates and I haven’t experienced any problems using Cyanogen. I agree with the previous comment about the USB connector being set back a bit more than normal, but you get used to it. If something went wrong with this phone I would happily buy another. Well done Wileyfox.
Windows 10 pain: Reg man has 75 per cent upgrade failure rate
Cash-strapped English and Welsh cops prepare to centralise all 43 forces' websites
Forget black helicopters, FBI flying surveillance Cessnas over US cities. Warrant? What's that?
Universe's shock rapidly expanding waistline may squash Einstein flat
Friday 3rd June 2016 16:51 GMT 
Distance to Mars
The new value is 66.53 (plus or minus 0.62) kilometers per second per megaparsec (3.26 million light-years). That means in 9.8 billion years the distance between cosmic objects will double.
So, the distance from Earth to Mars is increasing at roughly 5 metres per year.
Is this being factored into the fuel estimates for forthcoming expeditions?
999 What's your emergency: Mega millions Met call handling IT muckup?
Nominet to hike price of UK web domains by 50%
Storm in a teacup: Wileyfox does Android cheapie, British style
Friday 20th November 2015 12:35 GMT
Re: Not biting
Out of the box, the screen protector is already in place. I pulled the tab expecting to remove a protective film and put the plastic down on the table. Then I realised I had removed the screen protector as well. Once speckled with dust I couldn’t get it to go back on without bubbles so I ditched it. An honest mistake but with a bit of user testing Wileyfox ought to have fixed this simple mistake.
Thursday 19th November 2015 16:43 GMT
Wileyfox Swift
I didn’t know about Wileyfox until I read about them here on el Reg. On the back of that review I purchased the Wileyfox Swift. I’m using it as PAYG but I’m usually tethered to my desk and most of the time there is Wifi so I don’t have a mobile data plan.
With dual sim I’m still looking for a PAYG mobile data provider for ad-hoc use... I tried EE but they deceived me with a top-up meaning "add-on" instead of top-up + data... so the second slot is now going spare. Any suggestions for PAYG data?
The Wileyfox Swift works well, and I have no complaints although it would be more helpful if Wileyfox upgraded their web site to provide useful hints and tips, such as how to upload your own ringtones.
I supplemented my storage with a "Samsung Memory 32 GB EVO Plus MicroSDHC UHS-I Grade 1 Class 10 Memory Card" so overall purchase price was £142.70 including delivery.
I like the feature that unlocks my phone when location is detected as one of my 'safe zones' and I’m happy that app crashes have so far not materialised at all. Build quality is good. I tend to leave my phone face down because the back is curvy and smooth, and will slide off a surface a bit too easily.
I am happy to recommend this phone.
The Edward Snowden guide to practical privacy
Friday 13th November 2015 11:16 GMT
Re: PAYG?
The Wileyfox Swift also allows you to deactivate an installed sim, so you don’t need to drain your battery keeping two mobile networks active.
On a side note, if you have a dual sim with both sims active, different networks, would that improve accuracy of location by triangulation methods?
Time Lords set for three-week battle over leap seconds
TalkTalk incident management: A timeline
Tuesday 27th October 2015 15:39 GMT 
A TalkTalk customer says...
6 days after the hack, I'm still waiting to be notified.
I had a call yesterday, from someone claiming to be from TalkTalk, asking me to verify my details with them before they continued with the call. I explained I wasn’t going to do that in light of their company being hacked and advice to the contrary - ‘were they aware their company had been hacked?’ The caller then hung up on me.
TalkTalk’s core business is supposed to be **communications**
TalkTalk attack: 'No legal obligation to encrypt customer bank details', says chief
Monday 26th October 2015 10:52 GMT
First contact from TalkTalk
TalkTalk contacted me today (caller id = 006690). It is the first contact they have made since they were hacked four days ago. The caller asked me to confirm some personal details before they could continue with the call ! Obviously I declined but I asked them if they were aware their company had been hacked. Their response was to hang up. Says it all really.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
