* Posts by Evil Auditor

2619 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Jan 2009

Home Office accused of blocking UK public's scrutiny of Snoopers' Charter

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Coat

Re: "ability to play a harpsichord, not punch through it with their fists"

Theresa?!!

One in five mobile phones shipped abroad are phoney – report

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risk of lethal electrocution

So, if the genuine phone battery doesn't kill you, surely the fake adapter will?

Pirate of the Caribbean to play Hacker of the Caribbean

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Re: Does anybody really care?

I might. I even watched Titanic (on T.V. though).

What a time to be alive: drone pooper-scoopers are a thing now

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Finding dog poo in public places and picking it up before it can besmirch a sole probably isn't high on the list of things humanity needs to get better at

You haven't been to Brussels, have you?

FYI Docs.com users: You may have leaked passwords, personal info – thousands have

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My advice is: don't share sensitive information via cloudy stuff.

It's difficult though to put blame on the users (I don't know docs.com). They will use whatever comes handy*. Not to say they are not responsible but systems targeted at world and dog should be engineered to a certain foolproof level**.

* ...Or rather is available for, e.g. Office 365 handy it certainly isn't.

** If you make it foolproof they'll invent a better fool. But at least make it safer for the common fool.

Boffins crowdsource hunt for 'Planet 9'

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Angel

"...you'll have to find someone else to name it after"

Easy. My dog found it. He can name it whatever he wants, i.e. except his own name.

Who wants a planet named after him or her anyway? There are much "better" things I can think of...

NASA to fire 1Gbps laser 'Wi-Fi' ... into spaaaaace

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Sounds to me like kind of a tin can telephone. A sophisticated one, that is.

Coppers 'persistently' breach data protection laws with police tech

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"...are likely to face very significant penalties"

I wonder just how likely and how very significant those penalties are, when data breaches are committed persistently. Did some officer just get another very significant slap on the wrist?

I used to work for a company that monitored access to customer data records. If someone accessed data they were not supposed to query, an investigation was launched. If the access could be reasonably explained e.g. by typo, it was a slap on the wrist. If there wasn't such explanation it resulted in a written warning ("two warnings and you're out") or outright dismissal without notice - depending on the severity of the data breach. That is what I call significant penalties. But with such procedures there probably wouldn't be many police left...

New iPad revealed. Big price cut is main feature

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Problem: net revenue's lower than wanted.

Solution: red iPhone

Uber bans 'brilliant jerks', will train staff on Why Diversity Matters

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Forget about all the diversity and non-sexism initiatives. These issues can be solved with a simple and broader No Arsholes Rule (Robert Sutton). Implementation might be not that simple though, especially if it's AHs that should implement it...

Now THAT'S a landslide victory: Astroboffins snap avalanche on a comet in science first

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Re: Unbelievable

Exactly what I thought as well about the landslide.

And for our friends from across the pond and other religious nutcases: replace Mother Nature with God

Beijing deploys facial scanners to counter public toilet abuse

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Re: _

Sponges - that is the answer! Always found those bog brushes a little rough...

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Re: six squares ?

Ralph B, what do you feed her?

Anyway, a 16yo female may be the very definition of not normal. Don't worry too much though, that phase will pass. When she moves out. Good luck!

Norfolk County Council sent filing cabinet filled with kids' info to a second-hand shop

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Protect its information?

Yes, but even more importantly: It should have had a written procedure in place which made it clear that any storage items removed from the office which may have contained personnel were thoroughly checked before disposal.

Unimaginable had someone been fallen asleep in there...

Hell freezes over: We wrote an El Reg chatbot using Microsoft's AI

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Re: What if AmanFromMars is capable of interacting with it? @ Evil Auditor

amanfromMars 1, don't try to sidetrack. The question at hand is where is amanfromMars? What happened to it? Yes, I'm looking straight at you, amanfromMars 1.

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Re: What if AmanFromMars is capable of interacting with it?

It might create a chatbot singularity which will expand and swallow all that is. Speaking of which, where is amanfrommars? Did it accidentally bump into amanfrommars1 and both of them vanished in *puff*?

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...at the thought of replacing call center staff with a few lines of code

What? Hasn't this been done back yonks?

Can't remember the last time I had the impression to talk to a human being when reaching a call centre...

User jams up PC. Literally. No, we don't know which flavour

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Re: You missed out

My dear blood's been spread among a many Olivetti razor blades computers back in the mid 90s. It was such a relieve to switch to Dell - at least the desktops had been a pleasure to handle.

Sad fact of the day: Most people still don't know how to protect themselves online

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I'm basically Mr Robot.

I do whatever I'm told to do.

Just wondering how many understood it that way.

User lubed PC with butter, because pressing a button didn't work

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Re: "... the number of incidents dropped dramatically."

Jedit, the number of incidents that occurred out of hours dropped.

It was neither that they slacked off nor about actively faking incidents. What happened was, that they maintained the system at a certain level of instability where at one point an incident would occur, such as a predictable batch job abort (there was no proof of actively causing incidents though). After the incentives changed, they built more robust procedures and programs and also improved their monitoring system to get early warnings for predictable incidents.

Must have been a fun time though before. They got the huge extra pay and the praise ("the IT wizards saved the Bank. Again!")

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It's not unheard of. In one of my former lives, at a large bank, the on-call personnel used to be paid extra per time for each incident during nights and weekends. Some of them got sports cars, extended their house, built swimming pools... Until the on-call compensation scheme was changed.

From the moment those guys got paid extra just for being on-call but didn't get any additional compensation for solving problems, the number of incidents dropped dramatically.

That CIA exploit list in full: The good, the bad, and the very ugly

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Re: Claim drain

James 51, there was me reading ...distract people from Russian...hookers in his cabinet... and thinking, that's where he keeps her!

Iconic Land Rover Defender may make a comeback by 2019

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Re: Design the new defender... quite simple really

when was the last time you believed a fuel economy figure, top speed or acceleration number from any manufacturer?

The manufacturer states 16 mpg while in reality I do up to 26. It's a rare misstatement. Even more so from a Germanic manufacturer (an old G Wagon). So to answer your question: about 20 years ago.

Stop the press: Journos not happy losing jobs to journo bots, say journos

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Where's amanfrommars? That should be the one commenting on this article.

RAF pilot sacked for sending Airbus Voyager into sudden dive

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Re: Townshend’s actions cost the RAF almost a million pounds

Personnel injuries are probably covered by insurance.

Now, English isn't my strongest suit (doing well with maths though), but when reading "almost a million pounds" I'd expect something in the range of but lower than a million.

Did you know? Amazon does film production – and it treats those workers like dirt, too*

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Re: Tough love

Amazon: you like your job, right? You're having fun?

PPA: yeah....?

Amazon: you don't expect me to pay you for having fun, do you?!

Alternative

Amazon: you like your job, right? You're having fun?

PPA: yeah... but no, not really.

Amazon: Sod off, you ungrateful sob! You're fired!

Has your spouse stayed on after Mobile World Congress? This sex doll brothel might be why

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Re: Nothing for the wimmin?

...in order to increase market penetration...

Well said.

Prisoners' 'innovative' anti-IMSI catcher defence was ... er, tinfoil

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Coat

Re: Ready for the down votes, but...

Isn't it about time Ofcom arrived in the 21st century and licensed low powered jammers?

Wot?! They are - not licensed? I praise my quite, babble-free commute on the train.

Mine's the one with the jammer in its pocket

Boeing seeks patent for mobile device case with built-in fire extinguisher

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Re: 'ere hang on

Exactly what I thought. Then again, I probably don't fully understand the physics and chemistry involved in those battery fires. Isn't the fire just a result from the heat which will build rather independently of the environment? What's going to happen to the device when placed in a inert atmosphere? Will the heat help releasing some other stuff which can result in an exothermic reaction nevertheless? In such a case, the case may buy just enough time to fling the whole thing out of the window ;-)

Lap(top) of luxury: Porsche Design revs up 2-in-1 Windows 10 slab

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Devil

Porsche

Does my d*** look bigger in this?

LUNAR-CY! SpaceX announces a Moon trip-for-two it'll inevitably miss the deadline on

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I'm all for enthusiasm. But fully expected some tongue-in-cheek Reg stuff when starting to read the following sentence:

"Like the Apollo astronauts before them, these individuals will travel into space carrying the hopes and dreams of all humankind, driven by the universal human spirit of exploration"

Yes. Yes! Yes!!! And then:

said SpaceX.

The anticlimax. Or rather the contrary, SpaceX being utterly ironic? Or just pathetic me being an old bag of cynicism. That's probably why I'll never circle the moon and have to settle for circling the sun. Lifelong.

Experimental satellite-slinger seeks cargo: What could go wrong?

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TTT - Tremendous T Tower

"Mr President, you wanna go big, don't you? I mean very, very big. Tremendously big! Bigger than ever. We - you and I and all the people who love you, so in short: all the people - we are going to build the greatest building, we are going to build bigly. We are going to build YOUR 500km high tower! And you, only you, will lay its foundation stone right at the top of what will be the top of your building. Now grab this brick with your tiny hands, climb into this box lift elevator and wait for it to arrive at the top."

BOFH: Elf of Safety? Orc of Admin. Pleased to meet you

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Pint

The position itself has all the prestige of an unflushed turd and, as such, tends to attract the human version of the blowfly.

Have to remember that line.

Sysadmin's sole client was his wife – and she queried his bill

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Brilliant, wolfetone.

Had been together with a barrister myself. No, she wasn't that bad. But boy, there were issues...

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Well done, Jared! On a larger scale, in bigger companies, often organisations don't learn as quickly as your wife did. Then you end up talking to helldesk, half way across the world (in this case somewhere in Costa Rica) and watching a drone remote-controlling your mouse and keyboard for a full day of eight fucking hours. Without solving the issue. But at least resetting all my preferences in mail and office suite - of course, for a problem which had nothing to do with either of those programmes.

Anyway, some housewives might also want to apply your tactic. Rightly so.

Gulp! Drones dodge spray from California's gaping moist glory hole

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Clickbait title!

That's one of the things I like about El Reg.

This hole makes me want to throw in some staffstuff from around here...

Huge if true: iPhone 8 will feature 3D selfies, rodent defibrillator

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Gimp

Re: iBluVibe

No need for that. The pure thought of a new iPhone has the effect of a serious overdose of Viagra.

Finally, a use for your mobile phone: Snapping ALIEN signal blurts

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Alien

"...if the blazes could be linked to “advanced civilizations” living far away in the cosmos."

I bet they can. It's those kind of advanced civilisation that wipe out other civilisations with high-energy radiation. What we detect here is probably the ricochet equivalent of electromagnetic radiation.

RAF pilot sent jet into 4,000ft plummet by playing with camera, court martial hears

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Re: The joy of shutterstock...

Or as in this case: "...and not the diver..."

Britain collects new naval tanker a mere 18 months late

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Re: What the hell

Dave 15, you mean... are you serious? And you're wondering about the thumbs down?

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Re: What the hell

Dave 15, pass it to the Trump! British problem? Whatever! To the Trump with it!

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Re: What the hell

@Dave 15, I admire your humour! Well ranted.

Stanford boffins find 'correlation between caffeine consumption and longevity'

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The research doesn't say drinking coffee alone is going to help you achieve a ripe old age

No, you also need tea and chocolate! That is, anyway, the way I understood this research.

Where's the cuppa icon?

Binary star bash-up should add new light to Northern Cross in 2022

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Re: Well, thats the weather

I've always wanted to deploy some strategically placed massive atmospheric dehumidifiers

Well, we -on the continent- do actually have a strategically placed massive atmospheric dehumidifier. We call it the British Isles.

Android tops 2016 vuln list, with 523 bugs

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Re: Owww.

...the only truely smart option...

Great for the "feature phone". But what really interests me is how you've connected your typewriter to the interwebs?! Or do you simply shout your comments towards your assistants and they type them?

Stealing, scamming, bluffing: El Reg rides along with pen-testing 'red team hackers'

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Re: It's a bit disappointing

In my mind, if I do not get confirmation of something from a known authority, you can leave and come do your audit at a later date when I have been notified.

You're my hero! Seriously though, this is a rather rare beast in reality. Even though quite a few people would say exactly like you did, what they actually do is totally different.

Usually I don't conduct surprise audits and my 'victims' are mostly informed. It still happens regularly that they didn't know of forgot about the audit. But so far only once, about three weeks ago, a guy insisted to check with this boss and I had to return the next day.

Amazon files patent for 'Death Star' flying warehouse

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1 April?

Or was, at least, the patent filed at 1 April 2014?

2016 just got a tiny bit longer. Gee, thanks, time lords

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Re: Of course the big question is

What are you planning, JimC?!

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Megaphone

Atomic clocks are more than a million times better at keeping time than the rotation of the Earth

If so, why don't we just make the Earth FUCKING ADHERE to the atomic clocks?!

It's a calm, lonely day at work. Feeling a little shouty.

Don't panic, friends, but the Chinese navy just nicked one of America's underwater drones

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Unmanned vessel

Who can claim an unmanned vessel? Didn't find anything in the article that says whether the incident happend in international waters. Anyone here knows something about martime law?