* Posts by frank ly

6077 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

Feds spank Asus with 20-year audit probe for router security blunder

frank ly

"I mean, for a new router, you have to have default admin/password to allow the user to get going..."

The (newish) Virgin Media router is supplied with a sticker on the base that tells you the password is "changeme", so this is a step in the right direction.

NASA boffin wants FRIKKIN LASERS to propel lightsails

frank ly
Happy

Ah, an answer from an armchair engineering accountant.

Police forces start shifting their data centre tin to Crown Hosting

frank ly

I'm sure you're right, but where does Faslane come into it?

CloudFlare to launch its own 'high security' web domain registrar

frank ly

"there wasn't a tonne that we could do to help"

Have they gone metric?

Facebook sniffs at slow telcos, launches own Telecom Infrastructure Project

frank ly

Re: EE's latest tech?

The only way to 'get through' to marketing bods is with a baseball bat that has nails in the end. They measure 'success' by the number of eyeballs impinged upon.

(I had the same situation with Tesco Mobile when they sent me loads of text messages telling me how wonderful they are and that I should try them: after I'd signed up to a monthly paid contract for a year.)

Linux Mint hacked: Malware-infected ISOs linked from official site

frank ly

Re: Linux Mint, the OS with the security hole in the middle!

Keith, are you and Windows having some kind of relationship difficulties? I ask because this all sounds like some kind of anger transference thing. You and Windows need to sit down and talk about what's gone wrong.

Alleged Anonymous hacker rescued off Cuba by Disney cruise ship

frank ly

I wonder

"... the FBI got a call from Disney, saying one of its cruise ships had found Gottesfeld and his wife ..."

Did they actually give their real names when they were picked up?

US DoJ files motion to compel Apple to obey FBI iPhone crack order

frank ly

"Software is legally of the same status as speech."

Has a law been passed or judicial decisions been made which actually state that is so? Or, is it some kind of intellectual inference that has been made for the puprpose of argument?

"Free speech protections in the US constitution mean the law can't compel you to say something you don't believe."

I thought the protection was that the law can't compel you to make any statement that incriminates yourself (the 5th ammendment). Is there some kind of 'Galileo clause' as well?

Helpdesk? I have a software problem. And a GRIZZLY BEAR problem

frank ly

"Have you been disturbed by beasts ... ?"

You should have experienced a particular manager I once had. (Shudders at the memory)

Even Google is abandoning Google+

frank ly

Re: Hmm... seems about right

I still miss iGoogle and the Google RSS reader.

MIT boffins' code scans your health claims, tunes plans for bosses

frank ly

On the other hand

Won't insurers use the software (or a variant) to do targeted boosting of premiums to match an industry or large employer? It's an arms race.

Feds look left and right for support – and see everyone backing Apple

frank ly

Re: Meanwhile in socialist China

Actually, China is now a fascinating example of a blend of crony capitalism and fascism with imperialist topping. They're really good at copying us.

Bitcoin burrower biz Butterfly Labs billed $38m for 'bilking' buyers

frank ly

Re: Too much ill gotten gains

Will you take payment in Frankcoin?

India's tech manufacturing push to ride on the Ganges

frank ly

We ARE the crowdsourced proofreadardiat. It's good to feel part of a team doing useful work.

LA hospital coughs up $17,000 to free PCs held to ransom by hackers

frank ly

I'm bit hazy about medical matters but I think this means they can't be infected with this again, due to the immune system. Could other hospitals be vaccinated against this?

Marvell, Carnegie Mellon agree to slash disk drive chip patent check in half – to a mere $750m

frank ly

"The company noted that it had already set aside $388m in legal reserves for the case."

Is that an indication of their legal costs or does it have some other meaning?

IBM open sources its blockchain code – the non-crazy part of Bitcoin

frank ly

Solution looking for a problem

"One company agrees to pay another x amount of dollars to deliver their product. Currently this approach requires multiple layers of review and approval before payment is made."

That actually sounds like a good thing.

"The healthcare industry could share electronic medical records in fast and secure ways."

They could do that at the moment if they had any incentive and could agree between themselves and their professional bodies and their governments. Oh, .... right.

SimpliSafe home alarms transmit PIN unlock codes in the clear – ideal for lurking burglars

frank ly

"... said he contacted the biz repeatedly ..."

He was far too kind to them.

Confused as to WTF is happening with Apple, the FBI and a killer's iPhone? Let's fix that

frank ly

While they're at it

They can issue a court order to force those scientists to make a working fusion reactor (we know it's possible).

Boffins' 5D laser-based storage tech could keep terabytes forever

frank ly

re. voxel

I thought a voxel is a fundemental 'volume element' as used in 3-D solid modelling. This being an extension of a pixel being a fundemental 'picture element' for 2-D modelling/representation.

What would happen if Earth fell into a black hole?

frank ly

Re: Obvious when you think about it

"... Higgs Bosun particles ..."

Mr Higgs, stop disintegrating on the poop deck!

Patch ASAP: Tons of Linux apps can be hijacked by evil DNS servers, man-in-the-middle miscreants

frank ly

Special Ops?

"... was labeled "P2 normal," suggesting it was not being treated as a super high priority. ..........

It appears Weimer and O’Donell – both glibc maintainers – were investigating the flaw in private, away from the public bug trackers, due to the sensitivity of the issue."

I wonder if there's a 'silent scream' process whereby something like this gets labelled "P2 normal" and the Special Ops team leap into action. It would make sense when your bug trackers are public. Then again, they were both glib maintainers so it may have been truly independent action by just them, initially.

Facebook tells Viz to f**k right off

frank ly

Re: A once brilliant comic....

My favourite was 'Black Bag', which was a wonderful homage to 'Black Bob', from way back in the Hotspur or maybe Rover (my memory is hazy on that one).

UK to stop children looking at online porn. How?

frank ly

Re: Whuh?

The credit card details will be stored on a secure server so that the goverment can check that we are complying with the law.

'Hobbit' heads aren't human says bone boffin

frank ly

The subheading

All that and you didn't say "... from Flores" ?

Review sites commit to address UK regulator's concerns

frank ly

Re: Seriously?

I rarely find a 'review site' that actually gives a review. It's usually adverts or links to Amazon, etc. Then again, how would they make any money otherwise?

Cisco customers on alert over new vulns

frank ly

This is happening quite often

Have Cisco changed their process for detecting problems or did they change their process for creating problems?

Ransomware scum infect Tinseltown hospital, demand $3.6m

frank ly

How about ....

"Interpol has formed an international ransomware task force in a bid to identify the attackers."

... an international task force to educate so called intelligent people how to implement secure procedures and practices for use of computer systems?

Oz battery maker Redflow's residential product to land in March

frank ly
Coat

Ah, language

"During the charge phase, the zinc is extracted from the liquid phase ..."

Is it suitable for use with 3-phase power supplies?

Shopping for PCs? This is what you'll be offered in 2016

frank ly

I want a 60GB SSD boot drive in a front panel SATA slot. I've got one and it's great. (Ok, it's a Startech dock and it wobbles but it works.)

The Nano-NAS market is now a femto-flop being eaten by the cloud

frank ly

Re: odd way to break down devices

I still use a couple of NSLU2 devices as NAS drives. Small, low power, no moving parts, fast enough to stream audio/video and my 2TB 'media' drive is plugged into the back of one of them. They also have a flexible backup utility and my 'data' folder on a usb stick plugged into one of them gets copied over to another usb stick plugged into the other one, at 3am every day. They also have an ftp server if you want a home based place to pull/push files when you're out and about.

Get out of mi casa, Picasa: Google photo site to join Wave, Code, Reader in silicon hell

frank ly

@ Dave Pollard

The last time I tried (two years ago), Irfanview worked well under WINE. Just put the folder in there and click the execurtable. Having said that, I didn't do anything complicated with it, like batch processing. Try it, the worst you can do is waste a bit of your time.

Coding is more important than Shakespeare, says VC living in self-contained universe

frank ly

Re: Literature

I think she'd smile with approval.

De-anonymising data should be a criminal offence, says MPs report

frank ly

Re: Strange to say

Have your doctors told you about your sex-change operation and post-op treatment? I think they should.

Council IT system goes berserk, packs off kids to the wrong schools

frank ly

Re: I like the way they blame it on a computer error...

Shortly after they become self aware, they get bored.

Boffins' gravitational wave detection hat trick blows open astronomy

frank ly

@Electric Rook Re: Neato

Yes, I did geography too quickly in my head and got it wrong. Is my basic reasoning correct? A quarter of the way around would put it somewhere near the Mediterranean (?) so I wonder why they chose India.

frank ly

Obligatory xkcd

http://xkcd.com/1642/

frank ly

Re: Neato

From how I understand it, the US based detectors wouldn't detect a gravity wave approaching from directly above the United States because it would affect all four arms of the two detector equally; or at least with a much lesser difference than a gravity wave approaching from the horizontal direction.

About a quarter of the way around the Earth would be the ideal place to have another detector and India seems to fit the bill for that.

Used a cell phone in NYC? The cops probably tracked you

frank ly

@ Mark 85 Re: Two comments

Some time ago in Germany (I forget when or where I read it), the police were very suspicious of a man they stopped because he didn't have a mobile phone. They said to him that this indicated he was probably involved in criminal activity and didn't want to be monitored or traced.

Indian telcos ask for details of Facebook-flaying neutrality law

frank ly

It can be tricky to decide

Suppose an ISP/telco had a background music streaming service hosted internally, containing a selection of old instrumental tracks for which they'd paid a one-off licensing fee for that purpose. They could offer that as a zero-rated data service. Many people enjoy background music at home and barely notice what they're hearing.

They could set up a simple weather forecast website (internally) for farmers etc. that was updated regularly and was zero-rated.

On simple consideration, these seem harmless and useful. But are they harmless? I'm not sure.

Bluetooth direct to the internet: What could possibly go wrong?

frank ly

Not going anywhere near my home

Or anywhere I'm responsible for safety/security.

South Korea abandons manufacturing enclave in nuclear North

frank ly

Lines on a map

"The Complex stands on North Korean soil, .... Workers from the North are paid in cash but must hand over their hard-earned at the border."

Would that be the north-side factory gate, not the border?

Norks stabilise non-threatening space speck ... for about five minutes

frank ly

Explanation

The reason the satellite started tumbling was because of its sheer joy of having got out of North Korea.

TTIP: A locked room, no internet access, two hours, 300 pages and lots of typos

frank ly

Wrong, in so many ways.

"... Parliamentarians fought and won the right to see the text being negotiated on their behalf by bureaucrats."

US Congress locks and loads three anti-encryption bullets

frank ly

I think they mean that the NSA (and police, etc) hold a 'magic key' and can use that to decrypt any message they feel they ought to, for the detection of lawbreaking and safety of citizens of course.

Instead of calling on Silicon Valley to "do something", perhaps they should call on the NSA to "do something". After all, the NSA has experience in this area.

Twitter CEO Jack's off to the settings page, adds robot-sorted tweets

frank ly

Re: 320 million?

"making a facebook and twitter presence", "making a web presence" , "webifying"?

Japanese boffins fire up 100Gbps wireless broadband connection

frank ly

Puzzled

"... at 300GHz, would break the terahertz frequency barrier."

How does a 300GHz transmitter break the Terahertz frequency barrier? Are they talking about the upper sideband limit when modulated at 100Gb/s? If so it seems like a terminology cheat.

Linode SSH key blunder left virtual servers open to man-in-the-middle fiddles for months

frank ly

Re: Finger trouble

I knew that somebody would say something like that. I accept the principle but I was hoping for better grammar. I wonder if you type command lines with the same care as you type sentences.

Bitcoiners are just like everybody else: They use rubbish passwords

frank ly

Re: "...I'll be back"

I'd never be able to remember how to spell his surname so it's not "all-too-obvious" to me.

How about "all-too-obvious1" as a password?

Australian astroboffins reveal hundreds of hidden galaxies

frank ly
Happy

re. WALLABY

Which came first, the acronym or the meaning?