Posts by Charles 9

Re: Yubikey + U2F

How do you use a YubiKey on your phone which has no USB ports?

"She'd got everyone listed with letters like SNB, FA, RA, DV (those are the ones I remember) which also related to the client. So if you called up as a customer and even if you gave the correct code word if you didn't sound like your acronym(s) Snobby (SNB), have a Foreign (FA) or Regional (RA) accent or Deep Voice (DV) then she'd be very wary."

How did the secretary handle things, though, when the voice change was for a legitimate reason (usual person was on vacation, for example)? False negative?

But now you're on the sliding scale. Make things TOO tight and you end up with complaints from people who can't get their business done because they've LOST their second factors and can't get a new one issued. Too tight or too loose, you end up losing business, and there's always the risk the medium is not happy but UNhappy: loose enough that accounts STILL get stolen, yet tight enough that people STILL complain too much about losing access.

And these always have to deal with human fallability. What happens the day you leave the fob at home on a crucial day you're hours away? Or what about the RSA attack which was apparently after secrets behind 2FA tokens so as to crack them?

Re: Nice

But their reliability when they're mothballed can be hit or miss. Sometimes you spin up a drive that hasn't been used in a while and it...doesn't. Solid state drives can't suffer mechanical failures the way rust drives can, and controller failures can happen to ANY drive, so it's a wash there. One good question is the rate of bit rot between them. I try to address this by keeping error codes with my backups to deal with it if it pops up on occasion.

Re: Yay!

As the previous poster noted, WORM (or what I'd rather call WIRE, Write Infrequently, Read Extensively) is another valid use for a big drive with OK reads and lousy writes. Things like media archives where they often don't get changed once they get in but can get hammered a lot in the playback department. Reliability is a plus in that department.

Re: 50TB! I'll take twelvety.

What about packrats, though?

Re: Consumer choice

But that makes a Hobson's Choice when the ONLY version of a product available is a DRM product: Take It Or Leave It. problem is, the Leaves are in the clear minority.

Re: Capture system... between PC and monitor.

Don't bother trying it with a 4K disc, though. IIRC they updated the standards so PC drives can't read the keys, only dedicated players can read them and all links on the chain (including the display) must use encrypted buses and protected data paths. They're really tying these things tighter than a miser's purse this time.

Re: Capture system... between PC and monitor.

Oh? Does it stay working even if hooked up to a BluRay drive. Game Capture cards depend on unencrypted streams. I have one myself, and it specifically notes it won't work on encrypted streams. And newer systems can detect when a repeater or splitter is present and block based on that.

Re: Let a thousand indie studios bloom

"I bet YOU have a lot of good ideas, too. And lots of other people. But Hollyweird is stuck in their elitist bubble. They can't think outside of their self-imposed "box", tainted by SJW and agenda driven plots, and no real clue as to what their customers (i.e. 'the audience') REALLY wants."

Given the booming business in Hollywood, and given there hasn't been a real independent blockbuster since, say, The Blair Witch Project, I don't think Hollywood is worried all that much. Sure, they lay an egg now and then, but they still seem to get enough good results (plus the occasional blockbuster) to keep going. If independent cinema really was all that, why haven't they taken over already?

Re: How is this going to help; cost to consumers

"And yet people with no hope of making money from it are ripping stuff."

But not at the full 4K quality. The ones you're seeing now are mostly coming from insiders. All the rest are being written off as "screeners" and the realm of the desperate who will do ANYTHING for a view: even take inferior results.

Re: Sir Tim is 62

"It's relatively trivial to reverse-engineer a 4K TV or numerous other attack vectors to sidestep any content-protection measure. with full quality."

Even if the TV is built with tamper resistance? And if the BluRay discs contain stuff like ROM-Marks or the like that can't be read by PC-class players?

Re: How is this going to help; cost to consumers

Computers aren't allowed to be 4K BluRay players. The spec REQUIRES dedicated players because they know PCs can't be protected end-to-end. As for the framebuffer, (1) by the time it's there the video data is raw, meaning gigabytes per second of data streaming through. It's gonna take some specialized hardware to handle the raw 4K stream at that level, and (2) it may be embedded in the display hardware to the extent that you have to undo something else to get at it. Like I said, protected hardware paths which includes significant tamper-resistance.

Put it this way. It's a LOT of hoop-jumping to rip a 4K film these days. I believe due to this most leaks are now coming from insiders.

Re: Sir Tim is 62

And the computers can be instructed not to make things easy. Or did you notice most of these will require the use of video cards that support HDCP? AND can detect the use of splitters and/or repeaters? Here's a hint: "A repeater is connected to your system. Some video applications do not support HDCP when a repeater is present."

That's why 4K BluRay content won't be allowed on PCs, only dedicated devices with protected hardware paths.

Re: Slowly and surely they drew their plans against us

"By keeping this fracture, we ensure that DRM companies will only ever employ second-rate programmers whose code will inevitably kneel to the steely-eyed abilities of their betters who will mercilessly rip apart their stupid schemes and allow us to continue to master our content in the manner of our choosing."

Or they'll just stick to what they know (namely closed systems like Windows) which leaves the non-Windows users SOL. Think of Unintended Consequences.

Re: As if they didn't have enough

Well, to be fair, the cable companies get shafted, too. The channels themselves are owned by a few major conglomerates. For example, Discovery, TLC, ID, and a bunch of others are owned by one company, Disney owns the ESPN networks, all Disney networks, and several others (including the one that's still contracted to air The 700 Club). Basically put, THEY won't let the cable companies go a la carte, either (Especially Disney. They KNOW they hold one of the most demanded cable channels and make it a Hobson's Choice--you want ESPN? You take ALL our channels...OR NONE. Leave us and watch your customers defect).

Re: No longer in post -> Can speak truthfully

But the opponent is the government itself. As in they MAKE the laws. Anything you can make, they can UNmake (or work around). When your opponent is at that level, laws pretty much can't help you.

Re: Good. Now all we need in Windows NTBackup ported to Windows 7

"a) run windows [if you must] in a VM hosted on Linux or BSD"

Can't. Performance and gaming issues. This is a gaming, 3D, AND encoding rig. Need maximum memory AND performance which a VM can't provide.

Transfer rates, data allowances, and ownership issues mean the solution MUST be local. And while I AM using a two-drive rotation for the stuff I value most, they're not designed for cold storage, so I'm always worried about a failsafe failure.

Probably not, so it would be nice if LTO quotes in future are raw and let the user assume responsibility for optimizing its use through compression, deduplication, etc.

Having said that, I miss the Travan days. At least back then, tape drives were within consumer reach and provided us with at least some means of offloading cold data in the days when 1GB of data was a premium. A tape system accessible and affordable to the consumer in tiers of 2, 4, maybe 8 to 12TB for packrats would at least provide an alternative to external drives which can have reliability issues. At this stage, the only one within reach (and at a stretch) is rust-based RDX. Longevity doesn't even have to be so strong. Five, maybe ten years on the outside would be enough to handle a move between generations if need be.

Re: Flat Earth

The trouble is that true Flat Earthers are irrational by nature. And you know what they say about trying to win an argument with an irrational person.

Re: That reminds me

IOW, it's a lottery side bet. Like putting aside a buck now and then when the jackpot gets big. If it doesn't work, oh well, no lunch. But if it hits, it hits BIG. The reward way outweighs the risk in this case because the risk really isn't that great.

Re: Crazy ideas?

"Of course they did, they were living on it after all. :P"

Blame my phone's autocorrect, OK? And since I was on the mobile site, I couldn't edit.

Re: Worse..

Oh? Is EAST part of ITER? Or something separate so that China doesn't have to share?

Re: Crazy ideas?

"It wasn't that long ago that many learned people thought if you sailed across the ocean then you would fall off the edge. Flying and space travel was the ideas of crazy people and if you went faster that 30mph in a train then you would be ripped to pieces from the forces involved."

The Greeks knew the world was around 2,000 years ago AND could prove it with math and physics.

Re: “Because they're idiots, and the worst is yet to come.” Indeed it is, says I/US.

Not even that. Eventually the bottom runs out of higher life forms from which to draw their sustenance. Not even sunlight is a given if a cosmic winter hits.

Which brings us to the next problem. What happens when the rubes happen to be on the board?

Re: do not enter the hypen!

The reason for that is that credit card fields have EXACTLY 16 spaces in them. Not 15 nor 17. And there's no slack because SOMEONE will use all 17 spaces by mistake (double strike) AND swear up and down they only entered 16 numbers to the point they only count 16 when directly asked to do so.

Sometimes, you just can't fix stupid.

Re: Resistance

Carbon seems to work below the normal biochemical level. Its action seems closer to that of a bleach than anything else (which kills by simply bulldozing cells chemically rather than by any bacterial action). You're astute to note potential risk to friendly cells, which is why I mention the specific term "A bleach," which in biochemistry means specifically an indiscriminate chemical agent (TOO powerful, IOW).

Re: Ekiga

Classic problem. Cross-app compatibility BY WHAT STANDARD? All the app makers want to be the standard-bearer since that lets them dictate terms. And since there are high stakes involved, no one's willing to give up on the race at this point. IOW, for there to be standard, there must be a WINNER first, and the race isn't over yet.

Re: Modern Day Professional

NO JOKE! Frankly, we're gonna have to face the fact that there's something extremely wrong with the entirety of Western Civilization, if you ask me.

Re: "This new app is absolutely terrible"

"Since I'm on the subject, what exactly is the Register "make this comment better within ten minutes" offer?"

Are you on the mobile website? Edit's not available yet on the mobile website. Switch to the Desktop website and it should appear. If you're using ad-blockers, you'll probably also need to enable both theregister.co.uk and regmedia.co.uk.

I've also heard the Edit feature is not available to all users. Anyone know if you need a medal to be able to edit?

Re: Well said

"Even as an engineer, trying to explain Nyquist etc. to them there's really no point, it feels like trying to preach Christianity to a Bhudist."

Then make them put their money where their mouth is and subject them to a blind sound test between good vinyl and high-bandwidth MP3s and see if they can consistently tell them apart higher than random guessing.