Posts by Phil W

Re: Multiple steam...

Steamy webcams has always meant something very different to me.

"We had an American colleague fly to Iceland instead of Ireland. Only realised it when he got into a taxi at Reykjavik and asked to be taken to Dublin city centre."

If he didn't notice until he was in the taxi and asked to go to Dublin city centre, was he phenomenally ignorant/stupid? To get that far surely he musn't have noticed:

- The fact it said Reykjavik rather than Dublin on his tickets

- The various signs in Icelandic (I suppose he could have thought it was Gaelic, but come on)

- The length of flight (you didn't say where he was flying from, presumably the USA. But we're talking about an extra hour or two or flight at least most likely, I would of thought it would be noticeable)

- The Captain announcing the destination as Reykjavik on take off, and before approach.

- How bloody cold it was! Either in the airport or when he went out to get the taxi. I know Ireland is not exactly tropical but the difference is usually fairly substantial I believe? I think Reykjavik peaks at about 13 degrees in Summer?

Re: Disk 1 of 2079?

"Trivial. Disk 38/38 is read and it asks for disk 39..."

Didn't that actually happen with Windows 3.11? I seem to recall it was something like after disk 12/12 it would ask for disk 13 which was actually an optional disk with printer drivers or something on that didn't come as standard. It wasn't actually required and you could continue without it, but still...

To the best of my recolation...

Despite the fact it was almost certainly an error, given that the bees were together in space, separated during removal and then presumably put together (colated, in a sense) into a proper hive, they were both relocated and recolated.

Re: A spokesman said:

Love the incredibly episode specific Voyager reference.

Go go gadget Warp10 drive.

Re: In God We Trust

"Because every other fucker is out to get us."

Nah, He's out to get you as well. But there's nothing you can do about that.

Re: BBM

"Is it because I'm unlovable, or because I take care about how much of my contact information I allow the rest of the world to have access to?"

I assume it's the unloveable thing tbh, since I've never used BBM ever and it only exists for me because I have a Priv, I think my problem has nothing to do with my contact information being out in the world and more to do with foreign scammers randomly generating BBM PINs and adding them as contacts.

Re: Earl Grey?

"Horrible, soapy muck."

If you've had Earl Grey that looked/tasted "soapy" I can't even begin to imagine what kind of shite it was. I presume by soapiness you mean that it was excessively oily?

If it came in a paper tea bag then it was utter shite for certain. Paper tea bags are only acceptable when you're making bog standard tea brewed to within moments of stewing which is so strong you can't taste the paper anyway.

Also some of the supposedly "good" tea brands are still crap when it comes to things like Earl Grey. Twinnings for example make bloody awful Earl Grey.

I can highly recommended Tea Pigs or Whittards.

Re: Common sense prevailed?

"Put it this way, candidate A and candidate B are absolutely matched for a job vacancy, one candidate, however, does not know the difference between "have" and "of". Which one would YOU give the job to."

The one that didn't feel the need to point out someone else's single misuse of those two words in a tirade of expletives, when the conversation in question didn't call for it and didn't necessitate perfect syntax. More specifically, not you!

Re: Always check the hardware as well as software

"But what if it's locked down and you lack the key?"

Presuming it's your kit (or you can get permission to cause cosmetic damage)

Option 1: If it's a padlock break out the bolt cutters, If it's a key lock built into the case see if it can be jiggled around/forced with a screwdriver

Option 2: Drill out the lock, or cut out the casing around around the lock.

If it's not yours and you can't get said permission, declare it not your problem and walk away until the key is produced.

Re: Moderation

"Children need to be educated to the fact that our police must be viewed as incompetent, armed and dangerous."

Yes maybe they do, but perhaps not by psychologically scarring them for life?

You want your children to be aware of things like this? Fine you can tell them, if you want you can even find the video to show them, but do you really want unsupervised kids of any age able to find it on one of the world's most popular websites.

"But beheading videos are ok Phil?"

Nope, certainly not, and while some idiot at Facebook thought that they were a few years ago they were overruled a short time later and that video was removed.

The argument for removing these videos from a freely accessible platform like Facebook has nothing to do with their specific content, but to do with the suitability of various types of content for an unknown and unrestricted audience.

If you think it's ok to have videos of real life murder, and the aftermath thereof, freely available on Facebook then let's allow hardcore pornography to and while we're at let's put the violence and porn on prime time TV since we're not worried about the kids seeing it.

There is a world of difference between censorship to protect the young (and/or those of a sensitive disposition) and actively removing all traces of some material from the media to prevent the public knowing about things.

Re: YMMV

"the cultural effect of having sizable numbers of people in the country who clearly reject our laws, customs and mores and wish to impose theirs on the rest of us aren't helping matters"

Not sure how much this is true or that I agree with it, however the groups that this is mostly associated with are the Middle Eastern refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan etc. Primarily Muslim (not that I have anything against peaceful Islamic beliefs) countries, whose entire cultural history is quite different to ours, unlike the EU member states (like Poland where most of the EU economic migrants in the UK come from) who's cultural backgrounds are to some extent similar to ours.

Refugees coming into the UK from these Middle Eastern countries have very little to do with the EU, although we have an agreement in place with the EU to take a certain number of them this is to ensure that they are spread fairly across the EU member states and other member states actually take in as many or more than we do, if for no other reason than that their country is physically larger.

If we were not in the EU we would still be taking in these refugees, possibly in even greater numbers, because we take them in out of a caring and humanitarian nature (after bombing the shit out of their countries) not because we have to because the EU makes us.

Bad I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E.

"America, fuck yeah!

Comin' again to save the mother fuckin' day yeah!

America, fuck yeah!

Freedom is the only way yeah!

Terrorists your game is through, 'cause now you have to answer to...

America, fuck yeah!

So lick my butt and suck on my balls!

America, fuck yeah!

Whatcha gonna do when we come for you now?"

Seriously though, when has jurisdiction, international law or sovereignty ever stopped USA law enforcement and intelligence doing whatever the fuck they want?

America is the land of the free, where the government are free to do whatever the fuck they want to whoever the fuck they like. For freedom. Oh and money, definitely for money.

Re: Spreadsheets used for critical functions?

"Spreadsheet use in critical functions is usually seen as a danger signal"

I think it really depends how you're using the spreadsheets. Using an Excel workbook to do all of your accounts and customer data handling and saving it in an xls file on a hard drive is not a suitable way to run anything other than a very small business.

However Excel is a very capable and user friendly tool from the point of view of actually manipulating data for analytical purposes, and using Excel with and ODBC connection to an SQL server as a way to access and present your data for particular purposes is a perfectly legitimate business process.

Re: Expectations

"By making the phone and wearables market just like the PC market the OS makers and manufacturers have pushed the notion that Mobiles and Wearables are mini-PC's and users have been able update the OS and get updates every week/month for a long time."

I agree with as far as phones are concerned, however to some degree smart watches are still a different market, there's only so many new features that software updates really add to them unlike phones where the hardware is starting to plateau and most of the major changes are in software at the moment. Also in most cases, and definitely in the case of the G Watch, the device has limited connectivity and data handling so there is a less pressing need for security updates unlike with phones.

It's not like LG have not provided any updates to the device at all, the device is now 2 years old but has been updated as far as Android Wear 1.4/6.0.1 Marshmallow, that's two or three major OS updates since release, and is in fact the latest version.

The fact they have no plans to update a 2 year old device yet again, to an OS that hasn't actually been released yet anyway, is really not a big deal.

"I like my phone case to be triangular with spikes at the corners."

It would certainly make those cases of celebrities throwing phones at their spouses/PAs far more interesting.

Re: So basically...

Being compared to Sir Samuel, high praise indeed.

Re: If proof is needed...

Except for when that doesn't work because despite being a perfectly normal AMD/Intel/Nvidia chip that may well work with the chipset OEM's driver, the hardware IDs of the chipset have been slightly altered so that they aren't included in the driver INFs from the chipset OEM.

In some cases, such as AMD and Nvidia graphics drivers this can be worked around by adding the correct hardware IDs to the INF, but this can be a bit fiddly to get right.

With Intel you're mostly stuffed as their chipset setup utility doesn't actually contain and drivers and just downloads the ones it decides you need, which with altered hardware IDs is none at all.

"This is not a valid defence, because YOU'VE never used medical grade ECG test gear either."

Eh? How do you know I haven't? I haven't (though I could probably get my hands on some), but what's that got to do with anything? I also don't own an Apple watch.

Also I have nothing to defend, I didn't make any point, I enquired as to how the person claiming his Apple watch is totally accurate knows that that really is the case.

If I'd said "my Xioami Mi Band 1s is more accurate than your Apple watch" you'd have a point, but I would never make that claim, especially as my device cost £20 and I don't expect supreme accuracy from it.

Re: So the bar is now much higher for e-cig makers

No, it really really isn't.

A hard hat is a piece of safety equipment whose only purpose is to prevent you sustaining head injuries in a dangerous environment. Any negative side effect a poorly made hard hat might have (such as your mention of scalp disease, if such a thing exists), is still infinitely preferable to a fatal head injury.

Consequences of wearing a (scalp disease causing) hard hat vs not wearing one?

You may get scalp disease but you're alive.

Consequences of inhaling tested and regulated chemical formulation vs untested and unregulated ones?

Your fluids might cost more, but there is now a much lower chance of you inhaling something with dangerous or even life threatening properties.

Despite the endless amount of positivity E-cigs have towards them from many quarters, they are still essentially a device design solely for the purpose of taking potentially toxic substances into your body. They are not, unlike a hard hat, a device with a safety or health purpose in mind that might have unintended negative side effects. All they are is a "possibly" safer, that is safer not safe way of doing something which is known to be harmful.

The "possibly" there is important because while many government bodies will accept that e-cigs are in the short term clearly less harmful (and it's important we use the phrase "less harmful" and not "better for you", they cannot and will not comment on the long term effects of e-cig the technology simply has not been around long enough for anyone to know if there are any serious side effects from substantial long term use.

On top of that up until now there has been no regulation of the substances you're choosing to inhale, you have no assurance as to content and safety of the liquids you are inhaling.

Are E-cigs a good way to get off cigerettes and then tape off smoking/vaping altogether over a short term period? Absolutely.

Are E-cigs better for you if you just replace your heavy smoking habit with a heavy vaping habit for the rest of your life? No-one knows, it could be, but equally it could turn out that long term inhalation of vapourised nicotine and other chemicals has consequences we don't yet know about, particularly if those chemicals are untested and unregulated.

Don't even get me started on the quality of the electronics in these devices causing fires etc...

Re: Weakest Link

"Surely the speed of the broadband connection is a determining factor."

Not neccessarily. I've got a fairly consistent 200Mbps down from Virgin none of my wireless devices can fully take advantage of that for one reason or another be it signal strength or just the chipsets in the devices, my laptop's built in WiFi is actually only 802.11n 150Mbps compliant.

Cat6 to my PCs gets me the full 200Mbps to all of those wired connections though.

Re: No story today on Netflix blocking VPNs?

Most likely it is as you say, that they're just blocking IPs known to be VPN endpoints. Since this is most likely an exercise in satisfying the licencers of content, it could well be that this is all they're doing in the same way that ISPs only block access to file sharing sites when asked and don't actively look for sites to block themselves.

There are plenty of other methods they could be using as well, but I'd be a little surprised if they were using them since they're not especially reliable and would require a substantial effort on their part, but if it were me I'd design a scoring system to flag addresses as potential VPN end points in much the same way spam scoring is done using something like this:

Some statistical analysis on the number of connections coming from each IP that is streaming content, ignore any addresses with less than 10 connections to rule out individual users, multiple devices in one home, shared Internet connections in flats/appartment buildings. You could also factor in data on IP ownership to allow for traffic from Universities etc with high numbers of users behind a NAT pool. Anything that's left gets a score based on the number of connections per IP.

You could also do some slightly deeper inspection of the packets looking at MTU size and MSS settings, although these can vary substantial depending on the nature of the connection, lower MTU and MSS sizes can indicate that the traffic your receiving has previously been segmented to be encapsulated within VPN packets. Since there are legitimate reasons these can vary, and there is no single size that can be definitively associated with VPNs again we could assign a score based on what the MTU and MSS sizes are compared to what we could see from a connection passing through a VPN compared to one that doesn't.

If an IP address scores too highly it could either automatically be blocked, have the number of stream connections allowed from it capped and/or be flagged for manual review.

Of course there are companies out there who specialise in doing exactly this sort of VPN detection work and sell blacklists, so it could also be Netflix just buy in one of those.

IPv6 could of course make this whole situation more difficult since the VPN endpoint could potentially provide a new IPv6 address for every client. But the slow uptake of IPv6 will limit the impact of this problem for some time to come yet.

Re: Stop blaming the users

DNA, fingerprints and other biometric security are actually terrible ideas. Entry level to mid level fingerprint scanners are unreliable, and prone to getting dirty and being inaccurate and/or are easy to fool, anything decent is expensive. DNA is impractical as with current technology and anything we're likely to have in the foreseeable future it would simply take to long to authenticate.

Some fingerprint scanners can also be fooled with fingerprints copied onto paper or other material, do you know of any good mechanism for resetting your fingerprints once they've been compromised like you would with a password?

Putting aside the practicalities of implementation for a moment, do you really want to secure valuable things using your DNA or fingerprints? If it's valuable enough you're just encouraging someone to remove your fingers or blood which is both bad for you and not terribly secure since fingers are far more easily broken than a complex password.

Also at least with passwords you can either hand them over and potentially not be harmed, or lie to the person trying to get it from you (not necessarily a good idea but it's an option).

Reliably extracting data from someone's mind is next to impossible, as much as the security services would like you to be believe torture (sorry, enhanced interrogation) is effective it often isn't and could easily lead to death before the correct information is retreived.

As for a "quantum approach" , what form do you envision that taking? Sure quantum computing could open up some more advanced avenues of encryption but strength of encryption is rarely the main security issue these days, but the nature of the key used to unlock it whether that be a password/passphrase or physical key of some sort. These can all be cracked/lost/forgotten/stolen etc.

The real future (and even present) of secure authentication is two (or higher) factor authentication, whether than be multiple code entries or physical factors like RFID/smartcards.

Re: UnUnified

"While it's true that a simple package install from a fully configured desktop gives you a new desktop manager option on the login screen, you could also simply download and install from a choice of..."

Well yes, that was my point, installing the distro with your preferred GUI in the first place is massively easier than adding it afterwards (especially as adding afterwards often leaves you lacking themes etc). Personally I rather enjoy the installers for Fedora and similar that give you a choice of desktop environment as part of the install process. Maybe that's something canonical should do?

"If you are knowledgeable enough to already know this or know what you want, ignore the advice, it is often advanced in the spirit of trying to be helpful."

Quite true, and the Ubuntu forums themselves are actually quite friendly in terms of advice, unfortunately other places are not so much. I've actually encountered people who insist, regardless of others opinions, that the only real way to install Ubuntu is to install a server/mini install and add all the relevant packages for your chosen GUI from there.

Re: How IT are you?

Ignorant T*/!