* Posts by David

46 publicly visible posts • joined 31 May 2007

Microsoft urges Windows users to shun 'carpet bombing' Safari

David
Linux

Of course OSX users can ignore it!

Firstly, OSX doesn't tend to run the often malware infested .exe files. So having one or 1,000,000,000 of them on your desktop isn't an issue. Even if such a file could be run on the poor thing, it's not likely to be able to do much damage.

Secondly.. Have you ever seen an OSX users desktop? They seem to stick every single file they come across on the desktop! Literally thousands apon thousands of files. All their music, all their apps and associated files, all their videos, all their pictures, all their porn, all their documents. Not in individual folders, no. All of it on the desktop!

Every single Mac desktop I've seen has been like this.

So it wouldn't matter if they get hit by this bug, because they won't have a hope of noticing a few extra thousands files on their desktops!

So yes, Mac users are perfectly safe from this threat.

EU project scans air passengers for terrorist tendencies

David
Black Helicopters

I can see a market...

Teaching people to fool the system.

Wouldn't really take much. Actors act scared/sad/terrorized/happy/whatever all the time, and occaisionally those watching their show actually believe the actors.

There are going to be false positives. Some nasty. I hope that airline execs are the first to suffer from that little problem.

Where's my bush-with-dunce-cap icon?

Wanted: Americans to join Al Qaeda

David
Black Helicopters

Wouldn't that read better as...

"By speaking directly to potential followers in the United States, he US governent and others are able to control their message, suppress dissent, and offer a hateful worldview that dictates, based on a perversion of the Christian faith, that violence is the only remedy to rectify perceived wrongs."

Like I've been saying.... Shrub plans to stay in power past the end of this year. And he'll seek to achieve that by making the US sheeple believe that postponing the election is necessary due to some "emergency" or other.. Eg war with Iran and/or further terrorist activity in the US.

Abou time you yanks took up arms and removed your own "weapon of mass distruction". If bush doesn't leave office willingly when his time is up, force him out. Or face something that makes the Teleban look like a bunch of anarchists.

No-fly list grounds US Air Marshals

David

@Stu Reeves

The US.

You don't really expect shrub to give up power do you? He's got something planned that would put the US into a "state of emergency" which would let him "indefinitely postpone" the next election.

War with Iran.. Iraq/Afghanistan getting to hot.. Maybe he'll pull off another 9/11 - it worked well last time he did it. Maybe he'll put on his favourite costume and go play "Osama".. Been a while since we've seen shrub.. er.. Osama on camera after all..

(do I need the US Alert, er, I mean joke alert icon?)

Sysadmins get Quake tools

David

"even the idea of using extreme violence to manage system processes is nothing new"

I've been doing that for years.

Mr Sledgehammer, meet the windows machine that has pissed me off for the last time....

TCF may not be the best way to manage certain system processes, but it sure is a lot more fun.

Ballmer bitch slaps Vista

David
Coat

@ Kanhef

"With the resources they have, I cannot see why Microsoft makes such irredeemably bloated software"

It came about when they did "Windows for Warships".

The guy from the Navy made mention of "Floatation device" for some reason or other.

The guy handling the order had just been in a meeting with Steve, so obviously was a wee bit hard of hearing, and he thought they said that they wanted a "bloatation device", so that's what got installed.

And it's been working ever since..

Probably about the only thing in Windows that does work as designed.

Mine's the one lined with asbestos.

El Reg celebrates 10th birthday

David
Thumb Up

Those photos explain a few things..

Congrats on the 10, here's to another..

And thanks for all the fish..

Windows Vista update 'kills' USB devices

David
Linux

@Vista Memory Management AC

Er, is that why vista takes such a horrendously long time to boot? Because it has decided that I will be running these programs therefore they must be loaded as well?

How about.. *I* decide what *I* want to run, *when* I want to run it, *if* I want to run it, and don't load it until then? I might not want to run the same stuff I ran yesterday, I might instead want to make a quick note about something or download some photos I've just taken.. Only I have to wait 10 mins for the laptop to boot.

(Which was another nail in Vista's coffin, such a long boot time).

Oh, and it didn't speed up the loading times either. A 286 with a dodgy MFM controller could load the programs faster.

Microsoft should *never* have released vista. They should have fired the person who came up with it, and probably sued them for loss of reputation, some sort of corporate terrorism, and any number of other things..

Still, I think vista is the best windows ever... I mean, it is helping me convert so many people to Linux.. A few months with Vista and even the crappiest Linux distro seems like something that God Himself gave us :)

David

A couple of points..

"Buy up to date hardware"..

Er, my computer was brand new at the time..

"Use decent hardware"

It's also well above the "minimum spec" for Vista.

"Don't use warez".

I don't.

"Use up to date drivers"

And that's when I stopped using Vista. Update #1 killed a game I like. A week or so later, update #2 completely killed the networking. Wireless and wired. When the networking went, that was the final straw in 6 months of vista annoyances. That night I had XP on the machine. Faster, stronger, better.

(But it's still slow and hard to use compared to Linux :) )

Comcast admits it can do the impossible

David
Dead Vulture

Is pretty simple RE neutrality

I pay for x data at y speed. If my ISP cannot provide what I am paying for (outside the occasional breakage - shit happens even to the best systems), they should not be charging me for it.

It is up to me to chose if, when, and how the data I use is shaped. Not them. There is nothing in the contract that allows them to decide what I use and when.

If they want to break their contract with me, well, they can do it and pay their fees. Otherwise, they deal with me using the data I am paying for, as I want to use it. Although, I wouldn't mind if they blocked port 25 for all users, so long as they let those who run their own mail servers have that port open..

Oh, and Mr Orlowskii - since you generally don't let people comment on your articles (other than by email), should you be commenting on others? :)

Botanist sues to stop CERN hurling Earth into parallel universe

David
Alien

You mean they could be inventing the...

... Infinite Improbability Drive?

"Monopoles could trigger a runaway reaction not unlike the quark-strangelet scenario, in which everything gets changed into something else. This could lead to a turn-up for the books, in which the Moon remained made of moon but the Earth was abruptly converted into cheese."

It does work something like that, does it not? :)

Microsoft dishes out six critical updates

David
Linux

@Gus Bains

But.. but...

Look at the stuff from the MS guy in the comments at

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/14/claranet_linux_security_hole/comments/

(Search the page for the text "the internal guts" (without quotes) to find it).

Going from that, obviosuly MS has a "very good reason" for you not to have sound..

(Wanders back over to a Linux machine, starts using it happily knowing it will work as it should work, unless I do something really really stupid, like install windows on it :) )

Major Linux security glitch lets hackers in at Claranet

David
Linux

A good reason?

"This IS a benefit of Windows - you can be considerably more sure that a fix doesn't break you, and if it does then it's for a damn good reason."

So I guess MS has "a damn good reason" for disabling poor ol' Gus Bains's sound?

See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/13/patch_tuesday_february/comments/#c_155002

:)

David
Linux

Another good reason?

"This IS a benefit of Windows - you can be considerably more sure that a fix doesn't break you, and if it does then it's for a damn good reason."

Also there's that other "David" a couple of messages below that? (Although having Nortons, his machine was probably pretty well broken anyway! :) )

Again, see :)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/13/patch_tuesday_february/comments/#c_155002

David
Linux

@"MS engineers tend to focus" AC

"A good example of this is that no Windows user has to recompile their OS' kernel to apply a patch."

No. But I've never compiled a single program on Linux, and yet I've been running it for years.. (for that matter, I've serviced many Linux installations, and am yet to see a single virus or piece of spyware or other malware.. whereas I've seen thousands for windoze, often on a single machine)

"And when it comes to patching issues in the OS ... the fact that the Linux community releases patches to it's kernel within a day or two of fixing an exploit clearly illustrates that you don't run full test and regression suites against your patched kernel. That's left to the distribution owner. "

True, but...

"This IS a benefit of Windows - you can be considerably more sure that a fix doesn't break you, and if it does then it's for a damn good reason."

Actually, again, I've never had a patch on Linux break anything. Nor have I heard of that happening, although it is likekly to happen eventually I guess. Whereas the reason i dumped that piece of foul shit known as "Vista" and installed XP a couple of weeks back is that an update to vista killed my favourite game (which is windoze only, for the moment), and a later update killed all the networking so no chance of further updates. So because windoze patches broke the whole system. I guess by locking out all networking it did make it more secure but....

Oh.. And the fact that m$ takes months and so forth to test the patches means that it takes months for a vulnerability to be fixed from the time it is discovered, whereas with Linux, generally you're looking at a few days..

m$ better? Only for making me enjoy using Linux.

(Oh, and thanks for vista. Really. The best windoze ever! I am getting to convert so many people to Linux because it is so rubbish! I really appreciate you guys putting that out like you did. Honest!)

BOFH: The Silence of the Servers

David

@Chris Fleming

Hey, just wondering.... You wouldn't be of Hawera stock would you?

If you are and are wondering who I am, well, I'm David of the Chords - formerly from The Burnt Place :)

Google in mass 404 land grab

David
Linux

@Anthony Zacharzewski

As one who said "very evil" (dunno why I posted AC, nothing in there deserving of that), well, my view is expressed above. (If there's any doubt, I am sure one of the wonderful people at El Reg can confirm that I am the maker of the comment above Anthony Zacharzewski's one :) )

It is theft. Pure and simple. The user visits my site and gets a 404. Maybe because they mistyped the URL, maybe because the file never existed, maybe because I moved or deleted the file.

My server does it's job and presents the user with a custom 404 message. A finely crafted message, telling the user helpful information and maybe even suggesting a link to the page they were after, or a link to an article index or somesuch. But, it's less than 512 bytes, and the user has recently updated adobe or somesuch.

So, instead of the user seeing the text I want them to see, they instead get presented with some other text that does not originate from my server (even though it appears to), giving links maybe to people/places I do not want associated with my system.

The theft is in that they've potentially taken a sale (or whatever) from me, as well as a chance to serve my user. It's also false, because what the user sees is not what I wanted them to see, and as it's deliberate then it becomes a lie as well (assuming there is nothing to say to the user that the text they're seeing has replaced the text that they should be seeing).

Another factor is that they might display ads in there. Those ads may breach a contract I have with someone else, or they may simply be against the policies of my site.

Either way, it is simply something that is wrong and should not be getting done.

As to the idea of simply padding my file to be >512. No. I am not a fan of modern programming techniques. I do not follow their belief of unecessary bloat (*). If a web page says what I want it to do in less than 512 bytes, then that is all it needs to be. Why should I need to alter the size of my pages just because google is on a land grab?

I was unaware of this issue with MSIE, since I don't support it in any form. My pages are coded to work with decent browsers. Had I been aware of that I would've said the same in relation to that. Or any other such "service" that does this.

* Reference BOTH to Microsoft and Linux, which is by far my preferred OS. Some major dependancy issues to sort there guys - like, why should I need CVS software installed when I don't want it - but the manger wants to remove my whole desktop system to uninstall it!

I kinda like some of, but do not use OSX, so I cannot comment on bloat levels there.

Big Climate's strange 'science'

David
Linux

Another view.

Ok, got bored with reading the comments for now so making my own.. (If you've read through all the comments and got to mine, well, you deserve a pat on the back.. so go to your favourite back-patter and ask them to give you one)

Anyways..

Firstly, yes. The climate is changing. It will have highs and lows and highs again, and some more lows. But it is changing.

How much has man had to do with this?

Changes will, I expect, speed up for a while over time while the pendulum swings in one direction or the other. Are we making it faster?

Well.. I dunno.. What I do know is this. I've not known coldness like the last few winters. Or summers for that matter. I'm not talking increased rain and increased cloud, I am talking colder clear nights than I can recall.

Also, I look at Mt Egmont in Taranaki, New Zealand, and I know that the climate is not at all warmer. I grew up in the shadow of that mountain, and I do not recall it ever having as much visible snow on it as it does this summer. Scratch that. I do not recall it EVER having visible snow. The snow usually melts in spring, and does not return till autumn. That alone is proof that the climate, at least in that area, is currently colder.

But..

I must look to my own faith, to the warnings in Revelation, Job, and other places throughout the Bible. The climate is going to get noticeably worse in the not very distant future. Massive storms, on larger scales than we know now. Worse hail storms than Hollywood can imagine.. Some of the stuff that the climate change people are on about.. I don't for a moment trust them but.. At least some of what they say matches what I beleive the Bible to say.

However, all that aside - believe in the Bible or not, believe in climate change or not... Will it hurt for us to start working to improve our climate? Instead of burning every bit of energy we can get our hands on - and much of it in a wasteful manner, how about working to make more efficient use of the energy we have? Oil is limited, at least for now. We may have 10 years reserves or 10,000 years reserves, but it is limited. And it's expensive as well - surely better use of it would save us money.

And must we really keep pumping pollutants into our atmosphere? I come from a rural background, and always live on the outskirts of whatever town or city I am stuck with. I don't like the pollution around our cities, on our more major roadways. I can't stand peak hour traffic in the few times I have to endure it.

True or false, global warming doesn't really matter to me. But the quality of my air, and the amount of cash in my pocket does. And more efficient use of energy is going to affect both in a way I like.

(Penguin coz.. We need to think of the poor little buggers and how they're gonna get on without being able to drive suv's like we can, poor little fellas... :) )

'Crash tested' e-voting machines spread doubt on Super Tuesday

David

And do we get to...

"White rock for Hillary Black rock for McCain"

And.. Do we get to present these rocks to them in person, Biblical-style?

My bet is still this - shrub will get his wish for a war with Iran. shrub will use that war (and maybe further attacks on US soil which leave way to much room for conspiracy theories about who carried them out) as an excuse to use certain "emergency powers" to "postpone" the election, as after all "America is under serious threat and the disruption of an election now will cost lives" or some such rubbish. And will remain president well past his deadline. (Or, maybe there will still be an election, but afterwards things will get nasty)

I hope I am wrong because, as someone living in a peaceful and friendly country to the US, but one that has some independent oil and other natural resources, I find the current government in the US to be very scary.

The 'blem wit' error messages

David

BBS days...

Still remember the one that Maximus would give if a BBS SysOp tried to upload from the machine the BBS ran on :

Error 420: SysOp confused

Scientology website shielded against DDoS attack

David
Joke

To obvious, but..

... "No one expects the Church of Scientology!"

It was the MacBook Air sub-notebook

David
Thumb Up

@aellath

"Honestly, when i see it wherever it looks like illiteracy to me."

Amen :)

Although, I rate it more as showing a level of retardation. I doubt I could ever rate it as high as "illiteracy" :)

Sir Edmund Hillary dies at 88

David

@AC "A Hero"

To many he is.. Just look at the things he did other than conquering various landmarks. Look at what else he did with his life, the lives he touched and even saved..

He gave of his life so that others could have a better life. He didn't rush into a burning building maybe, but he did travel to get schools and hospitals and other important infrastructure built in various places. And it cost him dearly - a wife and daughter killed in a plane crash while traveling to see him when he was offshore (IIRC). To carry on and help others after that, and the other many sacrifices he made to help others live better lives - that is the mark of a true hero is it not?

David
Unhappy

RIP To a national hero.

As David Fahey put it - the whole nation is in mourning.

Goodbye sir, You were a hero and inspiration to millions. You will be missed. Enjoy conquering the next life.

Counterfeit Vista rate half that of XP

David
Linux

I've said it before

And I'll shout it from the rooftops again..

Vista is the ABSOLUTE BEST THING MICROSOFT HAS EVER DONE!

I am getting so busy wiping mickey$loth shitware from peoples machines and installing Linux on them as a result.

I know many people who have tried vista, inc me. Many of those, the "kids machine" that was the parents old machine becomes the parents machine again, and the new machine sits idle - until they can dispose of it, or get vista off it.

I am averaging 2 linux installs/week atm. Generally Ubuntu, generally 7.10, generally 30 mins max to do the full install and have EVERYTHING working.

As to the microshite fanbois.. Try a LiveCD version of some Linux on your machine - I reccomend Ubuntu 7.1 personally - nice to be able to browse and whatnot, then when you've come down from the high that it gives you (runs shitloads faster from the CD than vista does from even the fastest HD, IME), forget all about even bothering to back up any data, and hit the "install" icon.. Like I have watched so many happy people do.

Thanks Microsoft. Vista was the greatest thing you could ever give to Linux fans! :)

Code scavenging goes formal

David
Linux

SWAG?

I used a number of snippets from that when I was new to programming, or new to a task.. The SWAG archives were quite good for source snippets in Pascal, Delphi and IIRC C as well (although I wasn't into C back then).

I started re-using code with basic on the Speccy.. It's not really a new concept, even if it does have a new name (how often is that done these days? Take something common, give it a new name, claim you invented it...?)

@Matt Byrant : You didn't have Michael whats-his-name at Whiterea in New Zealand did you? Or a tutor named Michael who was from NZ but moved to the UK in the mid 90's?

Extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of in-game ads analysts

David
Linux

Another lister...

Another one who uses a list.. An advert annoys me enough? No more buying from that company. But most of what we buy these days is truly worthless crap anyway. I often regret the hours that I spent in front of a TV or games machine (or reading El Reg :) ) that could instead have been spent with a friend who is no longer around...

Sure, things can be a bit harder to find, but it does seem to improve the quality of what I end up with..

Maybe more of us should do it, become more organised, and start letting these companies know which ads piss us off the most.. Then they would stop running them.

OTOH, that would give them more of an idea of what we do like, and they might start focusing on that.... Still, would improve the TV watching experience overall I guess..

eBay glitch wipes out 11 year-old account without a trace

David
Flame

NZ also has Zillion

Trademe are becoming a miny E-bay.. Some real dodgy traders on there now, and the admin won't do anything because of lots of repeat business from certain people who often don't ship, threaten, change postive feedback to negative (eg Vind who did more than one auction with my brother, after my brother gave him a negative on something that never arrived (and vpind got really nasty over), vpind went through all the feedback he'd left for my brother and changed the lot to negative, even though months earlier he's said that it was a good trade.

I've not yet used http://www.zillion.co.nz/ much, but would reccomend it.

But yes, Trademe's limiting sales to NZ/Oz has helped keep some of the risk down..

Half of computer users are Wi-Fi thieves

David
Pirate

Log MACs and range?

What? Since when?

I've looked at wireless routers from Dlink, Asus, Linksys, Belkin and others I can't recall. Some I've looked at in depth, including those I've owned or been asked to secure.

While some will show the MAC of currently connected in machines, I have yet to see one that actually LOGS the address. And I have never seen one that shows the range. Signal strength, yes. But that says little, even the router in my roofspace gives a varying strength for the same reciever location.

Oh, and if you are stealing and worried about your MAC being logged, there's a couple of ways around that. #1, buy a wireless device with cash from somewhere other than your home town. They're cheap, and cash is untraceable. And when you leave, make sure you reset the router - then any logs will be erased (at least on all the models I have seen).

Mass. firm sues Google over 1997 patent

David

No more software patents!

I have to agree fully.

I do very small scale development from time to time. Could be a batch file to automate parts of a system maintenance, or some small program for a specific job where I can't find something suitable on the net.

For what might be 10 mins of coding on a freebie one off, I could spend hundreds of hours making sure that every routine is NOT patented somewhere. And yet, if I don't make sure that my code is not going to infringe someone's patent, I run a very real risk of ending up in some fairly serious trouble..

Fortunately, the stuff I write is so obscure that it probably won't matter if some routine for getting today's date from the computer is already patented - no one other than me is likely to know the program exists, unless the customers employ someone else to manage their weird systems.

DoubleClick caught supplying malware-tainted ads

David

Another @ W.Hower (or others who use web ads)

Does your site display text only ads? Then I am going to see them if/when I visit, unless they're from the likes of doubledip or something else.

Flash based ads, where you've blocked my ability to stop the add playing? Repeating animated gifs? Ads that cover the article I am reading? Any of those that are not already blocked are blocked as soon as I can when I read the site.

It's simple. I am there to read an article. I am not there to watch some annoying graphic move around a small part of the screen. I never have and never will buy from anything with a moving ad. Static, even images, not a problem. Moving but able to be stopped, not a problem. Unstoppable movement? Blocked.

Oh, and I am someone who may buy something from an ad on a webpage. Have done before. But only where the ad is one I am not annoyed with, which means it either is static, or only plays once.

Ballmerized Nigerian PCs might run Mandriva after all

David
Gates Horns

3 strikes and...

"I vote that from now on, Microsoft should always be referred to "Microsoft, the company convicted three times for illegal business practices, ...". "

I vote for 3 strikes laws being extended globally to the founders of certain global companies :)

Threecrim (or 3crim?) do for a new name for mickey$loth? :)

Hackers field malware from fake US election sites

David
Joke

Screwed either way

If you go to one of the dodgy sites, there will be an attempt to infect your system with malware.

If you go to one of the legit sites, there will be an attempt to infect your brain with malware.

So best stay away from them. One will be filled with all sorts of nasties you don't want anywhere near your computer, the other will be filled with malware.

Ubuntu's latest OS not so Gutsy

David
Thumb Up

Works fine

First install was on a Dell Inspiron 1150 with an oddball wireless card. Once the WPA settings were in, the wireless has worked fine. Not even the slightest issue..

Plugged in my Epson printer/scanner, turned it on, sat down and.. Already there and ready to use. XP and Vista take longer to find it - and they have the drivers for it installed already!

I've since shoved 7.1 on a range of crappy old hardware that I can't even give away, no issues. Newer machines, no issues. Well, mostly.. One machine does have issues with returning from suspend.. But that always has, even under windoze.

Must dash.. Got more installs to do on other peoples machines.

Shocked Shatner shunted from Star Trek XI

David
Alien

Have to add my vote..

Not that anyone's counting

B5 - #1 by a long shot..

Firefly

Galactica original

Lexx

Dr Who (modern)

Galactica new

Lots of movies and whatnot (inc SW:ANH-ROJ followed by ST:TPM-ROS

DS9

Trek movies

Voyager

TOS

All the rest that is Sci-Fi, bar for those I have forgotten that should be above, and TNG, which is a lot further down the list, below all other Sci Fi, and all stuff that isn't Sci Fi, and all that isn't even watchable. [comic-guy voice] Worst... crap... ever...

More gnashing of teeth after Microsoft update brings PCs to a standstill

David

RE : To Linux Lovers.... and the rest...

why don't you first have look at the products that make Microsoft Windows the best choice for companies?

And they would be what?

No serious company needs anything from microsoft. Those who imagine they do are only in that position because they let someone sell them software that they don't actually need, because there is a better, freer alternative anyway. If it runs only on windows, say "No thanks, I'll save my money and get something better".

Microsoft is past it's use by date, and like all things rotten, is due to be thrown in the rubbish. It's been left around far to long, and is really stinking up the place.

Enjoy your slowed internet, and your regular dose of virus-laden spam.

David
Gates Horns

re:Step #1 against storm botnet

"Yes, Microsoft botched it up by making it so conspicuous"

Actually, I don't think they did botch it.

With all the many thousands upon thousands of computers that must have spent hours upon hours effectively dead while they gradually trawled through their disks, perhaps bringing networks down as well, and flooding internet bandwidth as they sent who knows what back to m$, how could Storm or it's controllers manage to do anything?

As to all this guff about Linux being so bad.. Well, I've done a quick demo of Ubuntu to someone a couple of days ago, and now I am doing my 3rd "wipe windoze and put that on please" of the day. Seems to handle all those hard to find drivers for laptop modems and so forth with ease as well...

One dodgy windoze update, another dozen Linux users :)

MIT student walks into airport wearing circuit board and wires

David

Silly over-reacting yanks..

So.. You're walking round displaying some "art" of very dubious coolness, playing with some plaster as a method of stress relief and/or concentration aid, and some dumb yank starts pointing a gun and yelling at you.

She is very lucky she didn't wind up shot. The chances of a yank cop being able to differentiate between "compliance with instructions" and "acting in a threatening manner" is probably somewhere near nil, and the chance of them wanting to show how big and strong they are because they can shoot an innocent unarmed person (like those lucky ones in Iraq and Afghanistan) is very high. She's quite lucky there.

And, she still faces further charges.

Terrorists don't need to fight the yanks. It seems that the yanks are leaki1ng IQ points like a sieve leaks water, and pretty soon they will not even have the intelligence to remember to breath, curing the world of so many problems in one hit.

Only 20 or 30 years ago the yanks deserved the respect and thanks of (much of) the rest of the world. Not now. They have made the world worse, and have brought yet more hatred on themselves. It would be nice if they all went home, closed their borders, and let the rest of us live in peace without their unwanted unwarranted interference. Well, let the few decent people there out, shut the rest in.

User seeks $1.4m from IBM for shoddy server packing

David

On IBM's side.

I'm on IBM's side as well. I have been driving forklifts for 13 years and cannot see how this can be anything but operator screwup.

ATI driver flaw exposes Vista kernel

David

Mac's wonderful security...

Firstly.. I have never owned a Mac but I have friends who are Mac fans. I have had the pleasure and the pain of using them many times. Mostly, it is a pleasure. I know Mac's are generally as good as, if not better than Linux machines, and always far far far better than any windoze-infested machine.

However...

I have discovered that on OSX, at least on older versions, if you open up port 22, maybe to run a SFTP server or something, then you're asking for trouble. Because while the gui has several passwords for admin and whatnot set, the underlying OS has a unix-like shell available. Which you can ssh into. Which has a root password that is blank by default. So ssh root@machost will get you in with full access by default, if port 22 is open on that host. You are not warned that there is no password on the root account.

For that matter, a local user on the terminal has the same access. If they can get a terminal window open, they have full access..

That may have been fixed in a later version of OSX. I certainly hope so. While Macs are way more secure generally, this sort of hole is still pretty stupid.

Google nabs aerial camera company

David

cia wishes they = google

With all the information Google has on you (if you use them as your search engine, let their advertising cookies take up residence on your system, use their email etc services, and so on), they probably don't see a need for wire tapping. There's a good chance you already do it for them (and if you don't, then there's many people out there who do).

Open sourcers rattle EU sabre at BBC on demand player

David

Linux can play WMP

"Some DRM vendors, such as microsoft create liscences which are deliberately incompatible with minority operating systems. It's litterally impossible for WMP to play under Linux."

Er. MPlayer, probably Totem and Noatun, and no doubt other Linux players can quite happily play WMP. DRM'd wmp might be another issue.

TV3 in NZ has an annoying thing on their website where you must be using the latest windoze media player (v11 now), but that's what the site detects as your player, not the content. And until I "upgrade" even my windoze vista machine can't play TV3 content.

Surely a mickey$loth drm would be about as hard to break as the rest of their security wouldn't it? Surely if anyone was interested, it'd be easier to break than WEP?

UK mulls drink-drive limit cut

David

From the Kiwi perspective..

Well, we had a government that dropped the limit a few years back.

Now the government are upset at the worrying trend of more and more people getting stopped over the limit.

Maybe it's the people who for most of their lives could have x drinks, drive home safely, and still be under both the legal limit and their own limit who are being caught out.

I expect that you would see the same, people who are within safe limits being caught out.

I am of the view that harsher penalties should be used, not lower limits. Those who are at fault in accidents are well over the limit generally, and of course those who repeatedly get caught at well over the limit aren't going to be stopped by a lower limit. First time should be a huge fine unless you could convince the judge that there was some mitigating factor. Second time should be jail time, and jail time of the sort that would mean that even the most wonderful boss would not keep your job open. 3rd time should be a life sentence.

I myself am one of those who won't drink before riding.

The slow death of AV technology

David

Just one question

What happens if/when this becomes something like the myriad of security questions windoze users (esp those poor fools with vista), where clicking "ok" or "allow" or whatever other "do the most damage" default becomes what they normally click? Don't bother to read the dialog that has just appeared on screen, just click the OK.

Of course, having some remote server wanting to tell me what I can run and when is something that is going to go down very well.. Not.

Want secure? Don't run windoze for a start.

So what's in a URL? The Reg URL?

David

.co.uk

Well done to whoever wades through all this lot! 385 comments at the time of writing..

Anyway. As a yankee-hating Kiwi (well not quite, the people are nice if a little ... let's just say "simple", but the government and the corporations that rule the government are a bunch of [multiple expletives deleted], and a Reg fan from the day you guys took over hosting the BOFH, I say ".co.uk" all the way.

Liverpool police get mini-Black Helicopter

David

1980's New Zealand TV

This was done by a kid on a TV series that screened in New Zealand in the early -mid 80's. I believe the name of the show was "Hot Shots" or something like that, but involved some kids, one of who had a mother who was involved (not by choice) with counterfitters. One of the kids was a electronics and model chopper enthusiast and attached a video camera to his bog-standard RC chopped, and used it to follow the bad guys around at some point.

Surprising that it has taken so long for it to be something fairly mainstream in use, and even then only by the US military.