* Posts by David Hall 1

31 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Apr 2011

Easyjet hacked: 9 million people's data accessed plus 2,200 folks' credit card details grabbed

David Hall 1

Not very pci friendly

They are lucky it was only 2k cards. Can't see anyone being thrilled to find out they were storing ccvs...

But since I doubt they were - my prediction is that they used their access to push a script to the booking platform. Looking at you BA.

Bose customers beg for firmware ceasefire after headphones fall victim to another crap update

David Hall 1

One poor punter ?

If he lives in Brazil and he's buying Bose; then at least by local standards, he's definitely not poor !

Halfords invents radio signals that don't travel at the speed of light

David Hall 1

Speed is actually fair

Speed is actually a fair description. Sorry haters.

In the context of a radio network - speed is afforded by wavelength just as they describe.

Bandwidth is speed modulated by the real world.

Higher bandwidth afforded by greater speed enables better sound.

QED. Halfords were right.

'Literally a paperweight': Bose users fume at firmware update that 'doesn't fix issues'

David Hall 1

If you want to get them moving...

Start buying and returning new units after you update complaining about the issue.

Because it's new they have no choice but not to accept back but the restocking will start costing them a small fortune.

The NSA's own bastard operator from Hell, aka Edward Snowden, puts out memoir next month

David Hall 1

Re: Spycatcher

I'm glad someone got there before me.

Spycatcher is an excellent - well written and interesting book.

I particularly love the way the Russians bugged the US embassy with the wooden eagle !

Meet ELIoT – the EU project that wants to commercialize Internet-over-lightbulb

David Hall 1

Dumb reg readers

Tdm. Google is your friend

Bigger issue will be watching porn late at night without waking up everyone in the house by turning the lights on.

From Red Planet to deep into the red: Suicidal extrovert magnet Mars One finally implodes

David Hall 1

They were right about the value of the TV rights

Who wouldn't pay good money to witness ." Even if it had, it would most likely lead to the reality TV "stars" dying from crash landing, habitat failure, or slow suffocation. ®"

Tedious Service Bulletin: No prizes for guessing which UK bank's services are DOWN for business users

David Hall 1

I met their lovely new CEO on a flight whilst this was happening

I was very impressed by her tbh. I'm not sure if she as impressed by me - but if she hadn't read if before she is now aware of 'Tits up bank' from el reg and she was gracious in my recounting the tale to her !

Oracle robbed just about anyone who wasn't a pasty white male of $400m, says Uncle Sam

David Hall 1

It's done wonders for the local food though

As someone who works in Redwood City; I can say that this is probably true - but it's caused the springing up of some excellent Indian restaurants - which is invaluable for us Brits abroad!

Remember Woolworths? Well there's a different* one that still exists in Oz. Telstra wants NBN Co to help shove fibre in it

David Hall 1

Re: They won't do it in all of the stores

Someone got there ahead. Oz Woolworths isn't the same as UK / US.

Mything the point: The AI renaissance is simply expensive hardware and PR thrown at an old idea

David Hall 1

Re: Expert Systems

AI is the complete domain. It includes expert systems. Machine learning is a distinct domain (along with others like genetic algorithms) alongside expert systems.

Deep learning is a subset of machine learning.

No one disputes this to be true. If you want to learn more about the machinations that the AI community had thinking about whether an expert system could really be 'sentient' (which doesn't equal AI) - it's worth looking up the Chinese room though example.

David Hall 1

Where's Kevin?

Surely no article like this is replete without a quote from AI's black sheep Keven Warwick!

Zip it! 3 more reasons to be glad you didn't jump on Windows 10 1809

David Hall 1

Re: Regressions

I haven't used Windows for years.

I toss around words like Unix and mainframe linking them to all that shiny modern stuff that I don't use and don't trust.

But since I worked in IT aeons ago my views are relevent.

Downvotes suggest otherwise....

Florence and the Machines: Data centers brace as hurricane smashes into US coast

David Hall 1

Who did century link have to blow?

Just OOI. Is that an advert for Century Link? El Reg couldn't find any other DC operators in SFO? No interest in comparing how different provides respond ? Just a puff piece for one vendor.

Oh my. What has happened in Vulture Towers !

Keep yer plastic, says analyst: eSIMs aren't all they're cracked up to be

David Hall 1

Bizarre conclusions / US centric

I can't for the life of me work out what happened to the reg's journalism.

This whole article should be prefaced - this may be true in the US!

Since when did locking consumers to one provider reduce the incentives for that provider to provide a good service / invest in their network.

Surely it has the opposite effect ? If consumers are free to move around - networks will be forced to invest.

If only there was an example.

Oh yeah right there is. Many US cities only have 1 broadband provider - so it's impossible to switch. Which is why my colleagues in the Valley spend hundreds of dollars on <100mbps broadband - delivered by crap service providers - where in London I have access to at least 6 options and pay considerably less for 400mbps.

Crap journalism. Crap conclusion.

Revealed: British Airways was in talks with IBM on outsourcing security just before hack

David Hall 1

Re: It used to be...

BA don't have first class on their route to Turin.

Or not, at least, since before I was born (early 80s!)

Some Things just aren't meant to be (on Internet of Things networks). But we can work around that

David Hall 1

Reg taking the piss? Or too hot for journalism.

"For example, a former colleague of mine has the option of adding Ethernet adaptors to the emergency generators on his data room but has decided not to – simply so the vendor's engineers have to visit to do maintenance rather than being allowed to break and crash things from afar."

Yeah. Guy is a genius. Totally thinking he runs a comms room rather than a proper DC.

Modern life is rubbish – so why not take a trip down memory lane with Windows File Manager?

David Hall 1

Thank you for the memories. Totally forgot about Xtree but you are bang on right !

David Hall 1

Oh the memories

It was Windows 3.0. My first IBM PC.

File manager, a bit of messing around, and within 3 minutes I had deleted command.com / autoexec

Bat etc.

That was the first, and last time, I broke a PC that I couldn't, myself, subsequently fix.

*Thunk* No worries, the UPS should spin up. Oh cool, it's in bypass mode

David Hall 1

Re: In the old bank, in the vault

A generator is not a UPS.

A UPS provides carry through time whilst your gennie starts up and can carry the load.

A generator is a generator.

David Hall 1

Re: My one win over beancounters

I am very surprised if your string is all in series. If it is that's your big problem.

If it's not which it almost certainly definitely isn't - just isolate each shelf and replace shelf at a time.

All you lose is some run time but no need to put into bypass.

Of course if you are relying on the register for your ppm you and your company are almost certainly screwed!

David Hall 1

Re: Sometimes, there are ways round it.

The Thames is pretty much a safe bet for building a DC next to because Thames barrier etc.

Still a waste of nice river real estate!

IBM have had their DC on the south bank for at least half a century and whilst it's pretty crap - I don't believe it's been wetted yet !

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the data centre temp's delightful

David Hall 1

Doesn't actually make sense

So I think what the story tries to say is that the steam produced by the humidification equipment(I guess they were using kettles but maybe some ultrasonic system) somehow produced so much steam / water that it froze and sealed up the pipe.

This makes zero sense. Firstly you do your humidification after you control your temperature.

That makes sense when you consider that what you are trying to control is rH (ie humidity relative to temperature)!

If for some bizarre reason you did your humidity control before your temp control then it still wouldn't cause a flood because you don't need a ton of steam to get +-50rH at 0C (the air inlet temperature).

In my humble opinion.. Facilities engineers blame bad design when proper maintenance / operations (eg finding the leak into the humidity control / responding to an increase in pressure alarm in the HVAC) is actually the solution.

British Airways slaps 'at risk' sticker on nearly half its app delivery dept

David Hall 1

Timig

The timing is funny as anyone flying to the US on Sunday from Heathrow would have experienced.

BA lost their link to the US DHS which means that anyone who hasn't provides their Advance Passenger Info (in advance) experienced the joy of not flying (although my plane was busy so maybe they fixed it after I checked in).

They were also struggling with the app that they use to load the planes evenly (so, you know, they don't fall out of the sky) which delayed us an hour....

Pay up, Lincolnshire, or your data gets it. Systems still down after ransomware hits

David Hall 1

Re: I disagree with this statement

Was searching through the comments to see if anyone else noticed this.

I wonder if the Reg's copy editors were drunk this afternoon or if the author is just confused.

But to echo your point. Ransomware certainly could use a zero day. And that will be a great day for us all...

Microsoft Edge web browser: A well-presented mea culpa

David Hall 1

I tend to agree with the review. But the deal breaker for me is no android version so no forms prefilled / open tab from another device etc.

Unless they build for android I will never use it on the desktop.

Run Windows 10 on your existing PC you say, Microsoft? Hmmm.

David Hall 1

My experience echos this.

I have been testing windows 10 since the first build on a particularly complicated windows 7 (originally) Sony laptop which has the joys of dual GPUs and a ton of 'Sony specific' stuff. That said I have to run allowing unsigned drivers to let me use the hacked windows 8 / Nvidia / Intel GPU drivers.

Rest of experience is fine.

How to get $542m from Google: Dress as a SPACEMAN with dayglo dancers – Magic Leap

David Hall 1

Someone should inform...

The Inland Revenue ;-)

Tech hacks should admit taking corporate coin, but don't start a witch hunt

David Hall 1

Foss patents

To be honest I was extremely surprised about the comments re Florien Muller.

I've read his blog for several years and always found him to be pretty bang on the money. Given that he makes money from his consulting work; rather than his journalism; I would imagine that it's more important for him than most bloggers to be accurate in his analysis since that's how (and he is clear about this) he picks up his consulting jobs.

I'm also a long time register reader and haven't failed to spot that you are much more friendly when your big advertisers (Rackspace for example) have an epic fail than you are with other companies with whom you have no commercial relationship.

I've also never seen a Reg article with a 'Rackspace (or insert other advertiser name) pay my wages' disclaimer (which is always what you see with Mr Muller).

Groupon sues ex-sales heads for defection to Google

David Hall 1

$6m

I think there are several orders of magnitude of error at only 6m USD.

Still it's probably a few orders of magnitude less of a problem than disclosing your complete subscriber list :-)

Rackspace backtracks over toff-proof sign-up process

David Hall 1
FAIL

sponsors abound

Presumably this was an ad for rackspace (everyone's favorite sponsor of el reg) rather than actual news.

Since, indeed, it isn't in fact news.