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* Posts by Silverburn

1579 posts • joined Tuesday 24th May 2011 18:59 GMT

Silverburn
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Black Helicopters

In a recent study of six million actual user-generated passwords, the 10,000 most common passwords would have accessed 98.1 percent of all accounts,

Ah, it appears we have found the final destination of all the hacked/uplifted user password files of late...Send in the gunships!

Silverburn
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Devil

..and this is the problem with vigilante groups, or those pretending to be them.

At first their causes are noble, standing up against injustice and defending basic human rights. But over time, they start to diversify into areas which - frankly - are hardly crimes against humanity.

Seriously Anon (if that is indeed you) - what the f* has this corporate IT spend decision got to do with you?

Silverburn
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Happy

Re: Just like lead

I only drink rainwater naturally, so no commie heavy metals in the groundwater to sap and impurify all of my precious bodily fluids.

Silverburn
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Unlikely I'm afraid - most dentists are encouraged to go for the non-mercury , white versions these days.

The fact they're twice the price and have twice the margin of the mercury ones has nothing to do with it, of course.

Silverburn
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Black Helicopters

The Convention will impact Reg readers in many ways. Some fluorescent lamps rely on the element, as do light switches.

That's funny...I never saw any questions about our love of lamps and light switches in the user survey. Did I miss out a section? Or does El Reg have greater inteligence collection methods we're not aware of - ie black helicopters?

Silverburn
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*meh*

Best we'll get is some hydro-carbon sludge at the bottom.

Mars is either a billion years too early or too late for life I recon, and that's even before we take into consideration the non-ideal climate and atmospheric issues.

Now if we're looking for ideal conditions where we can grow our own when we get there, that's different. This could be a promising development.

Silverburn
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Holmes

Alternatively....Engineers are normal human beings, and those entering the "caring" professions are actually more empathetic that the norm?

Not that I have any feelings about the whole thing anyway...apparently.

Silverburn
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Devil

Re: Is it just me....

Hmmm. The idea of olympic pools filled with people has a slight ring of Soylent green about it, if you ask me.

Especially you consider it's more efficient to store them in liquidised form...

Silverburn
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Re: greetings from Austria

Indeed Bill.

-9'C and 4" in some areas here in Switzerland. Everything is running normally...

Silverburn
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Additional stats required

Readership - all well and good. Now, how about:

- Servers

- storage stats

- bandwidth used

etc

Silverburn
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Happy

Re: Nothing wrong

Proper Italian salami should have some donkey meat - how about that?

Thanks. You bastard.

Silverburn
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FAIL

Meal detection app

...is never gonna work.

For one - Never in a million years does the meal before look you anything like the one on the posters.

Two - just because the database says "supplier of branch x beef is manufacture y" doesn't make the contents accurate. Something Tesco is only now discovering.

Silverburn
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Pic 1, page 1

hmmm....lovely desk finish...just perfect for using your 80's mouse on. Or not. Then there's the small matter of the diarrhea colour pattern...

Silverburn
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Re: IMHO, MS Office 13 has a largely anti-productivity UI

@TonyJ,

I think the issue is discoverable != easier to find.

I've come from 2003, and my immediate feeling was I had just been taken out of my simple Cessna and dropped into the cockpit of concorde. Yes, there's the familiar stick, throttle and rudder control, but there's *so many more" buttons, levers, switches, toggles, dials and god knows what else. It's overload frankly, and I have trouble finding stuff.

There should be some thought into starting a session with the absolute basics on show - fonts, bold, italics etc, and "introducing" more advanced features contextually or via other toolbars...just like 2003, if I'm honest.

Silverburn
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Go

Nightmare

That works out to an additional 7PB in the Facebook Photo data store every month

For a humble tech dealing with much smaller infrastructure, everything about Facebooks photo storage gives me a headache. Pretty awesome all the same though.

Silverburn
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Re: "Windows Phone 8 handset maker"

"Finnish"?

Just finished more like.

Silverburn
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Flame

Re: IMHO, MS Office 13 has a largely anti-productivity UI

I fired up the beta version of word 2013 the other day, and my immediate thought of the interface was:

"What the f*****g hell is this???"

Improved it has not.

Silverburn
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Happy

Re: @Silverburn

Nah - I got it...I just couldn't remember where I first heard it! Now I know...

Silverburn
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A tad extreme, surely?

Afterall, if all the marketards become extinct, who will:

- you be able to dump some redhot "blame potatoes" on?

- buy all the Porche Cayennes?

- run the infomercial and shopping channels?

- try their hardest to drink our EU beer and wine lakes?

Marketards are underrated IMO. Though not as much as the old days when they were useful as "arrow fodder".

Silverburn
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Pint

Re: Hardly

"I'll have what he's having"

Silverburn
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Re: Groan...

@ AC

So what - with all the evasion they engage in, they provide little to the local economy

Corp tax doesn't go to the local economy either.

Neither does the PAYE and NI the employee pay, nor does the Corp NI on those employees. Those go to HMRC. The government makes plenty from indirect taxation of these orgs, and corporate tax is a mere topup.

Only the rates/council tax (and possibly rent for council owned buildings) and the retail outlet of said org contribute locally.

people are will still be here, they still need goods and services; so having UK based companies supply those (and pay their taxes) would be to the betterment of the UK.

Whether a company is international or UK based, the majority of revenue comes from indirect taxation, and the creation of jobs and thus a local economy. Ask Sunderland how much it would like Nissan to go home, which it would consider if you bumped up corporation tax.

Also, read this:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/25/tax_and_tech_biz/

Silverburn
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Re: Buy local

"Proud to pay my tax"

oh come on...*nobody* is proud to pay tax. Everyone resents it. There is never too little tax. If they offered a 1% reduction in NI or PAYE, you'd be all over it quicker than a zombie in a mensa convention.

Silverburn
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Re: Re Anon 9:53 Tax rates

seems certain regions in Switzerland offer much better deals than that

Kanton Zug, to be specific. Lowest corp and personal tax in CH.

...Mine's the Mink Sable.

Silverburn
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Flame

Groan...

...once more, this time with feeling:

Avoidance != Evasion

Frankly, the sour grapes about the whole thing boil down to two things:

- You didn't think about using the same scheme yourself

- You didn't think about taxing the same scheme yourself

Think it's unfair? Campaign for the rules to be changed. Also campaign for bigger harbours, since all the international Corps will be exiting these shores the moment it comes it effect.

Silverburn
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Coat

Spherical Cow, however, proved to be a difficult beast

Well, I guess giving birth to something circular the size of a cow, I guess you'd run into difficulties too.

Thanks, I'm here all night.

Silverburn
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Thumb Up

Shopping malls

Agree with this.

There is the fact that most retailers are trying to ship commodity items to attract as many punters as possible, often selling the same bland things as each other with next to no difference.

Extend this approach, and you see why in the UK there are massive malls, filled with all the same bland names, selling all the same bland stuff. Zero choice, zero differentiation, designed to conform to some marketing statistic, and the USP comes down to the "retail add ons" (ie who's coffee shop is better). All of them are struggling, because when you can get the same commodity x online.

Witness if you will, shopping for a suit in Next. A tale of utter anonymous woeful tat it is. Pop next door to River Island, and it's the same tat, with a difference sense of woe. Down Saville Row, and things start to look up. Or indeed...different. And better. 1 Saville row for the price of 3 bland bits of cloth from Next? Bloody bargain.

To actually attract people in, you actually need to take the risk and go for different stuff and go for more vertical markets, and actually products are genuinely unique. The "boutiques" are all doing better than the chains, ta v much.

Silverburn
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Facepalm

I could be a CEO

...if his comments are anything to go by:

- Developed world approaching saturation. No shit!

- Emerging markets are where it's at. No shit!

- Emerging markets can't afford Developed World prices. No shit!

- To sell in the emerging markets, you need to sell at prices they can afford. No shit!

Just stunning. And he got paid how much?

Silverburn
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In addition to PH comments, there is the law of unintended consequences...

The swiss know they got shafted by US gov, so now, you'll be hard pressed to find any CH bank that will accept *new* US customers - there are only a few now that will, and there are restrictions and agreements you have to sign. Some have even got rid of *existing* US customers.

They don't want to comply with the US playground bully in the future, so this is merely the Swiss way of politely exiting the playground altogether and saying "We have no US customers to disclose on, so f* off".

This post has been deleted by its author

Silverburn
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Re: Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs....

"If it's a fast ship?"

"You've never heard of the Millenium Falcon? It's the only ship that can x-ray your whole body into radioactive sludge in the time it takes to do the Kessel run"

Silverburn
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FAIL

Re: The Microsoft Security Hole Cluster

Errr...Isn't the first MCP exam entitled "Windows XP/7"?

The "Active Directory design" one maybe...a few fail that...but the "XP/7" one...?

<-- in more ways than one.

Silverburn
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Black Helicopters

Point of order: Privacy is not secrecy, before anyone asks. But yes, privacy ftw here - just don't ask about the communal naked sauna's. Some exceptions are allowed.

Silverburn
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Coat

Re: Vampires are now soooo 1830s, dear!

Gangnampunk FTW!

Steam-powered brass robots doing "that dance".

Nooooooooooooo.....

Silverburn
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Thumb Up

Re: It's not a security hole

@ Oh4FS

"twixt" - Illecebrous indeed.

Silverburn
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Facepalm

Re: "Even the fanboi's aren't that gullible."

If it's an overpriced incremental upgrade than anyone with common sense would avoid buying or using, then yes. Yes it is.

<-- for me.

Silverburn
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Re: It's not a security hole

1. In order to run this jailbreak, you need to have a second machine with Visual Studio running a remote debugger session to the Windows RT device.

For now. But there's blood in the water, and progress will be made. Put the kettle on - won't be long.

2. There is no pre-compiled ARM software out there for WinRT. You'd have to write your own.

The first ones will be permanent rootkits (malicous or intentional), and they'll be on the blackmarket in 3...2...1...

3. Even if you did, the jailbreak does not - and cannot! - survive a boot. So one boot later, your imaginary software won't run unless you jailbreak the device again, using the VS remote debugger.

Won't really matter if you've loaded your rootkit from step 2

4. The stuff Microsoft charges for is Windows Store apps, and you can already sideload those - in fact, MSDN specifies exactly how to do it. Not exactly a big money-saving secret.

Once I've got my rootkit running, I'll sideload, download, diagonalload, throughload and circleload to my hearts content. You might want to clarify that you need an enterprise licences to officially sideload.

Silverburn
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Re: Sell Apple Stock

I'd agree - top of the curve I recon, and nothing fantastic in the 2013 pipeline given all the "tick" incremental upgrades last year. No "tock" products or upgrades I recon.

Silverburn
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Gimp

tight-fisted fanbois blamed

Or maybe...just maybe...the Iphone 5 wasn't good enough to fork out for?

Even the fanboi's aren't that gullible.

Silverburn
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Money

The point here is money, because as the author correctly notes - you don't know what you're actually spending. So invariably you spend more than expected. Which I'm sure was Disney's plan from the start.

Behaviour tracking is just a bonus.

Silverburn
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Black Helicopters

Re: Again - no Ethernet socket? Socket to me, baby!

@ aqk

Some application using on the corporate level cannot be accessed over a unsecure LAN. This means cert-based authentication via SSL channel to a virtual App session over closed wire connection.

Lenovo = corporate, so this is indeed an omission. 30 bucks per adapter x the total users in the department in question = lots of money.

Helicopter...because some app need to be really REALLY secured from prying eyes.

Silverburn
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Pint

Glass half full

I prefer to think of this as a good idea. Most security issues are PEBCAK's, so raising awareness there is a good thing.

Better than doing jack shit at least.

Actually the glass is empty. Another please barman!

Silverburn
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Alien

X prize ver 2.0

NASA is not yet able to "do the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs,"

Yep, but I bet the boys at Ansari are wording the scope of the next prize right as we speak...

Silverburn
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Coat

Rubbish

Reuters rubbishes report rubbishing cheap iPhone rumor .

For the sake of consistency, I think I'll rubbish this article about Reuters rubbishing a report which rubbishes cheap iPhone rumors.

Cue downvotes to rubbish my post about rubbishing this article about Reuters rubbishing a report which rubbishes cheap iPhone rumors.

Load of rubbish if you ask me.

Silverburn
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Happy

Re: How about ....

Yo mamma so fat even Einstein said "daaayyyym"

Silverburn
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Re: Buses, huh?

Just be thankful it's not bendy buses. You'd need a bit less of them, but half of them would be on fire.

Silverburn
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Facepalm

Depressing Irony

Did anyone else spot the depressing irony that we had to ship our SA80's to the GERMANS for them to work correctly?

BAE systems...if their weapons were as efficient as their ability to suck tax pounds out of every wallet, we'd still be an empire.

Silverburn
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@ dogged.

Way to completely miss the point.

Do you *really* think jailbreaking - in whatever form - should be this easy on an MS operating system / hardware device in 2013?

Silverburn
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Facepalm

Netham45 reckons you can jailbreak a slab in about 20 seconds just by running the runExploit.bat file on the tablet and pressing a button

Even more damning will be that improving/fixing this particular security issue will probably be harder for the end user than running the hack in the first place...

Silverburn
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Re: Measure Twice, Cut Once

My query in - 112 days? Why not..say...100?

112 seems very specific, and reaks of an arbitrary calculation done somewhere.

Silverburn
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Facepalm

New tool jailbreaks Microsoft Surface slabs in 20 SECONDS

Good to see MS's security initiative delivering results...