* Posts by pabc

27 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Aug 2011

We've, um, changed our password policy, says CafePress amid reports of 23m pwned accounts

pabc

Re: Unique usernames?

I honestly never knew this. It works perfectly. Thank you.

Low Barr: Don't give me that crap about security, just put the backdoors in the encryption, roars US Attorney General

pabc

am i missing something?

you can't un-invent the maths that makes encryption happen.

What's to stop the bad guys deploying their own code based on this maths which isn't backdoored and then using that?

Giffgaff admits to billing faff, actually tells folk to turn it off and on again

pabc

Re: * Posts by Enemy of the State 2 posts • joined 29 Jun 2018

My experience of Giffgaff was awful, coverage was rotten - ditto. and when I did have coverage my 4G speeds, in the center of a major city were dialup like.

The only good thing was that I could dump them in a month. Terrible.

Crooks can nick Brits' identities just by picking up the phone and lying

pabc

Re: Bank security is a complete joke

(3) - to change them regularly.

there are other opinions on that advice.

https://www.howtogeek.com/187645/htg-explains-should-you-regularly-change-your-passwords/

Ordnance Survey unfolds handy Mars map

pabc

serious question

Does Mars have magnetic poles? I mean, can you take a bearing and then follow it on a compass, because if not, this map isn't much use for hikers.....

This is why copy'n'paste should be banned from developers' IDEs

pabc

Anal Technique

from my edit.php

<tr<?php echo $alert;?>>

<td valign=top>

<p class=boxtext>Anal Technique

</td>

<td valign=top>

<p class=boxtext>

<select name=anal_technique>

<?php

// analyst

$anal_technique_options=array("","UHPLC","HPLC","SFC");

foreach ($anal_technique_options as $anal_technique_option){

$selected="";

if ($anal_technique_option==$anal_technique){

$selected=" SELECTED";

}

echo "<option value=\"$anal_technique_option\"$selected>$anal_technique_option</option>\n";

}

?>

</select>

</td>

</tr>

GCHQ Christmas Card asks YOU the questions

pabc

Re: Non event

upvote for that. Got me.

Irish electricity company threatens to cut off graveyard

pabc

Re: Graveyard receives leccy bill

4 puns in one comment. We have a winner

Hey look! Microsoft's workforce isn't all white men

pabc

I'm a director a small (<10 people) scientific company and we are currently recruiting. I'm certain the policies I have in place mean we will get the best applicant for the job. I'm also bliddy sure google et al have pretty good policies in place to hire the best person presented to them.

If* people think that having a workforce which statistically matches the general population then work needs to be put into sorting stereotypes right at the start of schooling. Remove the idea that girls don't *do* STEM / IT so that the distribution of 'good enough' candidates that hits the hiring managers desk is more diverse. Only then will companies have something to answer for numbers such as those reported here.

Before this story I hadn't even [looked at / thought about] the gender split of my interview shortlist because it is irrelevent (it's 5:3 F:M BTW).

* why is it more benifical for my business to aspire to sync my staff demographics to that of the public than it is to just hire the best people? If I currently had 6 men on the books and the best candidate was also a male, where is the advantage overlooking the man and hiring the next best candidate that happens to have a fufu?

Why, hello there, Foxy... BYE GOOGLE! Mozilla's browser is a video star

pabc

how is this any improvment on appear.in?

I've been using https://appear.in for ages for my professional multiple person VCs.

it works on Win7 / ubuntu laptops with both chrome and FF and chrome for android flawlessly. (this is not exhaustive, just all the configs I know people have used hassle free)

OnePlus One cut-price Android phone on sale to all... for 1 HOUR

pabc

i got mine from the far east

http://en.comebuy.com/searchindex/result/index/?q=oneplus

delivery was longer than expected - should have been 10 day DHL, but they took 2 days to process the order and ship - and then it took 15 days to appear - so almost 3 weeks.

Still, absolutely worth it. 30 hours battery life and stunning piece of kit.

Ten years on, TEN PER CENT of retailers aren't obeying CAN-SPAM

pabc

Re: Links

I look after the my company's email newsletter. Address come from self sign ups or prior business relationship only.

We include a *single* click unsub link which does exactly that.

This does catch us out now and again, as one company recently started inspecting links in emails at gateway via trend micro, and as a result the last mailshot we sent out unsubbed everyone in that domain.

We still decided it was better to keep the single click unsub link rather than make it harder for the user.

I guess we are in the 0.1% that arn't gits

Who needs hackers? 'Password1' opens a third of all biz doors

pabc

Re: STILL no standard ?

I challenged one small ecommerce website that sent me username/password in plain text after signup - accusing them of not even hashing, let alone salting my password as it should be lost to them after registration.

I got a reply stating he'd looked at the registration script which did salt and hash prior to storage but used the original input whilst generating the confirmation email. He thanked me for raising the issue as he wasn't aware the script sent the password back out via plain text.

I created a second account a week later - no password in the confirmation email. So there are some people doing it right.

clueless as to how this is happening....

pabc

clueless as to how this is happening....

my website uses htaccess to nicely handle 404s - and a little code ont he 404 page emails me if one is generated. This is so if I put up a bad link I'll know pretty quick.

But recently, whenever a 404 occurs I immediately get another alert for the same non-existent page - always from the same IP.

I'm really curious to know how this other 404 source is getting the information to try the non-existent address that someone else mistyped?

Any thoughts as to how, or, just as usefully, where else I can ask this question?

I've replicated this behaviour by navigating to random non-existent URIs from firefox 27 in safemode (linux), chrome33 with disable-extentions (linux) and android chrome (wifi / mobile data) so pretty sure it's not anything nasty on my side. I've grabbed the current 404 code from the site and there isnt anything in there either.

Microsoft, Cisco: RC4 encryption considered harmful, avoid at all costs

pabc

In firefox, click the padlock to the left in the adress bar and select 'more info'

In Chrome, click the padlock to the left in the adress bar and look in the 'connection' tab

pabc

Re: Good question

That site, www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/ reports facebook as being grade A, yet firefox's technical information on the secure connection says 128 bit RC4

Perhaps not grade A until the use of RC4 caps to grade B?

That square QR barcode on the poster? Check it's not a sticker

pabc

Re: Same old, same old...

we use a QR code to allow quick access to our company wifi - scan the code on your device and voila - connected.

There are some other uses - like embeded vcards on the back of you buisness cards to allow quick digitisation of the contacts details.

Asus offers compensation to pre-price drop Nexus 7 buyers

pabc

Re: Wow - those serial numbers are tough to guess

website says serial is wrong when I try to submit the form, despite the ajax code detecting the serial I enter as being a eeppad / nexus 7 and propulating some of the form for me.

A bit of searching suggest the 16 digit hexadecimal code from the tablet menus is a CSSN, not a SSN which is required by ASUS and is on the sticker on the box.

I tried the CSN and it worked first time. The first 6 characters are letters - the 0 and O on the font used is very difficult to see a difference

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean review

pabc

No need to root the nexus 7 for flash

a quick search will give you the xda-developers thread where you sideload flash 11.1.102.59 which will work with firefox beta on the market or for a less buggy experience sideload Dolphin 8.5.1

Voila - iPlayer on the nexus 7.

Microsoft expands Xbox extras

pabc

Re: Errm

erm, my XBox360 mk1 is stil going strong thank you very much. I think I've had value for money rather than "royally fucked over a barrel by them"

BYOD sync 'n share

pabc

Re: trust no one

mines the one with an hourly cron job script;

ccrypt -eRs ~/Dropbox/encrypted -K mysecretlongpassphrase1

to encrypt one folder of my dropbox stuff - safe in the knowledge that if I forget to re-encrypt after working on it the system sorts it out for my next hour

HTC One X Android smartphone

pabc

Re: Don't do it!!!

to counter this - the screen on my wildfire S stop responding to touch. A call to customer support went through a soft, then hard reset, then a UPS collection from my work and delivery of the fixed phone 4 days later to my home.

One of the best customer service departments I've ever dealt with.

NASA confirms first Earth candidate in habitable zone

pabc

assuming it has the same density as Earth? If it's 13.8 time less dense then the gravitational pull would be the same?

Linux Mint moves to Gnome 3, keeps Gnome 2 MATEy

pabc

what?

@AC 23:20

well she was on 11.04 and didn't like Unity so I dist upgraded to 11.11 and stuck gnome 3 on.

Just Because I'm lazy and it was the easiest/quickest way.

pabc

50% migration from Ubuntu to Mint here

my son likes Mint11 over Lucid due to the default colors - fine as reasons go if you are 11yo. My daughter prefers gnome3 so is on ubuntu 11.11 but will be the first to switch to Mint12 as the house guinea pig. My netbook will get Mint12 shortly after but desktop is staying at Lucid until LTS runs out.

Got a non-iPad tablet? Weirdo

pabc

cheap chinese android fondleslab for me

and nice HTC android phone

The phone does everything I need on the go and the FS does the same when I'm not - either at home trying to occupy myself with some video off the NAS drive whilst trying to avoid Eastenders/Corry/Farm thing that t'wife has on in the background or at uni when I need a light device for note taking in the cloud.

There are definitely weirdos out there that not only have use for a phone and FS but also choose not to buy fruit flavoured versions

Linus Torvalds dubs GNOME 3 'unholy mess'

pabc

my kids like unity....

and I think that says it all. I have unity on my small screened netbook and it fits a purpose. my desktop is gnome 2.

when my 10 and 11 year old kids saw unity they nagged me until i gave in to put it on each of their laptops and desktops - it's an interface they are used to coming from playing on their bliddy phones all the time and they like it. They don't need to be particularly productive.

horses for courses i suppose.