* Posts by Thrud61

22 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jul 2013

Can your rival fix it as fast? turns out to be ten-million-dollar question for plucky support guy

Thrud61
Facepalm

Not the same but

I've had occasions as a contractor where I had been called in to try fix some bug that had stumped the local engineers, I'd spend hours finding the bug, two minutes to fix it and then have the locals turn round and say, that's a trivial fix we could have done that.

This one weird trick turns your Google Home Hub into a doorstop

Thrud61

Re: Security PAH who needs stupid security

Alexa has both a big "don't do voice purchases switch" and a "set a voice access code for purchases".

Alexa can barely hear me when I'm standing next to it so I'm not worried that someone in the street can get themselves understood by it.

Dead serious: How to haunt people after you've gone... using your smartphone

Thrud61

Please add BT to your list

Must be 25 years ago I was IT manager at a large US company and at that time we were supplying ISDN lines to "home workers". When we had a problem I tried to contact BT and ended up with an auto attendant, it wanted to know if it was business or residential, then various options about bills and installations, went through more options than I've ever had in an AA before or since, the final option was to complain about ISDN, selected the option and I got the number unobtainable tone. I tried again to make sure I hadn't made a mistake, exactly the same.

So I would be grateful if you could dial BT customer support periodically and choose random options in the AA until it gets to a real person and then play them some hold music that repeats every 4 bars and then hang up.

Software dev bombshell: Programmers who use spaces earn MORE than those who use tabs

Thrud61
Go

Random correlation proven

I used to use TAB all the time, but now 30 odd years later I only use spaces for indentation and I now earn 50 times what I did then.

Horrid checkbox download bundlers drop patch-frozen Chrome

Thrud61

Re: chrome?

For a while searching for google chrome download in Bing returned a top sponsored link that was one of these bundles, but the site it went to was intended to look like the official google chrome site, the downloaded installer was stuffed with nasties.

Nigerian government site popped, used for phishing scam

Thrud61
Happy

"Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria" sounds like a made up organisation to me anyway

I'm glad someone pointed this out, as I would have trusted the Rev. Dr. Sean Connery the third, had the form for my bank details been on an official Nigerian government site, though I'm not sure how I would know it was a real one.

Viral virus bunfight: Dr Web tested rivals like Kaspersky Lab

Thrud61

Catch 22

If AV companies are measured against the VirusTotal samples that they miss its not surprising that they blindly create signatures for everything that is submitted, if they don't add it they will be flagged as less effective than those that do and by the time that they have explained and the scoring has been fixed the damage to their reputation will be done.

China wants to build a 200km-long undersea tunnel to America

Thrud61
Mushroom

I've already seen the film

"A Chinese general goes berserk and has a system of tunnels dug all the way from China to USA, under the Pacific Ocean! Wherever there is an important military base, he places atomic bombs. US Navy soldiers go underground to repel the invaders. "

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061387/

SNAFU: Blighty's judges not trustworthy, says their own website

Thrud61
Facepalm

Expired cert does not mean in the clear

This article is a bit misleading, just because a certificate has expired does NOT mean that the communications are no longer encrypted. You just can't verify that the cert used for the encryption belongs to the site you go to.

'Logjam' crypto bug could be how the NSA cracked VPNs

Thrud61
Flame

Re: Why?

I really wish everyone would update to more secure systems, twice in recent months I have had to revert a security measure made to the product, in the first instance allow weaker ciphers because of all of the old systems that only support LOW and MEDIUM level ciphers and in the second we had to re-enable support for SSLv23 because in both cases our customers complained that none of their customers could now send them email. It is bad enough that these systems are restricting the levels of security that others can employ but it also reflected badly on us when customers raised concerns that our product didn't support this or that standard email system, and some subsequently ran Pen tests and pointed out the vulnerabilities that they had re-enabled on our product to support their customers.

Its all a huge pain in the ass.

Neurobabble makes nonsense brain 'science' more believable

Thrud61
Coat

Are we participating now ?

Anyone else reading that article feel like they are being experimented on, even has a bar chart and an irrelevant scan

ICANN urges US, Canada: Help us stop the 'predatory' monster we created ... dot-sucks!

Thrud61

I don't think sucks means what he thinks it means

"allowing folks to speak and be heard about the products they buy and the companies they support"

Asteroid's DINO KILLING SPREE just bad luck – boffins

Thrud61

Re: If only they'd let Jesus into their hearts

Raptor Jesus - "He went extinct for our sins"

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Raptor_Jesus

DON’T add me to your social network, I have NO IDEA who you are

Thrud61
Thumb Up

Great ariticle

I have to admit linkedin is a pain, I waste stupid amounts of time trying to find out who the person making me an invite is or if I should know them, without actually looking at their profile directly so they don't see me looking and think I may be interested in them. I want a generic f. off button on all social media.

Passport PIN tech could have SAVED MH370 ID fraudsters

Thrud61

Am I missing the point ?

PIN and Bio-metric data are irrelevant, the passports were reported stolen 1 and 2 years ago, a simple look-up of the passport number should have prevented the use of the passports, passports now usually have a machine readable printed code and an rfid, these should be easily checked, before we worry about associating a particular person to a particular passport, surely just ensuring the passport is valid and not stolen is the first thing to get right, then worry about who has it.

After all if its not a valid passport it doesn't matter how much the person looks like the original owner.

It's EE vs Vodafone: 'How good is my signal' study descends into network bunfight

Thrud61

Re: Most people buy on price....

Paying more would just line the pockets of the Directors and Share holders

http://mobilemarketingmagazine.com/ee-posts-record-profit-margin/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24908844

ICO to focus only on 'serious, repeat' data-protection offenders

Thrud61

ICO is Pointless

"and only start logging complaints after individuals have engaged with organisations"

How are they going to know who the repeat offenders are if they don't log the complaints as they are made.

Joe Public : "Why are company X giving my personal details to everyone"

ICO : "Speak to company X"

company X : "Sorry we wont give YOUR details to anyone else"

Joe Public : "thanks"

Dave Public : "Why are company X giving my personal details to everyone"

ICO : "Speak to company X" Public : "thanks"

company X : "Sorry we wont give YOUR details to anyone else"

Dave Public : "thanks"

Fred Public : ....

No complaints logged ?

'Copyrighted' Java APIs deserve same protection as HARRY POTTER, Oracle tells court

Thrud61
Stop

If this gets any sort or approval then this is surely going to open the door for all sorts of legal action, I'm guessing that WINE, MONO, MAME and all sorts of other emulators would be on the hit list from some of the bigger companies should they decide they care enough. This would have a fair chance of affecting various large open source projects as well.

Samsung faces Brazilian rap: Factory bods work '15hrs without break'

Thrud61
Unhappy

Have to wonder if these employees will see any of the $110M or whatever settlement value is reached.

Beam me up? Not in the life of this universe

Thrud61
Happy

Re: Compression

Compression will be fine just so long as you don't get Xerox to help.

"Well if it isn't my old friend Mr. McGregg—with a leg for an arm and an arm for a leg"

US Navy robot stealth fighter in first unmanned carrier landings

Thrud61
Mushroom

I can't think of any good reason not qualify the automatic pilots for deck landings, if that is what the software is supposed to do then every time there is a change in the software I think I'd want it validated as still being a competent pilot, before I would let it slap into the back of my ship filled with fuel and possibly other explosives.

Universal Credit: ONLY 6 job centres to get new dole system in October

Thrud61
Stop

It is only a "cultural shift" if the IT is in place and works, otherwise it is going to be cultural subsidence as the DWP sinks without trace trying to manage 2 systems at least 1 of which is broken.