* Posts by Jos

72 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jul 2007

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New fear: ISIS killers use 'digital AK-47' malware to hunt victims

Jos

Re: Where does it get the IP address from?

Correct. For a detailed description on how the whole thing works:

https://citizenlab.org/2014/12/malware-attack-targeting-syrian-isis-critics/

For the IP address, in one of the steps it explains:

"Next, “rundl132.exe” performs an HTTP GET request to myexternalip.com and collects the external IP of the infected machine"

The result file they create is send to an email address, so there goes an easy attempt to flood the b*stards with a list a couple of blocks of class A addresses.

ESA: Venus probe doomed to fiery death on weird planet's surface

Jos
Coat

Re: RE: And will the Venusians complain?

They already did, in 2008:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smwd8b0ycBg

Sorry. Almost weekend. And Xmas.

Pub time for NASA bods? Orion spacecraft test launch called off

Jos

Re: Why is wind a problem

NASA has done extensive research into this. For the shuttle for instance it was:

Quote:

"Wind: Tanking will not begin if the wind is observed or forecast to exceed 42 knots for the next three hour period.

For launch the wind constraints at the launch pad will vary slightly for each mission. The peak wind speed allowable is 30 knots. However, when the wind direction is between 100 degrees and 260 degrees, the peak speed varies for each mission and may be as low as 24 knots."

If you want to read a full study on wind effects (this one is from 1966, 435 pages) go here: http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19660022936

"Ground wind load effects on launch vehicles and circular cylinders - conference "

You will see that there are a couple of issues with wind, including nearby objects, vibration, trajectory of parts falling back to earth, etc. It also has a nice pic of one of their test models being blown over from its platform in a storm.

US parking operator: YEP, hackers got your names, credit card numbers, secret codes...

Jos

Re: There a punishment involved?

If I understand correctly, http://cloud-computing.tmcnet.com/news/2014/07/16/7925932.htm says it was Heartland payment industries responsible for the payment gateway for SP+.

Doing a little search on your favorite search website will show that it's not exactly the first time this happened (135M credit cards exposed in 2008 is hardly a minor incident).

If there was a punishment, they didn't learn their lesson much...

Hey, you, PHONE-FACE! Kickstarter in-car mobe mount will EMBED your phone into your MUG

Jos

Re: The Kickstarter

@Frankee

I read the kickstarter text, and I think for the next couple of hours I'm barring myself from doing anything slightly complicated, just to avoid hurting anyone, or myself. My brain needs to untangle itself first.

" Our distribution and fulfillment plan includes: On time delivery, Packing accurately, Damage free shipping, Inventory accurately, and Documentation accurately. As we grow our labor force grows to meet the demand of both business and customer destinations. "

What?

Apple fanbois are 'MENTALLY UNSTABLE' but you still have to 'SERVICE' them

Jos

Re: Short termism?

Not so sure about a count-down timer, but at least a good effort to stop rip-off cables from working:

http://www.chipworks.com/en/technical-competitive-analysis/resources/blog/inside-the-apple-lightning-cable/

Got an iPhone or iPad? LOOK OUT for MASQUE-D INTRUDERS

Jos

Re: Good excuse ...

Not sure if I'm reading this articles correctly into what it implies, but my take on it is that with these latest vulns, they can actually enter non-jailbroken devices, which is supposed to be much harder than jailbroken devices.

Meaning, it was already done and easy to do on jailbroken phones, but now the non-jailbroken ones are targets too.

This would mean that jailbreaking yours is not exactly a solution to the problem.

Happy to stand corrected here though...

Mystery Google barges TORPEDOED by US govt: Showrooms declared death traps

Jos

Re: Who designed these things?

According to an article from 2013, the architects were San Francisco-based Gensler and New York-based LOT-EK.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Google-barge-mystery-unfurled-4966375.php

I guess it looked good on paper...

Wind farms make you sick claims blown away again

Jos

Not just windmill nutters

Reminds of of the time when a GSM mast was erected on top of our office building (shared defense contractor and Telecommunications R&D company, which helps the conspiracy loonies).

Queue letters coming in to the local council about headaches, sleepless nights, nausea, whatever you can come up with, caused by our new antennae. Next, questions by the council, and a petition.

Did I forget to mention the the array was not operational yet, the equipment still shut-down and the antennae dark?

Left some people really embarrassed. Good times :-)

Happy 2nd birthday, Windows 8 and Surface: Anatomy of a disaster

Jos

Re: Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...

Well, even with nVidea Torvalds is not that angry anymore:

http://www.cnet.com/news/torvalds-gives-nvidia-software-thumbs-up-not-middle-finger/

FBI boss: We don't want a backdoor, we want the front door to phones

Jos
Joke

What are you all complaining about?

At least you know you have one government branch that actually -wants- to listen to you...

Women, your 'superpower' is ... NOT asking for a raise: Satya Nadella

Jos
Happy

Just for fun.

Don't shoot me. Here's Jim Jefferies on the subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5fi7lmlQmM

From 6m:36s...

Enjoy your weekend later :-)

Heatmiser digital thermostat users: For pity's sake, DON'T SWITCH ON the WI-FI

Jos

Re: Where are the crims?

Yes it does reveal the credentials, like it does on github:

https://github.com/carlossg/heatmiser-node

Mozilla's 'Tiles' ads debut in new Firefox nightlies

Jos

Re: Confused

Yep.

And never mind the neighbours, friends, parents, sisters, whoever abuse you as their personal helpdesk.

Fast And Furious 6 cammer thrown in slammer for nearly three years

Jos

Re: Excessive. This is copyright infringement

Agreed. A proper punishment would be to force him to watch F&F6 in a cinema every day for the next 2 years. Maybe throw in some mandatory Batman & Robin, or Battlefield Earth to top it off.

Really, he's an asshat for selling this piece of crud for a quid and a half and by doing so exposing himself.

Beware WarKitteh, the connected cat that sniffs your Wi-Fi privates

Jos

Re: Madness

Well, I set up my wifi with a guest account on open wifi a bunch of times when I had a party on, or when neighbours moved in/out and needed temporary access, just to have the average Joe/Jane not nagging me for passwords. I know. Lazy. I frankly don't care in those situations they are open to packet capturing, as I'm not their brother's keeper. Just don't do your banking on it if you are paranoid.

My own WPA2 secured wifi also is set up for MAC filtering. So only "authorised" users can get on it. Unless of course a real savvy user comes along and breaks through the defenses, but then what chance would I have anyways? The MAC filtering was a remnant from when I had to use open wifi as some peripherals didn't play well with wep/wap (stupid printer, and a security camera (really!!) ).

And cats are vermin, not cute and not funny, and think they are the boss. Like real bosses really.

MYSTERIOUS Siberia CRATER: ALIENS or METEOR not involved, officials insist

Jos

Re: What does "huge" mean?

From the link posted earlier:

'If we try to measure diameter together with soil emission, the so-called parapet, then the diameter is up to sixty meters.

'The crater is from 50 to 70 metres deep'.

Reposting: http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/first-pictures-from-inside-the-crater-at-the-end-of-the-world/

I've got 99 problems, but a Facebook boycott ain't one

Jos

Re: Emails and Announcements

Yeah, only it's getting much worse than that. Lot's of people I know have come to -expect- you have a facebook account.

How many a time have I had someone tell me "oh, I thought you knew I will have a bbq next weekend. I put it on facebook" kind of bullcrap. I don't miss invitations from most of my RealLiveFriends (tm), as I meet them in person at one point anyways. Or use a phone (to call). Or by email (you know, where you actually have to remember the names of people you like to invite for some activity).

I had an account in the early days, but more out of curiosity, same as when at the time I tried to see what Second Life was all about (remember the time the Reg had a Second Life article almost daily). Both are/were crud.

Facebook annoyed the shit out of me, and I gave up when I got managers from the head-office inviting me to become their "friends". Good stuff when all the pictures your connections only put your pictures up from those good nights at the bar.

As for times wasted on FB, I'm amazed sometimes any business gets done at any company. When I walk down open plan offices at various customer premises, a large % of the drones seem to be trawling through their "friends'" latest updates/activities/cat pictures, instead of doing actual work.

If I were any kind of decision maker on company policy, the first thing would be to block *facebook* in the FW block list. The day FB would become critical for the job at hand, would be the day some other policies would be enforced. (Ok, don't start about "the company FB page", "we need to advertise on FB", or "we need to check our competitors' FB page" issues. I understand horses for courses).

I can only hope FB will one day soon just be remembered as "that fad from the early 21st century".

If not, I might become that last person roaming around, trying to behave like the rest of humanity who have been transformed into emotionless drone copies out of flowery plant pods.

European Space Agency demos MARS LANDINGS BY DRONE

Jos

Erm...

"The 'copter's approach was handled by GPS and..."

How important is the GPS part here? I'm not entirely sure Mars has enough GPS satellites in orbit yet...

I guess it's more a proof of concept targeted mostly at the visual landing location finder...

Well done though ESA!

LA air traffic meltdown: System simply 'RAN OUT OF MEMORY'

Jos

Re: 60k wan't a guess

Well, not entirely true that. In the US, over FL600 (roughly 60.000ft), it's Class-E airspace, which is controlled airspace.

However, when flying VFR in Class-E, no ATC clearance is required and no radio communication either.

I suppose when you are flying a U-2, this would kind of be helpful.

Scientists discover supervolcano trigger that could herald humanity's doom

Jos

Re: Anyone got a map?

A good start is here:

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php

Scroll down to get to the list of supervolcanoes.

Cheers

Leaked docs: GCHQ spooks secretly haul in more data than NSA

Jos

Right

So I suppose you also don't close your street-side curtains at night then eh?

Senator threatens FAA with legislation over in-flight fondleslabbing

Jos
Mushroom

Re: 'Phone battery spark is an urban myth?

Now kind of recall something about this thing, but you can all correct me if I'm wrong.

The issue with mobile phone use at gas stations was a bit more complicated. Don't want to sound like a male chauvinist pig here, but it was mostly women causing fires at gas stations, when the pump had the clip-lock on the handle so it would fuel up "hands-free", and people (mostly women there) would go back to the front seat to ruffle through bags, get the phone (men are not excluded here you see) and make a call, then go back to take out the nozzle after building up a healthy doze of static electricity by their movements (and clothes), and creating a nice spark on contact with nozzle, igniting the fumes coming out of the tank.

It was one of the reasons, at least in Holland, to remove the nozzle locks, so you have to keep in contact with it at all times while refueling.

Not the fault of the mobile phone there directly you see. You need to look at the entire chain there..

Cheers,

Jos

FCC urges rethink of aircraft personal-electronics blackout

Jos
Meh

I think the biggest objection was (I could be wrong) that you don't want all those phones switching between cell towers at the rate a plane is flying, multiplied be the number of phones and passengers cruising through the airspace. You can imagine the number and what it does to base stations and networks.

Hey, when I was doing ppl we'd used to call home to say we were just about to go overhead. The only annoying thing you would get is the same you get on your home/car stereo with the weee-blip-blip-wonk-wak-wak sound over your headset. Then again... 300 pax might make it a tat more annoying.

Easiest way to kill that is to put micro cells in aircraft though. Same as they do when you stay in a hotel on a floor above 30m or so. Don't even have to switch it through to a network just so to keep the phones not broadcasting all the time. Or do and charge a gazillion dollars in roaming for the self important pricks that want to call home in the middle of a 16 hour flight.

Laptops and all that stuff don't do anything, but maybe it's a bit more important to pay attention to safety and not having to fold up/pack your "electronic device" when going for a "water landing", while you are below 10.000ft. Just saying

Cheers all. Enjoy the weekend. I'll raise another beer for the Reg

Jos

BlackBerry 10: AWESOME. If the hardware matches it, RIM jobs are safe

Jos

Re: Split screen

Hi Andrew, talking about "power" (the word triggered me). My last two bb phones and my current one has absolute shite batteries which die every 5 months, but I heard rumours that the bb10 hardware uses solar backpanel and kinetic charching as well.

Is there any possible way to have a (pre-) hardware review on the handsets? My current 9900 is going to make a vertical drop very soon if they don't fix the battery issue and I'm doubting between waiting for Jan 31 or just switch to S3, which I used a lot as well at customer sites...

Bb10 software reviews are plenty about.

(Send from my bb ;-). )

Akihabara unplugged: Tokyo's electric town falls flat

Jos
Coat

Re: good days

Hell yeah I am in touch man. Glad to see you are up there too. These days I live in Indonesia and its harder to get stuff her. Soldering is called duct-taping here :-)

My soldering iron is on my desk. Same as my 40/60. It smells good. Taking my coat as my ham radio blew it's tube...AS44 I think

Jos
Unhappy

good days

I still remember back in '98 going to Akihabara from my office, a 1 hour commute, to buy SMC resistors, capacitors, etc, then come back and solder them to our circuit boards to fix a filter... Then going back to buy some (what was it 74H244?) stuff to build a test circuit I designed.

Who still builds his own circuit boards these days now... Or knows how to solder anything properly :-(

Showing my age much?

Tevatron refines Higgs boson picture

Jos
Happy

Re: I no see picture

Maybe this will help :-)

http://www.dilbert.com/2012-02-21/

Cheers

Jos

Death to Office or to Windows - choose wisely, Microsoft

Jos

Re: Re: Hmmm

< s > strikethrough < /s >

Methinks. Without the spaces.. obviously

James Bond savages the Kardashians

Jos
Mushroom

Not English

I knew both the creators of Endemol (Joop van den Ende, and John de Mol) personally (when I still lived in the Netherlands, and they were really great guys with an even better bussiness sense, but I still curse the for creating big brother, and all the shows that spawned off them.

Luckily I escaped to Japan so I "missed" the entire first episode in NL. Not that I enjoyed the silly slapstick of Japanese TV that much, but I prefer to stuff a cactus up my rear-end to watching these faux "reality" shows.

Last stint in the US the Karblablikans took precedence over the "situation" in Libya, and so did college "football" over the worldcup Rugby (hell, at least I won the sweepstakes with New-Zealand behind my name... That would be the island south-east of Australia, and an actual tough sport with non-padded men for you middle-earthers)

/rant

British warming to NUKES after Fukushima meltdown

Jos
Boffin

XKCD

And this one is actually a bit more serious (I know, it has been posted before)...

http://xkcd.com/radiation/

DARPA wants a working manned starship for $500k

Jos
Mushroom

Project Orion....

That was a bit, ehm, crude I suppose. I think Zuppero got it a bit closer with his nuclear-powered steam driven rocket (we just need water).

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/15/zuppero_solar_system/

The pdf is quite entertaining (albeit long, 450+ pages) read.

Porn found in Osama bin Laden compound

Jos
Happy

Done that

About a couple hundred years ago. Then when visited a couple of years ago, and they all shook my hand and said "hey mate, how you doin? Take a beer from the esky and there's a steak on the barbie for ya"

James Cameron to amp up Avatar frame rate

Jos
Thumb Up

agreed

That's mostly how I watched it on DVD anyways. Still wasted a half hour of my life...

Spooks' secret TEMPEST-busting tech reinvented by US student

Jos
FAIL

Right...

Only the article says "send data at no less than 12 megabytes a second".

In my humble experience that would be 96Mbps....

Either the article is wrong, or I am.. And I didn't watch the video..

SWAT team besieges Illinois school in 'butt dialling' incident

Jos
Joke

No iPhone...

After reading through the article I never thought it could have been an iPhone. If it was close to his butt, the signal would probably have crapped out...

Inventor only entitled to share of employer's actual patent earnings

Jos
Happy

Obligatory xkcd entry

http://xkcd.com/827/

is all :-)

NZ woman pays motorised tribute to A RYAN 1

Jos
Thumb Up

Correct

It is the penal code which defines murder.

As for it's use, try the lyrics to flight 187 by 50cent ;-)

Jos

Swedes decline to FCKU2MF

Jos
Happy

right

It was an Aussie radio presenter a while back who said (I probably don't have to quote all right): "driving around and seeing all these vanity plates made me realize there's hundreds of different ways to spell WANKER!"

Good one ;-)

Airline ejects passenger for being hungry

Jos
Thumb Up

awesome

Well put my man! Why the down votes though? Some people don't know the meaning of sarcasm anymore I guess.

Saying this after boarding a plane in China, sitting 2 hours on the tarmac and then being released to the terminal again after about 20 passengers trying to start a mutiny, and then 2 hours more in the terminal, followed by a 2 hour flight. Sigh.

I cannot recommend just boarding a plane to have "lunch" to then debark again, to go back boarding 2 hours later and have "dinner", by the way.

Also much worse things were said than: "Are we going to have food on this flight", trust me, and nobody got arrested.

On a unrelated note: Why do I start feeling homicidal on 5 hour flights that depart at 1am when they first serve "dinner", then duty-free, have an over-zealous captain talk in 2 languages telling how high up you are, and how fast you are flying,, and which part of the world you are passing over (it's freakin' dark at 2am) and how accurately close within 5 minutes you will be landing (at 5am including timezone), then 1 hour later "breakfast"? Is it normal to have multiple meails and buying expensive merchandise for no reason at all and yabbering in your ear all night long after 12 midnight?

oh...

eBay whacked with giant patent suit

Jos
WTF?

George Likourezos?

Would that be this one?

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=George+Likourezos&FIELD1=&co1=AND&TERM2=&FIELD2=&d=PG01

What, the patent for playing Bingo (20060017227 Bingo-like and trivia televison game show ), or the actual: 20090144195 SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR AUTOMATICALLY REPLENISHING AN ELECTRONIC PAYMENT ACCOUNT

Sheez, this guy has some wild variations in his patent applications...

Council of Europe condemns teen-bothering Mosquito

Jos
Coat

Dang right

Up to my last physical at age 34 I had a cut-off at around 22Khz. I can still hear the older CRT TVs when the fire up. They would only work for me (apparently) at around 8Khz when I close my left ear... Thanks to standing next to a monitor at a Camel concert (am I showing my age here?)

Mine's the one with the earplugs in the pocket....

Is this the world's biggest USB cable?

Jos

Wind farm?

This looks like the wind farm they pride themselves for under construction, with all the bases (with the circular spots in the center) already completed. Looks cool though :-)

Leaked details on HP iPad challenger reveal tight fight

Jos

Units?

Gb or GB? I know I can look it up somewhere, but 2Gb DDR, or 2GB DDR2 is a big difference, and so is 64Gb or 64GB...

There... That's the pedant in me.

Bare-chested Shetlander welcomes Google with open fingers

Jos
Thumb Up

google pulled over

And sometimes the police (in the Netherlands in this case) don't like google taking pictures everywhere :-)

http://maps.google.nl/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=nl&geocode=&q=venray&sll=52.469397,5.509644&sspn=4.705532,14.095459&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Venray,+Limburg&layer=c&cbll=51.528949,5.982856&panoid=fkHZlF2ZyY7tS6sVwAraGA&cbp=12,102.37,,0,21.91&ll=51.528931,5.983&spn=0,359.922838&z=14

2016 bug hits Windows phones

Jos
Boffin

Like this maybe... ?

Ok, I searched for it:

decade = substring( my_YYDDD_DateString, 1,1 ) ;

--return a YYYYDDD date string.

if( decade = 0 ) then

return "20" || my_YYDDD_DateString ;

else

return "19" || my_YYDDD_DateString ;

Y2.01K bug.....

Michael Jackson planned 'robot duplicate' of himself

Jos
Thumb Up

@Mike flugennock

Thanks for that. I was too worried about getting flack for it to say it first....

Can we change the song in this bar now? MJ is making my beer go stale

Philips GoGear Muse

Jos
Joke

@Steve Davies 3

No worries. Darwinian law will take care of this. In the future the ladies will only pick the guys who can handle cool gadgets without holding them upside-down, leaving more and more lefties without partners, eventually eliminating all.

Jos

Jos
FAIL

josv@flashnetworks.com

ahhrrr crap. Fell for the male-chauvinist trap. Ofcourse I meant that all -fill in gender--s will select partners who can handle gadgets without holding them upside-down, thus eliminating lefties, etc. Stop flame, there, fixed.Even added the appropriate icon.

Jos

Goldman Sachs seeks Goldman sucks site suit

Jos

@ratfox

That's right. And bankers too, apparently ;-)

jos

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