* Posts by David Precious

20 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Feb 2007

Popular password protection programs p0wnable

David Precious

Password generation instead of storage?

This is a reason I use a password generation tool (PasswordMaker, to be precise) rather than password storage - the tool, given the master password and the domain you're trying to access, generates the password you'll use to log in. You never need to store that password, as all you need to find out what it was is the master password and the domain (along with the settings you use - e.g. which hashing algo, password length and which characters are acceptable), and the master password never leaves the device.

It allows per-domain specific settings overriding elements of the defaults, too - so if a site you used it for is compromised, you can create a custom config for that site which causes the password generated to be different to what it was before.

Lawyer sues Microsoft rather than slot an SD card into his Surface

David Precious

Re: Gotta say it

But what would an IRS agent want with a lawyer?

El Reg in email address blunder

David Precious
Facepalm

Shit happens

Accidents happen - kudos for immediately owning up to it and holding your hands up, rather than trying to downplay it or pretend it didn't happen.

If the data leaked is just email addresses, I don't see it as too big a deal particularly.

AlertMe network power-meter kit: Suitable for techies?

David Precious

Turning stuff off and on?

You briefly mentioned:

"AlertMe can track energy use for the whole house online, and I can turn stuff on and off from my phone or laptop while I'm out to confuse would-be burglars."

How's that work, then? You didn't mention that in any further detail at all. Obviously that can't be achieved via the clamp sensor thingy - does it mean that if you have the plug-in monitoring widget, you can turn whatever is connected to that on/off remotely?

David Precious

Agreed, why subscription?

I'd be more likely to consider something like this if the "hub" stored the data and provided an internal web interface. £20 a year for that data to be sent up to their servers (where it's out of your control) so you can use their pretty web interface doesn't sound too appealing to me at least.

Xboxer SWATTED by armed cops after online spat

David Precious

He wasn't the target of social engineering...

The impression I get is that the social engineering techniques weren't used on *him* - they were likely used on Microsoft's XBox support people, contacting them and pretending to be him, and convincing them to reset the password / disable the account / whatever.

If that's the case, there's not a lot he could do about it, and needs to be having words with MS.

Of course, I suspect that there's a fair chance he's doing something to make himself a target, by pissing people off unnecessarily.

Nokia E6 smartphone

David Precious

The E72 had the narrow spacebar

The keyboard comparison images are of the E6 and the E71; it's the E72 which halved the space bar.

David Precious

No USB charger?

I'm mildly surprised that Nokia continue to use their own proprietary charger plugs, rather than using mini/micro USB sockets like pretty much everyone else seems to have standardised upon these days. Mini/micro USB chargers and leads are pretty ubiquitous these days, making it easier to borrow a charger/cable when needed. (Granted, Nokia chargers were everywhere at one point when Nokia ruled the mobile phone market, but not so much any more, at least in my experience.)

XXX domain names go live

David Precious

Weak protest

Not sure giving them your money to register some .xxx domains is a particularly effective way to protest against them :)

Unless you registered, say, howtoblock.xxx, and put up a website with lots of clear instructions to help the average parents to block access to anything in the .xxx TLD.

Not that that would help anyone much of course, as all the porn sites already using .com/.net etc aren't going to suddenly move to .xxx domains and drop their old domains!

Photoshopped image scam used in rogue Facebook app trap

David Precious
WTF?

"No malware is getting spread through the ruse, at least at present."

Um, no malware? I'd say the "rogue application which sends messages to their contacts via the social network's IM feature, thus continuing the infection cycle" could certainly be considered malware, even if it does no direct damage to the host or attempt to steal information at present.

Kentucky man denies drunk driving, blames blow job

David Precious
IT Angle

0.54% would be pretty drunk...

I think you mean 0.054% :)

Huawei to gift underground coverage to London

David Precious
Unhappy

Text/data only

Please, please, make it text/data only! (And an exception for emergency calls would be sensible, I guess).

Kid spanks a grand on Xbox using Mum's bank card

David Precious

Contract formed with her...

If there was a contract, it *was* formed with an adult aged 18 or over - the mother, when she entered her card details, agreeing to future sums being charged to the card.

David Precious
WTF?

Plans to contact a solicitor?

For f**ks sake, take some personal responsibility for your child's actions rather than trying to blame someone else. Of course "Barclays and Microsoft both deny liability over the already-paid bill", and quite rightly so.

You set your kid up with an XBox Live membership (for which a cursory Google would suggest the minimum age specified is 13 anyway), input your card details for him to use, and then get all upset that he used them?

Where's the old-fashioned ideas of supervising your children so you know what they're doing, and taking responsibility for their actions? Grow up woman.

Sainsbury's techie jailed for loyalty card scam

David Precious

Victimless?

Victimless crime? I'd say the victim is Sainsburys, from whom he stole ~8k. Yes, it's a large company and the effect of that isn't going to be as big as if he'd robbed little 73-year-old Edna of her life savings, but he was still stealing money, in a continuous and pre-meditated fashion (i.e. it wasn't a spur of the moment act of desperation or any such thing).

Certainly won't argue that there's plenty in society who deserve the punishment more than he does, though!

Nominet forgets what the first .uk domain name was

David Precious
Pint

nic.uk should have been first, one would assume

My guess would go for nic.uk.

Q: Why pay for DNS?

David Precious
WTF?

Incorrect route announcements != DNS

I'm sorry, but what does a dodgy Chinese ISP incorrectly announcing IP ranges have to do with DNS?

It's all fine and dandy if your DNS resolves correctly, but if someone else has announced that IP block and the routers between your users and your servers route the customer's traffic the wrong way based on that announcement, DNS isn't going to help you there, no matter how much you might be paying for "premium" DNS services.

Cable broadband shines in Virgin Media Q2

David Precious
Thumb Up

Fast for me

I'm on the 20Mbps package, and I regularly get 2MB/s from decent sites.

When I first upgraded to it, I was disappointed that it barely seemed to reach half that speed - then I realised the NIC in my gateway connected to the cable modem had negotiated at 10Mbps rather than 100Mbps - so there was no way I could get full speed until I forced it to use 100Mbps.

I wonder if some of the people complaining about low speeds have similar problems? NICs running at 10 instead of 100, or using old 802.11b (11Mbps) wireless kit, and wondering why they're not getting 20Mbps? :)

BOFH: PFY's mum pays a visit

David Precious
Thumb Up

Brilliant!

Pure excellence :)

MySQL is the company's SQL now...

David Precious

Don't overlook PostgreSQL

If you want a serious database (for something a little more involved than just storing basic data for a simple web app) don't overlook PostgreSQL (www.postgresql.org).

PostgreSQL is a much more serious database which has had full ACID compliant transactions, triggers/stored procedures, constraints, foreign keys... all the "enterprise class" features which enterprise users want.

It also doesn't mangle your data to fit, unlike MySQL.

Like MySQL, it's free and open-source, although you can go and pay for commercial support if you feel you need it.

BTW No offence intended to MySQL, it's a great project, a very fast database server which powers so many websites and projects, but I wouldn't use it for something where data integrity is critical.

Cheers

Dave P

(no connection with PostgreSQL other than being a happy user)