* Posts by Richard Jones 1

1320 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Sep 2009

Microsoft encrypts explanation of borked Windows 10 encryption

Richard Jones 1
WTF?

Re: Decrypted :

Nearly right corrected version;

**** we don't know, we only wrote the stuff.

They have brought back another unwanted feature for me, a refusal to hibernate or sleep.

UK.gov pooh-poohs Virgin Media's whinge to Brussels over beefy broadband pot

Richard Jones 1
FAIL

Re: VM = Virtual Media?

I could almost accept your assertion that it was an economic issue. However, using bully boy methods to deny the prospect of anyone else doing any to ease the problems with which Virtual Media cannot be bothered, speaks of less savoury agendas. If Virtual Media cannot run their business well enough to meet legitimate service desires, let them but out again. If some cannot have the option, why should anyone deal with them? Please make the case for the unbalanced, unsatisfactory present status.

Of course one answer might be to fold all the network level activities into one company combining Open Reach (Out of Reach?) and Virtual Media 'Out of Reach Virtual Media' perhaps and let the sloppy service providers run their sloppy service on the highways so created. Only having to build, maintain and operate one network should allow some economies of scale and less duplication of limited economic effort. This would allow the gravy to be spread more evenly and over a greater service area. I am sure Sky would like that, or perhaps not?

Richard Jones 1
WTF?

VM = Virtual Media?

After Virtual Media dug up the main road ten or fifteen years ago to get along to the flats and small plot houses further along they left, (a mess) never to do anything more.

My road is within 50 metres of their cables but Virtual Media do not want to compete or offer service, so Lost all Faith you get an upvote from me. Virtual Media cannot be bothered to provide competition and simply want to block others from doing what they cannot be bothered to do.

I guess this is what their US master demands, drag in the rubbish USA closed market prices at rubbish USA (sub)standards

Superfish 2.0: Dell ships laptops, PCs with huge internet security hole

Richard Jones 1
WTF?

Re: Continuing saga of Microsoft software collapse

Yes bring back clay tablets, papyrus and reed pens.

Richard Jones 1
Flame

Re: Connection?

So I think you are saying that the PC becomes in effect a certificate issue factory that will then accept any certificate it is persuaded to generate using the details held on its system.

The net effect is that the certificates are not certificates of anything at all.

Is that a correct reading?

Edgy online shoppers face Dyre Christmas as malware mutates

Richard Jones 1
Flame

Buy Locally, Your Are having a Laugh

Pay sky high parking charges for local high street access, or wait for a mythical (well outside of large cities) thing called a bus, then ditto for ticket prices.

Go to shop, item out of stock, order it for next week/month/year, wait until hell freezes over and still do not get the item.

Or;

Sit at home order item get it next day.

I can see the point in the high street as a half baked 'budget control system' assuming the goods cost more than the parking/bus fare, but not for anything else.

ISIS operates a crypto help desk – report

Richard Jones 1
FAIL

Re: "university education"

@Rick Giles

Or a Tea Party Republican.

Google wants to add 'not encrypted' warnings to Gmail

Richard Jones 1
Go

Re: Bathroom Refurbishment

I thought that were two ways this would be exposed to senders and receivers.

Based on the address the sending client could warn that the country was liable only to accept decrypted mails. The receiver would of course only receive decrypted mails.

On receipt of a return mail I guess the message would be flagged as have an insecure, non encrypted link protocol.

I Assume that the address header part 'your_isp.some_country' would be enough for any origin to know if that destination would, or would not accept encrypted communications.

Alternatively, there were only a small number of countries listed, I guess a blanket warning could easily be generated that XYZ country only accept plain text mails

Richard Jones 1
WTF?

Re: We're the only one...

Except of course, the account points out that the far end are demanding clear messaging and Google want to advise senders that their message to such far ends will be sent clear because of this far end situation.

So however much you might like to troll Google do have a fail for this one.

Mind you while I do not use Google mail, I have never knowingly sent an encrypted message to anyone, I just hope the tooth fairy reads birthday lists and that Santa does the same for Christmas wishes. My rule has been never send anything in an e-mail that would matter if world plus dog, even down to the flees on world and dog read the contents. So no bank details or credit card codes.

I wonder if said dog likes the pictures of my bathroom refurbishment?

BT reveals vanishingly small detail about its fibre broadband network

Richard Jones 1

I Guess Those Are the Ones With Decent Access

The index also shows that a quarter of homes were munching their way through 75 per cent of the total data consumed in an average month.

I think the title says it all, those poor blighters with 0.5 MB access or less will not be downloading very much!

Virgin Media whines about Sky's customer service claims, ad watchdog agrees

Richard Jones 1
Joke

Sky!

Perhaps Sky will now claim the best wonky adverts. Along the lines of "a Sky spokesman was not yet quoted as saying, Sky can can offer better wonky adverts than anyone else - and this time the advert is approved by the advertising watchdog."

Get an Apple Watch or die warns Tim Cook

Richard Jones 1
WTF?

Alternative View?

I'm on the cusp of 70 and have never owned an apple ithing, my parents were in their 90s when the grim reaper collected his dues. Neither of them ever owned an Apple device. Although mother did eat quite a lot of apples.

Perhaps only unhealthy people need an Apple product, or perhaps chance plays a bigger part in life?

Cats, dogs and all sorts of other animals and things have previously been claimed to save lives, unfortunately with the cost of housing I cannot manage to get at least one of every life saver into any house I can afford.

Now where is the live in doctor when I need one?

OmniRAT malware scurrying into Android, PC, Mac, Linux systems

Richard Jones 1
WTF?

The Zero Day Error Is The User

If the (L)user is daft enough to bend over and say "do me", it will take a very hardened OS to completely stop the action. This is especially so if the (L)user keeps jumping through hoops to allow the crap to install.

Is it time that users were licensed, in some cases they should have a licence to even draw breath.

PM wheels out snoop overseer minutes before latest snoops' charter bid lands

Richard Jones 1
Happy

Re: nice to see

His role should be to verify the legal status NOT the technobabble that went behind it.

Hopefully he will not fall for: their dog barked, crapped, went to the wrong school area, etc.

At least he should/ought to know what the legal position is along with the relevant legal precedent, though I am less confident that he will be there long enough at his age.

Mind you I did know a retired solicitor some years ago, he was 88 and after he got bored with running his own pension fund, he took on various semi official local roles. He was sharper than most of the other customers queuing at the bank. He came with a rich background of legal experience, though he did not dispense it freely and only talked about general issues.

Apple’s TV platform just became a little more secure (well, the apps at least)

Richard Jones 1
WTF?

Re: This is a different meaning of security

Possibly a bit of a shame really and why my very analogue eyes and ears are unlikely to be troubled by such 'stuff and nonsense'.

Richard Jones 1

Re: Good

And of the remaining 36% what percentage will have reverted to dumb or normal within 12~18 months of purchase anyway? I'd give it about 90% of them. So on balance about 96% will still probably function as Televisions with an external box that does not do anything very smart anyway. I just do not see me ever wanting a box marked apple, unless it is filled with tasty fruit.

Police in US, Europe raid homes of supersnoop Droidjack RAT suspects

Richard Jones 1
Happy

Probably Not

When you kick over the dung heap looking for particular dung beetles you can often find a load more little dung feasts going on. Old time crime 'firms' used to hate certain crimes and criminals as they would increase the heat on everyone causing a spike in arrests. This Dridjack RAT raid festival could be an out-wash from all sorts of ongoing investigations.

UK finance sector: IT security testing 'becoming close to mandatory'

Richard Jones 1

Hold Steady

It appears that this failure at clap trap was not at the door of some simple sap in IT but at the level of process and system. It appears to have been yet another weak link in the chain. I hope I am safe, I left their clutches a long time ago, yet their rubbish processes apparently may have kept details on file for ex-customers who have long since left their clutches. This is a process level failure at corporate process and governance level, not IT staff level. If they ran such a sloppy ship then what else is broken at the same corporate level, if regulation is needed and it sorely appeared to be needed to weed out such weak links then regulation and mandatory audits should be the way forward. Regulation should only ever catch those in charge of process and design errors, not those who have no responsibilities for other than than their defined role.

Clap trap are part of the financial service chain, if they or anyone else does not like the heat give up and send the bag man round to collect cash on door steps.

Why was the modem down? Let us count the ways. And phone lines

Richard Jones 1

Intelligent Modems Bah

I was on a gig in Japan and needed a link to a machine some distance away from Yokohama. We had direct facilities between the two sites so all should have been easy. What was needed was a basic modem nothing more nothing less, so I was provided with a pair of super smart PSTN devices. The problem was that the signalling between the true end points used a complex mixture of control signals, which the modem kept jumping in to read and respond to. It took ages to find all of the ways to turn the super smart into super dumb to make sure it worked in the application not always easy when you were 120 miles away from the far end with no on the ground support!

Apple: We're going to sell $77bn worth of iStuff this holiday season

Richard Jones 1

Re: Peak Apple?

While I will eat an apple a day, the fact that Apple's poor kit does not support what I need, note need not like the look of means I would never buy and down grade to one of their useless, (for me) bits of kit.

To be fair, I am equal opportunity, currently nothing else meets my needs, so I will stick with my old fully functional 'does what I need' mobile. Oh and it does nothing I don't need and never needs an 'upgrade' read in built fault fix.

Europe fails to ban web 'fast lanes' – what now for Euro net neutrality?

Richard Jones 1

Re: Paid fast lane: I fear this scenario

I think the implication might have been that nothing would be fast for most people in Europe. Quite possibly a safe bet for anyone outside of the favoured few. For too many snail and tortoise racing would be too fast for their internet.

By 2019, vendors will have sucked out your ID along with your cash 5 billion times

Richard Jones 1
WTF?

Safety Check

No movable pocket minicomputer; Check

No obsession with over priced toys: Check

No interest in gimmicks: Check

Existing perfectly serviceable payment systems: Check

Some potentially crap potential service suppliers; Check but NOT wanted.

Sort out the present problems, do not build a whole hill of new unknown issues to climb over and sort out.

TalkTalk attack: 'No legal obligation to encrypt customer bank details', says chief

Richard Jones 1
WTF?

Re: Does there need to be an obligation to "encrypt" ?

Fortunately there is no obligation to use Talk Talk.

Joining the illuminati? Just how bright can a smart bulb really be?

Richard Jones 1
Stop

Re: cart before horse

If the signalling is from smart switch to semi responsive light bulb only, the transformer or other isolation device can be cheaply built into the switch to block the signals. Without it back propagation would likely play havoc with all of your other bulbs..

Even then this is a solution crying in a wilderness for a problem. It appears most likely to appeal to those who possible live in a flat already since those with larger and perhaps isolated properties will likely have built in solutions that do more than light bulbs already.

Perhaps I wish them well, but as they say in programmes seeking investors, I'm out.

Caption this: WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

Richard Jones 1

Jeremy's new bargain buy highly directional long range microphone was not quite as sensitive or discrete as expected.

WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

Richard Jones 1

Sadly the latest location software did not quite work as intended when setting the user's location.

Russian peeping Toms look at but won't touch popped web data troves

Richard Jones 1
Joke

Re: "It points to some sort of Russian involvement"

Their employer's side? Just like the Russian and Chinese are employed by their lot against others.

VW offices, employees' homes raided by German prosecutors

Richard Jones 1

Something very similar to changing the ECU on an Airbus was implicated in the Spanish Airbus military version crash. exact details escape my mind now but the crate flew with 'non flight' configurations.

In this case the engine control appears to have had a sort of Road Plan and Test Plan and was able to opt in to either mode as circumstances 'required'. Apart from those down stream of the tail pipe (more or less everyone) the operational safety implications look likely to be zero.

Junk patent ditched in EAST TEXAS

Richard Jones 1

Re: USPTO is the real problem.

I remember using the data structures created by Ashton Tate(?) for a program called DBase back in the 1980s. Data was collected, condensed and added to the files, then processed by an engine based on DBase code. OK there was no human intervention to enter the data, it was all machine based from creation to final analysis though the final print out was wetware readable. So prior art ruled supreme long before Trolls Unlimited stuck their feet into trying to create their bog of legal malfeasance.

Russian antivirus vendor fire bombed for research blogs

Richard Jones 1
Happy

Fire Bomb or Ad Bomb

I did not see the original research report, but I did see this report. Anyone with an ATM farm thus has a second chance to get an idea of possible things to do - if the the machines have not been ripped from the wall already!

Blighty's GCHQ stashes away 50+ billion records a day on people. Just let that sink in

Richard Jones 1
Unhappy

Re: #include <std/quotes/spiderman>

The story about 'that family' sounds rather like urban myth. Unless you get enough qualifying markers no one, marketer, shop data miner, Google, Facebook or even the covert operators, absolutely no one should even think of pulling any sort of trigger on an operations. Whether to market something, 'I see you bought a pressure cooker, would you like some semtex to go with that?' or an investigator saying 'send a squad car there a subversive there'. In both cases sloppy processing could cause such stupid actions, but if processing is that sloppy any bad guys of any sort have nothing at all to fear. The roads would be traffic jammed with false events. The trick is always to screen out the false 'could be positives' in favour of the 'real yes they are villains'. The papers suggest that in at least one published case the 'reality (sanity?) checks' took to long, so someone died.

Black holing data that has not proved useful so far, is one way to allow a second look if subsequent data come to light to allow more focused searches, while at the same time avoiding cluttering up on-line operations. That way a less real time operation might go back in search of sleepers who have not yet been triggered.

Big IF time, if the operation is evolving via the routes the papers suggested it appears to have followed the well established road maps for detection activities,, so no real surprise. As ever the risks of fantasists and time wasters both inside and out side of operations is a real hazard. The shortage of skilled and well directed operatives is the real weak spot. This can lead to various nightmare outcomes as we have seen a bit too frequently.

PETA monkey selfie lawsuit threatens wildlife photography, warns snapper at heart of row

Richard Jones 1
Flame

Re: The day a monkey decides to bring it's own lawsuit

The rights of a person of the human species are already enshrined in laws in SOME countries, note - not all. In the UK there is an established process involving the quaintly Name Court of Protection, though in my dealings I usually referred to them as the Court of Abuse along with their side kick the The Court Frauds Office and the Putrid Guardian. They have the power to appoint a deputy to respect the rights of the client while charging the said client wedges of money for the privilege. If no suitable candidate steps forward the court may appoint someone (at cost). The process is both more complex and potentially costly than suggested above but is based on the idea that the disabled person has rights and where they cannot in and of themselves sustain those rights another trusted person can and should assume the role Please see the Mental capacity Act of 2005 which came into force in 2007.

By the way make sure you have the relevant valid power of attorney before disaster overtakes you, it will mitigate some of the effects of the bunch of costly clowns referred to above.

SIX MILLION fingerprints of US govt workers nicked in cyber-heist

Richard Jones 1

Re: China does have a bit of a dilema on its hands

Nelson's telescope trick?

NOxious Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal: Chief falls on sword

Richard Jones 1

Re: Win Win

I am going to guess that he will be rather closer to the tail of along jobs queue for car maker's jobs that will likely grow from the head end rather than behind him. Mutter in the gutter is that the bottom may well fall out of the car market and not just for VW. It might be a good time to buy a cheap car, but on the other hand perhaps not.

God forbid that will all have to rent a field for our transport horses in future!

Police Scotland fingered for breaching RIPA code 'multiple' times

Richard Jones 1
WTF?

Unless This Is Cleared Up?

If tainted evidence is being hawked round surely any and all defence lawyers have a responsibility to object to all 'evidence' until is it proved to be from a corruption free source? Until then corruption appears to be added to claims of 'missing competence' such as leaving road accident victims to die before taking action on reports.

Google shouldn’t worry while EU commissars fight over policing tech giants

Richard Jones 1

Re: Well I manage it quite well

Wot's iPlayer Radio? Does it get the BBC or any of the commercial stations broadcast over air as free to listen to services. Why put yet another gated intermediary in the middle of something free? Does not compute, does not compute (voiced by a TV robot).

EE: Yes, our broadband service is a total clusterf**k – but we promise to improve

Richard Jones 1
Unhappy

Worst for Service?

I suspect that they are not even that good. No broadband service send out a router - the problem was clearly at their end and fixed itself 10 minutes after they said they'd send out the new box, but that was too late to stop it coming.

I have never used it so they wrote asking why, no easy way to explain it was barely suitable, though I did try it recently when we had another run of crap service. Predictable it was no better though it took 20 minutes of messing about to even get it usable, wrong local network range, wrong DHCP range, etc. I went back to original router and service has slowly improved to normal limited speed, not snail speed. The voice system is terrible and I did not find email any better. Now I do not bother to contact them.

Mobile is only for use when you are moving right? Just do not bother inside the house.

WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

Richard Jones 1

Genuine Snake Oil

Our IT sales force uses genuine snake oil producers.

AT&T fingers BT's brass neck, wishes it could throttle it

Richard Jones 1
WTF?

Evidence?

Where is the evidence for the AT&T's mouth, given the blizzard of comment about AT&T and the other major player's price gouging and service quality 'wots that'?

I have 15 or 20 ISPs to chose from with too many different tariffs to bother counting - and I have fields growing crops within sight of my home so not in some city centre. Some tariffs start as low as around US$ 10 per month or is that the high price that AT&T complained about?

Right, opt out everybody! Hated Care.data paused again

Richard Jones 1
Flame

Re: Is it time to put down this terminally ill scheme?

Having had the 'interesting' experience of being told that the scan I had not by then had revealed a terminal kidney cancer I feel that records might be a weak point in the NHS.

Having attended a well know children's hospital near Holborn with a child only to have to wait for several hours along with many others because all the records were missing I feel records might not be a strong point in the NHS.

Having a wife who travelled to the knee clinic only to find that the records were at the main hospital a situation only partially rectified when the records of her lung problems turned up having been fetched by taxi it would appear that there just might be some issues with NHS records.

Having a child given a treatment with a possible side effect that often happens with those who have at least one specific condition, only for the GP to be mystified when she lost the ability to walk with wildly abnormal blood results, I think the NHS might have a data handling issue or two.that may play badly with the treatment of patients.

Thus I have several concerns, information MUST be accurate and timely.

Dangerous interactions MUST be traced, confirmed and flagged up to doctor script writers.

Thus I have a foot in two camps, I want my data kept for my use and my families benefit no one else's.

I also want epidemiological data available for the prevention of and management of illnesses.

My problem is that I cannot trust that either objective will be reached, ever.

Au oh, there's gold in them thar server farms, so lead the way

Richard Jones 1
WTF?

Civic Amenity

I was at the Civic Amenity yesterday with several old computers and cards. The cards were just dumped in the metal bin because, "there's no market for the precious metals from them."

They were really only interested in the power leads because of the copper - (I kept a lot of usable cable back as I love having usable spare). OK my small collection of cards did not amount to much but there is a steady flow of other machines and as a collection point one would expect that they would be slightly more on the ball than that. I wondered if somewhere else might have been better.

Wanna fight Google’s alleged European evildoing? Then join us, says US legal firm

Richard Jones 1
Unhappy

Have you ever tried any of the also rans, plus the 'cannot even run' squad and the 'we can barely walk anywhere' search engines? They could not find their backside with both hands and a special assistance squad. Some of them come up on a Google search if you have time to waste/kill try them. Then reach for help, They range from 'Cannot find a find a thing', through 'The shops that don't stock what you want' and on to a promised land becoming completely lost in never land.

If this folly means being reduced to using some of the search engine tat about the place searching will be dead.

Bing was OK in his time as a singer but now?

Google tells iOS 9 app devs: Switch off HTTPS if you want that sweet sweet ad money from us

Richard Jones 1
Coat

Re: Actually, iOS developers: DON'T!!!

The real 'sufferers' are the developers who rely on rubbish adverts for their bread and butter. Google have noticed the issue and brought a quick solution to the table, arguably it is not the best solution, though it should only affect those too tight to buy the games they play. It would be useful for those developers who rely on ads to put some pressure on the advert slingers to get their acts together and 'upgrade' to HTTPS in the interests of most parties.

I said most parties since ad supported apps do appeal to some though frankly if I cannot afford the app then I would rather suffer the silence.

Come to think of it I do. I have zero interest in apps and zero apps on my phone, ad supported or ad free.

Swiss watch: Cuckoo-clock cops threaten Win 10 whup-ass can pop

Richard Jones 1

Re: Dearest Reg,

First rule of a political animal, never let a bit of geographical ignorance get in the way of a good headline.

Second rule always play to the gallery, the ignorant far out number those who can understand what is happening.

Third rule slash and burn the reality if there is a way to stir things up.

Next they will want to ban the odometers from cars as the maker of the car will know how far you have drive the machine.

Amazon to trash Flash, as browsers walk away

Richard Jones 1

Re: Hading a good time reading El Reg

I think 'decided' should have been 'divided'.

I also have finger against keyboard troubles.

LA explosion knocks LogMeIn's British customers offline

Richard Jones 1
Flame

Re: Shania Twain also had issues at a live concert...

Wow, either the USA networks run to very different standards to the rest of the world, or standards are different through UK Europe the Middle East and the Far east in which locations I worked. A fire in a single building should never kill whole networks over a wide area, transmission suppliers should have their own back up capabilities.

An earth quake might be and was a different story.

Apple: Samsung ripped off our phone patent! USPTO: What patent?

Richard Jones 1

Re: Taketh away

@Keef, yes we need a patent system - one that works as a patent system should - protect genuine innovation in products.

Not a mickey mouse system that lets everything in only to find that even bus and tram tickets are likely to end up getting a patent application hundreds of years after they were first used.

Rounded corners? Just like kids had on their school slate boards, the ones with a wooden edge round the slate. Slate, the black or grey stuff they wrote on, you know looks like a grown up iPad.

Hey, folks. Meet the economics 'genius' behind Jeremy Corbyn

Richard Jones 1
Flame

AC you missed the point, the statement was that if people suspect hard times are coming they hoard rather than spend. If they suspect really bad times, they 'invest' in items like gold, airline tickets, food stuffs or anything that might be sold or more likely bartered. They do not buy flash cars, big TVs or other items that depreciate faster that a politician's promises.

Oh, and in really bad times, gold is useless as it cannot be eaten or worn.

When I suspected hard times were coming for the company I worked for, (I was right) I shovelled cash into the pension fund having already disposed of all debts in a previous down turn. I know that debts lose value with inflation, but I did not fancy some default and bankruptcy thank you! Did I spend, did I hell. If I think Corbyn has a chance in Hades I would try to leap out of any cash or income sources into something worthwhile hoarding.

Ofcom coverage map: 7/10 – must try harder next time

Richard Jones 1
WTF?

Re: You cannot be serious...

I no longer give out my EE mobile number for calls to come to me. If I am at home I use the land line, outside I carry the phone in the hope that if I need to make a call I will be able to do so.

Apparently the mobile service only works incoming to me for PPI, new mortgages and ambulance chasers.

The 'map' of course shows that it is perfect, in who's dreams?

It's 2015, and someone can pwn Windows PCs by inserting a USB stick

Richard Jones 1
Unhappy

I thought that the mind numbing sloth was just a Vista update thing, Windows 10 was slow in the early morning but not glacial but I see a Win 7 machine waiting, waiting, waiting but not getting anywhere at the moment. I slightly suspect that they are queuing machines as the download itself is not too terribly slow once you get the list of updates. Interestingly, on a windows 7 machine the only update ticked was the one for Windows 10. I had to make a manual 'tick all' and remove the windows 10 tick to preserve user sanity and domestic peace.

The Windows 10 update fails anyway unless run from media not the download.