* Posts by Andy Turner

117 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Jun 2007

eBay forces Aussies to use Paypal

Andy Turner

This needs to happen

Facebook is *ripe* for someone writing an auction application. The sooner it happens the better.

Alienware Area 51 ALX CrossFireX gaming PC

Andy Turner

Can't believe it doesn't have Blu-Ray

That is all.

BT hits 'undo' on anti-spam email update

Andy Turner

I applaud them...

For at least attempting to stem the flood of spam from compromised machines on their network. All ISPs should be trying to implement something like this.

The Facebook Initiative – Bill Gates's greatest invention

Andy Turner

They pay people for writing this?

I need a new job.

Nvidia drivers named as lead Vista crash cause in 2007

Andy Turner

@AC

"An important reason nVidia has more crashes because they sell more stuff". Good point if you're comparing them against ATI, but *every* user of those Vista drivers is also using Vista too and in those cases, the figures are awful for nVidia, especially when you bear in mind what a small amount of the running binaries the video driver represents, compared to that which Microsoft has provided.

Dump IE 6 campaign runs afoul of dump IE 6 campaign

Andy Turner

Can't install IE7?

AIUI you can't install IE7 without the Windows Genuine Advantage, so there's a whole lot of people going to be stuck on IE6.

Vista SP1 downloaders bite back

Andy Turner
Thumb Up

Works fine here too

Doesn't seem much different though, but then I didn't have much in the way of problems to start with.

Red Green Ken v Porsche in battle of the polls

Andy Turner

But it doesn't

"One of the few tools available to policy makers to improve air quality in cities is to tax the most polluting cars off the road"

A ban on new sales would get them off the road. A tax doesn't get them off the road, it just collects more money for Livingstone. Which is *obviously* the entire idea. Everyone up and down the country is subject to some degree of 'green' related tax but the extent that Livingstone is going to is likely to permanantly damage the public conception of them.

It's just about the money.

BT admits misleading customers over Phorm experiments

Andy Turner

WRT this snippet of the BBC story:

"Phorm's system works by "trawling" websites visited by users and then matches keywords from the content of the page to a profile. Users are then targeted with adverts that are more tailored to their interests on websites that have signed up to Phorm's technology"

Surely the websites themselves aren't going to be happy about this? If I spent a while on Play.com looking at Robbie Williams CDs and then as a result I start getting adverts from Amazon about Robbie Williams and I end up purchasing from there instead, then Play.com are surely not going to be happy about that?!

Andy Turner

@Rog69

"So, as a BT customer is there any way I can find out if I was part of the Phorm testing?"

Sure, check your credit card bill for impulse purchases that you're no longer sure why you bought!

MS said to have delayed Euro Zune debut to 2009

Andy Turner

Zzzzzzzzzune

Who cares? Currys is full of competitors and the mobile/mp3 player convergence will have gathered a lot of pace in 12 months time.

Mass compromise powers massive drive-by download attack

Andy Turner

FFS

Malware is fast overtaking spam as an absolute pain in the arse. People should be shot for this kind of thing.

Windows better off closed, says Microsoft

Andy Turner

@Mark!

"So how do you tell someone off for being too critical of others? Because when you do, you're being critical of others"

You say "I think you're being too critical" and explain your reasoning. Saying "You sad, pathetic man" doesn't really cut it.

Andy Turner

@Yet another Anonymous Coward

Firstly the name's Turner not Taylor. If you can't even get *that* right... Onto your points:

Anonymous Coward: "I'll tell you why I'd like it to be opened: because I'm a fairly decent programmer with kernel-mode and device driver experience, and next time some awful bug is giving me trouble I could just *fix* it instead of having to struggle to find some workaround"

And are you going to make sure that your fix isn't ever overwritten by a patch? What if it turns out you weren't as skilled as you thought and perhaps you didn't know the full picture of why it does what it does and you broke compatibility with something else which you didn't or couldn't test at the time? Perhaps you could get away with this for entirely closed off installations but not much else. And of course if *you* can do it, so can millions of other people write their own 'improved' versions of Windows. As a Windows Developer myself I certainly wouldn't want to be coding for such a potentially moving target and I doubt MS would be chirpy about trying to support homebrew versions of Windows either.

AT: "Malware authors being able to find hooks and holes with much more ease."

AC: That's a fairly limited impact. Most malware these days spreads by idiots clicking on it anyway"

You know this how? Most virus checkers root out EXEs these days, it's opening malformed data files that's the bigger problem - that and visiting websites that are loaded with malformed HTML or images. Thanks to UAC in Vista, even running an EXE can have limited impact (assuming the user hasn't turned it off..), but if the writer of that EXE was able to leaf through the source in order to find a way of buffer overrunning their way to elevated privileges then that would make their life a whole heap easier.

AC: "it doesn't even need OS exploits or holes"

Unless you're talking about clicking on .EXEs, yes they do.

AT: "Malware authors being able to create 'pirate' versions of Windows with the malware built right into the OS"

AC: "That one's a total strawman. They can do that right now"

No they can't. Not at the level I'm talking about.

AC: "and it doesn't need access to the source, and access to the source wouldn't make it any easier. If your supposed pirate released a hacked version of windows based on the original sources, it wouldn't have the MS digital signatures on the system files, so they'd have to disable all the checking and system file protection feature in the os anyway... which you can already easily do, in which case you dead easily trojan or wrapper or replace wholesale any windows system file you like anyway. The source is neither necessary nor even useful for this kind of attack."

You're somewhat assuming I mean Window Mode binaries. I don't. Sure you might be able to disable System File Protection, but with the source you could make a version of Windows which *pretends* like it's doing it, but actually isn't. You could make a version of Windows which fakes the appearance of MS signatures on binaries that don't actually have them (to the UI level at least). Once you're inside Windows, especially the kernel level and you're able to simply add bits in without having to add new DLLs or wrapper existing ones then you can do a great deal and without much chance of detection.

AT: "Software developers being able to see how things work will start to use and rely on internal behaviours."

AC: Dude, that's what MS already do anyway, and that's why their public APIs are no use. MS' use of secret internal APIs to gain commercial advantage for their products was half the issue in the monopoly trial, remember?

Of course I do and I also recall the trouble it caused, how long ago that was and how much of a totally different issue that was. For a start, it's one thing to use undocumented APIs and another entirely to rely on the internal behaviour or data structures of a documented API. You might check through the code and decide that an API is almost certainly going to be thread-safe even though it's not marked as such. Then you rely on that at your peril when later versions break that. And it's one thing for MS to be able to ask the Word team whether changing some aspect of the undocumented API will cause them a problem since that's still an internal matter which MS can control. Once the source gets out then they can't have any idea how much changing internal data structures will break the code of people who've tried to be 'a bit clever' and have leveraged access to the source to get around the API. Not to mention people copying chunks of Windows into their own DLLs just to change some behaviour and then finding that the chunk they copied isn't always compatible with different OS patches.

Come on mate, if you blur the line between OS software and application software at the *source code level*, it would lead to an absolute mess as people all over the world leverage knowledge that they shouldn't and couldn't rely on just to try and get an advantage over their competitor. And on top of that, you only have to look at the huge number of Linux distros to see what other problems you may well get.

Andy Turner

@Mark

"You sad, pathetic man. You should be able to praise someone without knocking someone else down"

Hypocrisy in a nutshell!

Andy Turner

"What's the disadvantage of opening?"

Well here's just a few:

* Malware authors being able to find hooks and holes with much more ease.

* Malware authors being able to create 'pirate' versions of Windows with the malware built right into the OS. Far more undetectable than even rootkits. Idiot users would love to buy a copy of Windows for £5 at a car boot sale, without realising the full payload.

* Software developers being able to see how things work will start to use and rely on internal behaviours. API not doing quite what you need? Edit it and build another.. All comes tumbling down when MS release a new SP or version.

Man webcams butt in Burnout Paradise prang rage

Andy Turner

Does that work?

"2) The 1st option is a cure all for all your childs internet woes, howeve, if you want something more specific for Burnout Paradise turn the fecking Camera Feed Off, which is an option in the game"

AFAIK that only stops the image from your own camera from being sent. I don't think it affects whether or not you receive images that people send you. Maybe Criterion will put out a patch that allows you to turn off images being received.

Andy Turner

It's great fun!

Been doing this for weeks, it's great fun. You don't have to have been 'beaten' in a race, you only have to get crashed into hard in free roaming mode. Of course people give you the finger when you do it, it's funny! Insults escolate of course, but I've only ever seen it done in good spirits.

Problem is, you have no idea what the age of the people you're connected to are and you can't even wait until late at night - you might be connecting to someone in a different timezone. The game itself is only "3+", too.

Prosecutors target first 'Facebook harassment' conviction

Andy Turner

@Bruce

"Why is the Reg reporting this?"

Because it's *their* site and they can put what they want onto it?

Filesharers petition Downing Street on 'three strikes'

Andy Turner

What if...

You could buy different packages from your ISP, one where the required ports for bittorrent were closed and one where they are open but it cost you more per month and that money went to a pot for artists. You might say what about legal uses of P2P, but is there really that much? If so, what is it all and can't it simply be downloaded from a proper source?

Sony Ericsson site indicates Xperia 'arc slider' set-back

Andy Turner

Uh-oh, sounds like the P990i saga again

I hope not. You'd think there wouldn't be too much trouble in getting HTC to make a device reasonably similiar to the millions they've already made and putting WM6.1 onto it. Maybe Microsoft are holding Sony to ransom by insisting it has HD-DVD support.

Broadband big boys waiting on data pimping

Andy Turner

@Chris W

"How can you have targeted advertising towards anonymised users?"

Simple, it targets your IP address without ever bothering to find out who you actually are. So the adverts it sends back to a certain IP is in line with the WWW requests it receives from it.

Bitlocker hack is easily prevented, Microsoft says

Andy Turner

Why do people do this?

Why do people spend so long and so much effort into cracking encryption schemes? I bet 99% of hackers couldn't do what they do off their own back, they all use knowledge that someone else researched. Sure, an encryption system might have some holes in, but those holes are a *lot* more severe if someone takes the time to find them, and then make them public. Windows/Linux/OSX probably has some gaping security holes that no-one knows about and therefore no-one can leverage. It's only when some prat finds them and publishes them that they become a problem.

VMware vuln exposes the perils of virtualization

Andy Turner

Easy fix

Run your VMWare within a Virtual PC...

Car net auction trio use GPS to steal back wheels

Andy Turner

GPS doesn't work like that!

Sure, the car knows where it is, but it doesn't transmit that knowledge to remote people. I expect the thieves fitted their own tracking device (probably using a GPS enabled cell phone), and didn't use the car's factory GPS at all.

Official: Toshiba discontinues HD DVD

Andy Turner

You have to give Toshiba credit

for doing the right thing and not dragging it out for months on end.

Prince and Village People dive into Pirate Bay

Andy Turner

@Captain Jamie

"They are Princes by title and by right, it isn't just a monicker they've nicked from somewhere"

Prince is the name given to him by his parents. Prince Rogers Nelson being his full name.

Nanny agency hacker fined

Andy Turner

That Paris thing..

... it's *really* old now.

Mole claims Toshiba to terminate HD DVD

Andy Turner

Surely this was inevitable?

"But because the Sony PlayStation 3 has a built in Blu-ray drive, that format's been able to outstrip its rival's figures in terms of both disc sales and shipments of devices capable of playing them"

Exactly, I didn't think HD-DVD ever stood a chance because of this bold but ultimately very smart move that Sony made. They went through a lot of pain to make sure it happened, but now it has, they're laughing.

You could almost applaud Toshiba for throwing in the towel now and allowing the market to flourish from there on in. Stringing it out further to an ultimate demise anyway isn't going to help.

Netflix falls in behind Blu-ray

Andy Turner

I reckon that

companies such as Netflix want the war to be over as much as the consumer does and by making announcements such as this, they can help tip the balance a bit more. They might actually prefer it if HD-DVD won, but BD winning is probably far more preferable to there still being a war going on in 12 months time.

Big Blue talks up 45nm PlayStation 3 processor possibilities

Andy Turner

I'd be surprised...

.. if they increase the clock speed. What would be the point of creating platform variances which would create allsorts of problems for the developers? Would the developers really code in extra performance when they detect that they're on a faster chip? I think you'd then get people trying to overclock their 90nm chips! They didn't do it with the PS2, which means a PS2 is a PS2 and it reliably and consistently runs the games the same, whether it's an early one or the latest slimline.

Andy Turner

@Chris

They changed their mind the week after:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/08/sonys-kaz-hirai-says-new-ps3s-use-65nm-chips-after-all-partly/

Shell IT staff disgusted at mega profits

Andy Turner

I am disgusted that this story

doesn't have any "shelling out" puns.

Second-gen O2 XDA Orbit goes on sale

Andy Turner

It's not that bad...

Whilst the lack of accelerated video drives cripples the potential speed of the Orbit2, it doesn't make it slower than the old orbit, which didn't even have the accelerated video hardware at all!

Andy Turner

5 megapixel?

I'm surprised at the 5mp camera given that the Touch Cruise (which it's a rebranded version of), is only 3mp.

O2 sweetens its iPhone deals

Andy Turner

Shame on you..

These are just new O2 tariffs, available with any handset and have nothing to do specifically with the iPhone at all.

'100% accurate' face recognition algorithm announced

Andy Turner
Joke

Nice example but..

.. how do we know that's not Nicolas Cage with John Travolta's face on?

Malware authors target Mac emerging markets

Andy Turner

@Charles-A Rovira

"Installing malware requires that the moron actually enters his password"

No it doesn't, not if it uses a security loophole, buffer overrun, that kind of thing.

IBM snubs OS/2 open source plea

Andy Turner

The problem is...

They can't just hand it over and say "here you go guys". They'd have to spend a *lot* of time going through it all, tidying it up, getting rid of all the bits/comments/whatever not intended for public consumption. There might be things in there that would result in lawsuits, copied code, deliberate nobbling of competitor apps etc...

And if there are businesses out there running OS/2 installations, I don't know as they'd be happy for the security of their systems to be massively compromised in this way, since it's from an age where it's probably got loads of buffer-overrun style loopholes in it, and publishing the source will make them all the more easy to find.

UK's number one router open to VoIP hijacking

Andy Turner

Proving that it's the bank on the phone

Can anyone see any holes in this method?

When 'the bank' phones, allow them to ask you a security question and then give them a wrong answer. If they're your bank they'll know it's wrong and tell you. If they're a scammer, they'll write it down and not know it's wrong. Obviously the question can't be something which they could have got from the phone book or from your bins.

HMRC offers £20k reward for ID goldmine CDs

Andy Turner

I wouldn't return them

Imagine if you found them in the street and tried to return them. As people have said, it'd be trivial to make your own copy and thus the police would assume you had. You'd get your house turned over and your computers confiscated and searched. Then they'd find some reason why you weren't worthy of the £20k anyway. If you find them, just cut them up and throw them away somewhere.

Asking for experience in job ads could land you in hot water

Andy Turner

Not exactly a taxing job is it?

Being the "membership secretary" at the "Eight Member Club". I'm sure she could have coped.

HTC intros satnav enabled Touch Cruise

Andy Turner

Pretty sure it is

The original Touch is nothing like the Orbit 2 (doesn't have GPS or 3G, which the Orbit2 does).

Just compare the specs of the two devices. The Touch Cruise and the Orbit 2 even look pretty similar - same position for the new FF camera and memory slots etc..

Andy Turner

This is the Orbit 2, yeah?

"the Cruise is based around a 400MHz CPU and Qualcomm 7200 chip set, like O2’s second-generation XDA Orbit 2 PDA phone"

The Orbit 2 is O2's rebadging of this unit, as the original O2 Orbit was a HTC P3300.

O2 relaunches XDA Orbit smartphone

Andy Turner

Can't please everyone I guess

They've got rid of the trackball, which is a shame because I thought that worked far better than the wheel thing, which they've retained. Having released a WM6 upgrade for the original Orbit means that this update seems less desirable than it might have been. 3G is good, the extra memory is good, but the processor won't make as much difference as you'd think, and a front facing camera? Does *anyone* do video calling?!

"and the device can now accept Micro SD cards of up to 1GB in size" - my current Orbit has a 2GB card in it, which has always worked fine!

Online sales of stolen gear prompt call to list serial numbers

Andy Turner

Can't see that working

Surely the crooks could then harvest valid serial numbers from genuine auctions and re-use them in the future, perhaps multiple times. Are they expecting eBay to monitor for serial number re-use?!

Sony Walkman NWD-B105 2GB MP3 player

Andy Turner

Yes, it's the computational power required

"so.... wma uses 25% more processing power to decrypt??? Is it the algorithm on the Sony player, or is wma that computationally intensive?"

Probably the latter. This is why Sony stuck with ATRAC and SonicStage for as long as they did. The ATRAC codec was designed from the start to be for mobile (MiniDisc), devices and thus is designed so as not to require much processing power on decoding. MP3 and WMA were not designed as such. Hence in the past, a lot of Sony devices, whilst requiring SonicStage to convert your MP3 files, would have considerably superior playing times than other MP3 players. Off the top of my head, I wouldn't be surprosed if this device could play for 20+ hours of ATRAC - if it supported it.

Microsoft shouts 'Long Live XP'

Andy Turner

They created their own problem..

.. it's because these days, XP is so solid and functional that no-one sees any need to change to anything else. Vista has a lot of advances for developers, but it'll take time before those new Vista-only developments become killer applications.

Jailed worm author offered job by victim

Andy Turner

Ah but..

"People who have completed their sentence, have completed their sentence. What part of that do you not understand."

It doesn't mean they've changed their ways though. Would you hire a convicted burglar to look after security at your home or place of work? Think he could be trusted?

Apple restricts ringtone rights

Andy Turner

The problem is...

"Ring tones are the most annoying thing on this planet. I mean, come on... whats wrong with ring ring?"

The problem with everyone having similar generic ringtones is that people don't instictively know that it's their phone ringing when it goes off in public.