* Posts by arctic_haze

756 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Nov 2012

Adobe Flash zero-day exploit... leveraging ActiveX… embedded in Office Doc... BINGO!

arctic_haze

Re: Flash, ActiveX, Office doc embedding/scripting - should already be DISABLED

Exactly my thoughts. However ActiveX means IE is needed for this perfect storm of bugginess. Or am I wrong?

Naked women cleaning biz smashes patriarchy by introducing naked bloke gardening service

arctic_haze
Coat

Doesn't everything green have thorns in Australia?

Just asking...

PS. The icon represents undressing for work.

Microsoft's .NET Core 3 is almost here, which means time to move on from .NET Framework

arctic_haze

Depending on MS plaftorms is always a mistake

Where is ActiveX now? Where is Silverlight? Where are Gadgets? if they do not abandon it, they make it obsolete with a new non-compatible version.

Microsoft polishes up Chromium as EdgeHTML peers into the abyss

arctic_haze

"Microsoft doesn't comment on rumours or speculation"

Isn't it a corporate way of saying "Yes"?

Millennials 'horrify' their neighbours with knob-shaped lights display

arctic_haze

It seems reasonable to try to protect the children. The problem is they themselves are the group most likely to produce this kind of iconography. School mates are best teachers of how to draw you know what.

Space policy boffin: Blighty can't just ctrl-C, ctrl-V plans for Galileo into its Brexit satellite

arctic_haze

Now UK needs a new referendum

The question should be whether the UK will stay in or leave the International Telecommunications Union.

Giraffe hacks printers worldwide to promote God-awful YouTuber. Did we read that one right?

arctic_haze

Two thoughts

First, I do have a printer at work which can be used (and abused) from anywhere on the globe. I know that because I printed a document being in a different city, No password was needed.

Second, even if people are as careless as my admins, the guy could be criminally prosecuted in the USA and possibly in other countries.

Here are another 45,000 reasons to patch Windows systems against old NSA exploits

arctic_haze

Re: how about

Also put and old reliable router you keep in the closet between the new shiny toy from your IP provider and your home network. The old junk is fast enough but it luckily has no clue what UPnP is.

arctic_haze
Holmes

There are more than 45,000 reasons not to use UPnP

Microsoft reveals terrible trio of bugs that knocked out Azure, Office 362.5 multi-factor auth logins for 14 hours

arctic_haze

"gaps in telemetry "

Yes. Only more telemetry can save us. Every user of Microsoft software should have telemetry installed in his/her orifices.

If at first you don't succeed, you may well be Cisco: WebEx patch needs its own patch

arctic_haze

My love/hate relationship with WebEx

I have a long history of problems with WebEx (European Space Agency made me use it). A pity because we need a viable alternative to Skype.

NASA has Mars InSight as latest lander due to arrive today

arctic_haze
Pint

Congratulations

It has landed so it is time to congratulate NASA and everybody involved in preparing the mission!

Talk in Trump's tweets tells whether tale is true: Code can mostly spot Prez lies from wording

arctic_haze

Re: Accuracy

"It's not very useful to claim "73 per cent accurate". What they should give is a percentage of false positives and false negatives."

False positives are 100% minus the hit rate (that is 23%). From the x-axis of Figure 2 in the manuscript it is visible that false negative is also close to 25%. I know this from the description on page 11 (search for "false positive").

Blighty: We spent £1bn on Galileo and all we got was this lousy T-shirt

arctic_haze

Re: Spoof Galileo in the English Channel

Most of the victims would be Irish ferries replacing the lorries stuck in Dover.

In Space, Still: 20 years since Russia hurled first bit of floating astronaut hostel into orbit

arctic_haze

We need ISS in orbit just to have an argument against the growing flat earth fallacy which claims there is no space. Now everybody can see it by naked eye and even see its silhouette using a small amateur-class telescope.

With no ISS, even more people will believe there is no gravity, stars hang on a glass firmament and the Earth pancake is surrounded by an impenetrable ice wall.

Behold, the world's most popular programming language – and it is...wait, er, YAML?!?

arctic_haze

Speaking of programming language definitions

I like the definition of R language saying simply that "R is an open source implementation of S".

Holy moley! The amp, kelvin and kilogram will never be the same again

arctic_haze
Holmes

Re: How easy it is to get an international deal

They treated it as an embassy. The only problem is embassy of what exactly?

PortSmash attack blasts hole in Intel's Hyper-Threading CPUs, leaves with secret crypto keys

arctic_haze

Not a big problem on a modern OS

If your OS is Win10 you need not worry about software snooping your encrypted transmissions. All your keyboard input is sent to Redmont (and who knows where else) anyway.

Another Meltdown, Spectre security scare: Data-leaking holes riddle Intel, AMD, Arm chips

arctic_haze

Re: New phone

Yes, we should revert to using Z80 processors. At least my half-forgotten knowledge if its commands could make me indispensable!

John McAfee is 'liable' for 2012 death of Belize neighbour, rules court

arctic_haze

Extradiction unlikely

Mac is an American citizen so he will not be most likely extradited. Isn't it unfair that an American may do such things abroad and be practically immune from criminal persecution while the US wants everybody and his dog extradited from all over the world if it feels its interest were at stake?

Want to hack a hole-in-the-wall cash machine for free dosh? It's as easy as Windows XP

arctic_haze

The banks don't care

It is peanuts for them and they are most probably insured, anyway.

Sudden Windows 10 licence downgrades to forced Xcode upgrades: The week at Microsoft

arctic_haze

Great

Now two corporations will get all my data at once!

Junior dev decides to clear space for brewing boss, doesn't know what 'LDF' is, sooo...

arctic_haze
FAIL

I was also clueless at the time

But sill, I would start with renaming the file and checking what happens.

Brit boffins build 'quantum compass'... say goodbye to those old GPS gizmos, possibly

arctic_haze

Inertial navigation system

This is what it is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_navigation_system

Maybe it is supposed to be better than the existing ones due to the quantum thing, but for mow it is two orders of magnitude larger than what is commercially available.

That amazing Microsoft software quality, part 97: Windows Phone update kills Outlook, Calendar

arctic_haze
Gimp

Worse than a shot in the foot

It is an eye opener how Microsoft treats "those who cling to Windows Phone devices" (as the article calls them) or in other words its most loyal fanboy cadres.

International politicos line up to get shot down by Facebook

arctic_haze

Re: It may take a while...

Do you honestly think that he uses commercial airlines to move around?

https://thenextweb.com/facebook/2018/07/27/facebook-will-spend-10m-on-ceo-mark-zuckerbergs-private-jets-and-security/

Samsung 'reveals' what looks like a tablet that folds into a phone, but otherwise we're quite literally left in the dark

arctic_haze

Now wait for its Second Coming

Isn't the Church of the Surface Phone waiting for a rapture caused by a device exactly like that?

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/microsoft-surface-mobile-phone-news/

Windows 10 Pro goes Home as Microsoft fires up downgrade server

arctic_haze

Will this never end?

Microsoft at least in consistent in the quality of its services.

Russian computer failure on ISS is nothing to worry about – they're just going to turn it off and on again

arctic_haze

Correction

In Soviet Russia computers upgrade you.

Russia inches closer to launching a crew again while NASA waits for a delivery from Germany

arctic_haze

Outsourcing

Leave the testing to Microsoft. I heard they are good at it.

The nights are drawing in. Pour a cup of cocoa and join us for Windows 10 Autumnwatch

arctic_haze

Win 10 vs Soyuz debacle

The latest Win 10 edition had a setback on the scale of the Russian Soyuz program. Russia wants to send successfully three Soyuz rockets before it starts to test the device on humans, again. Shuldn't Microsoft be at least equally careful?

Nikola Tesla's greatest challenge: He could measure electricity but not stupidity

arctic_haze

Not the only scientist on a banknote

When Germany still had its own currency, the 10 Mark note had Carl Friedrich Gauss together with his eponymous bell-curve distribution, both on a graph and a formula.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Friedrich_Gauss#/media/File:10_DM_Serie4_Vorderseite.jpg

Which reminds me that when I worked in Germany a Japanese colleague from the same lab asked me if I remember the Gauss distribution formula. I told him to look at the 10 Mark note. He did but went to the library to double check. He was surprised the formula was correct.

The Register Lecture: Great gravitational waves! LIGO's next cosmic act

arctic_haze

I actually advised my godson (also a physicist) not to go into gravitational waves as the consortium had not detected anything in 30 years and who know if they ever would. He did not follow my advice and is one of the 1000+ authors of the papers the Nobel Prize was given for.

Good for him!

D.O.Eh: Here's the new privacy law Canada can't really enforce

arctic_haze

Not a big problem

The most prolific source on such breaches are not the companies themselves but whistle blowers. The law will at least make possible to fine the guilty party.

IBM's Red Hat gobble: Storage will be a test of Big Blue's commitment to open-source software

arctic_haze

There's method in this madness

Keeping Red Hat as a separate unit makes it possible to sell it if something goes wrong.

Hi there, Hubble, glad to hear you're doing okay

arctic_haze
Thumb Up

All the bbest, Hubble!

My best wishes to the best telescope humanity is lucky to have.

Excuse me, but have you heard the teachings of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Chr-AI-st?

arctic_haze

Let us translate the RFCs into King James Bible language

For now, we can translate it to Shakespearean. There is an online app for that. This is the Preface of RFC791 in the Bard's lingo:

"This document specifies the dod standard int'rnet protocol. This document is bas'd on six earli'r editions of the arpa int'rnet protocol specification, and the presenteth text draws heavily from those folk. Th're has't been many contribut'rs to this w'rk both in t'rms of concepts and in t'rms of text. This edition revises aspects of addressing, 'rr'r handling, option codes, and the security, precedence, compartments, and handling restriction features of the int'rnet protocol"

Hubble 'scope gyro drama: Hey, NASA, have you tried turning it off and on again? Oh, you did. And it worked? Cool

arctic_haze
Pint

Beer for everyone!

This is the best news I've seen in a long time!

Zip it! 3 more reasons to be glad you didn't jump on Windows 10 1809

arctic_haze

Final Windows version

Now I see why Win 10 is supposed to be the final Windows version. It will end as a steaming pile of crap.

Apache OpenOffice, the Schrodinger's app: No one knows if it's dead or alive, no one really wants to look inside

arctic_haze

Re: Counting is not so easy.

I always use the torrent for installers of Libreoffice. Therefore I guess I do not count as "a download".

Pentagon's JEDI mind tricks at odds with our 'values' says Google: Ad giant evaporates from $10bn cloud contract bid

arctic_haze

The JEDI way

These aren't the AI Principles you are looking for.

Microsoft yanks the document-destroying Windows 10 October 2018 Update

arctic_haze

No surprise

The policy of more and more intrusive upgrades with less control by the actual user.

What can go wrong?

What could be more embarrassing for a Russian spy: Their info splashed online – or that they drive a Lada?

arctic_haze

An important lesson comes from this story

Being evil does not make you competent.

Uncle Sam gives itself the right to shoot down any drone, anywhere, any time, any how

arctic_haze

No one asked the question yet

Is it limited to US territories or covers the whole planet?

Also what is the upper limit? I mean, are satellites in danger?

Microsoft: OK, we have no phones, but look how much we love Android

arctic_haze

Re: Surprised they don't make their own Android phones

The Android running Nokia X has been killed by Microsoft soon after it has been announced. Some people claim that Nokia X was a way of forcing Microsoft into buying the company's phone business. The irony is that the phone has been announced a quarter after Microsoft bought Nokia phone business but obviously developed earlier.

UK space comes to an 'understanding' with Australia as Brexit looms

arctic_haze

A great success!

Especially that neither country is likely tol have its own navigation satellites any time soon.

Astroboffins may have found the first exomoon lurking beyond the Solar System

arctic_haze

Moons of the moons?

Isn't it like fleas in the famous Jonathan Swift poem?

"So, naturalists observe, a flea

Has smaller fleas that on him prey;

And these have smaller still to bite 'em,

And so proceed ad infinitum.

Thus every poet in his kind

Is bit by him that comes behind. "

Microsoft resurfaces Surface kit alongside Windows 10 update

arctic_haze

Re: Could you at least pretend to be writing for a UK website

...and talk some more about Brexit?

New Zealand border cops warn travelers that without handing over electronic passwords 'You shall not pass!'

arctic_haze

Nothing to hide?

Do you really share your bank passwords with anyone who politely asks?

Robot Operating System gets the Microsoft treatment

arctic_haze

Doomed

We are so doomed...