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* Posts by Macca Pukka

5 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Jul 2013

High-end router flinger DrayTek admits to zero day in bunch of Vigor kit

Macca Pukka

First zero day pwnage I can remember they've ever had.

I think they are great, nowhere near the quality of a proper stand-alone router but as an all in one unit with multiple wans for concurrent ADSL and 4G, noisy lines being so fault tolerant with CRC etc they suit my clients perfectly - light years better than the stock ISP garbage such as *T allegedly.

I've got a couple of dozen of the 2825 but mostly 2860 in the field and only one got pwned but I had to go to the site to fix it today. It's a nuisance hack they could have done far worse! I always leave direct router remote access disabled and use a computer on the lan to log in but this one I'm sure got it's settings changed and enabled by the VOIP techs who run a similar Draytek to run their phones from a separate ADSL line which gets its DHCP from ours along with the handsets. After discussions with the (unnamed) telco's techs who run 2k of these thinking that a different remote admin port that they would be immune to getting pwned, after 2 phone calls this afternoon and evening they are now currently upgrading all of them ;-)

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Britain's on the brink of a small-scale nuclear reactor revolution

Macca Pukka
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Re: vitrifying

Yes of course the Pu isn't in the mix per se - but the current chemistry we used for reprocessing is almost as flawed as the silly designs of reactors everyone made largely in the quest for the bomb.

The Purex process produces chemical by-products which are even more toxic than what comes in.

Before the work does eventually go fusion one day and not in my lifetime we need to deal with the mess that's been left behind and chemically and efficiency wise its using FliBe salt. Not water or air soluble and a very stable compound at normal temperatures and when hot a much better efficiency match for a gas or even supercritical CO2 turbines than the current steam. The CO2 turbines are a fraction of the size too.

Even stored it will leak tritium - but tritium with a half life of 12 years decays to Helium-3 which is certainly going to an extremely valuable resource powering fusion reactors. Why mine the moon for it?

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Macca Pukka

SMR's are the way to go but using Thorium and Molten salt (FLibe) ideally as burner types. Cos using conventional PWR type reactors only increase the vast amounts of plutonium and actinides we already have already but a Flibe burner will dispose of them. Leaving a tiny proportion of the waste behind which can be fuelled in another burner and the rest like CS-137 will decay way in 300 years.

Over 100, probably 150 tons of waste Plutonium and growing in the UK along with the other transuranics should be fissioned as energy rather than the mad folly of trying to store it for tens of thousands of years by vitrifying it into glass..

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Don't install our buggy Windows 10 Creators Update, begs Microsoft

Macca Pukka

Had woes with Broadcom Bluetooth 4.0 LE with a MX anywhere mouse on an Insider build since the Creators Update. Insider Build 16179 still hasn't fixed it either. Got so sick of having to remove the mouse in Bluetooth settings, add it and it doesn't stay connected stably for long that I've plugged in the USB cable which thankfully does work!

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Windows 8.1: Here at last, but is it good enough?

Macca Pukka
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Why is a classic desktop option STILL not an option?

We've had a roll back option of sorts since windows 2000 came out yet still Microsoft persist in not giving the customer the choice with another fudge to 8.1 and allowing a few years to pass for them to get used to Metro till windows 9 at the very least, or even when a leap motion is built into every OEM keyboard and laptop for heavens sake!

Instead we're left with good but not exceptional progress under the hood, in my mind not perhaps worthy of an instant upgrade but Microsoft's intransigence and stupidity with the desktop itself is stir crazy, something Apple no doubt are loving right now.. I really thought that they learned with the Vista disaster releasing a superb OS with 7 and hoped after missing the mark again they would see sense with 8.1.

How wrong I was, I will no doubt be busy with 7 downgrades for new PC's for customers and upgrading existing machines until they do see sense. You need to give your head a shake Microsoft and if that doesn't work - shake it some more.

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