* Posts by JRallo

39 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Oct 2007

Unprecedented domain seizure shutters 84,000 sites

JRallo
Joke

No title here...

A comedian put it nicely once (don't recall which one) "..see, we have the right to bare arms to protect ourselves from an oppressive government. When created, it was muskets verses muskets. Today its still muskets, only muskets verses M1 Abrams tanks an nuclear war heads."

Sysadmin stole co-worker IDs for Amazon survey splurge

JRallo
Flame

"health" survey, I'll give you....

$100 if you give me your Name, SSN, Date of Birth, and Address. All you need to answer is these questions....

Indeed, fools all around.

FSFE calls on governments to stop pushing Adobe Reader

JRallo
Flame

Worse yet!

When crappy forms from crappy banks check the name of the reader with JS before loading a PDF! If Adobe isn't in the name, the pdf doesn't load.

Mozilla tames Firefox tab monster with Candy

JRallo

FF does it..

"and I have about 100 tabs open, and I can easily find them because of 2 of Opera's features: Open new tab next to current - keeps my various tasks clustered in regions of the task bar, and the right click + scroll menu that pops up with tab titles (and optionally thumbnails, but I don't need that.)"

FF does the new tab next to current and does the right click scroll bit.

Cutbacks strip speed cameras from Blighty's roads

JRallo
Thumb Up

Automated Tolls/Toll booths.

Why not just put up automated toll booths, or when one doesn't buy the transponder, the tried and true box behind a concrete barrier? Gov makes money, speeding becomes harder (if you stagger the stretches) win win! Speeders just pay an extra 'toll' (because, this is less to do with safety than to do with making money) by calculating the average speed between the toll booths. Go faster? Pay more. Then when someone gets into an accident the records could be pulled. This also has the advantage that if you use it, you pay for it.

Yes, I'm in the USoA. It seems the toll roads are both safer (more barriers, better signage/lighting, and better maintained) and more people seem how to drive, ie, drive faster. The regular cattle pens seem to be less maintained (more road debris/pot holes) and are driven by more idiots.

It'll never work tho.

Hackers pose as senator in email fraud bid

JRallo
FAIL

Why oh why is he using Yahoo..?

Why? Just Why? His broadband provider didn't have anything? Didn't want to use BobDvorsky.com address (which is, btw, available)?

Took 2 seconds to find>

http://www.iowasenatedemocrats.org/dvorsky/contact.htm

I can only guess that someone spent 2 minutes in Google to find his 'security' answers and broke into his account.

Hack? Not really, just people knowing how to Google is my guess.

Microsoft goes AC/DC with Instaload battery tech

JRallo
FAIL

Put some diodes in and bam!

You have a design that takes a battery in any direction.

Fail, because this has been done lots of times before.

Steve Jobs bans all apps from iPhone (or thereabouts)

JRallo
Jobs Horns

No title!

Seems like they're headed down the road MS was on with IE and Windows -- use our tools or forget about being able to run it.

Antitrust incoming? Google hit by EU complaint, FCC filing

JRallo
Flame

Bing?

http://www.bing.com/search?q=map&go=&form=QBLH

Google Maps is number one for Microsoft...

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=map&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-701

Second for yahoo (and yahoo's maps is first)

I have to second petur's comment... and that mapquest has gotten me lost more times than google did for pretty easy searches (state parks, national monuments etc)

Google gives away its services (for the most part.) These people (I read as SEOs) are complaining because their results aren't at the top of the list.

DDoS attack scrooges Amazon and others

JRallo
Alert

Yes, it seems their TTL is very low...

60secs by my digs...

EDS mainframe goes titsup, crashes RBS cheque system

JRallo
Thumb Up

The Reg. Irony...

Free whitepaper – A cost-benefit analysis of the IBM CoD cloud offering.

Its funny how sometimes the irony just shows up at the end of the article.

'Steve Jobs' repeals AT&T iPhone prank

JRallo

How to know when you have a bad network?

When 2K people can bring down the network that supports 80M by simply using up all of the bandwidth they can use.

Server upgrade and disposal plans

JRallo
WTF?

Data loss?

"But at least the lessons about data loss reported so heavily in the media over the past few years, appear to have been learned."

I've been shredding data long before those data losses occurred and I wasn't alone in this practice 'back in the day. I think as sysadmins, we are on the forefront of data protection. Those data losses from my recollection for the most part were done by Joe Six pack who doesn't have a clue about data security.

California votes in HD TV power pruning law

JRallo
Flame

Brightness...

Manu's will just crank down the brightness (back light) to meet these standards, then the end user will just have to turn them back up to see the picture. Since there is no link to the law, and I couldn't find it (I admit, I didn't try hard) there should be a provision that at a certain light output level (white picture) X will be the power usage or better. Just saying reduce watts used is easy...

I have a 53" set, and I can tell you that there is nearly 100W difference between all the way off and all the way on brightness. It does do some auto adjustment based upon picture and ambient lighting (also a must for newer tv's.)

Irate iPhone owner allegedly shows gun to Apple Store worker

JRallo
Joke

Fear and harm... to an Apple employee..??

"Goodrich is charged with aggravated menacing, causing fear of harm to an Apple employee. "

(The linked article had that..)

Wow, show you what kinds of laws are being passed, next with MS stores opening up, we'll have "Person is charged with aggravated menacing, causing fear of harm to an Microsoft employee."

Tho, I may be guilty at one point or another for that.

US Navy boffins put an end to drought

JRallo
WTF?

Nuclear Reactors anyone?

A lot of reactors have to be near a body of water (or use huge cooling towers, but we'll ignore those..) So why not use the by product, of the by product to generate fresh water (already heated water that needs to be cooled)? I know of a couple of instances where the water is pumped from the ocean, run through a heat exchanger, picks up heat and is pumped back out to sea... Why not take the extremely hot steam coming out of the generator to boil some water (thus cooling the generating water) and using that for drinking? Send the higher salinity back out with the other cooling water... Seems like a no brainier to me...

Patent Pending.

Malvertisers slapped by Microsoft lawsuits

JRallo
Flame

So, microsoft profits more...?

Let me get this straight, these people paid MS to host ads for them (I assume like some kind of pay per click) now MS wants to sue them for being naughty, racking up more money...

So, MS gets money for these bad guys to advertise, and now they sue them....

Seems like a good all 'round way to make a profit!!!

Steps:

A) make an OS that comes with the default privs set to full/admin (XP) for users.

B) Sell spots to malware authors with out actually doing a full check of their wares

C) sue them once you find out they are naughty, thus finishing off the 3 level of profit making.

Virgin hijacks empty pages

JRallo
Thumb Up

Click all of the adverts...

But buy nothing!!!!

Will Google regret the mega data center?

JRallo
Flame

Greed

That's all. M$ would have to pay pennies on the dollar.. and they would lose those pennies.

Goes well with this story:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/10/offcie_live_domains_small_biz_charge/

I'll keep my cloud bottled in the closet here.

Microsoft strikes back at Outlook 2010 rendering grumbles

JRallo
Flame

Twit ering themselves...

HTML for email? Why? Plain text for me. Don't need all of those fancy colors, graphics, etc. I use outlook, but I always compose and respond in plain text only.

Che Guevara's granddaughter poses for PETA

JRallo
Flame

I'm outraged!

I'm part of PETFV, those vegetables were savagely removed from the earth, tied together, then put on display for the entire world to see!

Intel to appeal EU fine

JRallo
Pirate

European stimulus package.

Guess Intel is part of the EU's stimulus package. Toss in Microsoft and Europe will dig them selves right out of this recession!

Pirates, 'cause they sail the high seas stealing from the rich and giving to themselves... yarrrr.

Microsoft’s Silverlight 3 delivers decent alternative to Adobe

JRallo
Flame

Probably won't work on 2k...

I bet it won't work on 2k, which adobe's does. Level playing field? not even close!

Granted, 2k is old as dirt, however, using a newer browser (Latest FF) why should this matter?

Make it work on 2k, and maybe my old not so power hungry media pc will work!

Windows 7’s XP Mode — Virtually worth the effort

JRallo
Flame

So.. They are shiping XP with the biz versions...?

I read this to read they ship a complete XP installation, ready to run with windows 7? I could have done this with vista anyway. Or wait, run windows XP on the system I already have and save the license! At least they are trying I guess. Why bother upgrading from XP to 7? From a cost stand point, it doesn't make sense to me.

Mormons demand ICANN plugs net smut hole

JRallo
Thumb Up

New protocol announced!

porn://... :-D

Uses standard HTTP, but turns on 'porn mode' in browsers and uses an alternate port (6969)...

Any takers?

UK gov to fund Virgin mothership micro-sat launcher

JRallo
Thumb Up

Global warming -- more like global dimming!

With all that shinny metal floating around above us reflecting light and heat, global warming will be a thing of the past! Keep up the good work!

Taliban man loves his iPhone

JRallo
Black Helicopters

Goes along nicely...

With the article last week about The Gov wanting to have iPhones snapping 'high rez real time' imagery... Probably JUST BEFORE the missile hits... "Dude, did you see the look on that guy's face?" ... Also makes one wounder if there is a 'kill bit' on the GPS...

Cocaine now cheaper than lager

JRallo
Thumb Up

Tax it...

Tax it... Make it cost £5 per line... Win Win! Pays for rehab, road construction and what not!

Serial troll vents steam through ears

JRallo
Thumb Up

'El Reg should come up with a..

Troll of the Month award. Send the troll off to gitmo for reprogramming. In Mr. Kempf's case, put 1000 thumb drives with hundreds of MDB's on them and watch the fireworks up there in Seattle WA.

Study clears cannabis of schizophrenia rap

JRallo
Joke

@Wasting of police time and resource

That will only free them up to write more speeding tickets. Not to mention the surge in doughnut prices as demand exceeds supply! We need to spare the round fried treat for our children's children. WILL SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

There, it was said ;-)

McCain laptop theft sparks conspiracy theories

JRallo
Paris Hilton

Answers to the tests for...

Also had the answer key for Mrs. Palin. Guess she'll just have to sit there drooling now. The new bar will be placed if she can wipe said drool from her mouth before it drips onto the floor.

@This sensitive data ...

You forget that McCain doesn't use that new fangled technology called electronic mail, or by us youngsters, e-mail.

@Please clarify

Will probably be spun that it was the 'liberals' that stole the laptop. I agree with them, they liberally applied a brick the window until it broke. Shows how smart the republicans are(n't)

PH because she knows how to keep her lap top secure.

ITC to probe Wii patent violation claims

JRallo
Linux

"Hillcrest Laboratories has created the first pointer–based, interactive media system for TV. "

http://www.hillcrestlabs.com/company/index.php

What? They must not recall Web TV. If we go with interactive Media... Tivo? I guess the Tivo doesn't have the mouse pointer part. Now if we ignore everyone that's ever used a computer through their TV's (I have, long before HD came out) with a wireless mouse... Prior art is all there if you look hard enough. I guess I should hit up Hillcrest and ask for my royalty fees.

The penguin because he likes his MythTV.

Web designer sues Brat City for assaulting hyperlink

JRallo
Black Helicopters

@The Fuzzy Wotnot

I agree, $250K is excessive. What we don't see is if the city paid her legal fees, and any fees associated with the inconvenience of their false take down notice. Say the lawyer charged $20K for the return fee, she took off two day's work (another $400) to find, retain, and get legal advice. Add in fine (another $20K) for misuse of power I get about $40,400 for all of this. The city should pay (as it was from the city) and that would be the end of it. Next, everyone involved should be brought up on abuse of power charges and the investigation there brought to whatever conclusion a jury of peers would find. I don't think she's entitled to the full $250K, lawyer fees and fees directly incurred to her from their actions (time off.) This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Obviously the mayor was back in power, and so he tried to get revenge and lost, and its her turn to try and get revenge. I can see why they want a jury trial. Jury's will be more sympathetic to the lowly citizen that Big Bad Government tried to bully around. She'll probably win, at tax payer's expense of course.

Black Helicopter, because Big Bad Government is all around.

Obama: McCain can't email, remembers Rubik's Cubes

JRallo
Thumb Up

@Talbot

Don't forget, she devolved into a pig ;-)

Sequoia attack dogs kill review into e-voting discrepancies

JRallo
Coat

Can't be inspected...

..can't be used. Once everyone has left Democracy, please turn off the light.

Mine is the one with the iron curtain.

FBI agents lured suspects using fake child porn hyperlinks

JRallo
Coat

@Copy and paste

Reminds me of swating. Where you use VoIP to call up the local police and tell them that at address X person Y is holding person Z hostage. Person's Y's home is then duly surrounded by lots of shiny, tazer wielding, bean bag shooting coppers ready to dispense some sweet sweet street justice with said tazer.

Mine is the Faraday cage grounded one.

Ford offers natter-interface car software in Europe

JRallo
Coat

Here in the states...

It's an offering from M$ that powers the voice control....

Tho, will be interesting when a virus infects the Windows Powered Focus and it takes over the world! (Tho, then we could just switch to hydrogen fuel and the Focus would just starve to death.)

Fasthosts customer? Change your password now

JRallo
Jobs Horns

Encryption not the only thing....

Its nice to say that Encryption protects passwords, but that's false. Yes it does make it more difficult for the laymen to look at the data and see the passwords, however, if the encryption formula isn't strong enough, then the password could be spoofed. If someone gained this level of access, then it would be easy for them to see what encryption algorithms are in place and guess passwords. Even with MD5 which is near impossible to reverse engineer a password, all that really needs to be done is feed values into the algorithm then do a simple query on the data (say, SELECT UserName FROM userdb.userstable WHERE Password='MD5Hash';) You'll then get a nice list of user names who share the password... Granted you don't get a massive list of users, but with enough users of a system, overlaps in passwords are bound to happen. Applying a simple salt to the algorithm will help this, but in my experience, this is more rare then actually encrypting the password in the first place...

The real issue here isn't that they had it in plain text or not... But how did an attacker gain such level of access.... Sounds like someone broke into the facility. That's a Physical access issue. Who forgot to lock the door. I bet we'll find there was an iPhone behind all of this.

Florida man faces trial for feeding homeless

JRallo
Coat

I live..

Not to far from this city...

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20070208110119210

Gives the full view of the 'issue' at hand.

I guess I'll have to quit washing my clothes in the urinal using the free soap they give out. Fido will be quite upset he can't be walked in the park on account I may have to take an illegal snooze in the flower bed around mid day.

They even went so far as to set hours Panhandlers could work:

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2007/09/nighttime-panha.html

I was out of a second job over night :-|