* Posts by blackworx

973 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jun 2008

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Thunderbolt: A new way to hack Macs

blackworx
Pint

Got it in one

>Unless you are implying that you could compromise a device, and wait and hope for someone to come and connect to it?

Pretty much. Only it wouldn't necessarily be a case of waiting and hoping. If you are contemplating an the sort of attack being discussed then chances are you have a specific target machine in mind, meaning you know where it's going to turn up.

But yeah, I was just pointing out that it's not impossible.

WikiLeaks' Assange 'very likely' to lose extradition fight

blackworx

Sigh

Where did I assert anything about impending US charges? I just pointed out it would be ridiculous for them to attempt extradition _as posited by Knowles_

I agree he has no case to answer in the US, so down off the high horse.

You could argue relative truthiness until blue in the face, but two small points I would make to that: 1) any bending of the truth done by wikileaks pales in comparison with that done by governments 2) edited or not, it isn't fabricated.

Manning never had the media circus surrounding him that Assange now has. Afaik, he was taken straight from active service in Iraq to military detention in America. I think it would be difficult to draw any meaningful comparison between him and Assange.

blackworx

Nah

> Martyr? With all the bad press, unwarranted or not...

Yes martyr. Kill or imprison a person for exposing truth (no matter what their motivation) and all the bad press in the world won't swing public opinion against them. Whether it is long-lasting or not, surely US govt can see they would not be doing themselves any favours by hounding him.

If a US extradition request came in and snaked him out from under the Swedish beak (a possibility this Knowles guy is positing) then there's no justice seen to be done in Sweden, just about every conspiracy theory going gets instantly confirmed, and the Assange saga suddenly rockets off in a whole new direction with the world's media chasing it. Best outcome I can see as far as they are concerned is that he gets extradited to Sweden, found guilty of the current grubby charges, is utterly discredited and can then be dealt with quietly a few years down the line one way or another.

Then again as you point out there are always the insurance files.

blackworx
WTF?

Curiouser and curiouser

Seems odd.

Not that Assange might lose the hearing, but that a separate extradition request from the USA might "win the day". Ignoring the posturing from the likes of the cretinous Alaska woman and her chums -- do we really think the septics are so stupid as to create a martyr over this? Whatever they do to Assange, Cryptome, Wikileaks, and any number of the next generation will continue releasing material into a world where govt information leaks are at or near the top of the news agenda thanks to the Julian Assange Martyrdom Show. Doesn't make sense.

Or maybe this Knowles guy knows fuck all about fuck all.

Google opens curtain on 'manual' search penalties

blackworx
Badgers

Sigh

Witty retort

blackworx
Headmaster

Their

The word is "their"

Motorola Defy Android smartphone

blackworx

Just bought one

I like it a lot.

Issues...

Not so much a problem with the 'phone here, but I've had no end of hassle with DLNA on W7, so copying media across has been a total faff. If you're not using the default W7 locations for your media then WMPnetworkSvc fucks up the permissions on your directories and you have to re-establish permissions for yourself to get write access to your own folders.

The built-in DLNA app does NOT like massive directories. When you go into any location it wants to index everything (including subdirectories) so if like me you have tens of thousands of music files under one folder you can pretty much forget about ever getting to see what's in there. Going to start looking for alternatives.

Another problem (which I doubt is exclusive to the Defy) is that, if you copy JPEGs across Android seems to want to ignore filenames and rely on EXIF tag data for presenting them. This is a problem if the tag it chooses (in my case camera make/model) is identical throughout all your files.

blackworx
FAIL

Ahem

Mumsnet is thattaway

blackworx
WTF?

Squaretooth?

Is that a cross between a square wave and a sawtooth? Never heard of it.

Microsoft finally says adios to Autorun

blackworx

Registry?

As I recall I don't think it took registry fiddling or running fixes to turn AR off. You just had to know where to look.

Julian Assange wins peace prize

blackworx
Badgers

Oh, those crazy...

So presumably the person who came up with the idea of awarding this prize is either a credulous fool or feels the Sydney Peace Foundation needs a little bit of shameless self-promotion of its own? I'm sure Assange will be more than happy to help them out either way.

Beeb say sorry for Stephen Fry A-bomb quip

blackworx

Yep

Considering what passes for television comedy in Japan simply doesn't have any concept of satire or irony, then along comes QI with its gentle wit involving - oh look - satire and irony - and you have a recipe for a massive cultural misunderstanding which IMHO makes the Japanese (or at least the particular section of Japanese society who are up in arms about this*) look very silly indeed. Perhaps if Fry et al. had been blacked up it wouldn't have been such an issue.**

* I get the impression that this is just as manufactured as the constant torrent of cringeworthy "what must the rest of the world think of us?" Daily Mail style outcries here in the UK, and that a significant proportion of Japanese folk are intensely embarrassed about this. The ones I know are anyway.

** Yep, folk are still getting blacked up for laughs on Japanese TV.

WikiLeaks accused of tapping P2P for secret docs

blackworx
Boffin

@AC 21:54

"People didn't secure their wi-fi networks. Does this mean that it was legal for Google to slurp data off the networks?"

You're the on ethat's oversimplifying by comparing apples with laser-eyed rabid space monkeys.

Not securing a home wi-fi network is ever so slightly different from running P2P software on a machine containing classified data AND setting it up to share that data (whether inadvertently or not).

blackworx

@Far Canals

To which Wikileaks might respond: but the government would subject us to exposure based on conjecture and hearsay, whereas we just expose stuff they want to keep secret and which we believe people have a right to know.

And, as much as I dislike the whole Juilan Assange Show™, which has been a massive mistake on his part from start to finish, I'd still be inclined to agree with Wikileaks.

Legal it may be, but it doesn't make it right. It's just smear.

Official: music is a brain stimulating drug

blackworx
Pint

Far out man

I got a chill just thinking about musical chills.

That's it, stuff the telly I'm off to get some sounds on.

Facebook equity offer closed to US investors

blackworx
Paris Hilton

So what are the reasons?

I'm not being a smartarse here - I honestly am ignorant of why FB would *need* to go public. Surely not investment cash?

No court order against PlayStation hackers for now

blackworx
Unhappy

PS2

Haven't bought a Sony product since the original PS1.

Their everything-proprietary stance is worse than Apple's in some respects. At least when Apple pick a proprietary standard they stick to it.

I am however now in a bit of a quandary, as I spent years building up a nice collection of Minolta camera gear and some of it is starting to get quite long in the tooth... When my precious Dynax 7D dies, do I keep my stuff and go Sony, or do I ditch it all and join the unwashed hordes with their Canons and Nikons? I have to say both options make me feel slightly grubby.

Ace Reg reporter in career suicide shock

blackworx
Thumb Up

All the best

Hope the rest of the gang can keep up your standard of work. Your database state pieces in particular put the others to shame.

Best wishes!

Assange bailed again

blackworx
Thumb Up

Jemima Khan/Goldsmith

So from this we learn that both she and Assange are great big publicity-seeking cocksuckers, but only one of them is a hypocrite.

Gov gone wild: Mad new pub glasses, bread freedom introduced

blackworx
Thumb Up

Toast

Minimum 1.5" thick, buttered to the point where it's dripping out the other side.

And to think I sometimes wonder why I'm turning such a fat bloater.

Feds raid server farms in bid to root out PayPal DDoS perps

blackworx
Unhappy

Priorities

Good to see where they lie.

Mozilla to unload Firefox 4 spit and polish beta

blackworx
FAIL

UI

I really don't like the address-bar-for-every-tab fashion that all browsers seem to be falling victim to. To me it's illogical and counterintuitive. I blame Google. The barstewards.

BOFH: Who's been naughty and who's been nice?

blackworx
Pint

Voice

After about the third line my head was filled with the voice of John Cooper Clarke doing this.

Nice one!

Google drops nuke on 'objective' search engine utopia

blackworx

So...

If you were able to go back in time to, say 1998, and ask Sergei/Larry the same question (i.e. whether its search results constitute its opinions) I wonder what the answer would have been.

LaCie XtremKey all-terrain USB flash drive

blackworx

Corsair Survivor

Almost identical (arguably better) design for a fraction of the price. Used mine for years. Fairly quick, too.

Electric forcefield space sailing-ship tech gets EU funding

blackworx

What about

Getting back?

Governments stonewall interwebs porn domain

blackworx
Stop

Q: What have .xxx and shit soft porn got in common?

A: People who hate porn hate it and people who love porn hate it.

Top secret payload fired into orbit aboard private rocket

blackworx
Joke

You can tell he's a child of the 70's

Who else would go to those lengths for a fondue party?

blackworx
Thumb Up

Mmmmmm

Space cheese

Mozilla showers Firefox, Thunderbird with updates

blackworx
Unhappy

Thunderbird

Do any of the fixes make Thunderbird into the half-decent email client it used to be?

Copyright troll sues for ownership of Drudge Report domain

blackworx
Joke

ICAAN?

Is that James Caan's private Bulletproof DNS service?

Call of Duty DDoS attack police arrest teen

blackworx
Headmaster

Offences

"offences against the computer misuse act"

Shirley that should be "offences under the computer misuse act"?

Anonymous hackers' Wikileaks 'infowar' LATEST ROUNDUP

blackworx
Pint

Crippling Alcoholism

Wonder how long it'll be before that one comes back to bite you on the arse (or some Graun hack is in need of a hasty ad hom).

Also, you'll need to update your wikipedia page so that said Graun hacks can get at the information without having to make too much of an effort.

Alan Sugar's 'cockup braindead in call centre clueless' BT row

blackworx
Paris Hilton

Giant

Cock

Financial vice tightens on Wikileaks, hacktivistas retaliate

blackworx
Joke

I blame

The snow

blackworx
Thumb Up

Yep

The phrase "This is why we can't have nice things!" has popped into my head more than a few time as this debacle has continued to unfold.

blackworx
Thumb Down

Take aim, shoot own argument in foot

Stalin != honest. He may have been honest about some things, but the thing with honesty, as with silence, is that it is an absolute.

Pity, as I agree with the rest (except the paranoiac final paragraph).

Diary of a Not-spot: One man's heroic struggle for broadband

blackworx
Thumb Up

To quote another bonkers Scot...

Sir, I admire your indefatigability!

On a separate note, unless "Anthony and Yvette" moved to Scotland from one of a few localised areas in the west Midlands or the north east, it's almost certain that their water supply wasn't even being fluoridated.

Firefox: freedom's just another word for 'kerching!'

blackworx
Go

Hmmm

I don't mind installing unverified add-ons. Anyone happen to know the name of this tracker-tackling one that Mozilla supposedly canned?

This year's comedy Xmas No. 1 contender: Silent song 4'33"

blackworx
Thumb Up

Re: I was thinking more...

Upvote, double* upvote and triple* upvote

* Dear pedants, I know.

Horror AVG update ballsup bricks Windows 7

blackworx
Joke

So...

They've accidentally enabled Norton mode?

US politician: 'homosexual agenda' behind TSA groin grope

blackworx
Heart

What a fool I've been

And there was me thinking all along that when a mummy homosexual and a daddy homosexual love each other very much... Oh no, hang on.

blackworx
Coat

Not Millhouse

Thrillhouse!

blackworx
WTF?

"homosexual breeding grounds"

Question: how on earth would homosexuals "breed"?

Toshiba unwraps rubber-clad dual-core netbook

blackworx

rubberised

Pray tell does it have a matt screen too? I can't stand the shinyshiny trend.

Winamp plug-in backdoor wide open to viral penetration

blackworx
Thumb Up

Yep

WinAmp's playlist/library features are miles easier to use than VLC's, whose playlist seems like an afterthought in comparison, certainly in the usability stakes. But then WinAmp's video support is pretty skanky at best thanks to its reliance on DirectShow. I've stopped even thinking about using anything other than VLC for video.

Arcam rCube portable iPod speaker system

blackworx
Pint

Aye

Indeed - I have made a few 'speakers myself in my time and they're all MDF. I read an interesting article recently by a pro designer who does his own DIY projects and made his own MDF/chipboard sandwich material to get the low density/high absorption benefits of chipboard plus the high density/low-resonance benefits of MDF - IIRC it was 12mm chip + 18mm MDF - going to give it a try one of these days.

Another thing too... there's every likelihood that, at the rCube's dimensions, 12mm is just fine. Wouldn't be my choice, but then I have to make allowances for the fact that I don't have even a fraction of the skill undoubtedly possessed by Arcam's designers!

DDoS attack, sex warrant won't stop Assange's leaky discharge

blackworx
Paris Hilton

Palin

She means: 'MERICA, FUCK YEAH! (Except without the fuck, as that word belongs squarely to filthy pinko commie socialist terrorist enemies of freedom like Assange.)

We probe the Google anti-trust probe. Vigorously

blackworx
Thumb Up

Ah, memories...

I'd almost forgotten about that state of affairs. I remember having a text file saved on my desktop that was basically a massive exclude list to use when I needed, you know, "information" and not "cheap deals".

In fact, being a cyberhoarder, I still have it:

googlewithoutreviewshitsites.txt

===

-site:zdnet.com -site:cnet.com -site:wikio.co.uk -site:nytimes.com -site:nytimes.com.com -site:ciao.co.uk -site:twenga.co.uk -site:kelkoo.co.uk -site:reviewcentre.com -site:nextag.co.uk -site:cnet.co.uk -site:amazon.com -site:amazon.co.uk -site:dabs.com -site:bt.com -site:shopwiki.co.uk -site:shoppydoo.com -site:bizrate.co.uk -site:dealtime.co.uk -site:trustedreviews.com -site:dolphinmusic.co.uk -site:ciao.com -site:dooyoo.co.uk -site:comparestoreprices.co.uk -site:onino.co.uk -site:moneysupermarket.com -site:epinions.com -site:idealo.co.uk -site:applemac.biz -site:cnet.com.au -site:pricegrabber.co.uk -site:shopping.bit-tech.net

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