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Comment An exercise in suspending disbelief.. (Score 2) 187

To enjoy the film, which I did, I had to actively ignore anything that was said in relational to IT. Something that I find hard to do.

The concept behind the plot, while at the most extreme of technical possibility, was a valid idea to explore in a piece of fiction. The Iranians would likely have never detected stuxnet if its 'herders' had kept a better control on its spreading. Imagine something like that in a western government (as the victim). No, what annoyed me most is that they didn't even bother. Simply swapping some of the IT buzzwords in the script for ones that actually meant something in the given context, would have greatly improved its palatability. However that would mean employing someone with real IT knowledge on the writing team. Such a person might have gone insane or have made the script 'boring' with too much attention to accuracy, who knows.

One theory I had when leaving the film, was that maybe the makers didn't want to give the general public any ideas or tips in how someone would go about achieving any of the anarchy portrayed in the film. The more misinformed about computer 'hacking' the safer we'll all be...

Comment Missunderstanding the issues (Score 5, Informative) 455

The two main complaints I see discussed here appear to derive from some fundamental misunderstandings about what Wayland is.

Wayland is a Protocol and an optional helper library to implementing that protocol. This protocol says nothing about net work transparency, in both the sense of enabling or prohibiting it. It also says nothing about client decorations. The key points here is not to make a decision for or against any particular technology or methodology and then be stuck with that decision for the next 20 years, like we are with X.

How or if, either of these work is all down to the compositor. The reference compositor 'Weston' does not do network transparency and leaves window decoration to the client or its toolkit. However none of the big desktops, i.e end users, will be using this compositor. For example KDE will continue to use Kwin as their wayland compositor, and KDE have already clearly said that Kwin will be decorating their windows and not the clients!

As to network transparency, all windows are drawn to their own back buffers, and where these buffers will be eventually displayed is also the choice of the compositor, and it might well just decided to send them over a network connection. e.g. like what VNC does.

I think if you base your opinion on what other people say, including me, then maybe you shouldn't comment? All of this is discussed first hand on the Wayland web site and/or mailing list.

Unfortunately since I've posted a bit late, I doubt many will read this...

Comment False sense of security? (Score 1) 454

Most people use the standard 4 digit pin, this pin unlocks the keys to the encrypted FS.

With physical access to the phone, one can brute force a 4 digit numeric pin in about 20mins. The brute force has to be done on the phone itself, because you can't access the keys directly, but rather the API of the crypto chip. So you boot your brute force boot image via DFU mode. This of course bypasses any wipe on X failed attempts settings that might have been set in iOS.

Alphanumeric PINs are a PITA, so I'd suggest using a 7 or more digit numeric PIN. This is done by turning off simple passcode and then entering a passcode with only numbers (dispite the full keyboard). When asked for the passcode again to unlock the iPhone will give the normal numbers keypad. (Telling a hacker that your pins only uses numbers, but also make your life much easier).

Comment Pre-judged? (Score 1) 60

"In the final stage, 'all remaining issues will be tried, including damages and willfulness.'"

Wouldn't using the word 'wilfulness' suggest he already thinks Google did something wrong?
You or I may or may not think that, but a judge should try to remain neutral. Maybe a 'if needed be' or some such context was cut out of the quote.

Comment Re:Pooling Opinions... (Score 2) 189

Well one interesting configuration is to use untrustable notaries (or notaries using untrustable sources), such PRC, DHS, FSB, etc. If any one is trying to trick you with a fake certificate for a MITM attacks, the others are not likely to agree that the certificate is genuine. Unless you believe such state powers would co-operate on getting at your encrypted sessions.

Submission + - Marlinspike's solution to the SSL CA problem (convergence.io)

Trevelyan writes: In his Blackhat talk on the past and future of SSL (you can find the video and slide if you really try, or just buy them from BH) Moxie Marlinspike explains the problems of SSL today, and the history of how it came to be so. He then goes on to not only propose a soution, but he's implemented it as well: Convergence, it'll let you turn off all those untrustable CAs in you browser and still safely use HTTPS. It even works with self-signed certificates. You still need to trust someone, but not forever like CAs. The system has 'Notaries', which you can ask anonymously for their view on a certificates authenticity. You can pool Notaries for a consensus, and add/remove them at any time.

Comment Thunderbolt == Docking port (Score 1) 207

Apple hasn't marketed as such, as least not in this neck of the woods, but Thunderbolt is clearly a Docking port. The first one ever on a MacBook!! (That I know of)

Take a look at their new Thunderbolt display. With one cable connection, your MacBook gets network, sound, firewire, USB and power(!), all via your external Display. No need to attach a second cable.

Considering that Thunderbolt already is a DisplayPort connection, I don't see the benefit of connection a second graphics card over the PCI-e connection. Some says to have a more powerfull card, over 4x PCIs 2.0?, for games. However lots of suppliers have hard PCexpress (also on MacBooks) GFX cards, but none work with Macs because Apple wont play fair with regards to GFX drivers in OS X.

In the end, to be honest, I find it far more exciting that I can finally replace the 8 cables that I have to plug into my MacBook with just one.

Comment Re:Initial unlocked numbers a bit surprising (Score 1) 274

A lot of European countries have Laws that say the phone must be unlocked after the initial contract is finished.

My GF had a very old little Nokia feature phone, which she recently decided she wanted to give to her parents. The operator had to send it off and post it back to her, because its one of those Nokias that have no unlock code. However to her it was all free, regardless of her being a customer or not!

AFAIK in Italy your not allowed to sell locked phones. A lot of the unlocked iPhones in the EU come from Italy.

Comment Re:Summary is false (Score 1) 380

I have IPv6 through my WRT610N too. However I'm not sure if that is a feature from cisco, or a by-product of the linux kernel used in the official firmware.

One thing of note is the complete lack of IPv6 options in the user interface. Also as far as I can tell the various services in the router do not support IPv6 either (can you access the web interface via IPv6?).

I do have serial access, but I have check to see if netfilters is configured for ipv6. My guess is no, so your/my IPv6 access is unfiltered/unprotected.

So I am left with my original thought, it's not an intended nor a supported feature. Just an accident due to the linux kernel.

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