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  1. Pages go out unencrypted on Japan's Final Pager Provider To End Its Service In 2019 (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    I work in Healthcare, and they still love pagers here. I've been trying to get our security team to push to eliminate them, as they sent out in the clear.

    From this article, following the release of pager records for 9/11.
    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/e...
    Each digital pager is assigned a unique Channel Access Protocol code, or capcode, that tells it to pay attention to what immediately follows. In what amounts to a gentlemen's agreement, no encryption is used, and properly-designed pagers politely ignore what's not addressed to them.

    But an electronic snoop lacking that same sense of etiquette might hook up a sufficiently sophisticated scanner to a Windows computer with lots of disk space -- and record, without much effort, gobs and gobs of over-the-air conversations.

  2. Re:Too much hype... on Your Future Home Might Be Powered By Car Batteries (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    "The potential is so huge." Tesla battery pack voltage potential is around 400 V, dangerous for human life, but not exactly "huge".

    You need to understand the relationship between voltage and current. Nuclear submarines use a 250 V battery pack as an emergency power source. That is capable of powering an emergency motor to move the boat, keeping the lights and critical systems on, and restarting the reactor in an emergency. Compared to your car and typical house, I would consider it quite "huge".

  3. Saw this happen IRL once with a safe-cracker on In a Remarkable Turn of Events, Hackers -- Not Users -- Lost Money in Attempted Cryptocurrency Exchange Heist (bleepingcomputer.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I had a job installing security systems many years ago. There was a grocery store in a slightly isolated area, it had an alarm hooked up with an outside siren and connected to the phone line. It was the 1980s, there were no cellular backups. The would be safe cracker pulled the outside siren off the wall with his vehicle and cut all of the phone lines, then he broke in and started working on the safe ignoring the inside siren. He had about $1000 worth of power tools in to the back office and started to drill the safe. He didn't count on the baker coming in early to get a start on the day. When the baker showed up, the robber bugged out the back door. He left behind all of his nice tools. He did cause the business some hardship, they couldn't access the contents of the safe for about 3 days until the locksmith could replace the parts he had ruined. Insurance paid to fix his safe and alarm system, after that they had their phone lines buried so they couldn't be cut as easily.

  4. Re:Troubleshooting skills on Why Military Personnel Make the Best IT Pros · · Score: 1

    I was wondering when any former nukes would respond. I was a submarine nuke electrician. In the nuke world they can drop a dump truck full of knowledge on you quickly and most nukes can retain and use it. Also, the troubleshooting that I learned and used has really helped me. I use a loose version of the six step troubleshooting procedure I learned in "A" school when I approach a broken system.

  5. Luckily we got a Cobalt 60 half life on Elevated Radiation Claimed At Tokyo 2020 Olympic Venues · · Score: 2

    If I remember by Navy nuclear training correctly, the half life of Cobalt 60 is 5.27 years and it is one of the largest sources of radiation from fission decay products. It's a half off sale, take those measurements and lower them by 50% folks!

  6. Bleachbit can't be responsible for ghacks.net on Piriform Asks BleachBit To Remove Winapp2.ini Importer · · Score: 1

    So it looks like the problem that Piriform has stems from a Ghacks.net article that details how to export information from CCLeaner and import it to Bleachbit. It violates ccleaner's TOS. That's great and all, but Bleachbit never agreed to the ccleaner TOS. Maybe Piriform can go after ghacks, but I don't see how exporting your CCleaner into the winapp2.ini format (which Piriform does not control) and importing that winapp2.ini to Bleachbit is Bleachbit's problem. That would be like someone writing an article about how to export an Excel spreadsheet to CSV and then using it in LibreOffice Calc. Then Microsoft going after LibreOffice.

  7. Check in a gun on Ask Slashdot: Anti-Theft Devices For Luggage? · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Having a gun, any gun, even a starter pistol, subjects your luggage to tighter security. For instance, when I checked a rifle for a hunting trip, the TSA walked me back to a room, made sure the rifle was unloaded and watched me lock the case. Then they handed me a receipt. They pay extra attention to that piece of luggage. When my plane landed, someone escorted my locked case out to me, matched the tag on the on the case with my receipt, checked my ID and gave me my case. There is no way they would have lost that piece of luggage. I bet if my case had been lost or stolen, there would have been a lockdown and search. Lifehacker detailed that same thing, I guess professional photographers pick up a $20 starter pistol just for this purpose. http://lifehacker.com/5448014/pack-a-gun-to-protect-valuables-from-airline-theft-or-loss

  8. Then there would be less girls on Cheap, Portable Ultrasound Could a Be Lifesaver . · · Score: 2

    In third world countries, where they need the boys to work the fields, they would abort a girl at the first chance. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9103831/In-the-third-world-unwanted-baby-girls-disappear.-Its-called-gendercide.-And-its-happening-in-this-country-too.html

  9. Re:I could see it on IT Positions Some of the Toughest Jobs To Fill In US · · Score: 1

    I learned the six step troubleshooting process back in Navy Electrician "A" School. Once you make it a habit to employ these steps you can apply these principles to help solve any technical problem. http://electriciantraining.tpub.com/14191/css/14191_144.htm http://electriciantraining.tpub.com/14191/css/14191_145.htm

  10. Really bad if the battery catches fire on Fire May Leave US Nuclear Sub Damaged Beyond Repair · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is a 250 volt battery with a huge amount of potential energy. You have basically a medium size bedroom full of batteries that are 6 feet tall.

    The battery can keep the lights running for about 1.5 hours while also supplying power to move it through the water and power the reactor plant to do a restart.

    We calculated one time that if all the energy in the battery was released at once (not possible, we knew that), it would blow the sub 1.5 miles into the air.

  11. Re:Still not practical on Auto Makers Announce Electric Car Charging Standard · · Score: 1

    What about a main battery and a smaller higher voltage battery to top off the main battery? Kind of like the small USB pack that I carry when I travel to allow my Android phone to make it an entire day.
    Load a 40 pound loaner battery into the trunk and maybe make it an extra 60 miles.

  12. Re:About time on Antivirus Pioneer John McAfee Arrested In Belize · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I was thinking the same thing. The U.S. should have him extradited. Maybe charge him for theft for all the computer resources his products have taken.

  13. Dunder Miflin'ish on PayPal Unveils Mobile Payment System · · Score: 2

    Does this remind anyone of the episode of "The Office" where Dunder Miflin introduces a triangle shaped phone?

  14. One low tech easy way to break this on Toy Robots Can Guard Your Home · · Score: 1

    That will work great, until someone cuts the phone and cable lines to your house and your modem goes dead.

    When I used to work on security systems we would bring along a shovel for installs. We would bury the phone line and move the phone box inside to the basement. Made it inconvenient for the home owners if they needed changes to their service (they would have to be home to let the phone guy in), but gave them a heck of a lot more security.

    For my own place I put up a dummy box with some wires running into it. If they cut the wire it set off the alarm.

  15. Flash forces McAfee on you on Adobe To Push Emergency Fix For Flash Bug · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Flash updater annoyed me the last time I ran it. The last update I applied snuck some Mcafee software on to my machine.

    The flash updater now has the checkbox checked by default for mcafee security scan plus, and they moved the checkbox so you don't notice it when you are glancing at the installer.

  16. Would the credit card companies go for it? on Credit Cards That Think They Are Gadgets · · Score: 1

    Would some of the credit card companies go for something like this? I would guess they like having a piece of plastic in your wallet that you might look at on a fairly constant basis. Free advertising and a reminder to charge more on card XYZ.

    I once read that is the reason that credit cards have a 2 or 3 year expiration date. They could last longer and they know they could save money shipping and producing, but the card refresh is a chance to get the card in front of you again in the hopes that you will use it more.

  17. Vista's superfetch was pretty bad on Ars Analysis Calls Windows 7 Memory Usage Claims "Scaremongering" · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Most gamers had to turn off superfetch in Vista, it did not do a good job releasing memory from the cache when a game needed it.

  18. Extreme ghetto rig on Home Generators (or How DTE Energy Ruined My Holidays) · · Score: 1

    This is fairly unsafe...but it will work in a pinch.

    This was suggested by an electrician to keep the house from freezing about 5 Christmases ago.

    Turned off all of the breakers and the main...it would be bad to fry the lineman.

    Picked up a 5500 watt generator, put it under the outside porch roof. Got heavy gauge wire, got the one end plugged into the 220v output of the generator. (Here is where it gets dangerous) got a male electric dryer plug and hooked it to the other end of the cable. Plugged that end into the dryer outlet. Tie-wrapped the heck out of this plug to the wall box.

    Fired up the generator and turned on a few breakers to the furnace and water pump and a few outlets.

    Yes, I know it would be bad if the main were turned on, yes I know it would be bad if it came unplugged and the male plug were exposed. This was only in a pinch and two weeks later got the same electrician back to hook up a break out box and do it the right way.

  19. Military use of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot on WTF? NC Offers to Replace 10,000 License Plates · · Score: 1

    When I was in the Navy we were using this term well before the Internet. Over bad communication lines, it was used as Whiskey, Tango Foxtrot, over.
    BOHICA and FUBAR has been around forever to.
    Here's some more good military acronyms:
    http://timesonline.typepad.com/inside_iraq_weblog/2008/06/whiskey-tango-f.html

    I like POO from that list...well not literally. Point Of Origin.

  20. Sumatra Re:What About Foxit? on Adobe Confirms Unpatched PDF Backdoor · · Score: 1

    Sumatra is even "lighter-weight" (is that a word?) than Foxit. 1MB - also runs portably

    My first attempt at using FoxIt wouldn't even open a PDF (open - not print), because apparently they didn't support my default printer.

  21. Re:Volume of patches won't get better on Time to End Microsoft's Patch Tuesday? · · Score: 1

    We have found the you should not acknowledge any svchost errors, just move the error message aside. Run 927891 again. Shut down. When it comes back up run sfc.exe /scannow. Reboot and then you should be able to run MS update.

  22. How about a standard security system? on How to Protect a Home When Away in Winter? · · Score: 1

    Get a monitored security system. I have one (my dad owns an alarm company and I worked for him for a few years).

    My system has a sensor that calls the monitoring center if the temp goes below 40 degrees. There is also a water sensor in the basement...again calls the monitoring center.

    Also wouldn't hurt to have a monitored smoke detector or two.

    The security system part is nice too, since the place would be unoccupied.

    Make sure they relocate the phone cable. They can bury the wire and put the box where the phone comes in into the basement. It can be done, a good alarm company will do this. This will protect against someone cutting the wire.

  23. Re:Already exists... on MPAA Kills California Anti-Pretexting Bill · · Score: 1

    Have you checked out the Prometheus Institute

    I'm not quite sure where they are going with it, but they seem to be a moderate libertarian organization

  24. Science damn it! on Scott Adams Suggests Bill Gates For President · · Score: 1

    Science damn it, why him?

  25. Surprised it wasn't the British on Canadian Scientists Regrow Teeth · · Score: 1

    I really surprised it was the Canadians and not the British who discovered this.