CBA’s Netbank platform was never vulnerable to Heartbleed

The suggestion has been doing the rounds, at least at the more paranoid/self-fancying end of the technology spectrum, that the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA)'s Netbank online banking platform might have been vulnerable to the Heartbleed vulnerability. TL/DR: it wasn't. Heartbleed only hit sites that use certain versions of the OpenSSL secure toolkit, with its … Continue reading CBA’s Netbank platform was never vulnerable to Heartbleed

The Facebook decline paper is a disgrace to Princeton’s name

The obvious answer to the question "why won't Facebook decline by 80% by the end of December this year" is "because obviously it won't, what kind of idiot would even claim it would?". It's the leading social network in all age groups, and between July and December 2013 total user numbers only fell by 3%. … Continue reading The Facebook decline paper is a disgrace to Princeton’s name

Content filtering is stupid, but you are stupider

There's been masses and masses of fuss over the last couple of days about the implementation of opt-out content filtering for porn in the UK. As everyone sensible argued in great detail at the time the PM promised it following a Massive Stupid Media Panic, content filtering is pointless: it's easy to bypass, provides a … Continue reading Content filtering is stupid, but you are stupider

What I did on my holiday

Answer: I went to India and spent a great deal of time buggering about with smartphones. And then used that as background material for writing a guide to mobile phone travel in India. The guide isn't quite finished yet, but I've written an article about some of the more bureaucratic bits for Smart Phone Travel. … Continue reading What I did on my holiday

Artificial John B Impersonator

The text below is the output of my phone's AI autocomplete app (SwiftKey), based on its knowledge of the things I say and do. My only interaction was to choose between the three suggestions it offered. I have been made to the park. I am not going anywhere, and I will not receive the item … Continue reading Artificial John B Impersonator

The Boeing Comet is still on sale

The first jetliner was Boeing's square-windowed 707; it was grounded after a few months following tragic incidents which wiped out a fair proportion of elite Americans. The money flowing to De Havilland to create a civilian airliner progamme to promote their non-murderous plane trumped nationalist concerns. Despite the fact that the 707 is a finer … Continue reading The Boeing Comet is still on sale

This little thing? Oh, it doesn’t matter; here you go

Via Tim, I find a very cool article on the Aussies who worked in Melbourne under Bletchley Park's command, breaking the Pacific Axis's codes during WWII [*]. Very cool, and - unlike the (shamefully underfunded, GIVE THEM MONEY) museum at Bletchley, not even remembered at all. Should be. This obviously gets me onto the history … Continue reading This little thing? Oh, it doesn’t matter; here you go

Have Google ever met any foreigners?

The World's Unsurprisingly Fastest-Growing Networking Platform, Google+, is getting stick from various corners for its naming policy. This formally restricts you to "Use your full first and last name in a single language". The idea behind it is sensible. G+ aims to be a combination of a professional network like LinkedIn, and a personal network … Continue reading Have Google ever met any foreigners?

Mac, and back, with knobs on

I believe it's a popular cliche among serious enthusiasts for Mr Jobs's products to say "once you go Mac, you'll never go back". Here's a datapoint to the contrary. I bought a MacBook Air at the end of 2008. At the time, the GBP was at an entertaining 2:1 exchange rate with the dollar. Naturally, … Continue reading Mac, and back, with knobs on

Small company woes

The office manager/PA/secretary at my current workplace is a thoroughly excellent sort, and is absolutely aces at office managing, PA-ing, etc. However, an IT procurement expert she is not - and listening to her on the phone to IT vendors is more than a little painful. The *headdesks* and *facepalms* on the other end of … Continue reading Small company woes