Why is there such a thing as default passwords?

Why in 2016 are people still shipping software and devices with default passwords? The recent IOT/Botnet that broke large chunks of the internet was entirely avoidable if the devices had been shipped without default passwords.

This is perfectly within the capability of a device manufactuer - even British Telecom (who have many many issues) have been shipping their devices with randomized passwords printed on a sticker on the device for years. It’s not hard to do that! With software it’s even easier you just force the user to pick a password and don’t ship them with admin/password or whatever you’ve decided is good enough.

Google Pixel - Initial Review

I ordered a Google Pixel when they were released as I needed a new personal Android phone and generally the Nexus line has been very good, so I thought I’d try the Pixel.

Some initial comments

• It looks nice, it compares well to my (work) iPhone 6 from a looks point of view
• The finger print reader is great, so far much more accurate and quick than my iphone one which seems to be getting slower and slower
• The USB cable ‘port your phone’ thing didn’t work at all with my old Android Phone (A Moto X). Instead I had to do it via the cloud
• It’s really quick - both apps and data seem faster that my old phone. Data is a bit odd as am in same place with same signal, but it does seem faster (good job I have unlimited data)
• The camera is very good (as reported), it won’t be replacing my DSLR for ‘good’ shots, but for quick shots it’s very good.

Overall it looks like a nice phone, I’ll have to use it for a few weeks to see how good it really is!

New Website

I’ve decided to finally move this site off blogger. It wasn’t adding much value so I’ve gone old-skool back to static HTML using Hugo.

The site is using a AMP based template so it should be super quick and responsive.