* Posts by LittleTyke

30 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Oct 2007

UK finds itself almost alone with centralized virus contact-tracing app that probably won't work well, asks for your location, may be illegal

LittleTyke

Re: Government, privacy and the NHS app

"corona junk" like the Nightingale Hospitals, for instance. They were built at massive cost and are now practically redundant already, having received very few patients. Oh, well. The taxpayer is going to need really deep pockets to pay for all this.

LittleTyke

Re: Of course, being centrally controlled

This morning Matt Hancock on Sky News was scathing about critical articles like this one on the NHS app, although he did not specifically cite The Register by name. He basically refuted the charges and said, in terms, that such critical articles were wrong and authors/publishers should first apprise themselves of the facts before putting pen to paper. I note that the article has in fact been "updated" I.E. corrected today on a couple of points. So now I don't know _who_ to believe. I'd like to believe the (updated) article, but I have to say that Hancock was pretty succinct in his denunciation of criticism against the app.

WannaCrypt: Pwnage is a fact of life but cleanup could and should be way easier

LittleTyke

Re: This will happen again.

Is this where we are urged to use Linux instead of Windows? Of course, Linux systems ~never~ get hacked, do they? What about an Apple Mac, perhaps? My nephew just forked out 2,000 euros for a new Mac laptop. Way ta go! Much more secure than cheap old Windows! Let's all buy Macs. They're like raincoats... Completely virus-proof.

LittleTyke

I made the suggestion in a newsgroup recently to consider a derivative of QuickPAR to restore encrypted files after a ransomware attack. For those who don't know, QuickPAR is an amazing program that corrects download errors. It uses parity files. Why can't software engineers not create a kind of "QuickPAR" that will restore all the files on a drive? Obviously you'd keep the parity files needed for recovery on separate media that is never placed online.

BA's 'global IT system failure' was due to 'power surge'

LittleTyke

Re: "And it is grossly inefficient. Right up to the point when you need it."

"Never using them again" -- Well, I'm already considering alternative airlines to Hamburg: EasyJet flies from Luton, and Lufthansa from Heathrow. I'm going to compare fares next time before deciding. Now Ryanair, though. I wouldn't fly with them if you paid me.

UK's new Snoopers' Charter just passed an encryption backdoor law by the backdoor

LittleTyke

Re: Dad (@Charles 9)

Get a copy of Ray Mears' Survival books, then become a hermit in the wilds of Canada. That country is so vast, you'll never be bothered by the authorities. Probably plenty of freshwater fish to catch and eat.

What is happening now is beyond, way beyond, the Nazis' wildest dreams of world domination. And we're just letting it happen.

LittleTyke

The Investigatory Powers Bill recalls the The Locomotive Act 1865, which stipulated that a man with a red flag must proceed before a "locomotive" on the public highway. The government of today is going totally over the top as well. This new Bill will turn out to be as unworkable, too.

NOxious VW emissions scandal: Car maker warned of cheatware YEARS AGO – reports

LittleTyke

Re: Today VW ...

Not just auto manufacturers, but *all* manufacturers should have a eye cast over them. A couple of years ago we had the horsemeat scandal. Does anyone really know what the situation is today with regard to what's in the processed food we eat every day? One minute the newspapers are all over the campylobacter in chickens story, next minute the story is no longer current as the papers move on to other shock, horror revelations.

Another example: My sister-in-law was badly injured when a party dress she was wearing caught fire and went up like a Roman candle. Apparently there were strips of magnesium in the fabric to make it glitter. That was four years ago, and then recently we heard about the young daughter of a TV presenter suffering the same kind of thing. Did anyone think of banning such fabrics?

My assumption is that MOST manufacturers spend every waking moment trying to invent new ways to part us from our money, and I also assume that they will be not too bothered if what they do is skating on thin ice legally.

Don't want to upgrade to Windows 10? You'll download it WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT

LittleTyke

How can I tell whether my Windows 7 drive has received these unwanted files from Microsoft? I removed the "Get Windows 10" widget a few weeks back, but maybe they'd been downloaded already.

TrueCrypt hooked to life support in Switzerland: 'It must not die' say pair

LittleTyke

New name for TrueCrypt?

If the only stumbling block is the name, well, what's in a name? There are loads of names. As long as people know, nod nod, wink wink, that the revived product was once TrueCrypt, who cares? You could call it Daisy, or Son of TC, or NSA (Non-crackable Security Aid). There are many more possibles.

TrueCrypt turmoil latest: Bruce Schneier reveals what he'll use instead

LittleTyke

Why Do Capitals make Particularly Close Surveillance sound Very Important?

NSA using Firefox flaw to snoop on Tor users

LittleTyke

Re: Dreddful situation

When you have the Director of National Intelligence lying to Congress and finally admitting that he did so, there is now such an unbalance between the forces of good and evil that it is practically impossible to tell who the good guys are any more. Of course, the authorities will, as you imply, always claim they are fighting against terrorism, but is Snowden a terrorist for lifting the stone covering those lies? What about Assange and others who blew several whistles? Since the government gets ALL its wherewithal to do its business spying on us from the taxpayers -- that's us -- shouldn't we be allowed to know exactly what laws the authorities bend or even break occasionally, so that we are also allowed to break them with impunity?

Or do you believe that we should *never* break *any* laws? Okay for the government to do it, but not us?

BT gets 14 days to block Newzbin2

LittleTyke

Would the people with the big stick frown on an NZB parser?

You see, I've been following this saga with Newzbin because some while ago I developed a Visual Basic 6 application for parsing the contents of an NZB file and after several updates it works pretty well. Now if I were to provide this as freeware, would I get a bunch of fives through my letter box, so to speak? Just wondering like...

German states defend use of 'Federal Trojan'

LittleTyke

Take an image with you!

If travellers are concerned, simply wait till you're past the barrier, then restore your hard drive from an Acronis True Image. Doddle.

Aussie ALDI withdraws infected greybox offering

LittleTyke

Aldi is fine for most goods though

I buy loads of food and cleaning products from Aldi, but I wouldn't touch the expensive electronic gear. I did buy the radio-controlled digital clock a couple of years ago, but it was only £4.99, so no worries if it went wrong. It's actually still working! Hard drives I buy only from Amazon or Misco.

BT on site-blocking: Every case will need a court order

LittleTyke

How can people obtain old movies other than from Usenet?

While ripping off the studios is wrong, and I can rent a recent DVD from my local library for £1 for a whole week, one thing that Usenet provides is access to many thousands of old movies, documentaries, and radio and TV shows that are simply not available to buy anywhere. There is a billion dollar business out there waiting to happen for some keen entrepreneur. I'd do it, except I'm too old now to cope with the stress.

NotW 'targeted' phone of Sarah Payne's mum

LittleTyke

In NotW 'targeted' phone of Sarah Payne's mum

Were some deleted to make way for new ones.....

PC mountain accumulates in Blighty

LittleTyke

Build your own

It's what I've done. Take your existing computer case, buy a motherboard, RAM and a CPU and that's pretty much it. Most users have a hard drive spare, and if not they're as cheap as chips. Same goes for a DVD writer. Fifteen quid last time I checked. Anyone who purports to be capable of driving a motor vehicle ought to be able to build a PC. It's not rocket science! Everything fits together like Lego.

Microsoft Visual Studio to end dev and ops 'ping pong'

LittleTyke

Visual Basic 6 is the only product worth bothering with

Microsoft killed the best, most widely used programming system, Visual Basic 6. They then tried to sell their awful .Net replacement for years, but this is just a niche product now. Funny, though, that MS still provides the Visual Basic 6 runtime on its latest operating systems! This could be because of the literally hundreds of thousands of Visual Basic 6 applications out there and being used on a daily basis.

Operation Ore was based on flawed evidence from the start

LittleTyke

Video

Still great fun, though.

UK gov vets the vetting process

LittleTyke

Eggy soldiers?

If it's NuLabour we're talking about, more like eggy Volkspolizisten, who were a rung down from the Stasi.

Massive net surveillance programme on schedule

LittleTyke

Tor is s-l-o-w

I tried Tor briefly on a test basis. It worked, but was incredibly slow. Practically unusable.

Rights commission slams police DNA database advice

LittleTyke

Levey heavy fines on the police for every innocent retention

Make every Chief Constable pay a fine of £1,000 for every innocent person on the DNA database after a certain date, then watch the retention figures plummet. Where the government and the police are right now is similar to Microsoft's stance on anti-trust legislation - until it came up against the EU anti-trust people who refused to be stymied. We need someone in control in the UK to quote the ECHR's findings at the government and the police and make them culpable for keeping DNA one moment longer than necessary.

Met shops self to IPCC over terror toddlers

LittleTyke

Gestapo, Stasi or New Labour's police force?

What is the difference between the plain-clothes officer stopping this man and children and how it was done in true totalitarian states? It is a difference only of degree. The slippery slope we are now on to a fully blown police state gets steeper and steeper - we are sliding down it and cannot, apparently, help ourselves. We even still have people saying "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear". Finally, hopefully, voters are waking up and will throw out the New Labour authoritarians at the next opportunity. Thereafter, David Cameron has promised root and branch reform of the British police and this is well overdue, as too much power has gone to their heads, as suggested by a leading barrister yesterday.

'Non-compulsory' ID cards poised for a makeover?

LittleTyke

The Tories have pledged to scrap the NIR

On this morning's Today programme David Cameron in an interview with John Humphrys used the following words: "The National Identity Register needs to go." That was an unequivocal statement. No ifs or buts about "scrapping the IC card". No, if the Tories intend to scrap the NIR, then the whole caboodle is done for.

Germans send teen tearaway to Siberia

LittleTyke

Gott im Himmel!

Gott im Himmel! Diese Dschoermanns! Colditz in Siberien ist gut! Ist klasse! In England, ja?

Nein, danke!

Home Sec in anti-terror plan to control entire web

LittleTyke

Why not use a bulletin board?

I can remember using BBS's in the days before the internet. Our company ran a Wildcat! BBS to take calls from support engneers. So what's to stop determined terrorists from firing up the old modem and ZMODEM? I wonder whether Five Bellies even knows what a modem actually is?

UK gov: Feds will get BAE bribe files when hell freezes over

LittleTyke

BAE

Why doesn't the State Department just get someone to show Brown the photos?

More gnashing of teeth after Microsoft update brings PCs to a standstill

LittleTyke

Use Windows 98SE!

I really have no time for those who shunned older OS's for years and continue to suck at the MS teat for continual upgrades. Be like me, reinstate Windows 98SE and never let MS bother you again!

Cops and Home Office plot uber-CCTV network

LittleTyke

A New Proposal for Governing Britain

Might I suggest that readers do a Google for "A New Proposal for Governing Britain", which makes for very interesting reading. But this is hghly confidential, so DON'T TELL ANYONE!!