* Posts by Eponymous Cowherd

1596 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Nov 2007

Virgin warns 800 punters for file-sharing

Eponymous Cowherd
Stop

@ Mark

***"Why should it matter to you if Phorm changes advertising on pages you download? You didn't visit that page purely to see the ads!"***

That is a misconception. Phorm do not replace ads, they place ads in Phorm partner websites based on the profile they have built of your browsing habits. The problem is they build up that profile by spying on you *and* the non Phorm partner websites you visit.

And lets not forget that the Phorm DPI technology can just as easily be used to track your web habits for purposes *other* than advertising. I imagine you won't mind Virgin and Phorm assisting the BPI if it keeps your ISP costs down.

Eponymous Cowherd
Dead Vulture

Shooting their feet off.

I know at least two VM customers who have swapped to Sky because of Phorm. Threatening their customers as well isn't going to improve matters.

A dead vulture, because there isn't a dead virgin icon (I don't think Paris qualifies on either requirement)

Alan Sugar leaves Amstrad

Eponymous Cowherd
Thumb Down

Re:Total Tat

Actually the CPC 6128 was rather good. Built in floppy drive and bundled monitor, 128k memory, ran CP/M, too.

The eMailer, however, was a bit fat lead balloon. Got one in the loft that someone gave me for Xmas. Couldn't even be arsed to open the box.

Amstrad sold the things *way* below their actual value, hoping that enough mugs would sign up to their extortionate, premium rate, "AmServe" service for them to turn a profit.

Unfortunately for Amstrad, not enough people were *that* stupid.

Yes! It's the Star Wars Nintendo DS stylus!

Eponymous Cowherd
Coat

Re:PS3

***"Those small lightsabers won't fit me."***

They will if you bend over......

Virgin Media ads throttled by peak time bandwidth squeeze

Eponymous Cowherd
Thumb Down

Pot & Kettle

I see, so BT can get away with its "up to 8MB" service delivering 200KBps at peak times (in my case) because they didn't make any explicit claims.

Anyway, both BT and Virgin are shitty Phorm pushers. Moved away from BT and now get a consistent 10MBps from what is supposed to be an 8MB WiMax service.

A broadband provider delivering speeds *higher* than advertised? How novel!

BBC begins fresh Freeview HD TV trial

Eponymous Cowherd
Unhappy

For feck's sake.....

Retailers are *still* flogging off obsolete analogue kit. Now we are told that if you go out and buy a spanking new integrated digital TV right now that, too, will be partially obsolete in 2009.

Look, HD. Very pretty and all that, but shite TV is still shite TV whether its in SD, HD or 3D. There are very few programmes that actually *benefit* from HD. Feature films some documentaries and some sport are about it. All of the crap that fills up 99% of the schedules (soaps, "reality" TV, talent(less) contests, quiz shows, cookery and 'lifestyle' shows) won't benefit one iota from being on HD.

Available to buy: your own frakkin' 7ft Cylon

Eponymous Cowherd
Dead Vulture

@ Mycho

***"This vulture has been pecked to death by cats."***

That's nothing. This one was torn to bits by a Radeligian cateagle.

Eponymous Cowherd
Thumb Down

@ the AC having a poke at Ian Ferguson

***"That's what good sci-fi does, though - uses it's fantasy setting to give a different perspective to real-world issues (ie. how do you fight an enemy that looks just like you)."***

Nooo, that's what lazy writers do. They take real world events and change the names and locations. It saves having to think up a decent story yourself. And that fully sums up BSG.

Good sci-fi writers create entire worlds, physics, biology, belief systems and political systems from scratch and then mould a compelling and original story around that.

Eponymous Cowherd

Re:Best SF since B5?

Well, they resurrected the Doctor, so maybe.....

The big question is, who to play Servalan?

As to BSG. Pah! A political soap opera in space. More sci-fi in Bob the Builder.

Think tank slams paedophile paranoia culture

Eponymous Cowherd
Thumb Down

@ Mark

***"Well, imagine what would happen. If the Bricklayer is seen picking the child up, he's abducting the child."***

Well, Mark, you don't *have* to be *that* stupid, do you?

I would have thought it was blindingly obvious that you don't take the child to the "cop shop", but call the Police and ask them to come to you. Believe me, if you tell them you are with a distressed / injured / small child they will be there PDQ.

Eponymous Cowherd
Thumb Down

@ Cameron Colley

***"I know I'd not help a distressed child if I saw one -- I don't want to live in a hostel, unemployable and in fear, because someone else can't look after their child."***

Well, Cameron. I certainly *would* go to the aid of a distressed child. The, frankly tiny, risk of being 'had up' as a pervert pales into insignificance compared to how I would feel if I did nothing and the child came to harm. Or how I would feel if it was my child and nobody stopped to help.

Sometimes you *have* to do the 'right thing', regardless.

Eponymous Cowherd

Re:If it saves just one child's life...

Unfortunately it has resulted in one child's death.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/coventry_warwickshire/4837614.stm

***"During the three-day hearing at Stratford-upon-Avon Town Hall, the court heard how a bricklayer had passed a toddler, believed to be Abigail, walking alone near the nursery.

But he did not stop to help in case he was suspected of abducting her. "***

Personally I believe putting his own 'safety' before that of a child is rather reprehensible, but it *does* illustrate the way the current pervophobia is making some people think.

Knight Rider satnav spied in the wild

Eponymous Cowherd
Thumb Up

Excellent device!

Excellent.

Going to buy one. Not to use myself, you understand, but for all of the annoying people who know I've got a satnav and keep asking to borrow it.

Eco-activist gets tougher with gadget makers

Eponymous Cowherd
Thumb Down

Re:shoot the messenger

Err, no.

Nintendo told Greenpeace to fuck off, so the Greenpeace threw their toys out of the pram gave them a low rating out of pique.

The *correct*, and mature, response by Greenpeace should have been to give Nintendo an "unknown" rating and lambaste them for not supplying data. Instead they act like spoiled teenagers and crudely try to portray Nintendo as eco-criminals.

Eponymous Cowherd
Thumb Down

Greenpeace?

Does anyone take them seriously any more.

No?

Didn't think so.

Xbox 360 owners tougher than PS3 fans - survey

Eponymous Cowherd
Joke

What about

The number of times PS3 and XB0x 360 owners masturbate per day.

Then we would know, for sure, which are the biggest wankers.

BT and Siemens slammed over prisoner call rates

Eponymous Cowherd
Flame

Re:HMMM

***"i know i will get loads of daily hail readers moaning that all crims should be exterminated or locked in coffins and buried etc. but there are a lot od ok people inside who just made the odd mistake."***

No there aren't. You don't get banged up for making 'the odd mistake'. You either have to commit a *serious* crime or be a repeat offender who has used up his 40 or so last chances.

Eponymous Cowherd
Stop

Re:hmmm 2

***"having 20 pills on me got me 18months in a class A jail "***

Not telling the whole story here, are we?

Eponymous Cowherd
Flame

Get to the back of the queue

The PRT can get to the back of the queue.

Ofcom needs to sort out the problem of ISP customers being spied on by Phorm, text spamming, premium rate scams, and hospital patients being ripped off by Patientline *before* they worry about convicted criminals getting a dose of their own medicine.

In other words, they should deal with the crooks ripping off law abiding citizens *before* worrying about the crooks being ripped off themselves.

CERN declares Large Hadron Collider perfectly safe

Eponymous Cowherd
Coat

And 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Engage.

There, perfectly s........

Microsoft fights gaming Trojan menace

Eponymous Cowherd

Geriatric slugs

***"Matt McCormack, a security researcher at Microsoft and gamer, posits the theory that part of the reason for the high incidents of infection might be that gamers avoid running anti-virus software out of concerns it might impair the performance of their machines."***

What?

"Might impair the performance...."

I have yet to see a PC with AV installed that *doesn't" perform like a geriatric slug. Whenever someone complains about their PC being slow I have found that uninstalling AV is the action that results in the single biggest speed boost, way ahead of installing more memory, defragging the HD or cleaning the registry.

The war on photographers - you're all al Qaeda suspects now

Eponymous Cowherd
Joke

Re:You can't even photograph buses in peace now...

That's nothing new....

I had a colleague who was an ardent bus spotter (IIRC, they call themselves 'gricers'). I found this out one day as he was driving me to catch a train. Suddenly he exclaims "Fuck me, its a type 53 Routemaster" (or something like it) and takes off after this bloody bus. He swerved in front of it to stop it pulling out of the bus stop, jumped out of the car, and started taking photos of the damn thing. I slid as low in my seat as possible.

When I got to work the next day the boss noticed my slightly wild-eyed appearance and asked if I was OK. "Nigel? Bus? Camera?" I spluttered. "Ah", says the boss, "you wouldn't think it to look at him, would you".......

Anyway, we had a call from the MOD Police one day (this was way back in 1991, during the first Gulf War). They wanted to know if we could vouch for this bloke they had caught taking pictures outside of Portsmouth Naval dockyard:-

"Do you have a Nigel ******* working for you"?

"Err, yes"

"Can you tell me about his, er, hobby"?

(at this point I should have said something like "Oh, you mean the spying" to get revenge for the bus-chase-from-hell, but didn't think quickly enough, instead:)

"Oh, buses".

"Can you be more specific"?

"He goes out during lunchtime and photographs buses".

That seemed to satisfy them, and they let him go, but his bus-chasing ardour was somewhat less fervent after that episode.

Eponymous Cowherd
Flame

Pervophobia

This pervophobia is starting to drive me nuts. Its getting so you cannot take pictures of your own kids in public places lest the Pervfinder General takes you away to be burned at the stake.

What is it with the prats that run this sodding country? This trend towards criminalising the majority in order to catch/deter the minority of real offenders is getting absurd.

Don't they get it? If we are all tarred as criminals then the real criminals have less to fear as they can hide in the noise of ordinary people being persecuted with trumped-up charges.

Pirate Bay bitchslaps Swedish law with SSL

Eponymous Cowherd
Black Helicopters

Re:How long before...

"But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."

The End

Big TV flips ad blockers the bird

Eponymous Cowherd
Thumb Down

@JonB

***"It's a straight sale, usage of your eyeballs for the video, you want it you pay, it's not unreasonable."***

Yes, in fact, it *is* unreasonable. If you want me to pay for a service, then ask me to pay *directly*, if you want to finance your site by advertising then you take the risk that I, or anyone else, can ignore your adverts. If your adverts are subtle I will ignore them by merely not looking at them, If they annoy me I *will* block them.

If your site contains only subtle ads then you stand a small chance that I might find one or two interesting. If your site contains *any* annoying ads (and we all know what they are), then I will block them *all*, and you will stand no chance of getting me to look at any.

So, if advertisers want people to stop blocking ads, they have to start being more reasonable with the ads they show. Ranting on about ad blockers and calling those that use them freetards and thieves impresses nobody and won't get your ads looked at.

Eponymous Cowherd
Thumb Up

Re:I can think of two ways to block ads

***"The question then, is how does Hula know that an ad blocker is being used unless these products are stupid enough to advertise their presence?"***

I assume it is the Flash applet that is trying to download the ad and displays the message if it can't.

Simplest work around is to have your ad blocking proxy return a dummy file of the correct type whenever a request is made to a URL pattern matched to a advertiser. The player would get a file it *thinks* is from the advertiser and continue happily.

Eponymous Cowherd
Flame

When will the marketing / advertising prats learn?

Why do these idiots think that AdBlock exists in the first place? It isn't because people have a pathological hatred of advertising in general, its because people have an *intense* dislike of in-your-face, garish, overbearing advertising that spoils their enjoyment of whatever content the advertisement is embedded into.

In other words, AdBlock, and other similar ad blockers, are the bastard offspring of the advertising twats themselves. If they had behaved reasonably in the way they placed ads then nobody would have minded and there would be no need for AdBlock.

Of course, once AdBlock, etc, came along and people realised they could block *all* ads, not just the *really* annoying ones, they did so.

So, Mr thick-as-shit advertising 'executive', you only have *yourself* to blame if nobody is looking at your annoying bullshit. You are too stupid to realise that, on the Internet, there is *no way* you can *force* people to look at your ads and *no way* you can block access to desirable content to users of ad blockers. There will *always* be a way to work around your pathetic attempts to force your crap through.

Post Office aims to collect ID card fingerprints?

Eponymous Cowherd
Pirate

Really great!

Plenty of opportunity for crooks to enrol with fake prints, bribe/blackmail underpaid PO workers and generally make the Post Office a one-stop ID theft shop.

Nothing to hide, nothing to fear?

Think again!

Devil dog laughs in the face of Taser

Eponymous Cowherd
Thumb Down

Soppy Staffs?

@AC at al

***"I grew up with Staffordshire bull terriers. They are incredibly soft soppy things that wouldn't harm a fly"***

Tell that to this lot:-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/5389446.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/7436408.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/7250862.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/7065023.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/6931680.stm

And doing a search for "Staffordshire bull terrier" on the BBC news site returns a large number of reports of attacks. While it *may* be the owners to blame and it *may* be because staffs are the dog of choice for chavvy fuckwits who encourage them to become vicious, they *do* appear to be responsible for an inordinately large number of attacks.

Phorm failed to mention 'illegal' trials at Home Office meeting in 2007

Eponymous Cowherd
Unhappy

@ david wilson

***"Even if the average person doesn't know too much about Phorm, those who really want to avoid scrutiny may be rather more likely to be cautious."***

That obvious fact hasn't stopped our glorious leaders from introducing a whole splurge of unworkable legislation that is trivial for real crooks and terrorists to avoid, but seriously undermines the civil liberties of the law abiding majority.

Eponymous Cowherd

RE:So why *did* the Home Office speak to Phorm?

You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

Could it be anything to do with the fact that the Phorm system is just as capable of categorising interest in bomb-making, jihad, Al-Queda, etc as it is in categorising interest in televisions, cars, holidays, etc?

Sweden ushers in bugging for all

Eponymous Cowherd
Paris Hilton

In a perverse way

Its quite heartening to hear that other countries have MPs that are at least stupid as our own.

Paris, because even she must have heard of encryption.

Tumble dryer bites woman in Weston-super-Mare

Eponymous Cowherd
Coat

Call yourself a tabloid?

You need to stop using complicated words like "obstreperous", "desiccating" and "analgesic". Words like that would have your average Sun reader scratching his head in confusion.

Mine's the one with the OED in the pocket.

Gov claims 'password protection' OK for sensitive docs

Eponymous Cowherd
Paris Hilton

Another MP drops an IT Bollock

Well she would if she were a bloke.

It seems Portsmouth North MP, Sarah McCarthy-Fry had her Hotmail account 'hacked'.

The enterprising miscreant sent an e-mail to everyone in her address book claiming she was stuck in Nigeria (bit of a give-away, that) and needed £1000's to get home.

BBC News Story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/7461409.stm

Paris, 'cos there isn't a dopey-looking MPess icon.

Eponymous Cowherd
Paris Hilton

what the..................?

wh... w.. fuck...huh? doh!

Words fail me.

Paris, 'cos she is probably smarter than the entire Labour cabinet put together.

Brown pledges annual commons debate on surveillance

Eponymous Cowherd
Unhappy

@ Fatty Treats

***"What a tosser - he thinks we're all stupid, unfortunately in the majority of cases he is correct."***

Sadly that is very true. When Blair said Education, Education, Education, he ended up producing Educashun, Educashun, Educashun. and Indoctrination, Indoctrination, Indoctrination.

Keep them stupid and they'll believe whatever they are told.

Eponymous Cowherd
Black Helicopters

Clueless

***"Brown said that citizens were not alarmed by the government's demands for biometric data, saying this was proved by the fact that “many people now have laptops activated by finger-scans.”"***

Well, he doesn't speak for me. I *AM* alarmed by the Government's demands for biometric data. And Brown's naivete regarding the issue is highlighted when he confuses the idea of verifying a fingerprint on a PC login with the much more intrusive storage of an actual fingerprint pattern on a (probably insecure) national database, data that will probably be sold at a profit to 3rd parties in much the same way the DVLA sells vehicle licence data to wheel clamping scumbags.

From the BBC News site:

***"He (Brown) said terrorists wanted to destroy British "freedoms" and that must not be allowed."***

Obviously the best way to stop terrorists destroying British "freedoms" is for the Government to destroy them first. I mean, you can't destroy something if its already lying in ruins, can you?

I see that Hazel Blears has helpfully created a timely reminder of just how far we can trust this bunch of clowns with our sensitive data:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7459579.stm

No Brown, Just *NO*!!!

Thief swipes cabinet minister's laptop from Salford office

Eponymous Cowherd
Unhappy

You can trust us.....

with all of your biometric data, says Gordon.

British politicians should be kept away from IT in much the same way, and for much the same reasons, that children are kept away from sharp objects.

Microsoft chases satnav market

Eponymous Cowherd
Coat

This car has performed an illegal operation.....

And will be shut down until the cops arrive.

Pentagon hacker vows to take extradition fight to Europe

Eponymous Cowherd
Unhappy

@Sean Aaron

***"The States would NEVER pass such a treaty because it's bloody unconstitutional over there -- why did we?"***

Because the Merkins told us to, and, like the good little poodles we are, we *always* do what the Merkins tell us to do.

Reding would OK charges to receive mobile calls

Eponymous Cowherd
Paris Hilton

Re:NEIN.

Oh come on! These Euro-twats don't know the meaning of the word 'NO' whether its in French (Non), German (Nein), or Irish (Feck off).

Paris, 'cos she doesn't know how to say 'no', either.

Day dawns for Pentagon hacker Lords appeal

Eponymous Cowherd
Flame

@TrishaD

***"He's broken US law, then the US have the right to attempt to proscecute. And to extradite.."***

I assume you believe the same should apply to people who break Chinese, Iranian, Zimbabwean, North Korean or Burmese law?

Any particular reason why you think the Merkins would be any more likely to give McKinnon a fair trial than those countries?

Ofcom swoops on caller ID-faking firm with... request for information

Eponymous Cowherd
Paris Hilton

Ofcom, about as much use as a chocolate teapot..

Paris, because...............

Just because.

Government backs Ofcom against EU regulator plan

Eponymous Cowherd
Flame

I would have thought that...

the pathetic and ineffectual attitude of Ofcom over the Phorm issue in particular and phone and internet scams in general, as well as the mis-selling of broadband by UK ISPs, is all the evidence needed that we *DO* need an EU wide regulator.

Lets face it, Ofcom are less than useless when it comes to regulating the UK telecomms industry. If they can't do it properly, we, the consumers, need someone who *can*. If that's some overbearing Euro-bureaucrat organisation then so be it!

EU mulls intervention over BT's secret Phorm trials

Eponymous Cowherd
Flame

The "you're to thick to understand" defence.

***"The ICO's letter claims that because it would have been hard for BT to explain to customers what it was doing with their broadband connections, regulators should let the secret trials pass."***

So I wander into PC World and make off with a shiny new laptop. When I'm stopped and asked what I'm doing I just have to say "I'm taking this laptop, but I'm afraid you are too stupid to understand why". At that point they let me go and let me keep the laptop, yes?

One law for us, a different law for them.

Jail the bastards, and lets hope they drop the soap.

Police probe pirate-DVD detecting dog's demise

Eponymous Cowherd
Coat

Re:Really

***"Or is it all just an MPAss.A scare tactic?"***

Bump off a DVD sniffer mutt to make it look like the crooks are worried about them?

Naah, surely not.....

Virgin Media and BPI join forces to attack illegal filesharing

Eponymous Cowherd
Thumb Down

@Mark

***"If I offer you to come into my home, I cannot prosecute you for trespass for it. If I offer you the loan of my car, I cannot report you to the police for Grand Theft, Auto. If I offer you a copy of my IP, I cannot sue you for taking a copy."***

Err, no.

If I offer you the loan of my car, you are quite right, you can't be done for theft

If I offer you the loan of my car and you actually borrow it, you can't be done for theft.

If I offer you the loan of my car, you actually borrow it and you offer it for sale you *can* be done for attempted theft.

If I offer you the loan of my can and you actually do borrow it and actually do sell/give it to someone else you *can* be done for theft.

Similarly, if I offer you a copy of my IP, you accept (e.g. you buy my CD) and then offer it up online to anyone who wants a copy and several people actually download copies then I *can* sue your shitty little ass off.

Eponymous Cowherd
Black Helicopters

Re:dear oh dear

***"virgin are really pushing there luck with there service first they bust peoples internet speed now there joining forces with the bpi to stop downloading"***

You forgot about their intention to spy on their customers with Phorm.

Actually the Phorm system is an ideal way of spying on which files VM customers are picking on BT tracker sites.

Phone watchdog plans text spam clampdown

Eponymous Cowherd
Thumb Up

@Spleen

Ah, so I should direct my fury at the twunts who *fall* for the advertising bullshit rather than at the assholes who make the ads in the first place.

Fair enough. I'll form my own advertising company and distribute millions on intrusive and annoying ads. Anyone who replies will get shipped off to an isolated island and used for medical experiments.

Lets face it, if you're thick enough to respond to spam, you are probably too thick to be much use to humanity in any other way.

Phorm opponents to picket BT shareholders

Eponymous Cowherd
Flame

@FON

Want to know why Phorm is different from other use tracking? Try looking at it from a non Phorm-aligned web shop's point of view.

Phorm will be able to watch the activities of customers on your site and make use of that information. This is broadly equivalent to, for example, Tesco being able to view the activities of a Sainsburys customer as they shop at Sainsburys.

If this were to actually happen there would be a *massive* outcry. Why should tracking other shop's customers be wrong on the hight street but, courtesy of Phorm, OK on the WWW?