* Posts by Vic

5860 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Dec 2007

Openistas question UK.gov's £300k crime-mapping website

Vic

Typo.

> "profieor"

"profiteor", obviously.

Vic.

Vic

*Really* crap.

> supposed professional web developers?

"Professional" means very little. It stems from the latin verb "profieor", which means "to hold forth". A Professional is actually only someone who shouts his mouth off about something...

But this site is *dire*. It looks up my postcode, then redirects me to a URL with the postcode lookup encoded as a GET parameter - but they haven't actually bothered encoding it; the address is just pasted into the URL, spaces an' all.

This is awful. But I note that the RKH banners have been removed from the source of the "website is borked" page...

Vic.

Vic

No it doesn't

> if you go to http://maps.met.police.uk

I went there and put in my postcode. It told me that there is an average crime level in my ward of South Norwood, Croydon.

The postcode I gave it is in Southampton...

I suspect the "met.police.uk" domain might give it away as being a Met-only feature...

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Vic

I don't know what you're talking about...

I typed my postcode into the shiny new website, and it went away and thought for a while.

Eventually, it told me "Sorry, we couldn't find a policing area that matched your search" in a big red box.

Does this mean I can get a refund on my Council Tax? If I'm not in a policing area, I don't think I should be paying for it...

Vic.

Google exec 'missing' amid Egypt protests

Vic

Seems smart enough.

> he should know sticking his finger in to the melange that is Egyptian

> politics can be a very, very dangerous thing.

As you can see from the article, he seems very well aware of how dangerous it would be to attend these protests.

He went anyway - not because he misunderstood the danger, but because he considered the goal worth that risk.

You characterise this behaviour as lack of comprehension. I see it as courage. Not everyone runs and hides when things are getting difficult.

Vic.

IBM floats Microsoft Office web challenger

Vic

That looks mighty dodgy...

According to the FAQ at http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/help.nsf/GeneralFAQ , "Lotus Symphony is based on the open source OpenOffice.org code".

OpenOffice.org is distributed under the LGPL; the LGPL makes certain requirements of any redistributors - largely along the lines of the GPL, but it also permits redistributors to ship LGPL code with proprietary code, so long as the LGPL portion remains a separate library under the LGPL licence.

So far, so good. Except that if you try to download Symphony from the IBM download site at https://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/iwm/web/pick.do?source=swg-normandy&S_PKG=linux&S_TACT=104CBW71&lang=en_US , it requires you to sign up to IBM's International License Agreement for Non-Warranted Programs - http://www14.software.ibm.com/cgi-bin/weblap/lap.pl?la_formnum=&li_formnum=L-HKAG-8758BY&title=Lotus+Symphony+3.0&l=en .

This has some very interesting phrases in it such as "the backup copy does not execute unless the backed-up Program cannot execute", "Licensee ensures that anyone who uses the Program ...) does so only on Licensee's behalf", and "Licensee does not ... sublicense, rent, or lease the Program".

It also says "This Agreement ... is the complete agreement between Licensee and IBM regarding the use of the Program".

This looks remarkably like a LGPL violation. That's impressive - the LGPL is one of the easiest licences around in terms of compliance, but at first sight. IBM seem to be doing the dirty on this one...

Vic.

LCD pushbutton sunglasses issued to US Navy SEALs

Vic

Opaque when nervous.

> I'm guessing you meant translucent...

No, he meant opaque.

The trick[1] is to read the paragraph following that one; it mentions the Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses. Googling for that might mean you understand what everyone else is talking about.

Vic.

[1] ...aside from banging the rocks together, that is...

Vic

Not so.

Reactolite coatings aren't fast enough.

LCD masks have been in common use for years. The first one I found on Google was http://www.ashleysdirect.co.uk/solar-powered-lcd-welding-helmet-ce-approved.html - 37 quid. A bit of shopping around will probably find something cheaper - I just wanted a URL to show that these are commonplace items...

It speaks volumes that it's taken so long to get popular consumer technology into Special Forces kit.

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Facebook offers 500 million users SSL crypto

Vic

Brimming over in wrongabililty...

> An SSL login takes a tiny bit of overhead

So there is an overhead.

Which is what I said.

You're arguing the same point as me, then claiming I'm wrong? It's little wonder you post anonymously.

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Vic

SSL and cash

> Can someone explain how it saves money

SSL uses more data to transfer the same amount of content - you've got overheads in the encryption setup, etc.

By not using SSL, FB will have less bandwidth to pay for. With an organisation of that size, that might make a noticeable difference.

But saving money by doing stupid things with security shouldn't be an option. This sort of penny-pinching is exactly what FireSheep was supposed to highlight. It appears to have failed :=(

Vic.

Antique Nimrod subhunters scrapped – THANK GOODNESS!

Vic

Why?

> fully refurbished fuselage

Why did they refurbish old fuselages?

I know very little about aircraft construction - but given the cost of the project, did it really save much money to use old frames?

And, if what we read above about the hand-built approach to sizes is correct, surely it is that decision that ultimately doomed the whole idea.

This is beginning to smack of penny-wise, pound-foolish management...

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Vic

Errr...

> BTW Passenger airliners have mostly unpressurized baggage holds

Are you sure about that?

Besides the fact that it is easier to make cylindrical pressure vessels than flat-sided ones, they put live cargo (animals) in the hold. That kinda implies a pressurised hold...

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Vic

Ed Force One...

> Honestly, what is so hard about buying up a fleet of 737s or A-320s and

> fitting them out with the requisite gear?

Iron Maiden's road crew fitted out a 757-200 to fly a world tour. I'll bet their budget was rather smaller than the billions we're seeing here...

Vic.

Blackadder style chemists transform gold into purest ... purple

Vic

Yank Boffins?

> This will be the same bunch of yank boffins

Yank?

Stan Pons is, but Martin Fleischmann is one of us...

Vic.

Mexican army interdicts dope-slinging catapult

Vic
Joke

Aha!

Now we know what that railgun experiment was about the other week.

Imagine being able to fling 10Kg of dope at Mach7.5 over 200 miles. The heat would vapourise the active ingredients prior to landing.

Result - one stoned population. Army walks in to zero resistance :-)

Vic.

Met re-opens NoTW phone hack probe

Vic

That's sickening.

We have evidence of serious criminal behaviour, and it's The Guardian, not the MPS, who do the investigation. What were the police doing that meant they didn't have time to do their job?

Oh well, perhaps the Sunday Sport will start investigating the Phorm fiasco...

Vic.

ACS:Law turns back on file-sharer court case

Vic

Re: Evidence

> show/log that the tracker showed that this IP downloaded to 100% AND continued to "seed"

I'm not aware of that theory being tested in court, and I suspect it would fail.

If you copy some chapters out of a book - but not the whole book - you are likely to face charges of copyright infringement, absent any clear and obvious defences (and there are some). So it is with digital files - if you have only copied a part of the material, that doesn't make you immune to charges of unlawful copying.

I expect to see torrents containing encrypted versions of the materials, with the decryption keys only handed out once the seed ratio has passed a sufficient value (probably 1.0). Thus to decrypt the file to see if it is indeed in violation of copyright, the "investigator"[1] would have had to have uploaded that content to the network...

Vic.

[1] I am using the term quite wrongly here, of course.

Vic

"My e-mails have been hacked"

Is this statement actually true?

The emails of which I'm aware weren't "hacked"; they were published on ACS:Law's website.

There are sanctions available against solicitors who deliberately (and provably) lie to the court. The SRA is likely to have some fun with this one...

Still good for the judge, slagging them off for trying to avoid judicial scrutiny :-)

Vic.

IPTV UK: failure to launch?

Vic

Stuttering?

> The lack of stuttering alone is worth paying for

I get no stuttering on iplayer.. But then I get all my data via get_iplayer, and stream it across my LANs with sshfs.

If the BBC hadn't been so hostile towards Linux users - all 600 of us - at the start, we'd never have had these tools written. So maybe Ashley Highfield isn't[1] quite the penile stump we all claimed he is.

Vic.

[1] I lied. He is.

Third party developers blamed for Windows security woes

Vic

@BigYin

> I think we are splitting hairs.

Of course. We're advocating the same solution. We've both used it, and seen just how well it works.

> By "centralised" I mean one mechanism provided by the hosting OS.

Yes, I got that - but I think it's important to hammer home the fact that this doesn't route through a single "updates provider"; each and every supplier of software can implement this mechanism with very little work, and the trust relationship is between the end-user and the supplier. No intermediary need be involved.

> So, IMHO, the repos are "centralised" But that's all so much semantics.

Well, I think those semantics are important: the updater application might be centralised (wrt the computer on which it is running), but the repos are very much decentralised. That's why they maintain their independence, whilst co-operating by the simple mechanism of dependency tracking.

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Vic

That's sloppy.

> Linux OSes manage this easily because the upgrades are free.

No - Linux OSes manage it easily, *and* the upgrades are (generally) free.

Repository access can be controlled - just look at Red Hat's RHEL repos. If you haven't paid the bill, you don't get the binaries. This is *exactly* the same model that you would use for proprietary software - it's already working.

Because of the licence, RH *also* supplies source to its code - but that doesn't affect the situation wrt installable binaries ;those are controlled by subscription, and source availability is only related because of the licence, not because of any innate need to couple the two forms.

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Vic

@BigYin

> "Who's going to control that central update?"

>

> The user (or admin)

Then it's not a central update...

> Repository 1? Nup

> Repository 2? Nup

> Repository 3? Oh look, updates for this that and the other.

See? Decentralised. that's the point...

The poster to whom I was replying was talking about all updates being pushed to a central repository - hence the control question I (rhetorically) asked. The solution I proposed (and you elucidated) is to decentralise, and thus to avoid all those control issues...

Vic.

Vic

Non-FOSS and repositories.

> Can you point to any non-FOSS which is available for updates from

> a yum or apt-get repo?

Yes, I can.

As I said in my post, I have written exactly such software, and set up the repositories to host it.

> I'm not aware of any.

That much is clear. Are you claiming that your ignorance of any such software is proof that it cannot exist?

> Within a company you'd typically package it up yourself, but that's not

> really doable for end users.

Aside from the fact that you'd still have companies doing the packaging of their own products, creating packages is easy. I've been doing it for years. It's entirely feasible for end-users. Even if it's unlikely to be necessary.

> it's going to be pay for, but it is used by end users at home/small office.

OK.

> The updates for pay for commercial software won't be on your typical repo.

Why do you say that?

There are many ways to control repositories such that access is granted to those with paid-up subscriptions. Just look at the way Red Hat runs theirs...

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Vic

Repositories are easy

> you need to be a certain size before you can really afford to run

> your own repo and package up commercial updates.

And that size is - a single person. Yes, it's true. You need to be a certain size.

Really - a repo is trivial. It's a webserver. Want to see how to set one up?

sudo yum install httpd

sudo service httpd start

sudo chkconfig --level 345 httpd on

Want to see how to set up a yum repository on that webserver?

cd /path/to/rpms

createrepo .

I have absolutely no idea why you want to portray this as being difficult - it isn't.

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Vic

Dead easy.

> how do you propose this works?

Go and have a look at how apt and yum work.

Each distributor publishes metadata about the current state of his repository - what's available, etc. This data is collated by a client program to work out what's needed.

> Who is responsible for the quality and frequency of the patches?

The owner of each repository is responsible for updating that repository.

The end-user is responsible for deciding how often to look for updates.

> I don't want to run them too often.

As a yum user, you have the option of enabling/disabling entire repositories at will, as well as excluding certain packages if you so wish.

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Vic

No.

> Are you saying that if I am running 100 apps on windows I should

> keep up to date with updates for 100 apps separately.

No.

It's much easier to let a computer take care of that.

> Better yet, that 100 plus third party developers must install a memory

> resident update program to check or do the update automatically.

No.

It's much easier for an application to run - either on demand, or periodically - to take care of that.

> Bull bull bull.

Well, it would be if it were to be implemented as you suggested.

Alternatively, if it's implemented as many of us use it, it's really quite painless.

> The only reasonable solution is for the central update mechanism.

No, that's not reasonable.

Who's going to control that central update? You're putting a lot of power into the hands of one organisation. Better make sure it's not one that has a history of anti-competitive action. Who's going to handle the responsibility of making sure that the right updates get posted at the right place for the right users? That's a lot of contract work.

Alternatively, you can have each distributor control his own repository - just like many of already do. The aggregation of that repository data into a runtime environment is what the user application is there for...

This isn't difficult. It isn't new. It's what many of us already do.

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Vic

sudo yum update

...For the yum users amongst us.

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Vic

Re: So...

> To my knowledge no non-free software is available from repositories

Your knowledge is incomplete.

I know of non-FOSS software in a repository because I wrote it [1].

The package manager does not care whether the software is Free or not; if you want to build a repo out of non-FOSS code, just assemble the relevant packages and run the appropriate command[2]. You might not get your code accepted into, say, the Debian repositories - but since the whole purpose of this sort of application is to distribute the repository info, that really doesn't matter.

Vic.

[1] There are discussions in progress about converting this code to FOSS, but we're not there yet.

[2] For a yum repository, for example, you'd just run createrepo, and all the repo data is built for you.

Vic

Be careful what you wish for...

> it's amazing that there still isn't a centralised place or mechanism for updating Windows.

A central *place* would be a very bad thing - control over everyone's update status would pass through the hands of one small group of people. Ick.

But a standardised updating mechanism would be comparatively easy - you could pick something like apt or yum which, being Free Software, could be ported to Windows without even needing to ask the copyright owners[1]. You could sit that atop a package management database - like rpm or dpkg, which are also available to all comers (including Microsoft) without charge.

The advantage of this is that you can add and remove repositories at will - so if you've had enough of Adobe's updates, you can disable those without affecting the Microsoft ones. You have a standardised mechanism with decentralised data, and control in the hands of the user.

It would take a little while for every software distributor to get round to packaging his code in this way, but package management is *such* a boon, it would become popular in short order.

Will this ever happen? Of course not. But that's not for technological reasons :-(

Vic.

[1] The authors have already granted you all a licence to redistribute rpm[2], dpkg[3], apt[4] and yum[5], because they are all released under the GPL. You *can* take that code. You *can* bundle it with your proprietary code. You can modify it if it doesn't meet your requirements. All you need do is release any derivative work *** of that component *** under the same licence.

[2] http://www.rpm.org

[3] http://packages.debian.org/sid/dpkg

[4] http://packages.debian.org/sid/apt

[5] http://yum.baseurl.org/

UK short 100K tech recruits this year

Vic

Programming...

> ive not managed to get my head around programming

Programming is problem-solving. If you can solve a problem - properly - you can write code. The tricky bit is solving *all* the problem, not just the easy 85%...

The language you use is just the communication medium; the better you speak the language, the clearer will be your output. But the most important bit is clarity of thought.

> Some one must have a job for me some where or do i take up plumbing

I suspect I would turn you down as a programmer. In our game, accuracy is essential. Spelling and punctuation errors[1] - particularly on a CV - imply a lack of attention to detail. That inaccuracy leads to flawed code.

Vic.

[1] Watch me make a major balls-up now. In my defence, I have had a swift half or two this evening...

Vic

The problem is inbetween the candidates and the employers...

> somewhere out there is a Java shop

I used to get offer after offer to apply for Java jobs - despite being primarily a C programmer. All the "recruitment consultants" (ha!) used to tell me that they get no call for C programmers, as everyone wants Java.

On the other side of the fence, when I was trying to recruit C programmers, I was offered CV after CV for Java and PHP programmers...

I always maintain that there is rarely a job shortage, and there is never a skills shortage. The difficulty comes because so many employers go through recruitment agencies, and that lot don't know their arse from their elbow.

Vic.

Lane Fox promises sub-£100 PCs

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Yes, there is :-(

> Is there a distro that does otherwise by default?

There is. Despite how much more sense it makes to have /home separate, it means you have to answer questions about filesystems being full when the disk has plenty of space left. In at least one instance, the "Linux must be easier to use" crowd have won out, and that question is avoided by having the whole filesystem in one lump. Thus Linux is rendered harder to use over the slightly longer term...

However, all is not lost. Distros that offer an "upgrade" option to the installer - as all RH-derived ones used to - can still cope by doing the whole upgrade as one humungous package operation.

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Vic

Not LVM.

> You almost certainly selected the option called LVM, which will use

> all disks that it finds in a system.

Errr - no.

All the installers that support LVM installation require partitions to be set up explicitly as PVs. The closest to your description I know of is the SuSE installer, which creates the VG first, then asks you which partitions to add to it (as PVs). The dialogue presents all partitions, including those in use for other things.

Anaconda (RHEL/Fedora-type installer) requires PVs to be set up (within the installer) before the VG can be created. Slackware and Gentoo have their own strangeness. The standard Ubuntu installer doesn't do LVM at all, so you either need to create the VG by hand before installing, or fight your way through the alternate installation disk (which I've often found to be problematic).

> This is not RAID, but can appear similar.

I wouldn't agree with that. LVM is a soft partitioning scheme, not a RAID configuration.

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I approved a few hours ago :-(

> Getting people onto Linux.

It as a nice dream while it lasted.

From http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/364438/microsoft-moves-in-on-marthas-98-pc-scheme :-

"Microsoft is jumping on the low-cost PC bandwagon, by offering free software to Martha Lane Fox's scheme to get cheap PCs to Britain's broadband have-nots. "

That'll raise Remploy's costs, though - someone has to pay for that extra RAM...

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Might not be £40...

> And finally, £40 on top of £100 (lets say for Windows 7)

Microsoft do a "refurbished" licence. I don't know the cost, but it's fairly cheap.

Still needs all the administration overhead, though - buying licences, tracking them, typing them into installations, ...

If you're trying to build cheap systems with minimal construction overheads, it makes a lot of sense to use Free Software, even if the licences aren't all that much cheaper...

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Vic

I do not believe you

> every distro I've tried for about the last 2 or 3 years tries to set my 2 hard drives up as a RAID array

Nonsense. Distros do not do that.

Some will have offered you a "RAID" button in case you wanted to set up an array - but none of them do anything like that by default.

I'll be charitable and say that you were confused...

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Vic

Re: LUGs

> are already doing this for free!

Our LUG put on a presentation to the then-Secretary of State for for Innovation, Universities and Skills. He was trying to get PCs for "disadvantaged" families.

We took him to a warehouse full of PC kit that was going begging. We demonstrated that hardware running Free software. We gave him his project for a song.

A few weeks later, the local paper announced that said MP had approved a plan to buy a load of new Winows laptops, at substantial cost to the local economy. Apparently, what's important in a headline is how much money you've spent on a "good cause", rather than the number of people you've helped :-(

Vic.

Assange vows to drop 'insurance' files on Rupert Murdoch

Vic

Cut out the Ad Hominems, Gumby.

> I guess you fail to understand what it means when someone here calls

> Assange's actions blackmail.

Well, one of us does. I've quoted legislation in defence of my position, and you've responded with vitriol and anecdote. Which of those is the more rational way to advance an argument? And which is merely grandstanding to try to overcome opposition by excess verbiage?

> It means that they are exercising their free speech rights

The first point you need to clarify is whether or not those rights actually exist. At first sight here, it would appear that none of us have any such rights[1].

> In the US that's protected by the First Amendment.

Is this website in the US? It does have a .co.uk domain. The UK has no such rights to freedom of speech.

> They are expressing an opinion.

And opinions are fine. But stating as fact that someone is guilty of a crime is not merely a statement of opinion; it is a claim of fact which, in this case at least, is entirely false. It's the sort of thing that gets Justice Eady involved, and that way has lain prison for some individuals. UK legislation just doesn't allow you to mouth off in a slanderous manner without the opportunity of recompense.

> Whether or not Assange is charged with Blackmail remains to be seen.

Indeed. And for that reason alone, he currently has no convictions for blackmail. Claiming he has is simply lying.

<Snip stupidity - my demonstrating your being factually incorrect does not make me "slow", it simply makes you wrong>

> I suggest you learn more about the legal system

I'm going to suggest the same thing for you - you don't actually appear to know in which jurisdiction you're operating. That's kinda critical to knowing what the laws are...

Vic.

[1] theregister.co.uk is a UK domain, owned by a UK Sole Trader, and it is hosted on a Rackspace server. I checked this morning, and it is definitely hosted in the UK, and therefore subject to UK legislation. However, since Rackspace is a US organisation, and since they have a large amount of hosting capability, it is entirely feasible that the site might on occasion be transferred to the US. But I doubt it.

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@Gumby...

> reread my post.

I've read your post. It is no more accurate for repeated readings.

> Based on the definition, there is enough evidence in the public eye

> where one could reasonably charge Assange with blackmail.

Says you. The CPS, on the other hand, have not charged him. Why is it, do you think, that the organisation with the duty of initiating prosecution for criminal offences in the UK sees it one way and you, some guy on an Internet forum, sees it differently?

> It is a clear threat. And it was made for his own personal gain.

Says you. I do not agree with either of those points, and nor could I demonstrate that, if it did constitute a menace, it would not also constitute reasonable means.

Nor does the UK police agree with you. And nor does the CPS. But you seem to know better than all of us.

> You may not like that, but hey when you run your own country you can decide.

But I'm not deciding. The people who *do* run the country are deciding. Assange has not been charged with blackmail - the police and the CPS are siding with me, not with you.

Why is it, therefore, that you think you can decide what is and is not the law in the UK? You're not even resident here, are you?

> With respect to Assange actually getting charged... thats up to the UK

It is. It's up to the UK. It's not up to some guy that calls himself Gumby. Are you getting the story yet? You don't decide what is blackmail, the UK authorities do. And they have chosen not to take action against Assange for blackmail. There's a connection there, I can't quite put my finger on it...

> But seriously, you've gone off in to fantasy land in defense of Assange.

No, I haven't. I'm not defending him - I'm just telling you that you don't have the right to dictate what is the law in the UK. Can you really not see the difference?

> Didn't he threaten to sue the Guardian for their release of information

Is that in any way pertinent to your claim that he is a blackmailer? If not, it's irrelevant.

> What about all of the detailed back room discussions about who gets involved

Is that in any way pertinent to your claim that he is a blackmailer? If not, it's irrelevant.

> You're going to tell me 'donations' weren't made to Assange or Wikileaks

Is that in any way pertinent to your claim that he is a blackmailer? If not, it's irrelevant.

> ... yeah right. I know.. you want me to prove it knowing that I can't.

Not really. what I want is for you to stick to the point at hand. Everyone here knows you dislike Assange - but your dislike of him does not inherently make him guilty of blackmail.

If you want to accuse him of such, substantiate your position. Pulling assorted gripes out of your arse does not do that. Few here are trying to portray him as some sort of saint; what we're discussing at present is whether or not he is a blackmailer. Your argument seems to be that, as he is less than perfect as a human being, he must be a blackmailer. I hope you can see how nonsensical is that position.

> (But you can bet sooner or later that would have to come out.)

Will that prove that he is a blackmailer? Because if it doesn't, it's irrelevant.

> There's more to this... after all Assange is currently enjoying his freedom due

> to the assistance of Britain's wealthy liberal elitists that he has conned.

Not so. A number of people have stood bail because they do not believe he should be incarcerated over the allegations that are as yet unproven. That's how bail works.

> The more you read, the more you know and your best bud Assange starts to

> show his true colors.

Well the first thing you ought to realise is that he is most certainly not my "best bud". I dislike the man intensely. I have made no secret of this.

But he is as yet innocent of the various allegations against him - indeed, he has not even been charged with anything. So telling the world of his guilt just makes you look foolish. Wait until there is a conviction before spraying your vitriol; at the moment, he is innocent because he has not been proven guilty.

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@JimC

> I rather suspect that you're interpreting "menace" and "proper means" in a very odd manner

I rather suspect I'm not interpreting those terms at all.

The whole of my message is that someone on an Internet forum claiming something to be blackmail does not make it so - that is for a court to decide, not twelve good trolls and true.

I'm not saying whether Assange is guilty or innocent of anything - all I'm saying is that someone stating blankly that he is needs to provide some substantiation for that point.

Or do you disagree that a man is innocent unless proven guilty?

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More nonsense from Gumby :-(

> If this wasn't blackmail or grandstanding, then he would have said this quietly, through counsel

That is your inference. It has no basis.

> The fact that he is publicly making this 'threat' is in fact blackmail.

Absolutely incorrect.

Read the definition from the legislation - I posted it earlier. The fact that Assange said something in public does not make it blackmail.

> That sir by your definition is blackmail.

No, it is not. Several requirements need to be met for it to be blackmail. Making a threat in public does not of itself fulfil those requirements.

> So he can be charged

If the CPS consider that there is a case against him, then yes - he can be charged. That does not make the action blackmail - it would merely indicate that the CPS believe it so. The CPS has been known to be wrong.

> being found guilty is another matter

Exactly so. And *if* he is charged, and subsequently acquitted, then he did not commit the offence of blackmail. Simple, really - it just means that the due process of law must be followed to determine if this is blackmail, rather that just accepting as gospel truth the rants of some fake identity on an Internet forum.

> IMHO This is grandstanding being done for profit

Yes, we're all aware of your opinion. But that is irrelevant here - whether you are right or wrong, that does not necessarily make his actions "blackmail". You have fallen into the classic Daily Fail position of deciding that, just because someone is a total cock, he *must* be guilty of whatever allegations we can make up today. This is not the case; his guilt or innocence of the charge of blackmail is something to be decided by a court, should he ever be charged with such.

> You don't believe that he's not soliciting funds to keep wikileaks going

I have not expressed an opinion about that. What I have said is that the poster above needs to cite evidence before claiming that Assange's actions are assuredly blackmail. And his motives WRT getting more money for his project do not affect that.

Vic.

Vic

Perhaps.

> It might be excusable blackmail but it's still blackmail.

Do you want to cite reference for that position?

Under UK law, it *probably* isn't blackmail. Blackmail is defined in Section 21 of the Theft Act 1968 (which every single DVD owner in the UK should read from beginning to end). It states :-

"(1) A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief—

(a) that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and

(b) that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand."

So for this to be blackmail, the demand would need to be "unwarranted", and it is not so if Assange has reasonable ground for that demand and the menaces are a proper means of enforcing it.

Assange clearly *does* think he has reasonable grounds - even if others disagree. So it boils down to whether or not his threat to reveal info about Murdoch can be considered a "menace" and if so, whether that would constitute a "proper means" for enforcing his demand. This would need to be thrashed out in court to be certain, but I don't think we can take for granted that he would be convicted of blackmail if it were to come to that.

Vic.

Cable vendor slapped for unproven claims

Vic

Retrying...

> "one system that can use retry protocols, and one that cannot."

>

> Exactly my point.

then you haven't thought through what point you're trying to make.

Isochronous data is real-time. If you retry transmission, it is late. This would show up as pauses or drops in the displayed data - and remember that you will have do duplicate the artefact on both audio and video streams if they are to remain synchronised. This is not feasible for consumer equipment - if you really have lost the data, by far the least noticeable way of dealing with it is just to give up on that chunk and start again. Attempting to get a retransmission would make the error very much worse.

> Therefore you can tell the difference between an occasional burst of

> errors due to external factors, and a consistently degraded link due

> to marginal transmission quality.

I have absolutely no idea what you're trying to prove now. So what if we can detect trends in the error rate? We can't go back in time and make those errors not happen - which is what is needed to relay isochronous data on time.

> It appears there is no such option in these entertainment connections

Some equipment may hold historical data for debug purposes - but that is all. Kit generally doesn't offer up such debug info because it is of no use to a user.

>"the chances are vanishingly small. You're never going to see that."

>

> The chances of an error are indeed very small per frame/cell/packet

Have a look at *how* small.

> the number of frames/cell/packets/whatever is however outrageously high.

Not high enough.

> Therefore errors will happen from time to time

Random errors creating valid has checks are a mathematical possibility only. If I had a tenner for every time it had ever happened, I would have nothing.

> and could in principle be counted (as per DSL modem).

Now you're confusing two things: whether errors occur (they do), and whether that error creates a valid packet (they don't).

But counting errors serves no purpose: you can tell if the link isn't working because you can see or hear it. Attempting to do anything else means you are breaking the real-time nature of the signal - and that will cause far more problems than it solves (as well as being undesirable in the first place).

Vic.

Vic

Re: Error correction

> no one has yet mentioned the fact that error correction is not infallible.

Yes they have. That's why these digital links are described as "working" or "not working". The latter is when the signal contains uncorrected errors.

> the data that arrives will be plain simple wrong AND (at the digital level) NO ONE WILL KNOW.

No.

Whilst there is a mathematical probability of a random data corruption causing a valid packet hash, the chances are vanishingly small. You're never going to see that.

> I don't know if that happens in practice, but it's conceivable. Anybody know for sure?

In TV, for example, there are various "error covering" modes, but these usually involve just repeating a previous sample - this is why you get screen freeze when the signal goes very bad. This is generally unacceptable for audio because you get audio tics, which are very distracting.

What you do *not* do is to try to make up the data you have missed. There is insufficient information about it, so any guesses will be badly wrong.

> what does it actually do with an error that it has detected but not been able to correct?

Depends on the severity. If you're missing a couple of MBs, you typically display the picture anyway - it'll have a purple / green stripe in it, but most of the picture will be there. If you miss most of the picture, you start by freezing the display for a short while, and then blanking it if you don't get valid signal quite quickly.

For audio, you mute.

> Just ignore it (see link below) and rely on filtering/interpolation, hoping that no one will notice?

There is no such hope - if the data is missing, the user will notice. You make the best of a bad job, and hope the stream recovers.

> Are there counters anywhere that keep track of corrected and uncorrected errors on the link?

No. If the stream is degraded, it needs to be fixed. Carrying counts is fairly pointless.

> Your $20 DSL modem/router has the relevant counters

A DSL modem is carrying asynchronous data. An A/V link is carrying isochronous data. There is significantly less you can do about errors in the latter case. Additionally, a modem is dealing with WAN signals, where latency is expected. An A/V link is dealing with local signals, where latency is minimised. These situations add up to one system that can use retry protocols, and one that cannot.

> There is a whole load of junk talked on this subject

There certainly is.

> an error corrected digital link without commonly available tools to

> check whether it's working right or not is just stupid

Not so. It is appropriate for the medium.

> or someone in the designer/manufacturers is hiding something

Or, alternatively, yet another AC on an Internet forum doesn't actually know what he's talking about.

Vic.

Vic

Oh dear :-(

> I'm going to get flamed

I expect so.

> Well, the digital-is-crap brigade didn't go away

Many nonsensical theories don't go away. That doesn't mean there is any truth to them.

Digital reproduction can give excellent duplication of the sound that the recording engineer put down onto the media in the first place. When CDs first came out, this was very different to the peaky EQ that many people were used to from vinyl - so although the fidelity on CD was very much better, it didn't sound like the vinyl. The fact that it sounded more like the original source doesn't actually matter to most people - they like what they're used to.

Nowadays, of course, we've got all the "digitally remastered" nonsense that's hammered together by some monkey with no idea what the word "clip" means, who thinks those red LEDs in front of him are beat indicators, or something...

> All but the most diehard digital clown now accepts that recovering and

> preserving a decent clock is actually quite hard

Cobblers. Stable clock generation is easy. Remember that you don't need to sync the clock to anything else - you just need a stable source. It's easy.

> I'm not alone, lots of people can hear these differences

No they can't. Unless a cable is actually failing in some way - either being noisy or microphonic through crap construction, or simply not rated up to the task in hand, there is no difference. It's simply a triumph of belief over evidence. And with digital cables, even noise has no effect unless it is sufficient to destroy the signal entirely.

> why they are reporting what they're reporting.

Because they believe they have some knowledge that the rest of the world does not. It's a common fallacy - and easily disproved. But there will always be people who believe it, just as there will always be people who believe they have been abducted by aliens or other such nonsense.

> That turn-on edge, such a sudden step-change in current

It is *not* a step-change. You seem to be visualising this with "ideal" components. Real circuits have distributed RLC; for most purposes it can be ignored, but it is what prevents infinite currents occurring.

> transforms into an infinite ... sequence of generated frequencies.

A true step-change would generate an infinite series of harmonics - but you do not have that situation.

Additionally, the current flow through the rectifier is not coming from a fixed voltage source - it's coming from an AC drive (typically the secondary of a transformer), so the voltage in to the rectifier ramps up gradually.

And even if some harmonics are generated in the PSU, a half-decent unit will filter them out.

Sorry, but your pet theory is just wrong.

> if you go look at household mains ... you will find that it is quite filthy

This is why PSUs filter the input.

> anyone with a scope can see that the tops are often clipped

No they're not. Whilst there is often a goodly amount of noise on the mains, a clipped sinusoid would mean that there is a DC voltage across the primaries of many transformers during the clip. Given the current availability on a ring main, that's a good way to set light to stuff...

If you're seeing clipping on a scope, I suspect you do not understand the limitations of your scope, because that is not what is actually happening.

> So if you follow that, or perhaps I should say if you can swallow that

I don't. It is bogus.

> go work out what's actually going on.

I would echo that sentiment. Your assertions are decidedly dodgy.

Vic.

Vic

Not relevant to audio at all.

> a "direction of flow" indicator is only relavent on Analogue Hi-Fi Cables.

No, it is only relevant to the bank balances of those that buy and sell such cables.

Audio cable is simply not directional. Read any text on transmission line theory for substantiation.

Vic.

Vic

Re: audio signals ARE AC...

> Recording studios usually use balanced XLR connections between equipments

Why do you think that is?

> So, one could argue that the signal "flow" from sending to receiving device is

> dependant on that one conductor

Well, I couldn't argue that. Not with a straight face, at any rate.

> so it is entirely possible that when the cable is drawn, that the crystalline

> structure could provide a different electrical characteristic with a voltage

> flowing in one direction, compared to the same signal flowing in the opposite direction

Just suppose, for a moment, that you were correct[1].

What effect would that have on the sound? Remember that this is AC, just as the post title says: current must flow in both directions for the signal to be transferred.

*If* your proposition above were correct, what you'd actually have is a source of distortion[2]. It would not lead to any directionality of the cable.

Vic.

[1] You're not.

[2] An op-amp with a diode in the feedback path makes for a very pleasant-sounding guitar distortion box. Unfortunately, it also makes for a rather good AM radio:-(

Custom ICs in small numbers to be cheap as (normal) chips

Vic

Maybe.

> and for high performance real time kit software bugs are particularly devious

> and are a big problem.

The old hardware/software duality thing applies; hardware bugs can also be very tricky to find - especially as the level of integration goes up.

What this really does do - if it ever sees the light of day, that is - is to enable prototypes to be made in small quantities so that testing can be far more extensive before tape ship.

> Overall reliability will probably go up.

I really, really doubt that. But costs will probably come down.

Vic.

/ex hardware man and current software man.

Vic

I don't think so

> 30 may have ASICs with an additional spying function.

If you're going to infiltrate a production process to introduce a small number of compromised devices, you've got three possible outcomes :-

- Your device fails to function, and all boards with it on are scrapped.

- Your device functions, and goes to some random person, with entirely unpredictable effects.

- Your device functions, and goes to someone with data that you want.

Note that only the third option here is useful to a would-be data filcher. Note also that it requires far more than just subverting the production process; it requires the whole ordering and build system to be under the control of the ne'er-do-wells.

Thus such espionage is only really available to well-connected types. Someone with such capability really isn't going to have any difficulty whatsoever getting a wafer of "modified" devices made by the original fab.

So I can't see security issues here - it's simply not worth doing.

Vic.

Windows 7 Phone glitch spews phantom data

Vic

It isn't.

> This is where an outbound data logger would be very handy.

Well, I'm only watching WiFi traffic, as the Android I've got doesn't have 3G.

But the tool you're looking for is called "wireshark". I run it on my router box. And the Android unit isn't sending gobs of inexplicable data - just the SIP packets I've told it to send...

> We have the RIGHT t oknow whether a miscreant or an ISP is pulling data off our handsets

If the handset has been trojanned to the extent that it is snooping on you, any tool running on that same box must be considered compromised.

> we need and have the right to a microsoft/google-created and god-like

> firewall and packet sniffer as well

$deity, no. If you want a packet sniffer, go and get one with a good reputation - Wireshark is my tool of choice. There is no way I would want such a tool written by either of the two companies most likely to snoop on me anyway...

> Failing that, we need blackhats and whitehats who will provide trojans

> that are timebombs on our phones to make life hell for those who pillage our phones.

Nope. We do not want trojans, no matter who writes them.

But running "ssh -R" on a regular basis with a suitable key-based login might be a good plan.

Vic.