* Posts by Colin

38 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Dec 2007

Fired IT director admits $94k rampage on organ bank

Colin
Joke

11th Commandment anyone?

Surely the first rule of doing anything even mildly wrong, is make sure no one else is looking before you try it.

Personally I would have gone for locking out any other remote users, then take my revenge, wiped the logs and finally as an optional extra, I'd have gone for the old favourite and left several nasty suprises lurking in place for the admin bod to trip when the company tried to trace what had happened.

By preference the sort of suprises that the BOFH would leave if by some foul miracle the Boss actually managed the impossible and got the BOFH fired. :)

The Pirate Bay punts BitTorrent cloaking device

Colin

@ kissingthecarpet

To answer your question about the musicians, singers, authors and song writers and all the other creative types I completely disagree with your answer. These people have talents beyond the understanding of the average joe and as such they deserve to be paid very well for those talents, any idiot can serve a customer in a shop but, if you asked the average joe working in a burger joint to write a song and they could not do it. That is why they deserve more than the average salary.

As for the record company executives et al, on the other hand I completely agree with your answer. Those scum sucking maggots wouldn't know what talent was if it bit them on the ass. They demand we fork out vast amounts of money for something that they cannot create, did not create and could not create. They are parasites on the butt of humanity and deserve nothing other than our scorn and insults.

Intel reneges on Irish job cut promise

Colin

@ That wasn't a promise it was an admission

Some questions for you AC.

1. What in heavens name do job losses in Ireland have to do with UK taxes?

2. Have you ever hear of the word, Bias?

3. Do you really think the Conservatives would have done any better?

Because they didn't when the economy failed on their watch. I'm old enough to remember when the market went down the toilet the last time and the Tories failed to stop it before a lot of people in the UK lost all they had.

4. Are you so blind as to not see that the current problem is largely based on the failure of the financial system to prevent the overly easy access to credit by people and organistations who were, to be blunt a bad risk? A systemic policy of greed which seems to have infected all the major American and European banks and to have spread world wide due to our global economy?

Of course the current situation sucks.

The truth is simple, some greedy people tried to live beyond their means and the system didn't stop them. Now thanks to the greed of a few, we all have to pay for their stupidity.

YouTube pros cash in on deaths with fake vids

Colin

2 words sum up my opinion

Who Cares?

µTorrent silently fixes long-standing zero-day vuln

Colin
Happy

lol @ the morons

Consider yourselves Trolled

Oh yeah I am truely told, no, no honestly, really I am! Oh boo hoo poor me whatever will I do?

I mean it's not like I just waved a great big red flag to see what sort cretinous reactions would be forthcoming from the, "hey torrents are not all bad and anyway I only use it for getting a linux distro", types or anything now was it?

Good to know we still have some of you reading the Reg maybe one day you might learn when someone is pushing your buttons. But I doubt it.

Colin
Thumb Up

Sorry but.........

Anyone that got any malware via µTorrent while downloading illegal, pirated content deserves everything they got. Lie down with the dogs and you can expect to wake up with fleas!

I love the idea of the bandwidth hogging freetards getting nailed by malware.

Now if only someone would write a program that automatically shuts down the freetard's net connection for at least 8 hours starting at 7pm, using the freetard's own local time zone so that all their neighbours can actually have a decent amount of bandwidth in order to use the internet legally.

Hard 'core'? Birmingham City Council's net filtering

Colin
Flame

What a bunch of whinging little maggots!

Yeah I get what some of you are really saying "Oh boo hoo, it's not fair I wanna get on Faceache TM and blog with my fake friends, but my cruel, meanie, nasty boss won't let me.

What a bunch of whinging little maggots! Deal with it! That's life for anyone that works for a living. For the obviously demented person that thinks employers should pay for or grant a longer lunch break because their break is too short to allow them to do any personal activities, please wake up and smell what it is you're shovelling. No employer is obliged to give you any more time or money for breaks than that granted to you by law and none of them ever will.

You don't have the right to do anything in work that your employer does not pay you to do (outside of any entitlements granted by law). It's as simple as that and it doesn't matter who or what type of organisation the employer is. Nor does it matter if you don't like it. If you don't like it then you have a choice, you can choose not to work for that employer.

Any staff member that uses their employer's phone without consent for personal use, may be sacked at once for gross misconduct (it is considered theft, in case you didn't know) Why then should anyone assume that they have the right to use their employer's computers to access the internet for personal use.

As for those of you that think well I don't get paid during my lunch break so it's my time, yes you are right, it is your time. The computers you work with are still not yours though, so you still do not have the right to use them as you wish.

Grow up and accept the responsibilities of being an adult in the workplace. If you want to have personal internet access then use it at home when you are the one paying for it and can decide what you will or will not use it for.

BOFH: Server room secret panels

Colin

@Sarah By J-Wick

See now you have a choice you can take the red pill or the blue pill......

Trojan heralds OS X's 'new phase of exposure to malware'

Colin

@ ZM

Yup bigger target = more people shoot at it.

More and more fashionista types using the entire "Mac Experience" and the scammers are obviously looking to target this new "revenue source". Apple has conned these people into believing that all Mac's are 100% safe thanks to those "funny" Mac vs PC ads. God help those trendy types because they probably have no idea their systems are so open to attack.

Mind you some would say it's about time Apple got given a metaphorical kick in the stones, concerning security. Others might not be as kind and forget to insert the word, "metaphorical" in that statement, but I'll be nice.

Force listeners onto DAB by killing FM

Colin

If it ain't broke don't "Fix" it

Simple as that FM and AM Radio works fine as is leave it the hell alone.

Analogue Radio has worked just fine for the last 100 years or so with improvements along the way leading to the current systems. Analogue radio is cheap, simple and works and the best bit about it is we all have the kit we need to use it right now.

Possibly the reason none of the big comercial stations are heavily pushing DAB is simply because they know it's unpopular and not needed? Could it be that they are looking at it from an, "If it ain't broke don't fix it", viewpoint?

The only people that seem to want DAB are the thieving scum in the BBC's "lets make the government give us a bigger license fee department". Yet another case of rip off Britain. Yet another good reason to force the BBC into the comercial market. Let the idiots dream up these stupid ideas when they aren't getting my taxes, er license money! Then see how quickly DAB would die the death it so rightly deserves.

Pirate Bay bitchslaps Swedish law with SSL

Colin

@ Charles

"hardened against DDoS using "bulletproofing" methods?"

Ha ha ha! No, stop, please don't make me laugh!

There is no "bulletproof" method to stop hackers from nailing any system out there.

If there was then all the IT Security companies in the world would have gone out of business. Think of the headlines by El Reg and others.

All Your Black Hats are Belong To Us, Pwned!!!!!!!!

Hardened against attacks means nothing to a hacker group determined to kick your system out of it's nice shiney ivory tower. Hardened only means it takes them longer or that they need a bigger botnet to do it is all.

Colin

Simple Solution

A simple solution and one no doubt already in the pipeline for defeating this Swedish Law is Botnets hammering the living heck out of the servers that the Swedes decide to use to monitor all traffic crossing their borders.

How long, I wonder, before they realise that actually trying to enforce this law will be a giant pain in the rear. The Swedish Government have just painted a huge "hit me" sign on themselves. Any server they try to use in enforcing this law will become a botnet magnet overnight.

Meanwhile, Pirate Bay of all people appear as the saviours of our freedoms, when in fact they and other dubious file sharing sites played a large part in encouraging the Swedish Parliment to pass the law in the first place.

The crazy part of the whole thing is if the Swedes had set the boundaries of the law better, ie., only targeting p2p protocols and other traffic going to sites suspected of illegal activity. Then no one could have any real complaint that would withstand serious scrutiny.

I hope the party challenging them over privacy are successful. A blanket snooping law on all internet traffic is despicable and does seem to have some serious flaws in regard to human rights regarding privacy.

EC's 'Steelie' Neelie snubs Microsoft Office

Colin

@ E. Peeters question of "why?"

Because I am sick to death of the Fanboy BS touted anytime someone criticises Microsoft for their product's business practices etc. Just because someone is happy with a product does not mean that the company who produces that product should be allowed to ignore competition laws. Microsoft has been shown to routinely break these laws and then refuses to pay any fines levied against them for doing so.

In th USA they appeal any ruling made against them and drag it out through the courts for as long as they can until they find a corporate friendly government in place who will overturn the desicion. This is exactly what Bush did for them and what they are hoping the EU Commission will do.

It's about time the EU Commission told Microsoft, "Pay the fines now or we will allow european software developers to reverse engineer your code and produce Open Windows!" If Redmond thought for an instant that the EU meant it they'd soon pay the fine and obey EU laws.

Colin

@Smart business decision. Oh really!

This from the man that oh so obviously knows everything about good business practice. So you are obviously very happy with your "Microsoft" world, isn't that nice for you? The only thing is the rest of us all seem to know that when you have companies like Microsoft strangling all the competition, that all you get is stagnation.

Only mental defectives like you and that congenital idiot in the White House think that this is a good thing. When your turn comes to use the shared family brain cell, perhaps you will understand the concept of competition leading to better solutions and products for us all. Until then perhaps you should keep what laughingly passes for your thoughts to yourself.

New York talks net giants into child pornography crackdown

Colin

My Idea would be.

The problem is not going to go away with self regulation by big businesses. At least not unless you force them to do it by law. What's really needed is a properly trained and supported, internet police force, perhaps under the auspices of UNICEF. Staffed with police officers from around the world, whose sole job is to search out this vile stuff and remove it from the internet no matter where it is being hosted.

Give them the legal power to investigate those that abuse children in order to post the stuff to the net and those who simply copy the images from elsewhere in order to create their own sites. When enough evidence has been gathered to bring a prosecution against these disgusting scum, have them arrested by their country's police forces.

As this crime is international, I would like to see an international court convened by the UN, similar to the war crimes one in the Hague. If this was done then the ISP's worldwide would soon ensure their systems were kept clear of child porn, while at the same time those who commit child abuse or support it online are prosecuted in full view of the entire civilised world.

I know it wouldn't end paedophilia, but it would certainly put a major stumbling block in the path of those that want to put it online.

Firefox 3: now available bug-free, say devs

Colin

@ Greg Fleming

and others who won't be rushing to install it.

If you don't at least try the final release version, then how on earth will you know whether or not you will like it? Any version released prior to the final release must be considered as a test version. As such it may not resemble the final end product.

Personally I would never return to using any version of IE. The only time I ever use it now is when I have to instal windows updates for people.

BOFH: Dealing with engineers

Colin
Joke

@ By Mike Smith

"Sounds like there's an opening for the BDFH"

Aren't they all working for "Saint Jobs" already?

I'm sure I saw something about that some place.............

Virgin Media and BPI join forces to attack illegal filesharing

Colin

What else do you expect them to do?

Virgin just wish to be seen as they are anti - illegal file sharing and at the same time, be seen to be supportive of the BPI. They're playing politics is all, this is simply a ploy on their part to keep the gimps in whitehall from writing up legislation, that the lame brains in parliment will vote through without even looking at it.

Yes I completely agree the BPI is behind the times but then again all the content royalties collection agencies are. The entire recording industry has it's head firmly stuck up it's own bottom and has done for too long now to change. Instead of fearing change, they could have embraced the downloading idea with open arms.

Yes they would have made less money per unit than they do from the sale of CD's, but then they would also have saved money by not having to run large, expensive manufacturing, distribution and retail setups. Also they could have made money from the sale or leasing of those no longer required premises.

But then maybe that might have been using something resembling a level of intelligence aproaching that of a human being, rather than that of a talentless scum sucking, bottom feeder, which to be honest is my opinion of the recording industry executives and their pet litigators.

But just because that is my personal opinion, it does not give me the right to share copyrighted works illegaly. I don't do it, I never have done either. I can listen to all the music I wish to just by tuning into a radio station, all that costs me is the price of the electricity I use (nothing if I use one of those wind up radios).

Personally I feel that if someone is stupid enough to be using a commonly known method of commiting an illegal activity, then that person is an idiot that deserves to be caught. I mean would anyone go out on the road and deliberately drive past every police car or motorcycle they met, while doing over 100 miles an hour?

Those of you who do illegally share files, deserve to be caught and in my view should be banned from accessing the internet via anything other than dial-up. Frankly I feel that the rest of us are better off without people like that hogging all the bandwidth they can get at the expense of others.

Quite possibly we would also be better off without them polluting the gene pool too. After all do we really need any more selfish idiots in this world?

The New Order: When reading is a crime

Colin

Ahh just like it used to be.

If anyone here thinks this is a new development of Blair's sycophants currently in power perhaps they should take a good look at British political history. This kind of thing has been going on for years.

Just look at the political history in the UK for the last 30 - 40 years or so (that should cover the age range of most of us). It used to be that you were, "presumed innocent until proven Irish". (Birmingham 6 ring any bells?) Now in today's climate of government inspired fear and loathing it has changed to, "presumed innocent until proven Muslim".

Yes Britain has draconian terrorism laws but it always has done. Successive British Governments have played on people's fears to introduce these laws. Laws that will "only" be used on "really, really bad people" and "only" when we "really, really have to", so don't have to worry about a thing honest. "Would your Government lie to you?"

Ballmer and Gates defend Vista, drop Windows 7 hints

Colin
Thumb Down

@ bws

.......And one has to give props to Microsoft for being a pioneer (yes, I said it, with the full knowledge that I will probably get flamed) by making computers relatively easy to use for the average and dumb masses.......

Not flaming you, but no way should M$ get anything but abuse for doing that.

Thanks to that particular policy and the subsequent use of computers by people who quite frankly shouldn't be given a remote control for a TV, we now suffer from vast amounts of spam and phishing scams. (The same dumb masses are the ones that fall for the crud ware)

Simple truth is anyone with any sense moved from using windows ages ago. Why anyone would want to pay through the nose for a bloated, bug ridden, malware magnet is beyond me. The only possible use I can think of for a windows box is to play games that can't be run via cedega.

Added green burden could ground flying cars for good

Colin
Joke

@ The biggest hurdle

Just like modern aircraft then?

Future Aircraft will have three things in the cockpit.

A computer, a human and a dog.

The computer will fly the plane.

The human will feed the dog.

And the dog will bite the human if the human tries to touch the controls of the aircraft.

Your personal data just got permanently cached at the US border

Colin
Happy

Poison Pill

I love the idea of a poison pill

Hit the morons with as many varied malware variants as you can find.

A nice honey trap name bound to grab the idiots attention and once they try to extract the file have it execute the malware.

Is Europe's war on Islamist terror running out of terrorists?

Colin

The Numbers Game.

Laws and their application are not a good indicator of the risk of terrorist attack.

The thing I think that people sometimes forget is that the perception of the British public of islamist terrorism has been skewed by the politicians in recent years. Britain has had a good working relationship with the Islamic world for years. Not always the friendliest relationship admittedly, but usually Britain was seen as largely neutral in it's dealings.

The fight against the Taliban had by and large a general level of cross community support. It was not until Blair and his cronies decided to support Bush in his illegal war in Iraq that the UK was really made into a target. Then once he successfully made the terrorist nut jobs consider the UK as a threat, Blair had to be seen to be doing something about it. Hence the idotic restrictions that only affect the law abiding people of the UK.

Come on does anyone for one second believe that making laws to criminalise things will stop terrorists? Britain has had some of the most draconian anti-terror laws for decades. Up to and including internment without trial (GitMo is only copying the British authorities of 30 years ago). None of those laws stopped the IRA and that lot from their activities. None of the current laws will stop the current terrorists either.

The only way to stop terrorists attacking you is to remove their support and you cannot do that by shooting them. The only reason IRA stopped their activities is because the Americans stopped sending them money after after 9/11. Pity it took the horror of 9/11 to make the Americans realise what their support had meant over here.

But the result is a perfect example in how to stop terrorists, cut off their support, both monetary and their popularity base. Taking direct action against the terrorists and all you do is enable them and those you kill become martyrs to the cause. But if they have no money and no mandate from the people the claim to fight for. Then you have effectively removed the ability of the organisation to remain effective.

Net think tank: Phorm is illegal

Colin

Futher to; Making my Government work for me.

I told you all earlier I had written to my MP about this proposed invasion of our privacy. Well I also wrote to the House of Lords, specifically to a member of the House of Lords from my area asking for him to raise whatever questions that he could about Phorm and the entire dodgy dealings between them and the ISP's.

Well I got a response from the Lord I asked to look into it and he said that he will be looking into the questions I raised about privacy laws. Another little step in the direction we want it to go. It may only be a little step but keep asking them to take steps and eventually you get the politicians moving.

Please keep pushing your representatives keep hammering home the message that we don't want this. Educate the users in your workplaces, do anything legal that you can do to throw a spanner in the works of this deal.

To the people who have suggested hacking and DDOS attacks etc.

**Don't break the law by hacking them, you let Phorm win if you do that**

It won't matter squat how nasty we say they are to the using masses, cos you will have made Phorm into the victim. We need the uneducated and inexperienced to see Phorm as the bad guy in all this, not us.

Colin

A call to rebell against "Proper English Behaviour"

@ Graham Woods

Then I humbly suggest to you and anyone else in the UK who feels the same way about their MP as Graham does about his to write directly to Mr. Michael Wills MP, House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA.

Whether or not you believe it will do any good is besides the point, just the annoyance factor alone will be enough to make a politician sit up and take notice. The only way that politicians do anything ever, is if they think there is votes in it for them, or if they think they will lose votes by doing nothing.

The only way they think either of those is if enough people badger them about it and keep hassling them about it, until they realise that this little itch is getting worse and it's not going away.

The Register is a good news site for us Techies but the politicians tend to take notice of very little if any of the web based media. Slap big grey Royal Mail sacks full of letters on their desks every day they take notice.

Do the same to the Editor of the Times, FT, Telegraph etc. and they take notice, cos you bet your life if the Editors of the major broad sheets, get sacks full of letters asking why nothing is being done, then their journalists will start asking Ministers and Minister's Private secetaries why nothing is being done.

When that happens the Politicians start to ask questions of the type that need answering. Questions like who the hell is this Phorm company? Questions like what the hell do BT, VIrgin Media and Carphone Warehouse think they are playing at?

The biggest thing the politicians of this country have relied on for years is that the English don't complain. Well wake up England and start complaining, it's your privacy Phorm will take away from you. Would you let someone walk into your house and record what you own so they could advertise newer and better stuff to you? No you would not.

So get up and instead of moaning about it (we all know the English can moan) do something, one letter sent via the write to them website http://www.writetothem.com/

It won't even cost you the price of a stamp, you don't even have to go and post it. How hard is that to do?

Yeah I know Scots, Welsh and Irish (Northern Ireland has BT too) read the Register. But the largest population base affected by this deal is the English and anyway everyone knows the Scots, Welsh and Irish can and do complain when they feel wronged. We of the celtic backgrounds are born with the fire in our blood we got to put it in the English and get them all riled up first.

Colin
Thumb Up

Making my Government work for me.

Having read the Phorm articles with growing sense of outrage over the underhanded and sneaky methods being used by Phorm and the ISP's I wrote to my MP asking for him to raise the issue to the highest levels. Most espscially in regards to it's legality under the RIPA and DPA. I received a letter back today telling me that he has raised the matter with the Minister of State for the Ministry of Justice, Michael Wills MP.

Now if you and I hope most of you did, write to your MP's that will mean that Michael Wills MP, will be getting a lot of letters all asking for the legality of this deal to be re-examined. Politicians only change things when a lot of people ask them to so if you haven't yet written to your MP I suggest you do so ASAP.

When you do write to your MP ask for your questions to be raised with Michael Wills MP. The easiest way to contact your MP is to use the write to them site.

http://www.writetothem.com/

Yor MP will have your letter by today or tomorrow and in a few days Michael Wills MP will have more letters to deal with. The more letters he gets on his desk the more likely he is to get something done.

BBC calls DRM cops on iPlayer download party

Colin

@AC

Have you?, I thought the TV license entitled you to operate a television receiver.

Yes and just where did you think the money you pay goes to?

Instead of hiding behind anonymity while making snide comments, try thinking for once in your life.

The UK TV License scheme is an old hangover from the early days of the BBC. It is an idea which predates independant UK TV companies. It was introduced so the public could fund BBC TV without the BBC having to be depandant on any Government funding thereby granting the BBC a form of independance from Government control.

We pay the license fee based on having a device capable of displaying a television signal. therefore giving the licensee the right to view content produced by and broadcast by the BBC. That fact that we can also view the other channnels terrestrial or otherwise is effectively an value added bonus.

Colin

@ Rolf Howarth & Dan Maudsley

Yes we all know that in the world of making money these things are needed to ensure the creators of content get paid. But the fact is that if I have paid my TV License then I have already paid the BBC for the right to view the program. Note I said view it, and not keep it ad infinitum.

I don't know if any of you still use your local public library, but everyone of them is chock full of copyright protected works. Every lending library only asks that you become a member, provide proof of identity and address and they will lend the copyright protected information to you.

You may then take this to your home where in theory you could have all manner of devices capable of copying this work as many times as you cared to. You could even in theory never return the copyright protected work.

Yet still to this day lending libraries across the world function quite well based on the assumption that the vast majority of people will obey the rule of law.

So why can't the owners of digital works do the same? Instead of assuming we are all criminals and ne'er do wells bent on ensuring that the creators of the media do not get paid. Why not simply assume we will obey the law?

All it needs to work well is a format that is too hard to copy easily and if copied produces awful quality. Then to ensure people do not keep the files make the service request you to subscribe to it (proof of Identity and address) and that before you can download another file to view at your leisure that you must first return the one you downloaded last time you used the service. (Just like the system used by the public library service).

Yes you will still get criminals and people who seek to abuse the system. So long as anyone can find a way to either make money from something or save money from something this will always happen. But assuming we are all criminals just defeats the purpose of DRM and in fact makes some people criminals when in the case of something like Microsoft's DRM it forces people into a vendor lock in.

Desktop Support: The Hub of IT

Colin

Suuport or lack thereof

The vast amount of times I have recieved poor support has been from outsourced support services. The poor wages paid by these companies do not attract the most qualified and competent people at any level of the organisation. From the person on the phone through to the team manager and supervisors. Simply put, pay peanuts get monkeys.

Now there are some good people working for these outsource companies. I have done so myself in the past, as I'm sure have many others who read El-Reg. The problem is not the people as such as given time people can be taught to support the systems in use. The problem of course is with low pay, people do not stay long enough to learn the details of the systems in use. They leave for better pay taking their knowledge with them.

The outsource company makes money, the service provider or product manufacturer saves money for it's shareholders and often makes more money by convincing end users to upgrade to their latest toy rather than fix the issue. The people that suffer in the long run will always be the end user.

I once worked for a organisation who I will not name who had such a poor wage package that staff turnaround was measured in weeks. While working there I dealt with a case from a well known british ex-Morning TV presenter, who had been dealt with before by a number of people all of whom had left the company. The woman's case had been passed around the callcentre until it finally came to me.

By simply asking could I have her mobile number and promising not to record it on a database, I was able to go of research the case call her back while she got on with her day and provide her with a solution to the problem. Her attitude, while at first oh no here we go again changed in moments when I called her back when I said I would and told her what we could do to resolve the issue.

She did send an email to my manager praising me for what I had done, it unfortunately arrived after the bollicking I was given for spending so much time dealing with the case. Also after I told my manager where he could stick his disciplinary action and his job.

So from that you can see the problem customers be they external or internal see support as allready paid for by purchasing the product or service. To them it is their right as a customer to have any problem fixed ASAP. Business on the other hand sees support as a "value added" service and wants to make money off it.

So long as the two conflicting arguments exist the people providing the support will never satisify the people who need said support. Remember from the customer's point of view he should not need the support in the first place. Because to the customer, "this blinking thing should just work".

CBI calls for major overhaul to UK tax

Colin

The worker is the Backbone of any economy.

Bussiness is not the backbone of the economy. The Worker is. A worker that cannot afford your products and/or services means you have no business. A worker that cannot afford to get to work, means you have no business. A worker that has no health care services and gets ill, means you have no business.

Your business is more important than the Fire Brigade so they get less cash meaning they can't get to your business in time to put out that small fire before it bacame a raging inferno, means you have no business.

Your business is highly unpopular, becomes the target of fanatics they break in and smash it up. Where were the Police? Sorry sir your business was more important than paying taxes, means you have no business.

Businesses make the most money of any group of tax payers look at companies like BP for example, with absurd profits in the billions and the CBI wants companies like that to pay less?

SpitefulGOD, get down off your Right Wing soap box and smell what it is you're shovelling.

Essex youth's cop headbutt heads for YouTube

Colin
Thumb Down

Re: @ Solomon Gumby (intentional misspelling) & anon friend

You wrote;

"It's different however for somebody like a store security guard is not allowed to restrain you (atleast up till a couple of years ago) on suspicion of shoplifting, they can however obstruct any exit until the police turn up."

Wrong.

It's called a citizens arrest, ever hear of it? In the UK (England and Wales anyway, Scotland might be different) the right to make a citizen’s arrest comes under section 3(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1967 which says:

"A person may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances in the prevention of crime, or in effecting or assisting in the lawful arrest of offenders or suspected offenders or of persons unlawfully at large."

I think that has "suspicion of shoplifting" covered pretty well.

You wrote;

However should a store security person grab you and you had knowledge of Akido you would (technically) be entitled to release yourself (and damage him/her in the process) as you had been assulted as you where defending yourself.

Wrong again.

if you are commiting a criminal act or are suspected to have commited one or are suspected of being about to commit a criminal act, then the citizens arrest laws allow for reasonable force to be used against you to effect an arrest.

If you use force to prevent a lawful arrest, then the person arresting you is entitled to increase the level of force necessary to effect the arrest, proportionatly based on what you are doing to prevent them arresting you.

In relation to the use of force. The Criminal Justice Act 1967, says that a person "may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances"

Admitedly this is quite hard to quantify for each and every possible eventuality, but the Authorities in the UK at least, tend to find in favour of the person conducting the arrest, so long as the arrest itself was lawful and the force used was kept to a minimum.

(Sarcasm Alert)

If you don't believe it go down to your local shopping centre and get yourself knicked for shoplifting, try to resist using violence and see what happens to you.

(Obviously I am not actually advocating anyone try this).

Geordie cops arrest two for Wi-Fi squatting

Colin
Stop

@Mark

Mark the insulting comment was not required. To insult the person stating an argument does not invalidate the argument itself. The plain fact is it doesn't matter to the law, what the technology is doing. It is up to you the person, to ensure you do not use your computer to connect to the internet via my wifi access point. Regardless of whether or not I have it secured.

Unless I have given you permission by either directly telling you in person or via writing/email/or phone or by giving an open permission to all and sundry, via signage or marking my SSID as an Open Point available to all. Then the law as it is will find you guilty of illegally using my access point, it may be daft but that is the law. No one said it had to make sense, lots of laws don't. But that is how it is.

If your computer is accessing someone's private AP, as you say "WITHOUT MY CONSENT" then the law doesn't care. It still puts the onus on you to find another AP that is open to all. The fact remains that unless you are using an open AP then you are in breach of the law.

The defense of; "I'm trying not to access but your machine keeps hijacking my connection." won't work. You don't have a connection you have a computer, the connection begins at the Access Point. So the law still is on the side of the person who pays for the access point, which is not you.

It's real simple when you think of it, laws are designed to protect the person with the money at stake. If you aren't paying for it and you use it then the law will always beat you for doing it. The laws always have worked that way and always will.

Colin

I still don't understand you people

Stop coming up with the same bullshit about how open wifi access points give implict permission of use. Because like it or not under the law they do not. How the tecnology works is irrelavent and most of us that read EL Reg are probably more than qualified to know this information anyway so repeated decriptions of what a router is and how one works is pointless.

The law demands that you must have knowingly used something that you knew was not yours, the how and why of it are not up for debate. All that is considered under the law is did you use something that you knew you did not have the right to use. If you did then you commited a crime plain and simple.

Any other point is moot. if you don't like it tough. There is only one way you will change it. Sitting here pontificating about the merits of the law on the net will do squat. Try asking your MP's to ammend the law you might get better success

Colin
Stop

Sorry but seem peeps here are fooling themselves

It doesn't matter what the technology does or doesn't do. It doesn't matter if the connection was made via an open router or if they hacked into it.

The simple fact is they did not own the router so as soon as they connected to it then they broke the law unless they had been given permission by the person who owns it.

Permission as it pertains to the technology concerned is not the issue but as it pertains to the person who pays the cost of the connection. In the eyes of the law the use of the device was without the express permisson of the person who owns it or their agents. To do this is a crime and once reported the police are duty bound to respond.

Arguments and analogies supporting the two people arrested are totally irrelevant, the law is quite clear on this and has been for years. The same thing applies if you are to use your employer's phone to make a personal call to any number without the explict permission of our employer or the management of your employer's company.

These two people are acused of breaking the law, they will get there day in court and there it will be decided if they actually commited a crime or not. People here going on about the merits of the actions of either the police or defending the two accused persons are just wasting space on the vulture's servers.

The "I didn't know it wasn't an open hot spot honest gov", lines won't wash in a court of law. Ignorance of the law is no defense and people have been, can be, and will be found guilty of a crime they claim to be ignorant of commiting. The law states it is up to you to ensure you use publicly available connections. So basically if in doubt ask, if still in doubt don't use.

Hacker holds onto ill-gotten gains thanks to US courts

Colin

Who needs Rendition or Extradition Treaties?

Who needs Rendition or Extradition Treaties? Simply have the SEC agree to give him the cash. But as a foreign national require him to collect the cash in person.

I doubt very much he would bother to show up.

Fact is he commited a crime. The authorities need to close that loophole and more importantly make the law retoactive too

EU commissioner backs record biz on copyright extensions

Colin
Stop

Slimeball politicians scared to say no to the old ways.

Frankly I'm not suprised at McCreevy the guy is right wing, conservative, therefore concerned with keeping big business happy. He is out of his mind if he believes the artists with get anything more than a slight increase in the miserable pittance the recording industry pays to artists in royalties. This is why old farts like McCreevy shouldn't be allowed in politics they know nothing of any relevance to the world as it for the rest of us.

Mandatory retirement age for politicians should 45 at the very oldest. Don't think so? Go work in a gentlemans club or women's institute with the over 50's sometime. Listen to what they say, too many of these people live in the freakin past. For them the 50's and 60's are a golden age blessed by all that was nice in the world. (yeah ok, I'll admit there are a few who don't)

The past is the wrong place to be if you want to be a leader. Leaders who live in the past lead from the rear and rely on others to tell them what's happening. (this is where it goes wrong) These leaders fear change. Too many old polticians won't ever change and they cling to the hope that somehow we'll get to tomorrow via the golden age of yesterday.

Our leaders should be young vibrant Men and Women prepared to grab the country by the throat and drag it with them to wherever the future leads. This way

leads to fresh ideas and stops us being forced into stagnation by those who cling to the past.

Rant over!

Bhutto murder used to spread malware

Colin
Coat

@BitTwister

Absolutely wrong. I am sorry if I annoy you by saying that, but it doesn't matter how well you build your OS if a criminal wants to get into your system, eventually he will it's just a matter of time and resources.

There's an old saying that applies here, "Locks are for honest people".

Admittedly Microsoft's poor attitude to secure computing hasn't helped matters. They did create the idiot OS for every luser and in doing so created the opportunity for all the net scum out there to wreak the havoc they currently do.

There was only ever one way to keep that from happening and that was to keep computers out of the hands of people that would get out of their depth on a wet pavement. You give one of these people a Mac or a nix PC they'd still do stupid things and the scummers would simply change to take advantage of that.

People who might get their name right 3 times in 5 when asked for it, are using computers and clicking all the nice shiney things. These people are the same ones that don't lock all their doors and windows when they go out and then complain when they get burgled.

So long as we have lusers, we will have scummers to prey on them it's a fact of life throughout nature, the weak get killed and eaten. In our more "civilised world" the weak get spammed, infected and their bank accounts get emptied.

Rant over I'll get me coat.

New Jersey bans sex offenders from the web

Colin

@ J

Probably such thing already exists and is used on you anyway, just more remotely (NSA anyone?)

It does exist it's known as Echelon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

As to the law, well considering the current American political/legislative system has it's head so far up it's own ass it doesn't suprise me that this was passed. It also wouldn't suprise me to see it crash and burn when the idiots try to enforce it.

This is what happens when you allow a moron to be president. Learn from the Bush administration my american friends, learn not to let it happen again.