* Posts by Jason Bloomberg

2903 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Mar 2008

London police chief: City bankers, prepare for a terrorist cyber attack. Again

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: Really

And meanwhile we continue to be doing the terrorists' job for them. I can't think of an easier time for terrorists; sit back with a cool milkshake and simply let the infidels fearmonger themselves into a panic. They've won haven't they?

Call the Commish! Ireland dragged into Microsoft dispute over alleged drug traffic data

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

This is pretty much a test case for whether America is the world government which has primacy and jurisdiction over all others.

I am sure many in the west are coming to understand why others elsewhere in the world hate the US so much.

Heyyy! NICE e-bracelet you've got there ... SHAME if someone were to SUBPOENA it

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Headmaster

Re: Not the story it first appears to be...

I don't see the problem either; it's no different to subpoenaing phone records, recordings of conversation or obtaining any other evidence as relates to the case.

There is a necessity to prove or have agreed that whatever is subpoenaed is actually admissible and evidence but that's no different to any electronic, hearsay or circumstantial evidence.

"Evidence is evidence" as far as the courts in the UK see things though it is different in other jurisdictions. We don't have such American nonsense that a gun used in a crime found in the defendant's dustbin cannot be presented as evidence because there was no warrant to look in the bin.

DEATH fails to end mobile contract: Widow forced to take HUBBY's ASHES into shop

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

I do sympathise and appreciate it's not always easy to not let oneself get wound up in times of grief but the best solution is to cancel payments and then simply ignore their requests and threats. Ideally get a less emotionally impacted friend or acquaintance to deal with those issues.

There's the other side of the coin as well; where a company does terminate contract immediately upon death, leaving the family without services or access to accounts which can be even more inconvenient and distressing.

Walmart's $99 crap-let will make people hate Windows 8.1 even more

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Not sure why you got down-voted. I guess suggesting it may have some utility isn't negative enough.

At £60 I'd be more than tempted, whether it can be down-graded to a speedier Windows version or booted to some other OS. My Asus EEE PC running XP was also under-powered but works well enough for what I ask of it. Likewise my O2 Jogglers.

Most of the £60 tablets I have seen offer pretty poor performance. It was this not being able to master HD DVDs in real time and otehr nonsense which sunk NetBooks.

GT sapphire glaziers: You signed WHAT deal with Apple?

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Was it a bad move?

It might have been a bad contract agreement but that doesn't make it a bad decision to have accepted it.

For one it may well have been "take it or leave it"; as noted they make the machines that others use to make the glass so they were not the only ones Apple could have approached, and very arguably weren't the ones best suited to the job.

There was undoubtedly a "you keep making it and we'll keep buying it" understanding, even if not in writing, and no reason to believe Apple would have reneged on that or evidence they have. It was indeed all going fine until GTAT failed to deliver to expectations. If GTAT hadn't screwed up then it did not not matter that the written contract wasn't very good.

Unless Apple had agreed to a "we pay even if you don't deliver as per expectations" I can't see how any contract would have saved GTAT, and surely no one is expecting Apple to have agreed to such a thing. We would instead be here laughing at Apple if they had.

If Apple had simply shafted GTAT after crafting a contract which favoured themselves that would be one thing, but GTAT seem to have shafted themselves. It's not Apple's responsibility to provide a guaranteed safety net for GTAT screw-ups.

Could YOU identify these 10 cool vintage mobile phones?

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Vintage?

I've still got a Nokia 2140 in the glovebox for emergency use.

Hey, you, PHONE-FACE! Kickstarter in-car mobe mount will EMBED your phone into your MUG

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: Award?

Though 'ridiculous and dangerous', it could be their line of thought was "the plastic cover doesn't hit you in the face when the air bag deploys so why would anything attached to it".

Though, having seen people attach things to the passenger air bag cover in a similar way, it could simply be they hadn't even thought about the scenario, nor considered that attaching something may disrupt deployment.

Besides; everyone knows accidents only happen to other people.

Bible THUMP: Good Book beats Darwin to most influential tome title

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Headmaster

Re: Important

It appears the poll was for "most influential" book, but El Reg along with other media have conflated that with "most important" and "most valuable to humanity".

Sky: We're no longer calling ourselves British. Yep. And Broadcasting can do one, too

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: So does this mean

The way I see it is they offer what they do at the price they want to ask and you can take it or leave it, which seems to be what everyone else offers as well. I don't particularly like Murdoch but Sky doesn't seems any worse than other companies and their TV offering is better than many.

A subscription-free Sky box without a viewing card is very good value for money so you don't have to pay if you don't want to. I find that just as good as what anyone else offers for the price and Murdoch doesn't get a penny.

Raspberry Pi mini-puter TOO BIG and EXPENSIVE for you? Think AGAIN

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

What would have been nice is an easy means to use it as a USB device as well as a USB host.

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: Does it still accept power via its USB ports?

According to reports from the Pi people on their official forum the A+ does support back-powering via USB. The B+ doesn't but A+ does. Presumably a consequence of not having the Ethernet/USB chip and associated circuitry.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=91267

Does Father Christmas expect a happy ending with Clara in Doctor Who?

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Ready, steady, ho-ho-ho

I doubt there's any need to run a Crimbo sweepstake on how scathing Brid-Aine's review will be.

Wind farms make you sick claims blown away again

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Imaginary illnesses are real

The mere thought of eating oysters turns my stomach. Walking past an oyster bar triggers deep revulsion and the same. The oysters aren't per se responsible for that reaction but it is very real.

I wouldn't be happy if someone proposed opened an oyster bar next door to me and I imagine those who are psyched-out by the thought of wind turbines feel the same way.

Simply telling people it's all in their head isn't good enough but I will admit that I am at a loss as to how we do deal with such issues.

If you're suing the UK govt, Brit spies will snoop on your briefs

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
FAIL

Policy and law

Are these agencies not bound by the normal laws of the land?

It would seem not and therein lies the problem.

It's the WORST game ever, just pulled from a desert DUMP ... now ET can be yours for $500

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

That link was an enjoyable read, and it does seem to explain why people found the game so unplayable.

Improving JavaScript: Google throws AtScript into the mix

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

I am not convinced the intent is to deliberately proprietise the web, more wanting to deliver a useful and usable solution quickly without becoming bogged-down in delays while trying to agree a new standard and arguing how it should be.

"If you don't like it; fork it", has both advantages and disadvantages.

Google Glassholes haven't achieved 'social acceptance' - report

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

10m users by 2018

Still, that's not bad for a piece of kit which costs $1K. It's a funny old world if that's considered a failure, but I guess it depends on what one compares that against and what the expectations were.

NATO declares WAR on Google Glass, mounts attack alongside MPAA

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

I actually have a "bootlegged in a cinema" DVD

And the quality is, as entirely predictable, truly atrocious.

Given bootleggers can just as easily sell blank BluRays, DVDs and CDs pretending to be the real thing I am not sure why they even bother. And consequently I don't believe the industry has anything to really fear.

Good quality master tape copied fakes are a different issue, but you won't get that from covertly recording a film in a cinema.

I'll cap internet tax, says Hungarian PM as mob attacks his party HQ

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Facepalm

Doing the maths

150 forints (£0.38, €0.50) per gigabyte of traffic, the tax would be charged to internet service providers... As a result of the protest Orban promised to cap the new tax at 700 forints (£1.78, €2.26) per month.

So, once capped, that will be 2400 forints (£21.36, €27.12) per year, per ISP.

There seem to be about 35 ISPs (www.iszt.hu/iszt) so a grand total of 84000 forints (£748, €949) per year revenue.

Hardly seems worth pursuing it unless the government are planning on removing the cap later, and pursuing it suggests they do.

Microsoft has Windows Server running on ARM: report

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Future-proofing

I suspect a lot of these Windows-on-ARM projects are to counter claims that Windows is a lost cause and will fade away with ARM processor usage on the rise.

There are plenty of Linux and ARM fans who would argue that case and there's a whole arsenal of anti-Windows and anti-Microsoft rhetoric which Microsoft has to address. I hear plenty of anti-Microsoft fanbois claim Microsoft can't or won't do this or that and their doing it rather proves them to be utterly wrong. It won't stop the anti-Microsoft invective but it keeps Microsoft in the picture.

Warning to those who covet the data of Internet of Precious Things

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: How can IoT stuff help me?

Maybe it can't and perhaps never will, but then again you may see some merit in something which can tell you the water is inches deep in your home and rising rapidly, or perhaps not. It might depend on whether you bought a house on a flood plain or near the coast.

Just because you haven't seen an IoT application which you perceive would or could help you doesn't mean that others haven't or won't. There is plenty of technology I don't see myself having any use for but that doesn't mean others feel the same way.

You need to ask, not what IoT can do for you, but what you would like IoT to do for you. Perhaps there is nothing you need which IoT could fulfil, in which case it's a technology you can ignore.

That's PROFESSOR Woz to you from now on, young whippersnapper

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

"Coolest person in the Universe"

Debatable and I am not sure, even if it were true, it would justify the award of an honorary professorship. But I have never approved of honorary awards which are self-serving or promote the cult of fame or celebrity.

Not that I am saying Woz doesn't deserve accolades; just that I don't feel this is an appropriate one.

Police stats inflate the number of guns actually stolen in Blighty

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Paris Hilton

Re: Other "Firearms" Included ?

I recall "rock splitters" may also be classed as a fire arm. They are effectively a tube with lines of holes in the side, filled with water with a shotgun cartridge stuffed in the end. Drill a hole in the rock, drop it in, kaboom, high-pressure water ejection; crack. A poor man's 'laser cutter'.

And you don't want to mistake a primed one for a dildo!

Doctor Who's Flatline: Cool monsters, yes, but utterly limp subplots

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: Thanks for all the fish!

Why that show and no others?

Because it makes for the best click-bait?

Banksy puts down spray can, goes corporate in banksy.com cybersquat brouhaha

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Criminal damage and vandalism that's worth a few tens of grand, perhaps more. I imagine there are plenty wishing Banksy would drop by and paint something on their façade.

It is a terrible tragedy that some great art has been destroyed simply because it has been considered mere graffiti or vandalism, but I guess that is a risk of the trade and choice of means of expression.

I would love it if Bansky 'scrawled' on my wall though I am not sure I could afford the cost of keeping it as public art and stopping thieving bastards from taking my rendering away while I wasn't looking.

Same old iPad? NO. The new 'soft SIMs' are BIG NEWS

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

A hacker's delight

If I have got this right; I can put my iThing data usage on someone else's contract if I can find the right details to enable that.

Torvalds CONFESSES: 'I'm pretty good at alienating devs'

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: If the tone is wrong the content is lost

There is a fundamental problem in a volunteer project. If someone's contribution is crap and is not improving how to tell them to go away.

If there are not mechanisms and processes which can overcome that without having to publicly insult people and swear at them then something is seriously broken in the organisation and management of that project.

Public dressing-downs are a sign of failure. And what when that doesn't work? You send 'the boys' round to break some fingers?

Software gurus: Only developers can defeat mass surveillance

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Well meant but still narrow minded thinking...

I have to disagree that this is something related to the developer (or designer even). It's up to the people who use the product who are ultimately responsible, and these guys should know and acknowledge that fact too.

I would agree it's not the developer's responsibility; they are simply wage slaves and out of a job if they don't bend personal principles to fit their employer's desires. It's not their job to be guardians of the rest of us. In fact; that even goes for the companies doing the things we don't like too.

I am not however convinced it's the user's responsibility when they equally have Hobson's Choice of accept it or do without. So called market forces don't work when people are not offered a full choice.

It is a societal problem which can only be solved collectively and probably only controlled by legislation.

Remember that tale of a fired accountant who blamed Comcast? It's kinda true, says telco

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: About recording calls.

UK law on recording calls is a bit vague. You can record a call without telling the other party, if that recording is not going to be given to a third party. Not sure how it works if you later want to give that recording to a solicitor, or produce it in court.

The law is mainly about casual dissemination of recordings rather than use within legal proceedings. Limited disclosure solely for the purpose of legal proceedings is okay.

As an earlier AC notes; the courts in the UK hold that evidence is evidence no matter how it is obtained. If evidence was obtained illegally that is a matter to be dealt with separately. We don't have the same 'get out jail of free' approach as America if something is done wrongly.

Whether the recording and/or transcripts are admissible evidence or not is the real issue. If both parties agree it accurately represents what was said then it is admissible. If one party disputes it, it may be withdrawn as evidence, or there will be pre-trial proceedings to asses its admissibility.

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: Never quite got...

If you say you don't want your old job back then people who later assess any compensation for being fired may hold that against you - You don't want the job, you haven't got the job, what's the problem?

You have to make it look like they ruined your life to get maximum compensation, not that they did you a favour, or you were likely to leave anyway.

If they offer to take you back, even if you don't actually go back, it also means you can change the reason you are no longer in that job on your CV from "fired" to something else.

Google AXES AndroidScript app used by 20,000 STEM coders WITHOUT WARNING

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Joke

Re: Android named apps

You mean apps named for Android?

Antarctic ice at all time high: We have more to learn, says boffin

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: oracle@delphi.gr

What worries me is that governments absolutely believe its 3 when the facts are that its 1.

Well if they are wrong we will have wasted billions and incurred huge costs for no gain. If you are wrong we'll be dead :-)

And that is why people are naturally cautious, because they don't want to be fatally drawn to the wrong conclusion. I don't know the answer and am not as certain as you are that the facts prove it is 1. I wouldn't want to stake my life on it yet, and less so would want you or anyone else to stake my life on it.

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Paris Hilton

oracle@delphi.gr

1) Everything is fine and we have nothing to worry about.

2) It's all gone wrong and there's nothing we can do about it.

3) It's all gone wrong but we can do something about it.

What worries me is that it could be 3 but we won't do anything because people choose to believe it's 1 or 2.

It seems the only thing we do know is that we don't know. We are gambling with some pretty big stakes here and I am always concerned when anyone won't accept they may be wrong.

Doctor Who becomes an illogical, unscientific, silly soap opera in Kill The Moon

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: Wrong, Dr Who has ALWAYS been an illogical, unscientific, silly soap opera.

Laughably bad since day 1.

More laughingly good I would say, with the added advantage that the laughable can also be somewhat scary for the kids.

The thing is though that it doesn't insist you watch it nor enjoy it. It goes through phases one may like and dislike. You can't please everyone all the time. I would say it's better that it's on even when I stop watching than not on at all.

Those who enjoy it get 45 minutes of enjoyment and the rest can find something else to better entertain themselves. Of course some will spend that 45 minutes or more telling us how they didn't enjoy it and telling us why others shouldn't enjoy it and that's fair enough. Each to their own.

Our Vultures peck at new Doctor Who: Exterminate or, er ... carrion?

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Pint

TV Entertainment

I find it hard to criticise Dr Who without having to mention Tumble, Splash, Celebrity Come Dancing, X Factor, Pop Idols, and hours of what I would personally call drivel, and, when I've done that, Dr Who seems highly admirable regardless of which doctor, sidekick, 'monster', alien, writer or director it has.

It's not always great but it's rarely been bad either. It's certainly got great production values these days and that alone is worth applauding. I could find fault but I always feel a little mean-spirited in doing so when there's so much else which is worse elsewhere.

POISON PI sniffs WiFi from your mail room, goes on rampage

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: If it is public news ...

Indeed. It highlights an attack vector and shows proof of concept but it's nothing new. Get any clever bit of kit into an organisation and it can start snooping around and doing its stuff.

A suitably hacked shiny new mobe left where an employee could find it could do the job just as well, attract less attention, and the finder would probably keep it charged up allowing it to be more effective.

The pi is actually an unsuitable board for low-power use and anyone wanting to actually attack a company would unlikely be overly concerned about cost. It's also a rather risky venture as waking up regularly to see if it's reached its target could leave a trail of bread crumbs right back to the sender. Every pi has a unique serial number which often manifests itself through the MAC address, so it may be possible to track them down quite quickly.

Ultimately it may be no more than fuel for the fire for those who want to log all our interactions on the net to prevent this sort of thing happening and catch people when it does.

A moment of brilliance? UPnP for Internet of Stuff lightbulbs

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: Making things simple

I like manual controls.

Do you still get out of your chair to push buttons on your TV and DVD players or do you use a remote control?

IoT - despite the nonsense of internet connected toaster and the like - is all about making things easier for us, allowing things to be remote controlled when that makes sense. IoT success will be far less glamorous than vendors would have us believe in promoting the technology to us.

Ignore what vendors say it could do and simply consider how it could be useful for you. It will likely make a whole lot more sense then.

How many wouldn't want a handy "f--k off" button for when cold callers ring the landline and the answer phone kicks in with "about your accident/PPI claim"? Perhaps an IoT call ID unit which could email Ofcom the number of cold callers, deluge them in complaints until they do something about them? All at the push of a button.

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Lack of protocols

It's not surprising there's such a lack of adherence to common protocols when those protocols didn't exist and manufacturers had to go their own way or not release a product at all. I expect every manufacturer used protocols they thought were best and hoped theirs would become dominant or the de facto standard. Every other manufacturer thought they could do better and 'market forces' were left to sort things out. End result; the mess of incompatibility we have.

It's not a new story and I suspect all emerging technology goes through the same process unless there's an agreed spec up-front. In situations where necessity of product precedes agreed specification it's always going to be somewhat messy.

Now we have a wider penetration of IoT-style devices it is easier to see what is and may be needed and what protocols should cater for and hopefully that will become an agreed industry-wide specification which everyone follows from now on and everyone benefits from. That doesn't mean everything is solved just yet but we are on the way.

Microsoft WINDOWS 10: Seven ATE Nine. Or Eight did really

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
Windows

Windows 11

With start-up music from Spinal Tap, obviously.

I think they missed a trick there.

Consumers agree to give up first-born child for free Wi-Fi – survey

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: Nobody reads those things

And why would anyone? Most T&Cs simply boil down to "we may abuse you any and every way we can", the rest is ensuring they are immune from complaints and devoid of responsibilities.

The only time I read T&Cs is to check exactly how I will be abused, particularly regarding copyright as many claim rights over anything and everything with respect to their service.

FBI boss: Apple's iPhone, iPad encryption puts people 'ABOVE THE LAW'

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

I actually agree with him, but -

I believe that in some exceptional circumstances there can be powers which are not normally exercised and I also believe we generally already accept that in the west and it's measured using 'for the greater good' principles.

The covenant between us is that we allow those powers on the understanding they will only be used in genuinely exceptional circumstances.

Unfortunately the powers that be - particularly during the last decade - have come to a completely different view of what exceptional circumstances are, circumstances which suit them rather than suit us. In fact that it has become 'us' and 'them' shows the degree of the problem; they no longer work for us but are a law unto themselves and that's the root problem

Are you a fat boy? Get to university now, you penniless slacker

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Hang on ...

Doesn't this simply tell us that Swedish employers are fatist?

How are things in the UK, or America for instance?

Bash bug: Shellshocked yet? You will be ... when this goes WORM

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

As 'tards have pointed out, IP cameras etc. aren't equipped with Bash, why would they be ? Embedded stuff, even more substantial items like NAS boxes routers, come with Busybox only.

Would you bet your life on either of those claims?

It might feel true, and I suspect most likely don't use bash, but it's not guaranteed to be true and we have no idea how true it may be.

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: Not as serious as openssl issue

It's not simply "one patch" if the system is embedded and everything boots from on-board flash chips. Those can be very difficult to patch and especially if the manufacturer has deliberately made it that way.

Desktop systems and the like probably can be easily patched, it's the billions of routers and IoT-type devices which are the big risk.

NSFW: Click here, watch iPhone 6 being TORTURED

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: Is it just me...

When you have seen one phone in a blender you have pretty much seen them all dropped in a blender. The first time (so many years ago) it was an amusing novelty, proved what people thought would happen did happen at no cost to themselves, "neat", but now it's rather tedious.

Like firework displays, you have to go bigger and better to keep people interested, but the destroyers seem to have run out of fresh ideas.

Show me something which doesn't blend.

Fake tape detectors, 'from the stands' footie and UGH! Internet of Things in my set-top box

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: BBC documentaries

Part of the problem with programme material for the BBC is it has to fit the BBC time slot but may also be sold to other broadcasters who have shorter slots, especially advertising based channels. It is easier to make the programme for the shorter slot and pad it out than it is to cut to fit. Recaps fall after where ad breaks would appear and many may have been made for advertising channels in the first place.

I am sure the reason we have so many 'coming next' and other BBC self-promotions and pointless idents are to make imported programmes fit the artificial 'on the hour' programme start times we expect in the UK.

Early result from Scots indyref vote? NAW, Jimmy - it's a SCAM

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: wtf

Iceland food stores sell frozen square sausage slices. Rather like a square pork burger, 12 to a bag for a quid. I imagine the real thing is even more tasty, and probably less healthy :-)

http://groceries.iceland.co.uk/plumtree-farms-12-lorne-slices-720g/p/48383

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: No law against asking somone a question is there?

There is (probably) no law against asking the question but in the case of this referendum there is law which makes the publishing of exit poll results and similar a criminal offence.

Driving with an Apple Watch could land you with a £100 FINE

Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

Re: Knee Jerk Off

who the fuck drives dangerously where there's a police car near by?

Seems to me everyone tends towards that. I suspect most drivers feel pressured by the presence of a police car on their tail, keep checking their speedos and mirrors looking to see if they have gone yet and worrying they are about to get pulled for some reason. Trying to drive absolutely perfectly and simple paranoia seems to do odd things to normal people.