Posts by adnim

here hear

EdwardP: "Let hope the Lords have their collective backbone with them on the day they vote."

Yup, but first they have to be awake and have their hearing aids turned on when the evidence is presented.

As a...

wine drinking smoker who likes to get pissed and go for a drive. Who also doesn't buy much in the way of consumer goods, gadgets or baubles, how does this help me?

And that's right taxes on alcohol and booze will not be reduced when VAT rates return to 17.5%

@Paul

Thank you for educating AC. I just couldn't be bothered.

But even with IMAP and POP3 although less susceptible to 3rd party snooping and thus more secure, If the email is not encrypted...

@jamie:Proves where the gov'ts priorities are

Exactly what I thought when I heard this on Radio 4 news.

It appears to be a minor offence for the UK populace to rape, muder or otherwise harm each other, no real crime done there. But deprive the government of some tax and expect the severest of punishment. As Alan L pointed out, he shouldn't have been so selfish. If he had made some contribution to the government coffers, he might have got off with a severe talking to, or some excessive finger wagging.

Time to change provider

All six major ISPs have signed up to this, so move to a minor provider. And if/when the minor players are forced to comply, encrypt all your traffic, at least until a law is passed making encryption illegal. Which in my opinion will most certainly happen.

What one must realise is that money, profit and control come above all else. We are cattle in the eyes of business, and whilst government and multinational corporations are intimately entwined nothing will change for the benefit of the public at large.

Mark (16:04) has a point, which I would take further... It is essential that the public in general avoid filling the coffers of a monopolistic or profiteering entity. We do have the power to effect change, unfortunately exercising this power means flouting laws that have been set up to protect said monopolistic, profiteering entities or simply doing without the product. I would not encourage anyone to break the law, but I do urge everyone to exercise the power we have as consumers.

Out of curiosity I looked up Mark 16:04, and this is what I found:

"And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great."

Interesting, only the stone has not been rolled away, we are chained to it and until we as the source of monopolistic income do something about it, it is staying put.

Too late

The list is out there now in the public domain, try as it might the BNP is not going to stop distribution of this list. As much as part of me has sympathy for those members who's privacy has been breached, an equal part of me is laughing its ass off.

"Nick Griffin claimed the leak was good news for the extremist party because it showed its members were not "skinhead oiks""

Says it all really, well at least how narrow minded and limited in imagination Nick Griffin is.

A security breach is NEVER good news Nick, you prove yourself to be even less smart than I thought you were.

It appears to me that "skinhead oiks" are the only members of the BNP who take pride in their membership and boast of it. Whilst professionals and respected members of society (I use the term loosely) keep such affiliations very quiet indeed. This says more about the BNP than propaganda from either side of the fence ever could.

Stigmata

Title says it all

Beating the obvious with an obvious stick

"But we would argue that Reg readers exhibit a certain technical savvy you won't find in the general population."

Er well this site ain't exactly Chat Magazine, Heat or Reloaded etc.

But it is reassuring to know that a good percentage of IT professionals are using the more secure browsing technology.

Now if the same survey were taken of sites such as The Sun, OK magazine and Nuts magazine I reckon IE will most certainly dominate. I have always believed that readers of such publications prefer to have their thinking done for them.

Any item/article

...'an offence to make, adapt, supply or offer to supply any article which is "likely to be used to commit, or to assist in the commission of, [a hacking or unauthorised modification or DoS] offence"'

DOS code, network scanner, DNS service, Whois, assembler, ftp client, telnet client, compiler, email client, email relay, web proxy, netcat, ping, vi, notpad, gedit, rm, chmod and other commands, telephone, mobile telephone, wifi card, laptop, desktop, broadband connection, dozens of books, fingers, eyes, brain, coffee, pizza etc.

Everyone with a computer has at at least one tool/item/article that is necessary for dos or hacking, technically this law has just criminalised everyone with a computer .

@AC:Good stuff

0 errors is the only acceptable figure for a database system that can have such a devastating effect on a persons ability to find employment. A database that has the possibility to fundamentally effect the rest of a persons life.

In addition I do have something to hide.

My private life and those personal activities I wish to hide from control crazed paranoiacs who might see my natural curiosity and security research as a terrorist act, my objection to their policies and laws as subversion/treason and potential physical threat, and my thoughts and fantasies as a crime.

Of course I have something to hide, remember the word privacy? Unless I actually do something that directly or adversely affects others it's nobodies fucking business what I do.

The terms leader, government, policy and law are not synonymous with the terms honest, righteous, fair and good. If they were, then I would tend to agree with you, I would have nothing to hide.

Alternatively,

one could pay attention to the road and perhaps concentrate on the driving task instead of fucking around with sat navs, mobile phones, audio players or the settings on an anti-collision system.

Another technology that further removes us from responsibility for our actions.

Albino starfish

"We draw the line at what's exploitative. We don't sell pornography because it exploits people."

And selling anal bleach to the anally retentive isn't exploitation?

From $10/£7 to $50/£35 (approx, conversion), per product, I'm sure there will be something cheaper and possibly quicker acting found under the kitchen sink for the average DIYer.

Nope, anal bleaching ain't for me. It would be too much hassle having to wipe after EVERY dump.

Protecting children

Protect children from the sometimes horrid realities of life by shielding them completely from exposure to such horrors. That's right, keep them safe and incorruptible by depriving them of the very information they need to defend themselves from the slings and arrows that may well be launched at them during their developing years. After all if they don't know about it, it doesn't exist right? Ignorance is truly bliss, until that is, one is expected to make an informed decision.

No wonder children in mid teens feel alienated from society when they are patronised in such a way and treated not as young adults but little kids. Children are maturing at a younger age and taking on responsibility for their actions sooner than previous generations did. The education system may now be teaching children to pass exams instead of teaching the subject resulting in some very ill-educated school leavers, but these kids are more worldly wise than previous generations ever were and much more than they are given credit for.

Such integrity should be lauded

Cracking a joke that 500 people out of a few million find offensive is most certainly grounds for dismissal. Especially when balanced against a lying government that misleads a nation of 50+ million into an illegal war which not only offended millions of people but resulted in the deaths of thousands.

New kid on the block

"Steve Ballmer has publicly belittled Google's fledgling mobile phone platform, saying the world's largest search engine ad broker is low on Microsoft's list of mobile competitors."

Yup low on a list where once it did not even exist. If Ballmer did not see the Google platform as any kind of threat, it would not even make that list. And as skelband noted he wouldn't be talking it down, he wouldn't be talking about it at all.

Give the woman a break

She is smart enough to know that the world was created in six days that dinosaurs didn't exist and that it is perfectly acceptable to shoot and kill animals for fun.

Wasting of police time and resource

There are criminals out there committing real crimes, decriminalising cannabis would save police a great deal of time and free them to pursue said real criminals. Yet the argument would remain that profits from drug trafficking/dealing fuel other more nasty crimes such as terrorist funding and forced prostitution. There is a solution to this, simply allow the cultivation of cannabis for personal use. If dealing remained illegal it would give the police an avenue by which they could eliminate the diversion of profits from cannabis sales into more objectionable criminal activities.

The ignorance of the masses regarding cannabis use along with misleading propaganda allows a relatively harmless drug such as cannabis to be deemed nasty and socially destructive. Whilst the use of genuinely destructive drugs such as alcohol to be socially acceptable.

Considering the amount of NHS resource given to treating the victims of alcohol abuse, the victims of alcohol related violence and the cost of policing city centers during pub and club closing times, I would have thought it would be more socially responsible for our government to encourage cannabis usage as an alternative to getting pissed and breaking someones face in a fit of alcohol induced rage.

It would be interesting to find out if the cost of policing and treating alcohol related crimes and injuries exceeds the tax income from alcohol sales. There is no choice here, resource has to be expended to protect society from socially irresponsible drinkers. Where is the benefit to society of busting someone for smoking a spliff on a park bench?

Getting away with murder is easy.

At least it is for governments and over zealous Metropolitan armed response teams.

Naive of me

to presume that as this phone utilises an open source OS, using the device as root would be a matter of choice.

I really didn't think it was silly of me to imagine that an open source OS meant an open device over which the user has control, especially as user control seems to be a primary tenant of open source. One lives and learns. Not closed nor open, Perhaps the OS is slightly ajar.

Abandonware.

Make WfW a free for all, toss in Win95 and Win98 as well. Oh hell, why not go the whole hog and make XP and Vista abandonware too. M$ has made more than enough money from it's userbase. It is about time it gave something other than frustration and angst to the computing masses.

Although I am sure it isn't, Vista on a 3.2Ghz dual core CPU, with 4Gb of RAM and 512Mb 825Mhz GPU card appears slower than WfW on a 33Mhz 386 with 4Mb of RAM and a 512Kb Cirrus Logic VGA card. How did m$ manage that?

Hacked?

"To my complete disbelief, I soon realized they did move their servers and they had no firewall and the passwords were not even changed!"

Seems like he simply accessed the servers.

'Cocaine addicted IT manager accesses ex-employer's mail servers'. There ya go a more accurate/truthful headline, although not quite so sensational ;-)

Glitches,

or undocumented features?

Software coded by a republican? Excuse me whilst I earth my tin foil Stetson.

New desktop OS?

Does this mean that if I dye my hair and grow a beard I become a new person?

A few cosmetic changes, a couple of fixes for appalling performance, the addition of the number 7 and the removal of the word vista does NOT constitute a new operating system.

As AC stated, free will most likely mean a monthly contract fee. I reckon the word free is the most abused/misused word in the history of language/print.

Here's you new Android phone sir.

Oh by the way, it isn't yours really, it is owned by Google who can and will remove any applications you download from them and possiibly other third parties that it deems unfit.

I was considering Android purely because I thought I would have control over a handset that I purchased. Open source, no hidden nastiness has to be a good thing. It is now tainted.

I wait until someone smarter than I hacks google control out of the device, then I will reconsider. Until then the OS on this device is no better than that on any other proprietary handset.

I can understand the Google position on this, if anyone can distribute any applications they like the device is ripe for abuse. Still informing the user of any malicious application and it's behaviour and allowing the user to chose whether or not to remove that app would be imho the more fitting solution.

Google have just admitted that the device is monitored and has a back door just like the iPhone. More fool those who allow this kind of invasion.

Be fair, there is most certainly a place for marketing executives.

Aboard the Golgafrincham B-Ark.

Closed for upgrade

see title

Windows mobile on iPhone Why not?

sounds like a massive improvement to me, it would be more reliable, stable and infinitely more fun and easy to use.

I am happy in the knowledge that a giggle of joy or a scream in fear constitutes sonic emotion. No need to investigate further.

@AC, Matt, Nigel etc.

A video of bubbles sinking may not be available, but Micheal Jackson might have a video of Bubbles going down.

OK, I'll get my coat.

Confirmation

Radio and TV signals have been emanating from this planet for a long time. If any of these signals have been picked up by intelligent life in the vicinity Gliese 581 we have just confirmed what they have been thinking all along. Who had the ridiculous idea of beaming the thoughts and feelings of social networking site at another star system? Did not beaming the thoughts and feelings of our greatest philosophers and scientists occur to them?

Deceptive practice

With ms using the words "Search the web", Fecesbook users are deceived into believing that they are performing a true web search when in fact they are trawling a mssql (I presume) database of what ms believe is out there on the Internet. I don't use live search, but I am inclined to believe that any results returned will list all ms resources vaguely related to the search terms first regardless of relevance. Mmmm, perhaps years of ms dominance in the desktop space has lead me to become too cynical.

There are ways of performing a web search using other search engines without leaving Fecesbook, but then again I don't expect Fecesbook users to be smart enough to launch another browser window.

A half joking icon might have been useful here.

Of course it will be effective

It is a known fact that terrorists actually planning an attack, as opposed to those merely fantasising, communicate in plain text/language via government monitored communications. They do this because they haven't a clue that telephone calls both mobile and land line are logged and monitored. They think the Internet is secure and that plain text email communication is not open to interception or key word sniffing. They have no reason at all to use the post, stenography, pgp, codewords or talk behind closed doors. When buying fertiliser just one person who has never bought fertiliser before buys 500Kg in one go, usually on line. It would never cross their minds to have several different people buy 10kg bags with cash from several garden centres dotted around the country.

As mentioned this system is not about catching terrorists, unless "intelligence service" is an oxymoron.

@Johan Hartman:No it doesn't

Well said. I was going to write "It''s all smoke and mirrors".

What's that? I did, oh yeah.

What you forgot to add was that if any "green" change negatively affected the bottom line then it would not be implemented.

clickjacking is nothing new

I presume this is an example of clickjacking.

<a href="http://www.MyMaliciousSite.com" OnMouseOver="window.status='http://MyFriendlySite.com'; return true;" OnMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;">http://MyFriendlySite.com</a>

Doesn't work in FF with default settings. Works perfectly in IE6 I don't know about IE7 or IE8 having never used them.

@dervheid

Wasn't me, my Register login details must have been phished. Prove it was me.

"Government access to Phorm spy system reports it was your IP address."

Well my wifi must of been hacked, prove it was me. What's that, you don't need proof, I should prove I am innocent? What kind of justice is that?

"No justice here, only law and you're nicked."

How about some truth for a change

Regionalised embedded firmware can deal with these issues, there is no reason to region lock titles unless of course maximising profit is the goal.

he's entitled to his opinion

And as people are being locked up these days for voicing opinion...

Whether homosexuality is a choice or hereditary, so what. It is a persons right to express their sexuality in anyway they wish. Of course if this expression involves the buggering of young boys, whilst most of us would find this repugnant and despicable, it appears more than acceptable within the church. Yet buggering a consenting adult isn't. Very peculiar.

This man is seriously deluded to the point of requiring psychiatric help. I should have sympathy for his plight but somehow I don't.

Five minutes?

I can only presume this has been thought up by a man with little or no consideration given to the pleasure of the woman involved.

Bring back seventies and eighties porn, where women were considered to be a little bit more than mere fuck machines or sperm receptacles. Much of todays hard core porn is violent, disgusting and humiliates women. Fair play to Virgin for denying this request, not that it fits in with their brand image at all. I am pleased that there is much 70's/80's porn I have yet to get my hairy palms on.

@By he who knows:I cry foul

We have bot nets, we have ID theft, we have phishing and someone is getting rich. Many people do not think, all they see are shiny things and they reach for them. Therefore I conclude the average Internet user is an idiot. OK idiot could be to strong a word, perhaps ill informed, ignorant or lacking imagination are better descriptions. Whatever the case, ms are going to win a few hits with this promotion, at least until its over and those who fell for the con go back to a search engine they can rely upon.

A law has been passed!

That will surely stop RFID skimming. Excuse me whilst I shit.

It is only illegal if one is caught.