Re: One word:
which is exactly what happened in Iran with the centrifuges
15057 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Feb 2008
"ECU's == good :) other on-board computer systems in cars == bad"
The problem - as we saw with analysis of the Toyota runaway acceleration issues - is that improved computer horsepower and increased memory led to rotten programming and lax practices becoming widely tolerated in safety-critical systems as accountants took over
mechanical systems wear and Landrovers were always hideously unreliable - hence why they went from 98% to 1% of the australian 4WD market in 12 months when Landcruiser became available without an electronic system in sight
the other issue is that the kind of people who associate with them and the profit margins associated with the kinds of people who sell it are such that it it's a good idea to hand out with them or the product they're selling
money (and greed) makes people do very strange things
> The employer was questioned about which bit of 10% they didn't understand. The response was "Yes, but we didn't think you'd make any sales. We're certainly not going to pay you £1m!"
I'm minded of Edison and Tesla
And always getting such offers in writing, then checking that they're ironclad before proceeding
"If 30,000 satellites that are essentially disposable are needed to provide the service that is a massive overhead with absolutely no guarantee it can be maintained even assuming permission is granted."
The real money isn't in providing this service. It's actually a side-show when all is said and done
trans oceanic laser-linking outside the atmosphere at LEO is about 30% lower latency than the shortest submarine fibre cables. Financial houses will pay billions for that kind of advantage - quite literally that kind of money has been spent for 2-3ms advantage on entire submarine cable systems, let alone getting 10-12ms advanbtage
"I'd be surprised if you could take out more than one bird with a nuke."
Starfish Prime took out virtually everything in direct line of sight AND a lot of stuff not in line of sight which flew through the charged electron clouds resulting from the explosion. Telstar was knocked out by it - and was launched some time AFTER the detonation!
The fact that the birds were retrieved gave the Soviets a SEVERE case of heartburn and confirmed their worst fears about Shuttle.
This moves very much into "Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD" territory
We need sensible adults in the room having sensible discussions about bringing down junk and the Americans are amongst the worst offenders for preventing this happening
expending small amounts of money/effort to cause your opposition to spend LARGE amount
We've seen unintentionall results of this kind of thing already when spammers targetted relay servers on the epsensive fringes of the net back in the 1990s. It's what caused the creation and rapid adoption of blacklists
"Logically, with the UK now as a 3rd country, it should be no different."
It's vastly different, because the UK is not a simple "3rd country"
Items _manufactured in the UK_ are allowd to be imported to the EU Tariff Free
This means you must prove they were manufactured in the UK, or tariffs apply. Problems immediately start accruing when items are made from multiple components sourced from within and outside the UK as percentage of work in the UK then becomes the deciding factor (local content rules)
if the tariff-free agreement was not in place then the paperwork would be significantly easier because tarffs would apply on the finished goods at the prevailing rate
And no, the US exporter DOESN'T care about the rules. Stuff does turn up with such bills. Everything tends to be "FOB" (meaning you have to pay local customs agent handling fees and these can be STEEP)
" there are hundreds of people willing to put up with everything just to see their name on a list "
Having been exposed to the periphery of this shit, this is one of the reasons I have as little to do with the "entertainment" industry as possible. Many of those involved spin it out into everyone around them (even in amateur dramatics)
" The worry is that it does work, its very effective and its constantly improving. "
last time I checked, the false negative rate was high and the false positive rate was high. The only thing it CAN do is improve
it's nowhere near close to being useable by anyone and yet Big Brother is trying to do so
"robo-calling problem isn't as bad here - at least not for my TPS 'Protected' number."
"They" don't care if your number is TPS protected and "They" don't care whose CLID they're forging (the "BT scammers" have been using valid ones belonging to active customers for a while now)
As the terminating telco gets a cut of the revenue (call termination charges), my argument is that they're jointly and severally liable for the scam. If/when that starts being upheld in court is when telcos will sit up and take the issue seriously. Until then they'll continue to pay lip service to it and only pay attention when they don't get their termination revenue
"Why can't these public bodies just replace a blocked CLI with the main reception number?"
They can. They're not aware they can do so and their provider doesn't tell them it's possible
in a lot of cases people are working from home and withholding because of that. This is a good case for SIP forwarding (SECURELY!) but of course nobody thinks of doing it until it's suggested to them as a way of providing an acceptable CLID
NHS has been suggesting it for a while
WRT the plod, the CPS would kick their arses quite hard as OFCOM have been mandating public services NOT withhold CLI for more than a decade
Terminating telcos get ~1/3 of the call revenue, so they have a vested interest in the problem continuing
Everytime we've seen them take publicised action it#s been because of telco billing fraud depriving them of revenue
Making them jointly and severally liable for the robocalls and fraudulent CLID would cleanup the problem very quickly
Having been an El Reg reader since its inception and spent at least as many years chasing various miscreants across networks who never got anywhere near court, I'd say fewer than 0.1% ever get anywhere near police, let alone a court.
For the most part the Plod simply don't want to know, even when it's dropped giftwrapped into their lap, unless "someone influential" puts a flea in their ear
What's really surprised me over the years is how few cases have resulted in victims taking matters into their own hands. Many of the most destructive/malicious skiddies haven't exactly been low profile
"I'm told not to worry - our students are not that clever, etc."
I suggest you keep hard copy of that correspondence. You're likely to need it
Back in the 1990s I was told that by a high school when I said it was only a matter of time before they got hacked by the students - and if they were lucky said students would ONLY change their exam grades
I was an external consultant and as a result was told my services were no longer required. It was less than 2 years later before the inevitable happened and a bunch of private information got out. The fact that they'd been warned meant their liability insurers voided their policy, so it got quite expensive for the administrator concerned (who had overridden everyone else one summer holiday when sleazy salespeople had shown up with a slick sales job, resulting in staff returning to a done deal)
Something similar can be said for both Boeing and AT&T's breakups too
There's definitely a place for antitrust laws and the USA isn't using them nearly enough but the legislative abuse is so deeply entrenched that I don't think one nutjob senator railing about them (ironically, from the side of the plutocracy) will make any difference
It's important to realise that what we're seeing now in the USA is the culmination of an effort to destroy the New Deal which began in 1940 (and recruited evangelists to the cause). That group gained the upper hand in 1980 with the election of Reagan and have been running rampant ever since, but history has a tendency to repeat and the New Deal short-circuited a depression which "should" have lasted 30 years if normal economic cycles had been left to play out. When the crash comes, the USA is going to hurt and unlike the last few times it's no longer the only 900 pound gorilla in the room - meaning that "if America sneezes the world catches flu" no longer applies
there were a lot of things wrong with the british shipbuilding industry at the time but that was merely a symptom of what was going wrong
When 3 shifts of welders could be outperformed by a single japanese worker operating semiautotomated rigs on the other side of the world, changes had to be made. Choices were between shedding staff and modernisig practices or shutting down entirely and it ended up being the latter
This scenario has repeatedly played out in industrial areas around the world where manglement have tried to maximise profits when they saw that heavy reinvestments in plant + automation was needed and chose to run the business into the ground instead. It's never ended well for the poor buggers at the blunt end of things