Posts by h4rm0ny

Re: and therein lies the problem for Aussies

Functionally it is little different from having cash stolen. They set the limit at X as a parallel to how much money you might be carrying in a non-card world. £100 probably isn't that bad they think as you'll get it back eventually.

However, the system needs two things. One, the availability of cards without NFC payment enabled, and two - the ability to configure your own limits. (These can actually be the same thing given you could configure a limit of zero).

Re: That's the unix way of doing things..

>>"qrencode -t PNG -o - "${1:-Empty data!}" | display &"

>>Joining two applications without having to do anything special is part of how Unix stuff works.

We're talking about calling this from another program or a web script, so tell me why building your command line above is less "having to do anything special" than using an API like the following:

Imagick imageTool = new Imagick();

imageTool->grencode('png',outputFile);

Etc. Is building a command line and sending it to the shell inherently simpler? I think the opposite. It's certainly more prone to vulnerabilities which was the OP's point.

Text is a terrible way of joining programs together.

Re: @AC ...That's the unix way of doing things..

>>"Before you bash Linux/Unix... Looking at the exploit, unless you run ImageMagick as root, you're limiting the potential damage."

Something that runs as the webserver (ImageMagick is a library compiled into PHP amongst other things), then that's quite enough damage, thanks. Being able to connect to the sites database and run arbitrary commands, scan the entire webroot, and even (though this should normally be blocked by other measures) potentially write to it is not something that should be described as "Limited" without context.

Re: That's the unix way of doing things..

>>"The moral of the story is not that there's anything wrong with interpreters (like your diatribe against shells) but the context that they're allowed to be used from. ImageMagick evolved from being a command-line tool and now it's being used in an unsafe context. That is all"

I disagree. Your argument is to the effect of "it doesn't matter if there are sufficient protections in place", but that's a statement that's always true and always misses the point. The point the OP made was that command-line text to join up different programs is inherently more vulnerable as an approach than calling the APIs of other objects because it is inherently more open to malicious input. If in this case, ImageMagick was written to call the "imageconvert()" method of an object, even if you could provide a variety of such objects that implemented it in different ways, that would be inherently safer than having it exec to the command line "jpegtool --convert myImage.jpg" where the command line is, by necessity, assembled from different parts and thus needs the kind of "jail" that you talk about in your anecdote.

OP is correct.

Re: So is anyone going to be held to account?

>>"@h4rm0ny - so you missed the stuff about parliament saying no, 10 years is too long, we need an independent review, and the review saying no, it's too long, and more than 2/3rds of all the responses for comment saying that it was too long also?"

No, I didn't miss that the public response was overwhelmingly against it. But then I look at vast upvoting for things here that I know are factually wrong and I recognize that in all probability much of the public feedback was similarly misguided. If you do a public consultation about rationalizing penalties for the same crime between online and offline methods, and 70% of the feedback is people who plainly haven't understood the proposal that doesn't mean throwing out the law is a good response. And in fact, I've read the response. It comments on the concerns people raised and provides citations that explain the misconception if people bothered to read it. But instead we get articles like Kieran's here which scan through it looking for something to attack, find a phrase like "Such information was derived from our analysis of the evidence and opinion provided to us by a wide spectrum of interested parties, over the consultation period." and translate that as "they admit they pulled it out of their arse".

That's just bad reading. So no, I haven't missed it, I've responded with facts and reason. Truth isn't determined by popularity as voting here demonstrates.

Re: Facepalm

It's unlikely to appear in mainstream media because the author of this piece has massively misrepresented things in both their recent articles on this.

Re: Fiscal Responsibility

Well previous recipients of multi-year prison sentences in the UK for piracy have included people who traded over twenty-million in pirated software so probably the ratio is pretty high. Conversely, find me domestic file-sharers who received multi-year prison sentences in the UK courts over just getting a fine. Found any...? No? So maybe you shouldn't be upvoting spurious posts about imprisonment costs because you can't back it up with this actually happening in the UK.

Re: Deja vu

>>"Reminds me of the time when Internet Explorer got so fully "integrated" into the OS that you couldn't get rid of it in favor of another browser."

You really don't want to know about ChromeOS, then!

Re: Cue the hackers in 3, 2, 1...

>>"Legend has it that the keypad arrangements were chosen to use a different layout specifically to slow down people as they mash in the number. Desktop calculators, or "adding machines" with cranks on the side had been around for a while, and the usual office worker could overload or confuse the phone system with their speed if they used the adding machine format."

You're confusing two separate though similar things. The QWERTY keyboard layout was designed to slow people down because old-fashioned mechanical typewriters could not keep up. Dvorak is designed to be faster but is seldom seen.

The phone keypads weren't designed to slow people down. Phone keypads were not mechanical in the same way as typewriters and have always been able to handle human speeds just fine. And I think that the old-fashioned dial phones never had this problem either. What they did have, however, was the fact that it took longer to dial numbers comprised of low digits, than it did to dial longer ones. Which is why phone codes in the UK and USA were preferentially assigned according to population / pull in government. E.g. London was 020, Bristol got one with several ones, I think, whilst we Northern rif-raff got all the fives, sixes, etc.

Re: Proprietary code hardwired to use proprietary APIs to do stuff shock!

>>"Why the hell do people demand Microsoft's code run on magic and rainbows when none of their competitors are required to do so?"

Because we (the MS customers) pay money for their products and want that to be how MS make their money. MS were one of the last non-advertising, non-privacy invading software vendors. We LIKED it when privacy was a selling point that MS would use against Google. We have money and we're willing to hand it over for what we want.

But that's not good enough for MS, apparently. They want to have their cake and eat it, they've seen Google eat their lunch and think the only way to fight back is to become Google. Ignoring that many of us are still with them only because they're not.

So what do we have left? I don't know what privacy is like in the Apple ecosystem. But I guess increasingly it's becoming either them or the (non-Google) GNU/Linux distributions.

Re: So where's EU

Both Google and Microsoft are bad on things like this. May not be coincidence that this happens the week after Google and MS agree not to shop each other to the courts for market misbehaviour.

Re: The biological imperative.

>>"Absolutely, we all (or anyone worth talking to at least) want that. I'm just saying that if that's what you're after then the feminism movement, which is named after only one gender and has a long history of caring primarily about that gender is not a good way to achieve that sort of non-sectarianism."

Someone claimed that feminism was a derogatory term that some people were applying revisionism to. I showed with historical accuracy that this was not the case. You chose to argue against my post and add your own words into my mouth in doing so. I re-iterated what I'd said, asked you if you were really trying to defend such an absurd position as I countered by contesting what I wrote. You have again, skipped over that, started contesting what I wrote. You seem only to wish to argue against my defending the term against someone who twisted its meaning in a quite plainly obvious way.

Feminism remains an important movement for as long as there are injustices which are primarily perpetrated against women. Just read the story you're actually replying to if such injustices are escaping your attention. I can provide a long list of other examples if you wish and you know that I can. It is no more wrong to be a feminist and fight against injustices against women than it is wrong to be a gay rights activist and fight against injustices towards homosexuals, or to be a racial activist and fight against injustices towards Black people. Or similar for any other targeted group.

>>I think we now need to stop calling ourselves feminists and start saying we're in favour of gender equality.

Femism has ALWAYS had equality as a stated goal. To claim we need to "start saying..." anything of this sort is absurd ignorance. If you have any grasp of the history of feminism then you must know there is no "start". This has always been a core statement of feminism. The "Feminist" name of the movement isn't because we're not in favour of equality, it's because historically and today, most of the adjustments that need to be made have been bringing women up to the same level of opportunity and rights as men. Or are you going to contest that as well?

It's your repeated insinuation that to be feminist is to ignore other injustices. This is false and you know it to be false, yet in trying to abolish the term feminism you keep pretending that it is.

>>You could call that a feminist issue if you want but if it's about something which is good for everyone, why would you want it to be labelled as a "women's problem"?

It's a problem in society that affects people regardless of gender. But if you're genuinely interested in my answer as to why I use the term feminist, as opposed to just trying to attack the term for being exclusionary, then the answer is simple. It's one more front on the battle for social justice that has a long and respected history behind it and it's a cause behind which both men and women can rally. Whether you call yourself a feminist or choose to call yourself a human rights activist, is up to you. But please cease attacking those of us who do call ourselves feminists by implying it's exclusive of championing other causes. And especially cease attacking the supported and plain arguments of those who refute historically inaccurate and hate-filled revisionism which is what you have been doing so far.

Feminism is a useful term that is the name for an active political movement that stretches back over a hundred years. I and others call ourselves that because we believe in and work towards equality for women. When that's achieved, come back and tell us the term no longer has meaning. Today, that hasn't happened, so kindly respect our freedom to champion such causes and continue to refer to ourselves by the name of our movement. You know perfectly well that being a feminist does NOT mean excluding other injustices and caring ONLY about women. Would you similarly attack someone from Stonewall when they were debating with a anti-gay bigot and tell them that they shouldn't call their movement a gay rights organization, but a human rights one, even though they were a gay rights movement? Or leap into a conversation between a racist and a black rights activist and keep trying to attack the latter saying they were wrong to talk about Black rights? Show some respect. Feminism has a long and proud history so kindly respect people's right to identify as such without insinuating things about us. Sure, you could abstract every righteous cause on the planet and complain that they should all just be called "Justice" and that any differentiation beyond that implied exclusion. But would it be useful? Would it help? Would it recognize that people fight against the injustices that they encounter in their daily lives or have been on the receiving end of? No.

If none of the above reaches you, and at the end of it you don't feel like just respectfully backing off and letting someone shut down bigots who say stupid things, and still want to challenge people for the name of their movement and the areas they are active in; then I can only conclude that your goal here isn't to learn or respect how people self-identify, but only to argue and be right on the Internet.

I understand your argument. No further explanation from you is necessary on this. I understand it and am still fine with calling myself a feminist and I still reject insinuations that it means we're excluding people. Re-read the experiences of Jessie Frazelle. Re-read some of the injustices women go through daily in the world today. And if after all that you still object to people taking up the banner of feminism under which we unite to try and oppose those things, then you don't have the respect for the people fighting those battles that you think you have. Because you're attacking them every time you support people who try to turn the word feminist into a term of abuse.

Re: hmm

>>You've concocted a lot of specious circumstances to try and justify what boils down to: ""This guy is attractive so he can say whatever he likes" and "I don't like the look of this guy so if he so much as puts a foot wrong I'll try and wreck his livelihood".

Have I? I wasn't there and your post begins by complaining that a "hot guy" (your words) made sexual comments to a girl and she was okay with it but that an "unattractive, creepy IT guy" came and commented sexually on her appearance and she did not like that. You then got annoyed, saying that treating people differently based on whether their advances were welcome or not wasn't an "explanation". Now I don't know whether or not her going to HR and complaining about him was justified or not - like I said, I wasn't there. But I can say a few things about it. Firstly, if this thing by itself results in "wrecking his livelihood" there's some context missing from this story. Was his livelihood actually wrecked? Or did he just get called in for a chat about workplace etiquette? Secondly, you well know, or should, that there is a lot more to communication than just words repeated on a page. You complain that his comments were less lewd than the "hot guy's". But that's not the criteria by which such things are assessed. They're assessed by the intent behind them, by the person delivering them. Like it or not, that's the facts of life. Nobody gets to go "He said she had a nice arse and she didn't mind, so she has to be okay when I tell her how soft her skin is", or whatever.

Maybe she was jumpy and over-reacted and he would have taken a mild rebuff and never bothered her again. Maybe she didn't and he wouldn't. But either way, what has this to do with the story we're talking about or the general case? Is it your position that women shouldn't be able to file a complaint about a guy who bothers them sexually in the work place? Or that a woman should be mandated to complain when she doesn't want to? Is it that you feel women have too much power over male colleagues by means of being able to report them for sexual advances in the workplace? If so, are you saying that a male employee is not allowed to file complaints? What exactly is your contention here? Because you seem to just be complaining about a double standard between attractive people and unattractive people. Which, you know...

Making sexual advances to someone in the workplace is a risky business. Is there really anybody that this is news to? You don't do it unless you have a reasonable expectation that it wont bother the recipient, and if you do do it, you try to do it in such a way that it minimizes embarrassment and allows a get-out for all concerned. It sounds like your "hot guy" has such skills and that your "creepy IT guy" came across as, well, creepy and threatening. And for all we know, he did. So I refer you back to my middle paragraph - what exactly is your complaint here? That women shouldn't be able to voice complains to HR if someone makes a creepy and threatening advance to them? That they should have to complain even when the advance is welcome? That a specific person reacted in a way you didn't like and you think this is representative of women generally? Because all of this is how it comes across.

Re: The biological imperative.

>>"Just to butt in on the question of definition, were you a feminist before Germaine Greer?"

No, but then my statement of what feminism is not, isn't based on my having seniority over someone else in when I started using it. That would be silly. It is based, as you have read in my post, on the origins of the modern movement which coined the term in the first place, which goes back to the Nineteenth Century and women's suffrage in France and the UK. Emmeline Pankhurst and Marie Stopes were feminists before both Germaine Greer and myself, and it's these examples which I used as evidence.

Trying to throw out my argument by suggesting it's an argument from authority (i.e. "my definition is the right one because it's mine"), is to skip, oh, about a paragraph and a half of my post.

>>"If not then your claim that gender equality is in the definition of feminism is definitely revisionist"

Firstly, see above - your premise is flawed. Secondly, I don't believe those words above are mine. What I wrote is that "Feminism" is not a revisionist interpretation of a derogatory term. Unless you are arguing that it is, then you accept my position criticising the AC that claimed such a stupid thing.

Re: The biological imperative.

>>Instead of blaming each other, how about facing up to the real world, rather than the kindergarten cartoon the politically correct draw, of society and social relations. [...] Of course those that have, have no time for 'feminism', which remains the province of those who have not.

Everytime someone complains about political correctness, my instinct is to suspect they are annoyed at not being able to use phrases like "doll" or "the little lady". And every time the same person goes on to declare that "feminists" are against sex, it reinforces that.

Feminism is simply the seeking of equal opportunities for women as there are for men. That is neither anti-sex nor mutually exclusive with supporting equal opportunities for men (e.g. fair consideration for men in custody settlements). Yes, you get the odd Adria Richards type person who wears the label of Feminism whilst using it to attack over trivial and inoffensive things. But that no more makes it right for you to indulge in the old "feminists are women who aren't getting any" trope than the Nation of Islam group makes seeking racial equality a bad thing.

Feminism isn't about 'beating men'. It's just recognition that there are some problems, amply illustrated by this story, that there are some problems which, whilst not wholly unique to women, are primarily faced by them and trying to solve that so that everybody (not just one gender), can be judged on merit.

>>"AC because I dont want to be subjected to death threats, pictures photoshopped with blood etc etc."

Honestly, I think downvotes are the only thing you'd really have to worry about.

Re: hmm

>>"Different reactions for different people" as an attempt to explain away that double standard really does not cut it.

What double standard are you referring to? That someone reacts differently to someone they find attractive and non-threatening to someone they don't find attractive and do feel threatened by? That's the example I gave and I think as explanations go, it's a pretty clear one. What explanation for reacting differently to sexual advances from two different people do think is more likely, than how welcome they are?

Keep in mind that the situation you've raised is not one of sexism. It's not related to the difficult situation this woman faced with rape threats, it's not about career opportunity or discrimination. You posted a story about someone coming onto a woman sexually in the workplace. You held it up as wrong that in one case she flirted back with the "hot guy" and then treated the other guy "from IT" differently. So yes, my "explanation" that the difference is down to whether the advance was welcome or not is likely the right one. That's not a "double-standard", unless you think that someone should respond equally to sexual advances regardless of whether they're welcome or not.

Basically, you've gone off on a tangent about something that isn't an issue of sexism. A man is equally entitled to respond differently to two different women flirting with him.

Re: Utterly unacceptable

>>"Not just Women, but everyone....being a black techie is a nightmare, you are seldom judged on the contents of your brain....rather the colour of your skin, disgusting behaviour!"

Do you mind if I ask where you work? UK or USA?

Re: Troll mentality? - a story of abuse

I'd just like to say that was an inspiring story both for the cleverness you showed in unmasking the perpetrator and for your first reaction being to stand by and support your male partner in this. Attacking someone by threatening to start rumours and sow doubt between a couple is a disgusting, horrible act.

Re: @Meldreth -- Utterly unacceptable

Why should Docker share the results of private investigations? Aside from the fact there's a good chance it would do little good, there's a significant chance it would do a lot of harm - naming people who weren't guilty, prejudicing cases against those that were...

It seems like a very positive thing to me that Docker took additional steps to try and deal with this problem. I'm more concerned about the fact that we're entering a situation where corporations have to take care of law enforcement for their employees rather than the State being able to provide this service.

Re: If Lewis Page had written this article...

Might be better if he had. See my correction above about the "50% of animals" statement. This article is very lacking in actual numbers which is one of the first signs you should look deeper. Are you really of the belief that media coverage of nuclear incidents isn't generally biased? I can provide you plenty of examples of bias and misrepresentation from mainstream sources if you ask.

Re: Show me some stats

I'm also pretty certain that the article is wrong. Or at least highly misleading. It refers to more than 50% of animals having reduced brain size. That should be more than 50% of the types of animals suffer from it. I.e. they found incidences of this in X number of species, not of all individual animals total, more than 50% were afflicted.

Definitely some numbers required. I'm going to make an educated guess and say they would lead to a very different impression than this article.

Re: Actually, no

>>"You're saying that with a confidence that I don't share. You appear to be expecting common sense from the law; whereas -not only do I not expect it- but when you think a little bit about recent legal history scope creep; RIAA maths and so on, the exact opposite is what will likely happen in practice."

I've been citing actual cases of multi-year convictions in UK legal history and showing the level of wrong that had to be committed to achieve that. They are rare and extreme cases, all with massive distinctions between them and domestic piracy that others here are discussing. You accuse me of confidence, well yes - I'm basing this on actual cases. You declare vague hints about "RIAA maths" and declare that the exact opposite will happen. Well then put your money where your mouth is and do what I have done: cite some actual cases and lets examine them. Show me cases in the UK where people have received multi-year sentences for piracy in the UK and we'll take a look at whether these are domestic pirates or are actually some non-representative case that has special reasons for it. Go for it - show me cases where people have got multi-year prison sentences in the UK for this. And don't make the mistake of saying you can't because this is a new law because this is a rationalization existing law to remove discrepancies between the same act taking place online and offline. Multi-year sentences have been possible for piracy under UK law for a long time. Cite me some examples of this that support your case as I have done for mine.

>>"The proposal has 2 serious flaws: The first is that digital copying is not the same as physical copying"

If someone hands me a cracked copy of photoshop on a pressed DVD or if they send me the file via Dropbox, the fraction of a penny difference in plastic is not the concern. Similarly, if I stole a retail copy of it and then applied a crack, do you really think the pennies of difference and pressing of an extra copy is the concern to Adobe? Or that it's the copy of the software that is their concern. No, the distinctions you are attempting to make are not the relevant ones here. Steal a piece of plastic with the information on or steal it via a torrent, it is logical and correct that the law shouldn't have wildly different sentences and guidelines over these. That is simple and correct. Attempting to say "but in the former case, they no longer have a piece of plastic that someone might have bought" when the plastic is just another medium of transporting the real thing of value, is knowingly trying to dodge the important elements here.

>>"The second is that torrenting is technically making files available; potentially to a large -instant industrial scale- number of people and I see no mention; exemption or even knowledge of that in the proposal"

Well, I'll resist the urge to suggest you don't participate in massive distributed attempts to defraud people of the product of their labour and point out that (a) you haven't seen the actual draft law itself yet and (b) there is indeed a response addressing proportionality of response. Several in fact. Amongst them they highlight previous cases for guidance including one where people got two years and that this wasn't for simply obtaining the movies as domestic downloaders, but people who aimed to be the initial seeders of content that wasn't yet generally obtainable by torrent and did so for over 2,500 movies.

Generally when laws cite specific technological methods, it's a BAD thing. Such laws rapidly become out of date. You are now effectively arguing it's a weakness in the proposal that it [I]doesn't[/I] do this. The point is addressed by multiple citations of existing history in this area so you're wrong that it doesn't cover it. It just doesn't cover it in the way that you think it should be done but would in fact be very problematic and short-sighted to do so.

Now, back to you finding cases in the UK that actually support your belief that domestic pirates are going to get ten year sentences over my actual examples that indicate they wont...

>>"But isn't that only because of the persistant fear and scaremongering that exists now thanks to the ilk of the Daily Mail, et al."

I wouldn't have thought so. Sex with a prepubescent child is intrinsically damaging to that child and equally is inescapably taking advantage of a child through one's greater power over them. It is not arguable that sex with a child isn't both harmful to the child and lacking in even the pretence of consent. It is inherently wrong. Anyone who was a good person and found themself sexually attracted to children is going to suffer distress about their urges. Hence why any good person who finds themself suffering from this would want and need help.

>>"Do you tell everyone about your sexual attractions? Do you tell everyone that you're a heterophile? Homophile? Podophile? Zoophile? Whatever attraction floats your boat? No, probably not."

I tell anyone who asks that I'm heterosexual because I am. However, having seen the distress homosexual people have suffered historically (and may still do today with their families), I can see how having to keep a sexual attraction, even one that is harmless like homosexuality, can cause immense distress for the person who has to live the lie.

>>"You mean child molestation? By that logic, what's stopping you, a person with an attraction, from raping every person that you meet?"

Well I have no penis, so I guess lack of the necessary equipment for a start. But you're badly failing to comprehend what is being said to you which is that sexual attraction can lead to horrific outcomes. Which it can. I didn't say that someone who is a paedophile necessarily will - that part was covered by the suffering in my first part. But I do go on to say that unaddressed paedophilia is a risk. I would think a lifetime of any unfulfilled sexual desire would have a high chance of leading someone towards giving in at some point. What's up for debate in that? So again, the OP wasn't unreasonable in saying they need help. You're being unreasonable in contesting that.

>>"For the purpose of Devil's Advocate though. [...]"

No. You're arguing against points I didn't make through your own inability to understand. Additionally, this is a massive distraction from what the article is actually about. What is happening here is plain: you have some particular issues with paedophilia and having seen an off-hand reference to it in someone's post are now going into some death spiral of arguing about it for your own reasons. I'm satisfied that the points I made are clear and reasonably uncontroversial to any bystander so I decline to derail this forum discussion any further for the sake of your issues. I am done on this.

>>[citation needed]

You really need a citation that if a generally good person found themselves attracted to children they wouldn't feel distressed about that? Or that keeping your sexual attractions secret from everyone you know wouldn't lead to suffering? You genuinely question whether a sexual attraction to prepubescent children can lead to horrible outcomes?

You're a moron.

Re: In other news...

>>A few moments of research revealed that... "All ORG materials, unless otherwise specified, are published under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license."

That's ORG materials. ORG members are also private people with careers and contracts. I would not be surprised if more than one of them worked in software and depended on copyright law for their income.

>>"Perhaps next time one should do some research before one spouts?"

Given that you didn't actually answer the GP's question...