* Posts by Fred Flintstone

3106 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Jun 2009

iTunes Match is iPiracy, claims loopy Oz industry troll

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Easy to see why he is upset..

.. prosecuting people, even if they're possibly innocent, always brings in money for solicitors. Apple thus deprives him of income..

Facebook quietly switches on facial recognition tech by default

Fred Flintstone Gold badge
Devil

It needs to start somewhere..

So you could take a picture of a random cloud and identify each and every one of them as you. Given the volume of images in the system it will have to allow for duplicates, so 10 pictures with 8 people each (faces still need to be recognisable) will pollute the pool sufficiently to make finding the real you in there hard work.

As a matter of fact, you can turn this into a crown project - do this with 10 people, rotate the pictures between you and it will become a yummie mess..

Fred Flintstone Gold badge
Stop

Err - one second..

"The option is to allow the automatic tagging of YOU in YOUR FRIENDS' pics. It's not like you can upload a photo of a crowd of people and it will search the WHOLE of Facebook to tag it with a bunch of people you don't already know"

At least, that is what Farcebook tells you. Up to you to believe that, but I would like to point out that they also once said that your data was safe with them. You were obviously one of the few that actually *believed* that.

Now, I happen to have some fine swamp land in Florida..

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

AFAIK it's actually illegal under UK data protection

I think to collect extra data (such as identifying your presence on images) needs your consent in the UK; but I'm not quite sure (come to think of it, I can't quite put my finger on what aspect they screw around with as they use the usual backdoor to all privacy laws - I cannot ask you for your data without consent, but there's nothing stopping me asking your friends about you - at which point you have bypassed Data Protection).

Worth asking the relevant privacy commissioners, and I don't think it'll go very positive for Farcebook, but what can they do against a US company that blatantly ignores any privacy law? Google is at least partially obliged to obey other laws as it has offices all over the place.

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

I'm getting to the point of emptying the account

I do sod all with it because I'm not really into self-publishing (I prefer my life a tad more private) - it was just there to stop others using my name. I think I'll empty it, as few pictures exist of me (deliberately) I wish them luck with that..

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

You don't realise the opportunities you're missing ..

.. to SERIOUSLY pollute their data. If you try to wage a tech war you'll lose, they have far more resources, but deception is a very underused tool - it allows you to mount an aggressive defense by going into the offensive.

You're missing out, trust me on this :-).

Apple opens iCloud to world+dog

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Cloud service? Not in a million years.

The first lawyer, doctor or banker using this stuff will get his/her rear end sued off for illegal disclosure - in some countries I work, carrying bank data across borders is actually illegal.

The HUGE problem with cloud service is that you have no idea where data is hosted and under what quality regime. Do I trust Apple to do it right? No, because it will be some provider working for Apple - one I cannot choose, control or audit, and naturally I'll have no idea under which jurisdiction they operate (ditto with Google).

So, hurray for some, just not for me.. Clouds have too fluffy edges..

eBay buy signals retail-as-a-service cloud

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Here we go again: privacy risks galore

It's all jolly well doing cloud-thingies, but the problem remains the same: as a customer, I don't know where my information is held, under which jurisdiction. We've already seen what can happen: you use a service in the UK and your data is extracted in a jurisdiction that doesn't worry too much about protection of private information (Twitter, anyone?) - that's going to be fun when credit card data is involved..

Clouds have very fluffy edges - beware.

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Paypal is more dead than you think..

.. as there is a new service negotiating capital investment that effectively nukes all online card fraud (no, it's not yet-another-mobile-phone gadget). Let's hope they get funds soon - I'm sick & tired checking my statements every month for fraudulent entries.

Sandi Toksvig puts the 'n' into cuts - on the Beeb

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Coat

The kids must be very small..

.. if "that" went over their heads (*).

The one with the Radio 4 podcast, thanks..

(*) joking aside, that was the first thing I thought. If they didn't know what the joke was it would not affect them as it would indeed go over their head (I'll refrain from using the opening for rude jokes, although that was in itself a pun), if they did it would no longer be a problem. So I cannot really see the issue either.

Boffins develop working MALE PILL

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Re. "Boy, I'm gonna miss this shit."

As in "when this pill arrives" or are you leaving us?

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Speak for yourself, mate

"they seem to be far more interested in children than us blokes"

Trust me, that changes if you've got one. However, if you don't both want a child you must evaluate your relationship because it *will * crack eventually.

Virgin IT dept shocked by donkey-shagging Taliban

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I suspect..

.. that the reason for letting them go is not RECEIVING this stuff, but sending it on.

AFAIK, anyone who works for a Virgin branded setup must underwrite a policy which tells them in no uncertain terms that such non-business email is "verboten". The reason for that is simple: Virgin spends a fortune on managing their brand and the associated brand values, and it only takes one idiot to cause damage.

Originating rubbish from a Virgin branded email address is thus *begging* for trouble - it will get caught in their filters and flagged for attention. QED.

I can't see this go to court - it's part of their contract..

How to detect heart disease with a smartphone

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What we need ..

.. is a version with built in defrif, debr.., defrill. Never mind.

:-)

Livescribe Echo Smartpen

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Indispensable..

I agree with the comments about the cap on the tip (lost it months ago), but the pen is worth it's weight in gold - provided you know the risks.

Recording audio is actually subject to law in various countries - in the UK you are allowed to record without seeking permission, but it renders anything you use the audio for unadmissable in court. (AFAIK, IANAL). In other countries it can be straightforward illegal.

Having said that, if you don't use the voice recording it's one of the best ways to take notes - and the word search facility is so good it even works with my handwriting - try to find words in all your notes is not hard.

Especially if you deal with confidential clients this pen gives you the advantage of an empty notebook on visit, but a collection on your laptop - but I had to wrap a Truecrypt container around the storage to secure it..

All in all, I love it. I use the A5 + folder - that's the only sensibe place for this pen..

Cloud in 2011: A bright new dawn...

Fred Flintstone Gold badge
Devil

Uh oh - enthusiastic ignoring of fuzzy edges..

The primary problem with cloud computing is that the edges of the concept are fantastically fuzzy, and so is the definition of containment. You need access to data to process it, but as soon as you start distributing that you hit containment and control issues. The part that IT directors and other wannabe *cough* innovators skip when they buy the latest buzzword is that they have legal obligations to the company and the law in general to protect information from theft and disclosure.

Do you really want the latest airframe drawings in a place you don't know who has access to it? Do you realise that exporting personal data across borders is in some countries simply straightforward illegal? As an example, do you really want bank data spread across the planet? If not, are we now talking about cloud slices?

It takes intelligence and skill to decide precisely what cloud computing can be used for, and where it is inappropriate. That skill resides in professionals. I can see the profession take a hit - and then present the bill when it is time to clean up the mess. There won't be enough staff to fight the fires when cloud computing turns to clod computing.

Oh, you want evidence? Look at the major disclosure problems at the moment - always large networks. And they're not even fluffy..

Lockheed Martin suspends remote access after network 'intrusion'

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Coat

Maybe so..

.. but you're not going to change my Jedi religion..

The one with the lightsaber battery pack, thanks. Yes, looks like an iPhone..

Microsoft gets five bucks for every HTC Android phone

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Although I agree ..

.. I do want to know why on earth you'd want a 4GB file on your phone. Other than that, yes..

Google preps mobile payments launch

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The problem is not..

.. micro payments, the problem is the mechanism itself. There is a solution, but until that finds an investor to turn $90M into well over $1bn in Y3 this sort of stuff will keep creating mini headlines and then die.

The problem is that such solutions look perfect from one perspective, but as soon as you walk around the shiny idea you realise that you're looking at the MS approach to selling crud: ignore fundamentals and market the crap out of it to sell it regardless. As we have seen with Vista, you eventually pay heavily for that approach..

Apple seeks anti-snoop display patent

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

I have had a security foil for years..

I bought the security foil as the same time as I bought my (then very new) 3GS. The novelty is thus in the fact that the display itself will have some sort of secure mode, which is interesting as you stop having to stick fiddly bits of plastic on devices, and it can used as needed.

Interesting.

Newly emerged banking Trojan challenges ZeuS-SpyEye duopoly

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

I do too - but run the occasional AV check as well

The problem with most Mac users is that they believe instead of check. I will not claim my Mac is "impossible to highjack" - although I don't install what I don't know (and run my main account without admin rights - NOT an OSX default), I still prefer proof over religion, so I run Kaspersky every so often.

I would in any case not get too glib. an MITM attack can be executed outside your precious Mac by a highjacked site. That can be achieved by DNS pollution, and Safari is IMHO pretty crap at showing the contents of site certificates. At that point it's game over - for OSX and Linux too.

So please don't get too comfortable just yet. So far, I have seen only halfway solutions - stay alert..

Comcast 'Tweetgate' apology thrown back in face

Fred Flintstone Gold badge
Coat

But, but ..

"I can keep my mouth shut" means you would not get full value from your hookers, and it's crap boozing through a straw..

OK, OK, I'm going.

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

There were no strings, only expectations

Now I re-read that title it sounds like a line in a pr0n movie, but I digress :-).

You only have strings if there is some sort of agreement - even verbal, but I don't think that was the case. Rather, some idiot at Comcast thought they had some leverage (and excuse me, was that message really that bad? Sjeez).

At that point it went rapidly downhill like it always does..

Playboy sneaks NAKED LADIES onto iPad

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Small correction ..

"Apple don't give a hoot what sort of smut you view on your iPad; they just choose not to be directly participating in its sale"

I think the word you're looking for is "associated" with the sale. As long as they can keep the shiny pretend halo I'm positive they're quite happy to take your cash.

Playmobile re-enactment of my opinion of Apple's hypocrisy:

http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2010/12/23/2010-a-year-in-pictures/?pid=1503

(if you start looking at all of them, be aware that some are NSFW, aka BCFA - Best Consumed on Friday Afternoon).

El Reg iPhone app rated a flaccid 12+

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OK, I'll write a protest note

I would be quite funny to see how they would react to a complaint to UP the rating instead of lowering it :-).

Quality!!

BOFH: Attack of the Global Corporate Overlords

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Don't need a manual - at your service!

Kill them all = -.- .. .-.. .-.. - .... . -- .- .-.. .-..

That's a shockingly complex tic to develop :-)

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

On the upside..

.. you have absolutes that Outlook cannot produce. The reasons banks don't like the Redmond solution is not MS hate, it's because LN produces pretty solid message security and integrity. As security still appears to be a feature that you will only ever find at MS in a Powerpoint sales slide pack I can understand the hesitance.

I'd much rather move straight to a groupware solution and skip the fight with Exchange :-)

Stuxnet-style SCADA attack kept quiet after US gov tests

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Thank God..

.. that nobody has had the idea yet to use Windows on the ESD side. Imagine a BSOD when you really, really need to start a kill sequence. A frozen Emergency Shutdown is *scary*..

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

You must understand process control..

The world of process control doesn't quite work at the same speed as the PC world you're used to - kit can stay in place for a solid decade without ever be touched. This has implications for the speed with which deficiencies can be updated - fixes have to be checked very, very thoroughly..

I saw the first SCADA deficiencies about 8 years ago..

Simply viewing Apple kit provokes religious euphoria

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Coat

Now you know why the wetness sensor exists..

God knows what users do with this religious fervour.. :-)

Schmidt explains the Google way to self-erasure

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

.. or startpage.com..

The problem with a "not-Google" search engine is that Google gained its prominence by simply offering a better search experience - which it still seems to do.

startpage.com (which seems to be a sister company of ixquick.com) has recently added Google search results to its output, but it anonymises it like every other search you do. So you get the best of both worlds.

The only challenge now is to *verify* that they are serious about anonymous searching, because I can't see the business model here yet. The site doesn't even have ads (which is IMHO a recommendation in itself, but I digress)..

'Upgraded' Apple iMacs lock out hard drive replacement

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

*Exactly* my point

Thank you - that's exactly my point too. I need the damn thing to just work. About the only job I'll do on it is a re-install from scratch when the next OSX comes out, because this was the first time/year I ever used OSX and its uninstall is rubbish. But that's it. Lid open - work, ready - close lid. I give it a reboot in the weekend because it's part of my backup/maintenance routine, but that's about it..

Having said that, one of the legacies of over 2 decades of MS use is the need to KNOW a machine is safe, so as part of the maintenance I do run Kaspersky. Never found anything, partly because I only use the machine via a non-admin account..

Sony Vaio VPCF21Z1E 16in laptop

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Thumb Up

Actually, I call it "best sentence of the article"

I rather liked this line:

"I experienced much less ergonomic irritation during a couple of hours blasting 3D aliens to shit than sitting through 10 minutes of James Cameron’s bloody blue monkeys again."

Sleazy Aussie 'hot babes' network goes MIA

Fred Flintstone Gold badge
Happy

Umm, but..

.. I can't really see myself in need of fake nails. I mean, it's just not my style, really...

Yawn. Lighten up!!!

New PlayStation Network hack hijacks user accounts

Fred Flintstone Gold badge
Stop

Of course - wouldn't want to touch it..

If they are so deeply deficient you have an absolute mountain of a job to get it anywhere near secure, because it has all the decaying reek of a security retrofit (the "oops, we better add some" at the END of a development cycle).

I personally wouldn't want to get near a position which places you at the receiving end of pressure to go live as soon as possible by the clowns who commissioned the original cockup and who are now massively losing face, and the demands of a proper redesign where security is actually an integral part. Whatever happens, you get blamed. Having said that, if they pay a LOT I may reconsider, but here past record seems to suggest they will go for the cheapest bidder (again).

So no thanks. I'll step back a bit, get some popcorn and watch the fire instead.

LinkedIn thinks it's worth $4bn on eve of IPO

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

I have, but I moved to Xing

The problem with LinkedIn is that every time you twitch it broadcasts that to everyone in your network - you have no control over the information it distributes, only over how much you receive of it.

Xing seems to be better in that respect, but it's not as popular.

One thumb up for Facebook security improvements

Fred Flintstone Gold badge
FAIL

Exactly!

That was my immediate take on this "service" as well. No flaming way in hell.

If they wanted better security they could start to support OpenID, so that you can select the level/quality of security you want by choosing teh right ID provider (also the reason why I would NEVER choose Facebook as login provider - yes, let's give them an idea where else I log in)..

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Meanwhile..

.. every single App I have looked at will pillage your friend's profiles when you use it. Translated: my *cough* privacy *cough* settings don't matter much. I set all App settings to the digital equivalent of "fuck off" but spam has elevated dramatically since I used FB.

I think I'm going to change the email account and see how long it takes for new spam to arrive..

Facebook absolved for exposing user info to advertisers

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

In other words..

.. the claim was thrown out on technicalities, not because it didn't happen.

Now there is a surprise..

Facebook 'smear' shock: Journos aghast!

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Err, no..

.. I think El Reg didn't bother to comment on this because the event itself isn't a story. It's a "duh" of PR management, where complete morons have cocked up something that is actually commonplace - something that anyone with half a brain can easily see.

But hey, sorry I woke you up. You can go back to sleep now.

Porn found in Osama bin Laden compound

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

There is an easier explanation

"The US has made claims of porn caches in every enemy stronghold it's ever "liberated" for decades"

Logic thus dictates that they bring it themselves - after all, they are the only common factor between all those totally separate events. Now I'm not really into that industry (which is a pun in itself, sorry), but AFAIK there is a lot of porn made in the US which makes my argument stand up with the power of a dozen Viagras..

In short, for an attempt at psyops that claim is really quite pathetic..

Italian bus driver goes completely hands-free

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Awesome - thanks

That firmly beats the Italian into second place.. Hahaha!

Google Chromebook: Will the revolution be subscribed?

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Oh no - it gets MUCH, MUCH better than that..

May I present to you, the Google Terms of Service, see google.com/accounts/tos.

You want to read, and especially interpret, clause 11 VERY carefully. 11.1 seems to impose some restrictions, but if you take 11.2 apart you will see that those restrictions do not mean a thing..

Now THAT is why I will never, ever have Google near any of my business work. Because I read this sort of stuff - and I know what actual risk that creates.

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Correct conclusion

As a matter of fact, you have it in writing. As I told in another post, look at their Terms of Service at google.com/accounts/tos - see point 11. I won't touch them with a barge pole..

Northants cops blow up suspicious school play prop

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Yeah - I grew up on roadrunner cartoons too..

Thanks for the reminder - genuinely funny :-)

Facebook caught exposing millions of user credentials

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Big Brother

you have another risk then..

Someone who doesn't like you can then set up a profile in your name, maybe grab pictures from you from somewhere and then start posting really *interesting* stuff. If they have enough data about you you'll have a fun time proving it's not you..

Microsoft Skype: How the VCs won and Ballmer overpaid

Fred Flintstone Gold badge
Stop

Just when I thought the Skype UI couldn't get worse..

.. there comes Microsoft, which means it'll get the dreaded, productivity removing "ribbon" interface. The Skype UI on OSX is rubbish, but I think it will look like genius compared to what will happen when MS gets its hands on it :-(

Australia cuts solar subsidies, and not before time

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

I have a far greater eco worry..

What a lot of these wonderful technologies and projects ignore is that governments make an absolute fortune on energy sales. This creates a duplicitous situation where a government appears "green" by supporting energy saving, but MUST be raising energy prices the moment this saving hits their coffers properly to keep their books balanced.

In other words, it appears to me that they are mainly in the process of handing out enough rope to citizens. I'm perfectly OK with measures that reduce your energy needs - I would just caution against any expectation that your savings will remain a profitable margin. We had subsidy, now we appear to have a self sustaining market. What inevitably comes next? Yep - taxation..

Whitehats break out of Google Chrome sandbox

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Relax - this totally lacks proof.

As far as I can see, the key problem is evidence.

That video proves exactly NOTHING - for all you know, the person who recorded it could have created a webpage with "you've been pwned" (which is a juvenile phrase in itself), and pressed Windows-R, "calc" while the video was running.

If you observe, the "calc" process does not seem to have been spawned as a subprocess of Chrome - they obscure the part where you could see this.

So, as far as I can tell this is BS - this is not a zero day vulnerability, this is a zero PROOF one. Until I hear a confirmation from a 3rd party that has some credibility or from Google, this has just been a pretty cheap attempt to get their, *cough* services *cough* advertised on the back of Google.

If I were Google I'd filter them out of the search results, but that would suggest a sense of humour on their part.

Oh, they did achieve something, though. Now the world knows you should never use them for anything sensitive - God knows who they'll sell to..