* Posts by Intractable Potsherd

4159 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

Backdoors won't weaken your encryption, wails FBI boss. And he's right. They won't – they'll fscking torpedo it

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Stalin would be so proud of him

@tlhonmey: "Likewise it's been discovered that mysterious financial backer was actually a drug kingpin, and the project's shutdown was due to him finally having been arrested."

Do you have any hard evidence of that? I can't find any.

Brussels changes its mind AGAIN on .EU domains: Euro citizens in post-Brexit Britain can keep them after all

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Going metric @JLV

"But, I question the logic whereby the EU felt it had to intervene in what’s essentially internal UK affairs in this case." Assuming you are talking about weights and measures, the EU didn't interfere at all. The relevant Regulation simply said that packaged goods must show the weight etc in metric somewhere on the package (harmonisation of trade). It did not, however, say that other units could not be used on the packaging. The UK government decided to gold-plate the legislation (surprise!), and then went for broke with legislation that required market traders (i.e. sellers of *unpackaged* goods) to use metric measurements, leading to the totally unedifying case of the "Metric Martyrs", in which Laws J completely misread the law and played into the hands of the EU haters.

Boris Johnson's promise of full fibre in the UK by 2025 is pie in the sky

Intractable Potsherd

Ummmm - Whigs were the opponents of the Conservative Party (Tories). In general, they were more liberal, and tended to support social change (note the "in general" and "tended" - very broad-brush strokes here).

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Privileged ignoramus bloviates childish shit: sound familiar?

Or, you know, the country might realise that there are more than two political parties in the UK...

US border cops' secret racist Facebook group a total disgrace, says patrol chief. She should know, she was a member

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Stones

"Shock" comedians don't have lawful powers to use force against the people they are talking about. That is a very big difference.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Facebook is a disease

You are right in so far as people with stressful jobs need a way to defuse (and diffuse) the stress, and occasional horror. One way of doing this is through shared humour - I know from my time as a nurse on acute and secure psychiatric wards that the humour can be grim, and tasteless to those who do not share the milieu. I think I have seen a study which correlates the rise of "you can't say that" with increased stress-related illness, but I can't find it now (so count it as anecdote). However, my experience does not cover all that is going on here (there were no people I worked with who hated people with mental health problems, for example). There seem to be too many people in "law enforcement" who are in it for the power and the chance to inflict pain and suffering on "perps" (an awful term that should lead to vilification by those using it). DHS seems to have more than its fair share of bigots, racists, misogynist, misandrists, and just plain terrible human beings. My sympathy is always going to be with those on the receiving end of actions by this group of people, because malice is always more likely than not. The DHS needs disbanding, though what you'd do with a bunch of unemployed thugs, I don't know.

Jodrell Bank goes full UNESCO while Dundee awaits the decomissioners

Intractable Potsherd

Re: crowdfunding

Done!

UK privacy watchdog threatens British Airways with 747-sized fine for massive personal data blurt

Intractable Potsherd

Re: The Nitty Gritty - title too long for The Register etc.

I hadn't heard this gem before, so I've just done some research. There is absolutely no - repeat no - evidence that the term "nitty-gritty" is racist. This ridiculous farce needs to be killed as soon as possible.

Reach out for the healing hands... of guru Dabbs

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Time Travel is Real!

@macjules: I think there should be at least one "wioll haven be" in there, along with a "returningwenta retrohome". The standard of grammar on this board is decling rapidly...

(Obviously, DNA didn't need to wrestle with autocarrot. Apologies if I have spelled something simple like "at" wrong after getting the tricky stuff right!)

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Ah, you have "the glare"...

That's amateur, Alistair - *I've* perfected Magnum...

DeepNude's makers tried to deep-six their pervy AI app. Web creeps have other ideas: Cracked copies shared online as code decompiled

Intractable Potsherd

Re: countermeasures

Two straw-man fallacies in that comment, Cederic. First , there is no attempt at bullying. Second, nobody mentioned rape.

How do we stop facial recognition from becoming the next Facebook: ubiquitous and useful yet dangerous, impervious and misunderstood?

Intractable Potsherd

Re: The antisocial network.

It is interesting that, if the camera were invented for the first time today, there would be far more scrutiny of its privacy implications. The freedom of people to take photographs of whoever and wherever they want would certainly not be assumed as it has developed since Fox Talbot's day.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Real-time surveillance is not the biggest problem. Scouring footage after the fact is.

I said "the country", and was specifically referring to the UK at the time. However, taking you up on your points: the actual event of 9/11 (flying aircraft into buildings) was ultimately trivial for everyone except those directly affected (and my condolences still go to those who lost people on the day, but not more than the people who have lost others due to the idiotic "War on Terror" around the world). The response of the USA and others since then are causes for more concern, and there is no doubt that the world would be even safer if the US had taken a more reasoned response.

With regard to "nukes everywhere", that is sheer hyperbole. Yes there are a lot, but there is no evidence anyone is going to use them in the foreseeable future. The threat of mutually assured destruction has made the world significantly safer for the last 70 years or so than it was before.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Legal fact

Excellent points, Cynic. Too MA T people forget these things.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Real-time surveillance is not the biggest problem. Scouring footage after the fact is.

Utter nonsense. This country has never been safer.

Reports of cyber attacks fall, says UK.gov survey: GDPR? Fewer nasties? More targeted attacks? We just don't know

Intractable Potsherd

Re: ROGOF

Yes, that's my thought as well - because of the increased fines, companies are not reporting things they were before and hoping that problems will go away. I can't wait for the first two or three cases to show them how wrong that strategy is!!

Metropolitan Police's facial recognition tech not only crap, but also of dubious legality – report

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Face masks

The trouble is, they will probably be regarded as attempting to avoid facial recognition, and up with an arrest - like the bloke down south who was lifted for trying to hide his face (okay, technically they got him for swearing, but the precipitate was him hiding his face).

If crime was very prevalent in British society, I might have a slightly different perspective on widely deployed facial recognition (though not likely very different - it is just plain wrong), but it isn't, and so I don't. The balance of rights v responsibilities doesn't favour applying hugely privacy-infringing technology for the small benefit it would give.

14 sailors die aboard Russian cable spy, er, ocean research nuke sub after fire breaks out

Intractable Potsherd

"underwear cables" = knicker elastic? Do you really need submarines for sniffing it?

Intractable Potsherd

Re: 14 less commies

Whether that is a bad joke or not, it is far too early for it.

[Leaving aside the fact that Russia is about as communist as Florida these days]

A Register reader turns the computer room into a socialist paradise

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Socialism

The phantom downvoter is out again, I see!

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Socialism

@ Kiwi - Ego is a serious pain in the arse. I am starting to think that there is a survival trait in ASD - ego tends to be less of a driver than working towards a mutually satisfactory goal.

White House mulls just banning strong end-to-end crypto. Plus: More bad stuff in infosec land

Intractable Potsherd
Thumb Up

Re: Usual Story

@Kiwi and Charles - your stories make me all the more glad to read your opinions. Best wishes to both of you for the future.

Scumbags can program vulnerable MedTronic insulin pumps over the air to murder diabetics – insecure kit recalled

Intractable Potsherd

This and posts above are really interesting. I don't know (or am not aware of knowing) any type-1 diabetics, so I was unaware of looping. However, now I do know, it certainly does seem suspicious that this issue, which has been known about for some years, has suddenly become actionable. I hate medical technology companies who see patients as just another revenue source, not people with their own needs.

Hey China, while you're in all our servers, can you fix these support tickets? IBM, HPE, Tata CS, Fujitsu, NTT and their customers pwned

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Huawei

Regardless of whether and in what form human rights exist, for me the relevant part of that Bentham quote is at the end: "And of these rights, whatever they are, there is not, it seems, any one of which any government can, upon any occasion whatever, abrogate the smallest particle." This is entirely true, and Bentham's critique of government here is devastating. Since the middle of the 20th century, some of us have been lucky enough to have an overarching structure to enforce human rights that is independent of government (the European Court of Human Rights), yet the spiritual descendants of the people Bentham criticised here in the UK really want to get out from underneath that scrutiny so they can "continue to abrogate the smallest particle upon any occasion whatever."

Brexit: Digital border possible for Irish backstop woes, UK MPs told

Intractable Potsherd

Re: And just to add...

The existence of the UK in its current form in ten years time is less than 50%, I'd say. Let's hold a referendum to kick England out (though we might need to make special arrangements for Cornwall)!

Intractable Potsherd

No, it won't. Lives don't depend on a border agreement between England and Scotland like they do in Ireland. Also, given where the Anglo-Scottish border doesn't run through villages or houses (as far as I know - I'm happy to be corrected. There won't be many, anyway), the problems won't be as acute. A hard border would be relatively simple to erect, though cold and damp most of the year.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Not my problem, don't expect me to help.

Whilst I agree that there should have been a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty, I completely disagree that the problem of Brexit wouldn't have arisen - folk like you and code junky, and Reese-Mogg (and my mother, and sister, and...) would still want to "take back control" without any actual definition of what you mean.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Just give the contract

"And I wish the tory party would hurry up and die"

Amen to that!

We've Falcon caught it! SpaceX finally nets a fairing half after a successful Heavy launch

Intractable Potsherd

Re: "We've Falcon caught it"

Nah - I'll just enjoy the mystery.

Remember that crypto-exchange boss who mysteriously died after his customers' coins disappeared? Of course he totally stole them

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Love the name ....

From this, can we say that money-men who are fans of Star Wars should be treated with suspicion?

'Bulls%^t! Complete bull$h*t!' Reset the clock on the last time woke Linus Torvalds exploded at a Linux kernel dev

Intractable Potsherd

Re: It is not that hard to understand @mevets

"there are lots of better OSes." What are these OSes, and are they generalist or specialist? Can anyone use them or are they for geeks only? Do they work on any hardware, or do they have restrictions? I'm asking because I'll quite happily move to an OS that is better than Linux, because Linux is great, in my opinion.

[I'm not trolling, I am genuinely interested]

Must watch: GE's smart light bulb reset process is a masterpiece... of modern techno-insanity

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Won't somebody think of the OCD counters and checkers?

Isn't it supposed to be "C by GE"?

Intractable Potsherd

Re: "smarter lighting in every way"

I have occasionally wondered if this poster is someone I used to know, because he had the nickname of "Lord", allegedly because of the standard comment* that some people would utter when he started talking about certain subjects. I think he was probably further along the ASD spectrum than me, but he seemed to like the nickname and the people who coined it.

* "Lord help us!", as it had to be explained to me.

Autonomy integration was a 'sh!t show', HP director tells court

Intractable Potsherd

Re: It war a shit show

Do you have any evidence to back that up? If so, there are some HP lawyers that would like to talk to you. If not, then there are some Autonomy lawyers that would like to talk to you - defamation law in the UK may have changed a bit recently, but it is still a thing.

Brave urges UK's data watchdog to join Ireland in probing claim Google adtech breaches GDPR

Intractable Potsherd

Re: AI database

None of the above.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Without going into the legal nitty-gritty...

But it is still possible to retrieve that last octet - that was a second part of the Breyer case - that the "website operator" has a "legal means" of obtaining access to the IP address in order to identify the individual. I will be intrigued to see Google's arguments should this get to court - I'm hoping El Reg will have ringside seats just like they have for the Autonomy case :-)

Intractable Potsherd

Re: AI database

Thanks - I was just considering the same thing.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Without going into the legal nitty-gritty...

@streaky - you aren't entirely correct, at least in the EU . Your analysis first of all assumes dynamic addresses - static addresses are prima facie PII. With dynamic addresses, the leading case is Case 582/14 – Patrick Breyer v Germany (2016), in which the ECJ decided that a dynamic IP address will be personal data if the data controller can link the dynamic IP address to the identity of an individual. Google can definitely link IP addresses to identities (it is its raison d'etre) , therefore IP address = PII

Human-rights warriors crack on with legal challenge to UK's lax surveillance laws

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Pragmatism

I have never "screamed" that the police/security services should have prevented a terrorist* attack. All the successful attacks would have required unacceptable levels of intrusion into everyone else's life in order to get the information that might** have led to the act being prevented. Too many people with no intention of causing harm would be (are) surveilled based on what websites they visit, and it is far better that one person who wants to cause harm should do it than ten (thousand) people who don't come under suspicion.

However, this applies only to comms surveillance. If the police/security services had the information due to physical evidence leading to targeted surveillance and they did nothing, then I would want them hanged, drawn and quartered.

*The word is horribly abused, and the actual risk of it is trivial, but I'll go with it for now.

**There is only a small likelihood that any information would have led to action, at least because of the sheer amount of noise generated by the amount of surveillance required.

When customers see red, sometimes the obvious solution will only fan the flames

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Once again the bad memories resurface

Re: "Can't - it's a secret" variations above: whilst we all know most of the VVVISPs were really trying to hide contact with their extra-marital other / purchases of "specialist" online porn and/or "specialist" equipment (for use with their extra-marital other and/or specialist porn), some may actually have taken note of security briefings. The number will be small, but not non-zero, so there is a small positive to take away from this :-)

Please be aliens, please be aliens, please be aliens... Boffins discover mystery mass beneath Moon's biggest crater

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Aliens suck

You are getting boring now. Intellectual bankruptcy isn't clever.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: In other news...

https://what-if.xkcd.com/157/

Cram this in your Pai hole! New York, Cali, eight other US states sue to stop T-Mobile-Sprint merger

Intractable Potsherd

Re: This is a no-brainer @phuzz

All of them!

Wholesome: Waste heat from coal power station turned data centre to help grow veggies

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Cooling towers

I like district heating - it is a way of giving something back to the community in which businesses sit. So often you get a big concern that just causes inconvenience to those living around it - such as the huge farm near me that employs no one local, but causes inconvenience through the number of tractors and HGVs - but puts nothing in place to assuage the ill-feeling caused.

Das geeks hit crowdfunding target: IBM mainframes are coming home

Intractable Potsherd

I was going to say the same if no one else did - thanks, Dr S!

Planes, fails and automobiles: Overseas callout saved by gentle thrust of server CD tray

Intractable Potsherd

Re: airport security

I think I've posted previously about the promotional Claas tractors (I think) key fob that looked like a spanner head with a hex drive on the lower jaw. It was absolutely useless except to make my keyring noticeable. It flew many, many miles until one security check at Doncaster Robin Hood airport when it was deemed to be a tool, and so confiscated. I still miss it.

Introducing 'freedom gas' – a bit like the 2003 deep-fried potato variety, only even worse for you

Intractable Potsherd

Re: My main regret ...

Well, I don't think that a 16 year old has any voice in this. Thunberg is carefully packaged and may be being exploited. Alternatively, she could just be the latest incarnation of the bizarre youth-worship that landed William Hague on us.

Yeah, you're not having a GSM gateway, Ofcom tells hopeful operators

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Do we have the rule of law?

Yes.

It's the curious case of the vanishing iPhone sales as Huawei grabs second place off Apple in smartmobe stakes

Intractable Potsherd

@Big_Boomer

"It's gonna be fun for the next few years what with the world recession and Brexit on top of each other"

Yep, and all the loopy Brexiters will be telling us how it isn't their fault we are back to pre-1900 levels of poverty because "it's someone else's fault"!

Uh-oh .io: Question mark hangs over trendy tech startup domains as UN condemns British empire hangover

Intractable Potsherd

Re: No different?

@Simon B-52: you are quite right. Firstly because this happened very recently, and secondly because no other group has moved in to make permanent homes. No-one will be dispossessed, so there are no conflicting rights here. If the USA want a military base there, then they can make suitable arrangements with the people who lost out as a result of shit-head UK politicians thinking that the Empire was perpetual.