* Posts by Tom 13

7544 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

Hackers pluck 8,300 customer logins from bank server

Tom 13

@AC 13th January 2010 11:07 GMT

Go get in the healthcare queue to get your anti-psychotic prescription refilled.

"National" in the name of a US bank has nothing to do with size and everything with how it is chartered. It is a relic from when individual states still chartered banks.

Economics backs net neutrality, say researchers

Tom 13

Neither neutral nor metered are a panacea.

The problem is the misconception that method of delivery services is a binary decision. In a competitive free market, both would exist and serve different kinds of customers. The important bit, it that those serving the non-prioritized market would not be able to shaft their customers by secretly "de-prioritizing" certain kinds of traffic. As to whether it is the content or consumer who pays for prioritized service where offered, I have no objection to either of them paying it. Somebody has to. There certainly would be benefits to content creators to attract people to their sites if they pay. On the other hand some consumers would benefit if they are large consumers of certain content. I don't even have an objection to both of them paying.

Tom 13

@AC 13th January 2010 12:41 GMT

None at all. In fact if you look at early implementations of copyright law, this was explicitly recognized, as was the fact that no copyright at all holds back innovation. They therefore set limited periods of copyright to encourage innovation while at the same time ensuring it eventually became freely (as in beer) available. The problem with copyright laws today are that they have been extended from fixed time periods to unlimited.

Mini-asteroid sneaks up on Earth

Tom 13
Pint

Bruce Willis? I thought it was supposed to be Clint Eastwood.

Or is this supposed to be the one where they team up?

FCC seeks delay to US broadband plan

Tom 13
FAIL

So let me get this straight,

They need another 30 days to "get right" a plan that they've been supposed to be developing since we got the Internet phone tax way back when AlGore was in the VP's office, and we're suppose to expect they'll be keeping up with evolving technology?

Microsoft airbrushes anti-Apple ad

Tom 13
Grenade

So, the MS ad was accurate when made,

Apple responded and tried to spin it as MS behind the times. MS wins this one on points, even if it was a bad strategy for the near-monopoly shareholder.

But what they hey, anything to chum the waters for the inevitable fanboise comment wars.

Grenade, because there's nothing quite like tossing one into the crowd the way this article does.

ISP redesign unites the web in nausea

Tom 13
FAIL

And the Epic Fail continues, although I have apparently been spared my eyes...

I get:

www.bethere.co.uk uses an invalid security certificate.

The certificate is not trusted because the issuer certificate is unknown.

(Error code: sec_error_unknown_issuer)

And Firefox does not display the site. Oh well, I would only have been a gawker anyway.

Firefox laggards offered security update

Tom 13

We are not laggards

We are using the version of software that works with the tools we need to do our work. I just fixed the Testing QA guys problem yesterday by pointing out he was using the wrong version of Firefox and his tool did not support FF 3.5.

US grants $47m for power grid smarts

Tom 13

@Simon 6

No need to blow it up, just fertilize the trees growing under the power lines. A couple years back one of those trees took out the power grid for about 1/4 of the country.

Still, not sure what the point is since they don't want to let us drill for oil, mine uranium, or build pipelines to supply natural gas. If you can't produce the energy in the first place, the grid is pretty useless.

Mozilla downplays risk from unpatched flaw

Tom 13

@Pete Spicer

A bug that causes a crash needs to be fixed by the end of the month. A bug that causes a security breech needs to be fixed by the end of the day. They didn't say they weren't going to fix it, they only claim it doesn't risk your data.

Second unpatched ActiveX bug hits IE

Tom 13
Flame

@Toastan Buttar

Good advice. Unless of course you're a Microsoft shop and have installed some of their software that requires the local user to have administrative privileges on their PC....

Been there, tried that, got my head handed to me on the proverbial platter.

Now go back to your Security Awareness class.

US State Dept. workers beg Clinton for Firefox

Tom 13

@AC 14th July 2009 07:19 GMT Re: Hands up if you've paid for IE

By my count, probably $500, possibly more for IE. Firefox on the other hand I've never paid a cent for. See, I don't count IE as free just because MS says it is, I figure I'm paying for it every time I pay for the browser.

Oh, and for all you whiners complaining about not being able to mass deploy FF, somehow or another we seem to be managing, including plug-ins we expect to be standard. No Group Policy or SMS required. And if an update were to "hoseify" a bunch of user systems, I'm reasonably confident I could get the browser removed from them in about 15 minutes.

Typed from my 3.x Firefox browser.

One last thing. While it is technically true that no software is free because they all cost something to support, Firefox has always struck me as a non-brainer for deployment. All those IE-only sites will still work. You just have to open IE for those sites instead, while Firefox can be used for the rest of the web. And you'll always be supporting IE, because even the EU isn't going to manage to force MS to build their OS the way it should have been built and therefore be browser agnostic. Until Opera put the web server component in, I would have classed Opera the same way. My preference is Firefox, but as a support worker I prefer, within reason, to deploy whatever tools make the rest of the company more efficient.

Microsoft spills some Office 2010 beta beans

Tom 13

What Dale 3 said!

Don't have to be a Linux zealot to object to Reg writers blithely passing along MS marketing. They "accidentally" hit the button? I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Rosetta Stone rocks Google with trademark lawsuit

Tom 13
Pint

If you're reading this, go back and read James Butler's comments.

Everything after that is redundant, including this comment.

Joe, this beer's for you.

I can say that without a TM for Budweiser can't I?

Business throws cold water on gov hot air proposals

Tom 13

@Michelle Knight

No, you're not the only one. There are millions more twits like you out there who have voted the same way you did, and thus caused our current problems.

Enjoy.

Two jailed for online racism after US turned down asylum bid

Tom 13
Grenade

Who'd athunk so much misconception could surround any issue.

First off, they are British citizens, not US citizens. So the US is under no obligation to protect their rights, regardless of what you as an individual might think the origin of those rights are. We die in enough piss-holes around the world while protecting those rights for some people without committing ourselves to dying in every piss-hole where somebody says something that offends somebody else. Not that I think Britain is a piss-hole, in fact it is one of the few countries I would be interested in visiting some day. But establish 'protecting British citizens from their government' as a US responsibility would, at least if consistently applied, lead to us doing so for all the piss-holes around the world as well. Frankly given the gratitude we've gotten for doing so recently, I've had enough of that.

Next up, they did break the law when they came to the US, so their incarceration was entirely appropriate. They attempted to enter the country under false pretense, which is a crime. My problem with the conduct of my government on this issue is not how they handled these two people, but their failure to apply this solution more even-handedly in protecting the integrity of our borders.

As to the issue of whether or not they ought to be incarcerated in Britain I would say there are several competing interests here. First off, on a moral basis I do quite think they will eventually get what's coming to them, and that some number of years in jail is a mere down payment on their eventual punishment. But I hold that punishment will be delivered in the hereafter, not the now. In the here and now, I prefer a government which does not imprison people after the fact for extended periods of time for exercising free speech. I'm not sure there are actually any of those left in the world. As a practical matter, they have been tried and convicted by a court that I deem to be as reasonably constituted as can be expected these days. Therefore the trial itself is lawful, as is their conviction under it. Now as to the wisdom of that law... It seems to me that per capita, England in particular and Great Britain in general, has more Jew-hating radicals than the US, although it likely has somewhat fewer than Europe. At least some of these people have already been locked up in the same prisons to which these two scumbags are headed. So the odds are fair that two run of the mill racists can be radicalized into more effective terrorists than they already are. Only this time profiling, which is otherwise actually a decent tool for a first approximation on determining who the bad guys are, will be of absolutely no use. Welcome to The New Jihad.

Grenade, because pretty sound carrying guns won't be enough.

US edges towards mobile antitrust case

Tom 13
Grenade

Oh goody, now the guvmint wants to control my cell phone too!

Damn good thing I don't pay for one.

Grenade because the "investigation" will be worthless while the cure will be worse than the disease.

US websites buckle under sustained DDoS attacks

Tom 13
Headmaster

@Umm

The 4th was a holiday, so nobody was there on the 3rd to notice. The 4th was a holiday so everybody was still out of the office on the 6th because they were recovering from the holiday. On the 7th they couldn't get the email out about the DDOS attack because of the DDOS attack. By today they had finally mitigated the attack enough so the email would go out.

Warner Bros. nabs Mortal Kombat maker for $33m

Tom 13
Unhappy

@Filippo

One that didn't keep up with the times. Now that I think about it, I haven't seen any PC/Console games for Midway. All my recollections of their games are arcade. And both arcades that were a stones throw from my dorm room on campus are long closed. Oh, we've got D&B now, but it's just not the same.

CompuServe signs off

Tom 13

Alas poor Compuserve, I knew it well

My first Internet connection on a Commodore 64 with a blindingly fast 150 baud modem. But I was a poor starving college student, so it didn't last long. But at least it was sufficient to inoculate me against the entirely too cartoonish interface on AOL, whose CDs became even more prolific than those of Compuserve.

RIP

BCC calls recession bottom

Tom 13
Pirate

Re: What shape

None of the above. It's going to be more like this:

\

\

\__

|

|

\

\

And that's when inflation will kick in and throw all the economic models out the window.

IPO gives 'reputable' web pages prior art status

Tom 13

@British Library

If not there, then certainly in the Library of Congress on this side of the pond.

BTW: Any chance we could borrow this Micklewright chap for a couple of years? We could use somebody with some sense to straighten out our patent office.

Feds: Hospital hacker's 'massive' DDoS averted

Tom 13

@Chris C

You forgot the most important security consideration:

0) Decent background check on the people you hire for your facility, especially the ones who are nominally in charge of physical security. Too many minimum wagers as rent-a-cops here in the states. It's a serious job that requires serious attention. Security shouldn't be Walmart door greeters. If you want a minimum wage door greeter, fine--hire one and give him the appropriate title. Don't hire a rent-a-cop for it. Security should be professional, and focused securing the facility. Security begins with access, and physical access trumps all other forms of access.

Otherwise you're spot on.

Prof: People reject news which conflicts with beliefs

Tom 13

Imagine that, a bunch of psychologists have produced

a study that confirms their belief that people believe what they want to believe. Who'd a thunk?

@Steven Jones

The scientific method tries no such thing. Being a method, it tries to do nothing, it simply is and you either use it or do not use it. Furthermore, theories are never disproved, hypotheses are. Theories are complexes of hypotheses, and if a hypothesis is disproved the theory is broken, not disproved.

My personal experience is that natural scientists are the most opinionated of people I've run into, and that includes the political pundits I like to read. Engineers on the other hand tend to be reasoning individuals. Lewis seems to be an odd mixture of both.

Amazon affiliates nixed in two more states

Tom 13

@Chris C

Because local retailers are subject to ONE specific set of tax rules. Or to clarify by reversal, if Internet retailers are required to collect sales taxes from everybody based on where they live, why shouldn't local retailers be required to remit taxes to all the locations where their purchasers live?

Frankly, AC 2-07-2009 12:25 hits the nail squarely on the head. This is not an issue of fairness, it is one of the greed of politicians who've never had an honest job.

Conficker left Manchester unable to issue traffic tickets

Tom 13

@KarlTh

Because despite their claims to the contrary, much of the software that runs under Windows still requires local admin privileges to run properly. All of our web developers, programmers, and accountants need those privileges to use the software they use for their jobs. And yes, when we rolled out XP so many years ago, we initially tried to follow recommended "best security practices" but it was simply impossible. And yes you read that correctly: the fricking ACCOUNTING system requires local admin privileges.

Masked passwords must go

Tom 13

The obvious solution

is to make this user configurable. Most of the time when I'm at work, there is no way for someone to shoulder surf my screen, so I could use non-obfuscated passwords. I'd probably stick with obfuscated ones because it is what I am accustomed to. When using a laptop in a public space or a kiosk I obviously prefer the password be obscured. On the other hand, on my last phone I couldn't set the password because the *&^%*#!@!@!!! touchpad kept putting in the wrong character or too many characters or something. And I couldn't tell because I couldn't see the password to confirm what I thought I put in was what the computer thought I put in. I might find the I-phone solution acceptable. But on phones obfuscation should ALWAYS be optional.

And personally, I still worry more about those thrice damned sticky notes with passwords. Doesn't even have the short duration of entering a clear text password.

Louisiana judge holds Dell in contempt

Tom 13
Black Helicopters

So, what we have here is

one corrupt manufacturer in New Orleans suing another corrupt manufacturer in New Orleans via corrupt and incompetent officials in New Orleans and even more corrupt lawyers who are licensed to practice roulette, I mean law, in New Orleans.

Or as they would say, just another day on the bayou.

Not an especially big fan of Dell, but at least their corruption would have cost the city less.

Defense-contract discs sold in African market for $40

Tom 13
FAIL

@Clint and John: Fail to read often?

It said the information was about the contracts, not the classified material itself. Information about the contracts is rarely classified secret or better by the government. From the context of the article, it isn't even clear that it is government sensitive (aka 'For Governmental Use Only'), not company sensitive. As such it needn't be encrypted or require clearance.

AC 25-06-09 20:25 is closet to what ought to happen here. To be really secure the company has to wipe the disks before they leave the premises. That being said, there are reputable companies that are engaged solely in the secure destruction of classified hard drives. The gear to degauss then shred hard drives is pretty expensive. It is more efficient for most companies to contract to them for the certified destruction of classified materials. But such companies themselves ought to be secure against the kind of theft NG is alleging is the cause of the drive being available.

Still it is an Epic Fail by NG, becauase ultimately, they are responsible for the safety of the data, and that responsibility is non-transferable.

Wikipedia kills legendary journalist

Tom 13

Gotta agree with AuntFlo

I'm an absolute nobody in the grand scheme of things, with one letter to the editor published way back when I was in college, but I'm quoted on a wikipedia site (or was at some point) with my real name. If I deserve that level of recognition, surely a published author deserves an entry in wikipedia.

Panasonic patches cameras to block rivals' batteries

Tom 13
FAIL

I think the US courts have already found this to be an illegal business tactic

In the case of HP and either their ink or toner cartridges. And in any event it is not subject to the DCMA.

Titsup TSA partner closes airport express lanes

Tom 13

I never have figured out the security logic behind these programs

I never understood how TSA could approve them in the first place. If I were of a mind to be piloting a bomb into a building, I think I'd try to get me and my team into one of these programs to bypass security.

Thankfully for the TSA, I'm with the people who'd be more likely to be shooting at the terrorists than with them.

Prof: Global windfarm could power entire human race

Tom 13

Harvard profs you say?

Reminds me of a physics problem I read about once. I don't recall the start of it, but the last part read "you may assume the horses are frictionless perfect spheres."

US record industry wins $1.92m from file sharer

Tom 13

@Andrew Culpeck

Nope, bankruptcy can't be used to get out of court imposed fines.

Yeah, it sounds like she tried to yank the Judge's chain, and they tend not to take kindly to that. You can kill a couple dozen people and it's "yes sir" as long as you respect the gavel. Insult the Judge during a shoplifting trial over a pair of undies and you'll likely wind up doing 10 years of hard time.

Anyway, from the sounds of it, $3000, $5000, or $1.92 million, $100 million, or supertanker of petrol, it's all the same to her: more money than she can afford to pay.

New green and quiet jet-engine test results announced

Tom 13

I'm not a green weenie, so this seems pretty straight forward to me.

Advance the GTF into serious testing. Roll it out after the serious testing is complete. Let the Open Rotor people demo their ideas and do the serious testing, then roll them out. If Open Rotor turns out to be the better option when it is ready, it supplants GTF. In the meantime, you get the immediate GTF benefits. If it isn't better, GTF is already in place and keeps on flying.

Problem solved.

Oh, as long as the efficiency goes up, I'm happy. And given the cost of the noise abatement projects the governments have been undertaking lately (at least here in The States), GTF is more likely to have a positive impact on the most people's money concerns.

US feds subpoena names of anonymous web commenters

Tom 13

Yet another IANAL

Yes, the First Amendment to the US Constitution protects free speech. No, it doesn't provide a license to incite revolt or riot. Yes jurors should be protected from intimidation, and prosecutors should be able to pursue finding anyone who has made a clearly intimidating threat against any member of any jury.

Now, applying these to the postings that are cited in this article, I don't think any reasonable person can interpret those words as a clearly directed threat of an intimidating nature. Of course the problem with my last statement is that these days the phrase "reasonable person" seems to automatically exclude lawyers (and therefore judges) of all kinds. And given the manner in which lawyers have subverted jury selection, it is unlikely that a "reasonable person" will be sitting on jury either. Which is why so many of my fellow citizens are so solidly with The Bard on this issue.

Gartner: Windows 7 upgrade catch for XP converts

Tom 13

MS needs to rethink their plan.

They won the battle against the government when Clinton was in office because they said one* true thing in court: the government didn't care about their monopoly power, they just wanted it for themselves, not the consumer. The problem they now face is that if they keep up these kinds of marketing and licensing plans, the people will WANT the government to control the OS because at least they'll have a little say in what happens with it.

*All the rest of it was smoke, mirrors, and lies, but one true thing can be enough.

Microsoft sues family over alleged click fraud

Tom 13

@AC 17-06-09 09:49

In this context, the "publisher" is the website displaying the ad. It's the income that keeps the website free. The advertiser is the company that paid the search company to place the ad.

It's a type of fraud because the links are intended to be clicked on by wetware, not software. There's no way three people repeatedly clicking on the same advertising links would drain the pot of advertising money for an ad. It had to be automated, and it has to be intentional.

And yes, you can be charged with fraud for repeatedly calling a toll-free number with the intent of causing the provider of the number to lose money. Although I will admit I've thought about doing that a couple of times.

Iran's revolution will not be televised, but could be tweeted

Tom 13

I'm not a tweeter myself,

but I do applaud them for keeping the medium open for Iran. That said, the reality of revolutions is that while the medium can carry the message that puts the spark to the powder, the powder needs to be in a barrel and there needs to be a projectile on the other side of the powder. Last time I checked, it looked like the mullahs had all the guns, so things don't look hopeful or likely to change.

Praying that I'm wrong on my assessment. Iran deserves a taste of freedom.

LastMinute.com wins right to block last minute trade mark

Tom 13

A Pox on all these devils dancing on the point of a pin!

I'll stick with my own opinion, which is that regardless of the opinion of judges, legislators, and tyrants, no one should ever be issued any trademark related to a commonly used word or combination of words in any language. 'Last Minute' in my opinion is epic fail for any trademark. 'Apple' should have been treated the same -- All of them.

Zaphod Beeblebrox home sun 'shrinking', may have blown up

Tom 13

@Rainy hat

Sure, I'll weigh in. The answer in my experience is 'yes' and I know that was supposed to be an either or question.

Tom 13

@Torben Mogensen

And your comment raises what to my mind at least is the more interesting question. Betelgeuse is as bright as it is currently because it is a fairly hot supergiant. After the supernova, the reduction in both size and temperature are likely to radically reduce its luminosity. So will it remain Alpha Orionis because it was designated that at the time of it's discovery, or do we reorganize the names of all the stars in the constellation?

Microsoft patches record number of security bugs

Tom 13

@Rob MacLean

Obviously security is becoming more important. They fixed these flaws, some of them fairly quickly. In the bad old days when security wasn't important, they would have smoldered for months, waiting for a public exploit that was affecting huge numbers of systems before releasing an emergency patch that was guaranteed to break at least one other piece of critical software in your system.

People without broadband in 'I don't want broadband' shock

Tom 13

@AC and Alan B

I doubt much that Ofcom interviewed people who had trouble buying food for their survey. They tend to be hard to reach and the sorts of people you need to hire to visit them tend not to work well with corporate IT types. So I suspect that Kerberos pretty much nailed this with respect to the Ofcom survey. Use to help with a convention that cost $40 to attend for three days. Starbucks latte drinkers bitched to no end when we bumped the fee by $5, which was less than one of their damn latte's cost.