Posts by ElReg!comments!Pierre 2711 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Jun 2009
> If they want truly random selection then roll a dice or something.
Up here they have "randomizers": you step on it, it displays an arrow showing which lane you go to (scan or non-scan). Recently I noticed that the machine actually waits for the nearby operator to scan your boarding pass and validate something before it made a decision about the lane. Random indeed.
> @theRegister the religion "Hindu" of said moron is irrelevant - that person is just a petitioner at the court, no need to flame the religion here.
Well, he is making his claim on religious grounds, so it is an important part of the story; it is also important, in general to show that all religions have their lot of nutters; and in this particular case because India also have a lot of muslims and Islam has been used as a scapegoat enough as it is (regardless of my general opinion on all religions).
> and even the Trotskyists could not really go any farther than saying that Stalinism was a "distorted" form of socialism. (I.e. if given power, they could fix it, although a familiarity with Trotsky's writings will show that he was as bloodthirsty and intolerant as Stalin.)
Just so that you know, trotkyists were always Stalin's worst enemies. Trotsky's son was assassinated in Paris by a fake surgeon by Stalin's order. You are full of shit, to the rim.
As much as I might agree with other points you make, there's this:
> Stalin was an extreme left winger, being a communist.
Stalin was not a communist, not more that Hitler was a socialist. Stalin hijacked power for himself, under the guise of whatever was fancy at the time where he was. Stalin was actually pretty clearly fascist. He spent most of his time exterminating the real communists. Same as how Hitler gained traction under the guise of socialism ( NaZi= National Socialism) to actually push the exact opposite ideology.
TL, DR for the conservatives: Stalin was not a communist. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I can see an exciting bump in the "counterfeit good seized" statistics... as any track on your mp3 reader that you would have ripped from a CD you own would qualify...
Same as for movies that you would have ripped from your legally-owned Blu-Rays onto an external disk, for convenient transport on vacation...
> I didn't know it was compulsory to own one.
It's not. However there is a field for that on the immigration form; usually I just let it blank and have no trouble, but on this one occasion the guy found that suspect and insisted that I fill the field; which I could obviously not do. Hence an , er, interesting discussion.
> I am sure it won't be long before someone is refused entry to the USofA because they don't say anything on Twatter, FaceBlock etc.
I'm quite sure of it, too. They recently (~ 1 year ago) added an "e-mail" field in the border paperwork; although they do not strictly enforce it, I was once sent back to the back of the line to fill the field that I had left blank. The field is something like 12 char. in lenght, too, talk about stupid. I crammed my longest email addy in there (well in excess of twice the lenght of the field, so it ended up scrawled around the margin) and they let me go. 2 weeks later I had to nuke the account as it was overrun with spam (I hadn't used it in years and it was pretty much dead anyway, including no incoming traffic; not even spam anymore).
On a separate occasion I spent 10 minutes explaining to the too-stupid-to-be-mall-security guy why a 30-something like me had no cell phone (ten minutes can be a very long time in some circumstances).
Although a lot of the time it's just a matter of bad luck and personal incompetence from the very guy you're talking to, not a general conspiracy. For example I was almost denied entry once because I hadn't submitted the internet entry form 72 hrs in advance (can't remember the name). I spent ages explaining that because I have a bona fide visa I don't have to; and in fact the system probably wouldn't let me fill one. I mean that's their own guidelines. The form I have to fill is not the same as for the people who have a visa waiver. In fact it's not even the same _colour_! But no, the guy wasn't able to see the difference, and wanted to refuse me entry. I only got in because I insisted "too much" and the colleagues he called to physically remove me were a bit less thick than he was.
I must say that most of the time I go through quite easily though, even if there is a clear correlation between the way I'm dressed and shaved and the probability to go through a "random" search (well-shaven, proper shirt is good; 3-days beard, jeans, T-shirt and old denim bomber is bad). But that's security, not customs.
What kind of drivel is that?
OK,
1) FROM MY EXPERIENCE I call bullshit on the stats. Point to me, I assume.
2) WTF? These are 2 completely different things."experience" of "anonymizing whatsit" is claimed. I say, irrelevant here as that's not the point discussed. Now as for the point discussed, go ahead and check the whois info on a more regular basis. Even very legit domains list obviously fake contact data. I actually just went and checked some "dodgy" domains (I don't know any kiddie porn website, but I tried with scammers, websquatters and spammers). Most of them actually have a contact info that seem legit (most probably accountant or attorney offices, and shelf companies, but legit-like). Go ahead and try with your own spam folder, you'll be surprised.
2.1) Something to hide? Haha. I was waiting for that one. Do you have curtains on your bathroom window?
3) I don't have anything against that anonymizing one's DNS records. But using anonymizing, the-bucket-stops-there techniques (the same used by conmen, organized crime, and other scammers) to anonymize one's DNS registration, while claiming moral high ground and "responsibilities" for the rest of the world IS major hypocrisy.
3.1) Shell vs shelf: functionnaly equivalent. Actually it could be argued that a shelf company is a subtype of shell company.
>FWIW my experience with DNS anonymising outfits is that they're 95%+ used by spammers, scammers and kiddie fiddlers. The other 5% would mostly be horrified if they knew just who else they shared a mailbox with.
1) I call complete bollocks on your stats.
2) this is not about "DNS anonymising outfits" but about submitting bogus info to a non-anonymous DNS registrar. Entirely different.
> (I hold a number of domains. The name on them is a shelf company and the address registered to them is the legal office of same - my accountant's office - you don't have to put your _home_ address on the registration.)
3) Ha. So you do anonymize your DNS records by yourself, using business practices more commonly associated with organized crime, conmen and other charlatans (shell companies, strawmen etc). Therefore the rest of the world can go screw itself (they can face their "responsibilities", as long as you can still hide behind shell companies and law-protected strawmen). That's the hypocrisy button turned all the way to 11.
Brilliant! Now /b/ will know where to send all the pizzaz and taxis within seconds!
Brillianter! Now PETA knows which house to egg and paint red, whose kids to bully etc!
Brilliantest! Now the local neo-nazi group -or mexican cartel- knows who will be found half-eated by racoons in a dumpster next week!
Once again, a measure mandated by US big business for dubious reasons*, with a lot of very bad potential consequences for -some- ordinary citizens around the world. Whatever you do, if you're not a big company, do NOT publish anything controversial on your website(s). Do not host a webforum where controversial views might be expressed. Or don't use the USA-controlled DNS system.
* and, them being the brain-dead goons they are, they probably don't even realize that it won't actually be of any help for them.
OK kids, hacking 101: planting hardware is for when you have physical backup (and I don't mean TimeCapsule; I mean jocks in skymasks with assault rifles).
What is wrong with a simple keylogging trojan reporting to, say, Usenet -or twitter, to be modern, introduced together with a "kim K nude" screensaver to make sure evidence will be wiped before LE is called? Hardware is the ultimate evidence. That means BAD, in case you wondered. Do not use it. Not feeling so bright now, heh?
I'm guessing it could desalt water. However, we already have pretty decent (and much cheaper) filters to do that. The problem is pushing the water with enough pressure to get usable volumes on the other side (and using a filter able to withstand the pressure; a test that graphene is likely to fail.)
> This bit looks OK:
No, it bloody well doesn't. It is the same old trick all over again (last seen with the so-called European Constitution and its token Human Rights section). The "illegal" activities are so broadly defined as to really mean "anything we might think of after the fact" while the protection section is so vague as to be ignorable in ANY real-life case. That is VERY bad practice as the real meaning of the thing -can't be brought to call it a law- is left to individual case evaluation. The ordinary citizen has _litterally_ no way of knowing whether what he is doing might fall foul of the law (fair use and freedom of expression, among other thing, are not defined in any enforceable way); and the lobbying groups with deep pockets have all latitude to influence the rulings, be it by clever media manipulation or by, erm, more "direct" methods. Laws were initially meant to AVOID abuse of the ordinary defenseless citizen by the Big Strong Guys. This kind of "laws" actually openly FACILITATE this kind of abuse.
Funny to say the least, as under the current administration the French (gov) tried use their presidency period to pass a EU "law" making the operator of a wireless network criminally responsible for the acts of any person who would gain unauthorized access to said network. Read: yo granny's going to jail if someone posts kiddie porn -or indeed copyright-infringing content- after cracking her WEP. No further proof needed. Thankfully that never went through. The French observer's move is a welcome change (disclosure, before you ask: although I've been living overseas for quite a few years now, my passport still says "French").
> These days, you'd have thought that if sufficient people noticed and got annoyed, someone searching for the commercial version would find lots of comments about how much of a rip-off it was.
Ha. You're thinking 30-lines-of-code "smartphone" applications. I'm talking real code, and real wide-spread use. Once in a while the EFF sicks their (few) lawyers at a high-profile case, to try and keep the rest of the landsharks at bay (ask Google for details). But they don't have the time or money to go after the small fish (and it wouldn't make sense anyway, either for money or creds).
My point was (and still is) that a lot of the SMB whining about how filesharing stole their lunch are actually pilfering open-source code and think it's Ok because "it's available for free anyway". So when THEY steal code it's a victimless crime, but when someone else makes "their" stolen stuff available for free, suddently it's starving their kids to death and thus a major crime comparable to murder. Ha fucking ha.
Because someone makes it available for free doesn't mean you can steal it, claim it your own and make money out of it. The idea behind Open Source is that you contribute some code, often for free (but it doesn't have to), and let people re-use it, modify it and make it better so that you can benefit from the improvements they made (them benefitting from the initial effort you put in). It is *NOT* OK to steal it and run away with it, contrarily to what you a lot of "close-sourcers" think -and do.
Not so gray as you might think. A lot of that happens in willful violation of the original license; rather obvious when the original is under the GPL, less so with the more moneygrabber-friendly licenses.
Note that I don't defend Kim Dotcom. Also, I think the 2000-character limit for comments has been lifted.
You wouldn't believe the number of -mainly US-based, but not only- companies which just take open-source code, make a few minor adjustments and sell it as an executable binary; then claim the result as their own. Open-source means it's open to pilfering, right?
When you are used to work with the open source version, and an equivalent "enhanced" product is suddently offered to you for trial, (as happens to me quite often), it is really obvious. The worst part of it is that these are often the exact same people who claim that [insert fashionable file distribution method here] is stealing their rightful property and causing their family to starve (cue the no vacation, 37 hours a day work etc argument). So yes, IP rights should be enforced. That would mean instant death for a lot of the SMB currently defending IP-"protecting" laws, though.
Heads up guys, if you're gonna claim damage from file-sharing, make sure that your pilfering of open-source material doesn't show too much.
It doesn't matter how much you spread it. NZ authorities have made it clear that they WILL NOT SEEK TO PROSECUTE HIM (shouting intended). You contradict yourself several times on whether this is relevant or not in your rather long post (I can understand how you got lost; try and be more concise next time). There is this nugget I found worth responding to, however:
> If he was effectively helping run a business with a meaningful US presence, and profiting from allegedly illegal activities happening there that he had knowledge of and control over, as far as I understand things, whether he was living there or not isn't necessarily of overriding importance (whether or not I or you might think it should be).
That is basically the same argument used by some US states to have international gambling sites nuked (and the issue with SOPA that had the Obama administration speak against it). The internet is a global thing. The fact that a US citizen might access a foreign website DOES NOT put said website under US juridiction. Even the PRC got that right: they block their citizens from accessing content they object to -an attitude that has the US' panties in a double-plus knot, quite rightfully, but talk about irony. The internet not being the property of the USA is a concept that a lot of US people fail to understand, especially towards the right side of the political spectrum. You'd better get used to it, because with the rise of China, India etc, alternate hubs will rise and you guys might end up being effectively cut off from the global network.
Just sayin'
I think you forgot w3m. It wouldn't be fair actually, these are HTML parsers, not "browsers" in the current acceptation of the term*. Yes, I do know it also somewhat applies to Netsurf and Dillo -that I earlier proposed- but I'm not one to stop at such a contradiction. About telnet, 1) I call bollocks and 2) it's not actually a very safe thing to do...
*I actually mean it as a compliment. I do surf the web using text-mode browsers, quite a lot.
Sorry I didn't get any answer from The Inquirer. It might or might not be related to the fact that I did not send the request to begin with.
Moving on, about that ad thing; some clever people are trying to find ways to monetize ad-blocking readers without being TOO evil. You guys probably know how to do it; I'm mentionning it in a pblic space because I would actually support it (for text-ads only, obviously). I almost feel guilty, not rewarding you guys for the stuff I read (not guilty enough to allow JS back on my systems; but guilty enough to publicly support "sneaky workarounds" that you guys could implement).
A nice example can be seen on:
http://damnsmalllinux.org/noscript-ads.html
(although John is seemingly having a hard time to sell that niche advertising space; El Reg has a larger audience so in your case it might just work).
> There's a high likelyhood in my mind that Google has, in fact, already been doing this and only recently realized that their privacy policies didn't support it. I'm sure they've been down this road for the better part of a decade, actually.
I don't know. Google is still ran by geeks, not by marketers. Who else celebrates the hallmarks of geek culture -by altering their logo, no less- these days? What other major website is fully text-browser-compliant? I'm not saying they are not on a slippery slope; but I still trust them to be quite open about the kind of evil they engage in. Well there was this network-sniffing incident of course...
> Is it possible to live up to a credo like "Do No Evil" when all your actions seem to be despicable? Obviously not...
Define despicable. They have been a -if not THE- major support for open source software for quite a few years now, both in terms of contributed code and cash donated, and they are the big player supporting open content from silly lawsuits from the likes of the MPEG LA. They also engage in shadier activities, mostly in the ad-related area -that is how they make money, after all-, but saying that ALL their actions are despicable seems a bit far-stretched.
Disclaimer: I don't have a GMail adress, I don't use either Chrome or Android, and I use Google Search only for about half my search needs. Not exactly a Google fan.
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