Posts by Jim 59 2047 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2009
It doesn't sound very secure, unless the courier was using a different internet cafe every time. Otherwise the authorities could catch the guy by keeping a watch on the place. And if all such places were "driveable" from Bin Laden's home, that raises other tracability questions. Also there is no mention of encryption. I guess we won't know the truth until perhaps 50 years from now.
"anybody with a talent for programming could write cool games in their bedroom and become a millionaire"
I was a whizz with Basic as were others. But the assembly language needed for proper action games was in a different class. Those were written on large purpose built systems then cross compiled for the target, I believe, not something we had access to in our bedrooms.
Those example games are early 80s not 1989.
We need the efficiency that Heff recommends, while researching to create Andrew Orlowski's energy fantasy. Heff's vision, even if it were not 100% sustainable, will certainly sustain a lot longer than just doing nothing, giving the needed research more time.
Unfortunately this debate is quietly steered by the oil companies et al, who pervade every forum and influence every decision. Their objective is to delay action and to muddy argument for as long as possible. Thousands of scientists cannot gainsay them. They have even got us using the nice term "climate change" instead of the more accurate and ominous "global warming".
Almost every global-warming-denial article written can be traced back to oil company sponsorship or patronage. (I am not referring the the Dyson article here). Recall, if you are over 40, the old arguments over aerosol CFCs and the ozone layer. The manufacturers claimed that using an alternate propellant was simply impossible. Everyone believed them until the government just passed a law saying it must be so. Overnight, they switched to a harmless propellant, and the ozone layer has healed itself in the intervening years. Big companies are not really bad people, they are just blinkered because they are so busy making money out of something.
"Wax candles did more than government schools to produce a literate working class ... Compared with that, the later change from wax candles to electric light was not so important."
(1) Wax candles were very expensive, even for the middle class. Tallow was smelly but much cheaper. (2) Even if the working class could have afforded them, candles provide very little light. Try reading by one. (3) "The change from wax candles to electric light" never happeped. Many other lighting forms came in between, including gas, which preceeded electric by 100 years.
7 years for £118,000 ? Rediculous. That's a month in prison for every £1400 pounds stolen. Kill a stranger in the street and you might get 4 years. Kill someone in your car and you will get community service. But steal from the crown now, don't you dare.
Unless there was more to this story, it should have been 12 months max.
Intersting conjecture as to what might be on the hard drive. If it was not internet-connected, the PC would be limited in its usability for terrorist activity and planning. The only output would be hard copy, and Bin Laden would be unlikely to print anything out. He might have sent orders via USB stick, but this seems unlikely also. On the other hand, the PC might have just been for "civilian" use, and contain nothing intersting. Or it might be disguised to look like that.
The most valuable thing on there might be the address book. Al Qaeda top brass, along with any spies in operation, might be worring right now.
As for the encryption, who knows ? If Bin Laden was lax, they might break it. I rather think that if the PC contains stuff that needs to be protected, BL will have the best possible security and the very longest passwords.
If fast file sharing is all you want, then agreed, a NAS is the unit for you. If, on the other hand, you want a full server with OS functionality, maybe to run several websites, Wordpress, Drupal, a home auitomation framework, some webcams, and so on, go with the Sheevaplug. You could do some of those (badly) by hackng around your NAS, but with the Sheevaplug the work is already done. The best tool for the job.
I have a both. The Linkstation NAS maxes the CPU at 15 Mb/s, the Sheeva at about 8.
Lower end domestic NAS units are punishingly slow due to their feeble CPUs. "Gigabit!" shouts the packaging, hinting at the possibility of 70 or 80 Mb/s transfers. You get it home and the CPU is maxed out at 15 Mb/s, only slightly more than it could have managed with Fast Ethernet. What a crock.
Sheevaplug makes an excellent always-on server - plenty powerful, well supported and using only 3 or 4 Watts. Not the best NAS head though, for the above reasons.
Likewise, NAS units do not make good always-on servers - spinning disks, juddering read heads - no thanks, I like to leave the datacentre at work.
Tracking the user is only possible with "live" traffic services, ie. where your satnav communicates back to Tom Tom. The GPS infrastructure itself does not know your position, only your satnav knows that. Higher end satnavs and smartphones some with "live" services. Lower end satnavs don't and can't be tracked. Some satnavs (eg Navigon) use FM radio for traffic warnings ("TMC"), which again cannot be tracked.
So for stealth mode, avoid "live data" satnavs. And keep your mobile phone switched off.
It would be great if there was a transmission system that could blast films simultaneously to millions of endpoints with minimal bandwidth. Users could record the films to watch as many times as they want, leaving the internet free what what it does best, ie. 2 way point to point traffic.
The MS wonk is trying to put the frighteners on non-technical punters who account for most of the MS revenue. MS are desperate to keep selling licenses, and they are just doing what you or I would probably do in their situation. They need to frighten home user Joe Bloggs in to staying with what he has been familiar with for 20 years. If the housewife starts noticing Apple or Linux, they are finished.
Giles Hill proposes this as a "green" product, but it is not sold as such. The marketing blurb simply calls it "water powered".
The electricity goes like this: power station->grid->your house->power shower pump->radio. The radio is therefore coal/gas powered, and wastes much of that energy in the complicated delivery route.
Not green, not pretending to be green. Just a novelty.
The UK version of Top Gear is broadcast in over 30 countries, Mexico among them. For a citizen of Mexico, it might be one of the few reference points they have for the UK. Go to Mexico this year and some folks in the local cantina might well associate you with Top Gear. The incident was reported in their newspapers, and the Mexican senate is considering a motion of censure. So yes, Mexico was pretty annoyed.
It is pointless to insult whole countries for nothing, just to draw attention to yourself and get some headlines. It worked though - TG was in all the 'papers, including El Reg.
Great. The world, apparently, used to think of the British as being gentlemen. Now they think we are just a bunch of boorish tossers. Thanks Top Gear.
The French, apparently, used to call us the "roast beefs", because we ate roast beef. Now they just call us the "f**k offs", because all we ever say is "f**k off".
Wikipedia alleges £499 including hard disk. Suspect that might refer to the floppy disk model only. However, even i-programmer states the PC 1512 20 Mb model cost £949. It is therefore difficult to imagine the same size disk costing £5000 to £8000 only 3 years earlier.
Maybe there was a price difference then, as now, between "enterprise" and domestic disks.
"back in the early 80's a 5MB winchester Hard disk of any brand would have set you back £5k+ and a 10MB a whopping £8-10K+".
Surely not. In 1986, you could buy an Amstrad PC clone containing a 20 Mb hard disk for £499. Moore's law is good, but not that good.
We had a 1512 in the house. Before that, my father *rented* an Epson PC, including hard disk, because buying was far to expensive. Like the way people used to rent TVs. Now, I guess people just use credit cards.
Excellent story, which raises an intriguing issue with disk drives, ie. capacities have increased exponentially, whereas access speeds only linearly. Will the same be true of flash ?
More generally, Moore's law continues apace. However, due to vast increases in software complexity, a 2011 PC doesn't do *that* much more than a 1995 PC, aside from playing games. I mean, they both run word processors and spreadsheets. They will both produce a letter to your solicitor or do your accounts. The 2011 PC does accomplish more, but not a thousand times more.
"Google's Android contains legal landmines for developers and device manufacturers". This just sounds like a lawyer drumming up business. He would say that.
"Rivals are indeed attacking Linux and open source." MS has been dishing the same Linux FUD for 10 years. It came to nought, but you can't blame them for trying. It's happening again with Android.
Zemlin is right. Patent litigation is clearly an issue in the technology industry. Everybody is violating everybody else's patents. Part of the reason lies in the ease with which patents can be granted under US law. A patent can apply to almost anything. For example, having icons appear in drop-down menus. Nothing is too trivial, and it can be patented almost immediately.
As a result, MS, which accuses Linux of patent violation, is itself probably violating thousands of "patents", as is Apple and the other big players. For the most part, they are reluctant to take action because nobody, except the lawyer above, wants an all-out patent war.
The answer is not to throw petrol on the fire by quadroupling the radio pollution for everyone. The interference caused by controlled Wi-Fi channels pales when compared to what you are broadcasting from your mains wires. What if all the neighbours did the same ? If you really have no alternative, I guess you are in a minority.
We have had the internet at home for 20 years now. It seems daft that our houses don't have a network point in each room. I mean, it would add like £50 to the cost of building the house.
These early portables were referred to by reviewers at the time as "luggables", in PCW and other mags. CP/M 2.2 and then 3.0 was later bundled with Amstrad's 8 bit machines, including the business oriented 8256. "Public domain" software, as it was called back then, was available under CP/M.
The 8256 survived a surprisingly long time, because PC compatibles of the time still cost a small fortune. It finally retired in 1998 with 8 million units sold and an estimated 100,000 still in use. Perhaps that was the last CP/M system.
Don't like the man, don't like his leisure activities. Don't like the tendentious nonsense he covers it all with. Hunting has place, of course. But this isn't it. Guy, you are not rescuing Zimbabweans. You're just a corpulent holiday maker who likes to shoot elephants, and pays a lot for the privilege. Just say that. Be a man.
Not that keen on PETA either.
The article is tendentious and selective. It proposes all our armed forces should be designed around a couple of recent encounters. No. Forces must be prepared to fight any enemy in any geography. I might as well say: "Oh. we didn't use rifles in Libya, so we are stupid for having rifles". Or "Our last 2 wars were in hot countries. Chuck out all the big coats".
Get rid of all tanks, yeah ? Weren't tanks the whole basis of the Gulf War 1 and the liberation of Kuwait ?
The next battle could be anything. Fighting in the jungle, blitz kreig in the dessert, boarding pirate vessels at sea, urban house-to-house. The enemy faces the same difficulties, and all military leaders wish their arrangements could be better.
For many years Thameslink has been using seats that are simply unsuitable for men. Three average sized blokes sitting side by side will find that their shoulders press hard against each other, to such a degree than the end guy has to lean out onto the aisle, and the middle guy has to sit forward. Ridiculous. This has nothing to do with obesity, it's simply purely width.
The decades wear away and Britain continues to have the worst trains in the western world, and the most expensive train service anywhere.
I am a huge Linux fan, but Solaris is technically the best OS of all, by some margin, and not just because of ZFS. That is why it survives, plus the large user base among banks, telcos and other corporations.
All the same, there must be doubts about Solaris long term. It grew from a atmosphere of innovation which existed in Sun but does not exist at Oracle.
1. I havn't been in many back shops. But I have been in small business offices, and office PCs tend to be fixed. "back room" implies a PC that does not move around, so why would it be on WiFi ?
2. I was wrong. Of the 9 wireless points right now. My software initially makes it look like they are all WPA-PSK secured, but deeper investigation shows at least 2 are indeed "WEP 40/128 bit". I thought WEP fell out of use years ago.
3. Give an example ?
4. Yes that was the joke - meant to be spoofing the article's assertion about security and its system load penalty.
1. The shop's PC/Macbook would not be using WiFi.
2. No WiFi client has used WEP since like 2006.
3. No banking or payment site ever used http. Https has been the norm for many years
The author is imagining a world entirely security free, and telling us it should be universally secured. Personally I like to use telnet because ssh slows my server to a crawl.
Imagine if there was a tablet available with it's own keyboard attached. You could have the convenience of a real keyboard coupled with the portability of a tablet. Even better if the keyboard could fold up against the tablet screen like a book, protecting the screen when not in use.
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