Posts by SImon Hobson 2539 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Sep 2006
Yes, SCO was a highly respected unix back in those days before self-destruction. Where I worked at the time we ran our business on, or rather, with software that ran on, a SCO Unix system. Xenix was the first Unix system I've ever worked with, and what I learned on that, plus OpenServer later on has stood me in good stead for the last couple of decades.
Where's the consent ? Well Google would argue it's in the agreement you signed when you started using the phone. GDPR explicitly says that such shenanigans are no more valid than putting them in a locked cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the leopard".
But, for anything to happen, as mentioned further up, there has to be a complaint to the data protection authority in an EU country AND for that authority to take action (rather than expend a lot of effort into trying to demonstrate why they are not legally able to). it then drags on for years and years and years and years and ... you get the picture.
Just look at the Schrems cases to see what it takes.
Please explain, because I can't see it, how "voluntary" is not related to "consent" ? Perhaps pedophilia is not the correct word - but it's clear that he is talking about cases where the (in law) underage person is able to consent to the activity. That is a valid discussion to have, as is (as others have pointed out) how you can genuinely determine if there was real (vs co-erced) consent if there's a large difference in ages and hence the older person might be considered to have some authority or control over the younger person.
And in some countries, 14 is an age where the legislature have decided that people are able to make an informed choice and give consent.
Actually, and no I don't have any citations, but I vaguely recall having read comments along the lines of "we need to get rid of ${stuff} because ... RMS created it". Not physically un-create stuff (that would be impossible), but to remove and replace stuff he wrote.
So no, they haven't stopped at "lynch the b'stard", some want to get rid of anything he ever touched.
He was pointing out that regardless of what you consider a reasonable age of consent to be, and hence what is considered pedophilia, it's important to quote the context of something. For example, if I were to write that "tfb says that 'sex with children is OK'" then people could imagine that you think that sex with children is OK. It's true, you did write that, in this post.
It would be a true, but very misleading statement, because as anyone could see if they chose to look - taken in context what you wrote was "... and Richard Stallman is 'skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children'. In other words he thinks that sex with children is OK, so long as it is, you know, 'voluntary': as long as the children consent." which is a completely different statement.
But of course, "child" is a legal construct which varies across the world - and as I pointed out in an earlier post, there are many places in the USA where taking one step across a state line can change that definition by 2 years. And if you read the source material, RMS did not in fact make an unqualified statement either (there are a surprisingly large number of countries with an age of consent lower than the suggestion used by RMS) - something else the lynch mob generally don't mention.
I would suggest that if you read what he ACTUALLY WROTE and can interpret that as condoning child abuse then you have a big problem of your own. At the most charitable, you lack english language comprehension skills; being less charitable, it could be suggested that you are projecting your own (immoral) thoughts into what you think was the mind that wrote them.
In what way is he FORCING GPL-ness on the world ? Are you seriously suggesting that the likes of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and the thousands or even millions of developers around the world are using GPL because ... they are afraid to say no to RMS ?
No one is FORCED to use GPL or GNU. That they are as common as they are is because so many people agree with the values they represent.
The thing is, everyone has a choice - if they don't want to work on a GPL-ed project, then don't work on it. If you find a bunch of like minded people, or have enough free time and skills on your own, then simply create (or find) another project that does the same thing but with a different licence. Bear in mind that there are other licenses around - the one used by the various BSD projects comes to mind.
And did you notice that what is there has a very different meaning to the piece selectively misquoted in the tweet ? I say misquoted because it's a classic example of taking words that are there, and using them without the context that gives them the meaning that was originally there instead of the very different context of the selected words.
The key thing there is the tweet does not include the bit where he says "if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution". And that's leaving aside the inconvenient (for the lynch mob) fact that the words they quote were (by my reading of the page) actually those of someone else !
Lets take a (I hope) fairly non-contraversial analogy. Suppose someone states that "provided the choice of the woman is protected and respected, a man should be able to have sex with any woman" - I don't think that should be too controversial, it's pretty much what the laws of most countries allow for, that a woman can choose to sleep with whoever she wants, and can choose not to as well. Now try it without the "provided the choice of the woman is protected and respected" - it has a completely different meaning.
When one speaks from personal experience a link is not required
But without a link, it's nothing but an anecdote that could be true, or could be a complete and utter lie told in order to support a lynch mob. Without that link, no-one can know - and given the amount of lies and misquoting going on in this case, I'll assume it's a lie unless some evidence is given.
What I find most amusing about the support/avoid debate is the profound lack of personal contact on the support side
I'm met him - briefly, when he was doing a speaking tour in the UK.
Yes, as others have pointed out he's a complete knob when it comes to people skills and personality. But, what I came away with was the opinion that what he lacks in social skills, he makes up for in spades with honesty and principles. And like him or not - he had the foresight to see where closed software would lead, and the strength of character to follow the principles which we all benefit from.
Personally, I'd rather deal with someone with principles and no social skills - you know where you stand with them even if you don't agree with or like them. On the other hand, there are those more interested in "being liked" - they are the ones you need to watch, and especially don't turn you back lest you (metaphorically) feel a sharp stabbing pain if they feel stabbing you in the back will make them more liked by ${some_group}.
Really ?
Tell me one thing he has FORCED on the world ?
Don't tell me GNU software - he didn't force that on the world, people chose to use it for it's technical merits.
Don't tell me GPL - again, people chose to use it for it's technical merits.
There is the argument that Apple, Microsoft, etc all use GPL'd software - but again they weren't forced to, they chose to based on the merits (not least, the ability to use the efforts of many developers instead of re-inventing yet another wheel).
So really, despite the fact that he didn't FORCE them on anyone, you can avoid using GNU software or GPL. There are alternatives - but you'll have to do a bit of work yourself, and hook up with a bunch of like minded people to get the developer hours to re-invent your own set of wheels.
Out of interest, did you actually read what he wrote - in it's full context ?
ISTM that he was not saying that children should be sleeping around (his wording aorund that was poorly chosen) - but validly pointing out that the age of consent is an arbitrary legal construction, and some draconian laws making sex with someone under that arbitrary age automatically rape and/or child molestation are illogical. In the context, at the time, AIUI in France the age of consent was (and still is) 15, and IIRC in the UK it's 16 - yet in some places it's much higher. Is there any evidence to suggest that (for example, and using current numbers from the USA) a 17 year old girl from New York is not mature enough to consent, while if she lived across the border in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, or Pennsylvania she would be ? And he explicitly asked the question whether - given that some European countries (inc Germany and Italy) set the age of consent at 14 - it was unreasonable for a 14 year old (or older) person to be able to legally consent. That's not about morals or societal norms - it was purely about the legal side of things.
Also things change. For example, in ancient Rome, if a girl reached 15 without being married with (or at least, on the way to having) children, then she was considered an old maid. But back then, life expectancy was only something like 30 or so - so waiting till your mid 20s or 30s wasn't an option.
Looking at it from a purely biological PoV, it's illogical to suggest that a person should not be mature enough to have consensual sex until they have waited for an extra 50% on top of the age of puberty. In any other species, it would be natural for puberty to be the point at which an animal could choose to procreate - it's just us humans that have created various legal and societal/moral constructs that aim to prevent that.
But - the SJW lynch mobs baying for his blood have chosen to misrepresent what he wrote (and which he did later retract) in order to whip up a sh*tstorm amongst people who any incapable of, or choose not to, read and actually understand what he didwrite.
It has always and forever been the case that while working, one represents the employers brand
And when not working ?
So it's OK to take his personal opinions, expressed outside of work, and make them his employer's fault ?
And from what I've seen, pretty well all the arguments against him come down to such a level of incomprehension that one wonders how these people manage to get online.
What possible context could justify those comments about sex with 14 year olds
Which comments ? The ones he actually made, and did at some point retract ? Or the ones being made up by the lynch mod ?
Because, if you read what he actually wrote in full and stop to actually think rather than just go "child abuse, must be a bad 'un" then you'll realise that he did not at any point suggest what he is being accused of suggesting. And bear in mind that 14 (the arbitrary age he picked) is above the age of consent in some countries, and only just below the age of consent in many countries that we consider "civilised". The big debate should not be about what some arbitrary - and it is very arbitrary - number written in a statute book should be, but what truly constitutes consent once there is a question of one party having influence over another. Simply put, much of the aggression seems to be into someone asking if that arbitrary number (which varies considerably around the world, and even within the US) is a reasonable number to have chosen.
And remember that things change. Back in ancient Roman times a "girl" would be considered an old maid if not married with a family on the way at 14 - but then life expectancy was only into something like the 30s.
But I don't expect any rational response to this.
Really ? And in many jurisdictions you've have grounds for taking your now ex employer to the cleaners for unfair dismissal.
So what exactly has he done ?
No, not the suggestion that he believes in the rape of children - because what he wrote does not actually support that IF you read and comprehend what he actually wrote rather than the biased misquotes being used by the lynch mob.
And no, not the suggestion that the girl in the Epstein business was willing - because, again, he didn't write any such thing IF you read what he actually wrote and not the biased misquotes being used by the lynch mob.
So far, the only accusations that stand up to any scrutiny are that a) he's a personality vacuum and b) he's not a nice guy to be around if you're a woman. That latter bit may or may not be true - I don't know, I wasn't there, I can only go by what is being said/written about him. So it could be fair to criticise him for that - but mostly that's not what is being used against him, it's the outright lies being made up by deliberate selective out of context quotes that are being used.
Except that none of those companies could afford the shitstorm that would create, or the loss of custom. Also, it would play directly into the hands of the legislators and potential competitors who could, quite rightly, label them as a bunch of criminals trying to blackmail the EU.
In theory, it would be quite possible for a region as large as the EU to simply ban any of them - and have all internet providers/carriers intercept their traffic and forward it to somewhere else, where the user would get a message to the effect that "This service has been banned for criminal activity". I'm sure Microsoft would be more than happy to step in with Bing and take up the search engine slack if Google got banned.
And yes, it would be trivial to deal with the SSL certificate problem ...
I don't know what the law says about this, but why not ? A lot of laws exist to explicitly impose or nullify contractual terms. For example, in the UK, the UTCCRs (Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations) basically say that if a consumer contract contains certain types of clauses then those clauses are automatically void and unenforceable. Similarly, the SOGAS (Sale of Goods and Services) Act basically says that any consumer contract is assumed by law to contain certain clauses giving consumers certain rights.
As to inter-state trade, that's already "complicated" by different tax laws, different age of consent laws, etc, etc, etc.
but that will be changed at the next opportunity
But don't forget that it will only make a difference if you make it very clear to the CS rep why you are having no dealings with them in the future. A few 'nerds' leaving won't even show in the noise, and TBH a few people telling the CS reps why they're leaving probably won't register - but if you just leave without saying why, then they'll never know and nothing will change. If enough people say why, then the CS reps might start mentioning to their managers that they've had these strange calls - and it might possibly reach it's way up the manglement tree.
If you use a GPL3 library somewhere, they have to be able to replace it somehow
Err, where does it say that ?
Yes, if they replace it then you can't make the system break because they replaced it - but you don't have to engineer the system such that they can actually replace it. You can build a unit with the board embedded in epoxy and no diagnostics/ICP port - but as long as you provide the source code on request and don't do something like apply code signing, then you are not breaching GPL.
Which means that the library could be replaced by one giving the user effective access to the system with the privileges of the original library
Now thats' a different argument which was not obvious (to me) from your previous posting.
But of course, no-one is forcing anyone to use GPL code. If you don't like the terms for using (for free) someone else's work, then you are free to do it some other way. Similarly, no-one if forced to release their work under GPL - they can use whatever licence (or not release it at all) for their own work.
And of course, you've given one very good reason that some people do like GPL code. The manufacturer of the equipment obviously took a decision that using the GPL library saved them enough cost/effort to justify the downsides for them. They were absolutely not in any way forced to use that library - it was a choice (presumably commercial) to accept the downsides in return for getting to use someone else's work for nothing.
However, the open-source library is GPL3, so if they used it, they would have to make it possible to replace that library without breaking the system
Rubbish, utter tosh.
All the GPL does in this case is mean that as well as shipping with the binary installed, you have to provide on request the source code to it - but only to people you shipped the binary to. You are under no obligation to allow the user access to the other bits of the system, or to any bit of the system. You are under no obligation to allow them to replace that binary without breaking the system.
Your only obligation is, if asked by someone you've shipped the binary to, to provide the source that can be used to build that binary. You don't have to provide source to anything else (assuming you are simply calling the library in the normal manner rather than embedding it's code in your own code). You don't have to help them if they want to do anything with it. You don't even need to do anything if replacing that binary somehow makes the system stop working - but under GPLv3 there are restrictions on actively stopping things working, (the Tivo clause). So if you use code signing, then under GPLv3 you would need to allow another binary to run - either by providing a signing key or supporting other keys - but just "replacing X with Y breaks the system" does not mean you breach the GPLv3.
As AC says, that is not how it works. I vaguely recall reading that it will cost at least $1/4m - yes, a quarter of a million $ to defend a patent infringement case IF YOU WIN ! And just because there's obvious prior art doesn't guarantee a win.
So yes, if the target is a big outfit, then (eventually, it'll take years) the patent would get invalidated. For most small businesses, that's not something they could support - so the trolls offer them a licence fee they can stomach and laugh all the way to the bank. Of course, that licence fee then goes into suing the next victim - armed with "X agrees it's valid, they've taken out a licence".
Of course, if you do try and defend the infringement accusation, then you also risk losing. In which case, anything you did after being told that you infringed - such as continuing to ship product - could be classed as deliberate infringement and ... kerching, punitive damages on top of what was already claimed.
Sadly, ditching patents (and copyright) altogether would be no less bad than what we currently have. Consider a world where you could spend possibly years researching and developing ${something} - safe in the knowledge that anyone can come along and simply take what you've done and use it for nothing. There's no incentive to invest in real development work when you can simply "steal" everyone else's. So it would largely stop - or be confined to larger businesses who might have the clout to stop others stealing their efforts (probably by dirty tricks), or you'll see more and more "sealed units" that you can't get into and see what is going on.
Such a situation would particularly hit the stereotypical "garden shed boffin" as they'd have no way of monetising anything they developed. At present, they can get a patent and then licence/sell it to someone who has the ability to get it to market as a product. Without that ability, as soon as their development became public knowledge, then businesses would simply use it without paying anything.
Only someone who doesn't remember our old state owned/run services would say that. It's notable that when you see vox pop bits on the news about train fare increases - it's always young(ish) people calling for it to be re-nationalised.
So what did the nationalised Post Office give us ?
Well to start with, with very few exceptions you could only connect a phone that they approved and mostly rented to you. You had some choice, but not a lot.
If you wanted a new phone line, then they'd provide it, probably, eventually - typically the waiting list was months. And if they were running short of copper pairs, they wouldn't pull a new cable in to increase supply - they'd put you on a party line. For those who've never had the "joy" of a party line, you had to pick the phone up and listen to see if the other party was using the line - in our case, we shared a line with a couple of old spinsters a few doors up the street. If you heard voices, you apologised and put the phone down. If you heard nothing, you'd press a button (Earth Loop Recall) to activate the exchange and give you a dial tone.
And of course, in real terms, it cost a lot more than it does these days to have a phone.
Now, for the trains ...
Well we mostly had ancient dirty rolling stock, calling (if it ran at all) at dirty and run down stations, manned by (in many cases) DGAS staff who were both p'eed off with working conditions but also secure in the knowledge that it was hard for mangement to try and sack them - lest the unions walk out and bring the country to a halt.
The "passenger experience" could be summed up by the intro to this piece : https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/when-show-business-means-new-business/514715
That's not to say that privatisation has been 100% successful. But it made a huge difference to both telecomms and rail. Re-nationalisation would be a disaster.
The problem there is that it's just not economical to repair a lot of stuff these days. If a new machine costs (say) £300, who's going to spend an indeterminate amount that starts at £100 for the callout repairing it ?
Just last week I had a new alternator in the car. Not that long ago it would have been an exchange job - old one goes back, gets fettled, and back onto the shelf for someone else. These days, it's not worth it as a new one is less than it would cost in labour to overhaul one.
If I had the cash, it would be tempting to have become a member just to be able to vote to oust these ****s. Regardless of the initial discussion points, their (current manglement) behaviour since the challenge has proven beyond any doubt that the challenge had to be made and will hopefully pass.
Slightly different, maaaaany years ago in a previous job we had out internet via "dial-up" ISDN and a leased line to a remote office. One afternoon I started to get queries from people who were waiting for emails - so I took a look at the inbound queue. We were with Demon, and you could finger the mail server and it would reply back with a list of emails in the queue.
So what did I see ? A 10MBytes email to someone at the remote office - who had been one of those querying non-delivery of an expected email. Needless to say, downloading this over a 64kbps ISDN link would take a little while. But said user had already told the sender that it hadn't arrived, so it had been sent again. And again, and ... User was told in "very clear language" to contact the sender and tell them under no circumstances to send it again. it took the rest of the afternoon and sometime into the evening to clear - I think I deleted the duplicates from the server before the user tried to download them over the 64k Kilostream the next day !
At the same job, some time later we were migrating to a new mail server. To avoid a big-bang situation, we did the "set up new server, tell users to change the server setting, set up forwards on old server for each migrated account". Yeah, no central management, and all mail downloaded with POP - IMAP was still in it's early days and client IMAP support was "questionable". Then one day we saw both servers slowing down due to a slight misconfiguration ! The max message size on the new server was slightly smaller than on the old one. So when a message came in that was in that window of difference, the old server dutifully tried to forward it. The new server dutifully send it back. The old server forwarded it, the new server sent it back. And so it went, until I upped the size limit on the new server.
And which is a real problem everywhere - tools and techniques that are genuinely useful for legitimate and honest purposes are misused by scum with no interest but their own wealth. It's because some people can't be trusted that the rest of us can't have nice things.
Mostly you have to give people choices about cookies ... you have to opt-in to last two categories they cannot be pre-ticked
Ha, if only !
I still see plenty of sites that should come under GDPR which either pre-tick stuff they are not allowed to , or simply presentblot out all the content behind a "accept cookies, it's your only option" message.
But sometimes, the only way to make progress is to force the issue.
It may seem like a big PR stunt (and yes, there is an element of that), but the alternative is that Epic complain to regulators and wait a few years or decades for a decision. By forcing the issue, they've given themselves an opportunity to file for themselves in court and effectively fast track it - though it'll still take years and will cost a fortune.
This smacks of failing the "be strict on what you send, be flexible on what you receive" mantra that everything should be designed to (it was coined for software and data transfers). My guess would bet that Apple designed on the assumption that all USB-PD devices behave properly - and when one of them doesn't then there's a protocol breakdown. For the PD device to damage the laptop, it would have to be sending too much voltage when it shouldn't be - and that could be causes if the two ends have failed to communicate properly.
But then, I always thought some of the stuff behind this high power USB power delivery was just asking for trouble !
Have an update for mentioning that great example of "all eggs in one basket".
For those you haven't heard of it, major floods, local substations taken out of service (electricity and dirty water don't mix well), whole town and surrounding area without power. And it took around a week to get power back again - which considering the extent of the flooding is a great testament to the engineers at Electricity NorthWest.
PSTN still mostly working using exchange batteries - but only for people with a wired phone (no power for DECT base stations). Mobiles stopped working only a short time after the power went out as the base station batteries ran out. Some people found themselves with no water when the electric booster pumps stopped working. Shortage of generators as everyone (at least those who actually had any plan at all) had a plan that involved just hiring them as needed - so not enough to go around.
Most shops were stuffed as they didn't have working tills. And a panic to buy batteries for FM radios to listen the local radio station which had one phone line working and power - so was able to broadcast update messages.
It's a fascinating read https://www.theblackoutreport.co.uk/2019/12/11/lancaster-floods-living-without-electricity/ and follow the links to the Living Without Electricity report.
A LUG I'm involved with used to meet at a university, and was originally set up by some academics. One was bemoaning how difficult it was for academics to work on FOSS because the university claimed that they held the copyright for anything they wrote, whenever or wherever they wrote it. So work on FOSS at home, on your own computer, in your own time - the university owns it all as far as the university was concerned.
Unfortunately they are likely to hit a carrier that is not trusted and has no agreement with
There is a way to deal with that. Make the terminating network liable if it cannot reliably identify the source.
How would that work ?
Well Taking the example given, Virgin will finger Vodamoan (and get itself off the hook), and Vodamoan will finger Arbinet. Lets suppose that Arbinet cannot reliably identify the caller, then they are liable for any fines - and as (I'm guessing) they have a UK presence will be within reach of the authorities (and Vodamoan will be off the hook). But if Arbinet do not have a UK presence, then Vodamoan would be liable.
So what would happen is that Vodamoan would turn round to Arbinet and tell them 2 things : 1) we expect you to re-imburse us for these costs, and 2) if you want us to ever terminate a call for you again you'll fix your systems. It would be painful, but what would happen is that reputable carriers would end up blacklisting the scam friendly ones - and consumer pressure from the other end in the form of "I tried to call aunt Mabel in the UK but the call was blocked" would persuade any half-reputable carrier abroad to stop using the dodgy carriers.
The UK might not be able to pul this off by itself, but if it persuaded larger countries/blocks (such as US or EU) to join in then it would happen quite quickly.
The alternative is that Vodamoan simply increase it's termination rates to scam friendly carriers in order to cover the fines. These carriers would then either make a loss or pass on the extra costs - disrupting the business model.
Not just document, but also start raising it up the command chain.
So as the days go by without a response - you pass a message to your management that you've had no response. And you escalate the tone of those messages - so a few days beforehand, you are telling your management that you will not be able to go live "because this other department are not co-operating".
That way, you have evidence that you did all you could to make things happen, AND you can document that your management knew there was a problem, AND you can document that you did everything within your power/authority to make things happen. If the brown stuff does hit the air movement device, then you should be out of the firing line - or at least you've made yourself a good umbrella. But hopefully, if your management is any good, they'll have made things happen and the problem will have been resolved before that happens.
It's not mentioned in the article, but it's also good to make sure that in your request it is clear what the timescale is - you don't want the other side to be able to use the excuse that they weren't aware of when it was needed/it was urgent/whatever.
They have an especially savage set of bollards in Manchester - having tried various less dramatic ways of keeping people from driving down a particular road. All I can say is that some people are clearly not fit to be in charge of a vehicle - there is a LOT of very clear signage leading up to these bollards.
I respectfully disagree. Having the times table all the way up to 12x12 ingrained in your head will stand you in good stead for life - as will the ability to break things down into smaller chunks and the ability to estimate the approximate scale of the answer before you mis-tap it in on the calculator.
Yes, you can argue that few don't have a phone to hand these days with a calculator on it, but being able to do basics in your head is often a lot faster.
I like the merged box
And I absolutely really REALLY [insert string of expletives here] hate it.
I'm really peed off with typing a valid URL into the box, only to find it's done a search (and needless to say, not found the internal resource I'm after). I'm also peed off with typing a search that the browser decides looks like a URL (yes, they do exist) and then tells me that the URL can't be found.
If you think teaching users to use a search box for search and an address box for addresses is hard - try teaching them the intricacies of whether they should type https or http (yes there are still legitimate sites not using the "s"), and yes they do have to put the "://" exactly like that ...
Teams is good at one or 2 items
Really ?
Granted I've avoided it as far as possible - but more stuff at work is moving to it.
As someone else said, Skype works - reasonably unobtrusively, Teams seems designed to make meetings ... well crap.
What f'tard thought having a non-movable tool bar stuck in front of the presented material was a good idea ? And what f'tard thought it made sense for it to appear when you even think of moving the mouse - except when you actually do want to click on something in the toolbar, in which case it goes all shy and decides not to appear until the opportunity to unmute and pop in a pithy comment has passed. And of course, there's that other bit of presentation obscuring crap that pops up every time you cough, or just breath near your mike telling you that you're on mute - yes I f'in know I'm on mute, that's so I don't interrupt the presentation you f'in morons.
And the chat that's so bloated with "xxx joined the meeting" and "xxx left the meeting" notes that you can't actually find the actual chat messages. And the voice that keeps interrupting the meeting to say someone's waiting in the lobby, or joined, or left, or what day of the month it is (I made that last one up, but expect that to be added eventually).
And I've yet to figure out how to actually find stuff that's been stored in there - now that's something Teams excels at, who'd have thought it would beat Sharepoint at being difficult to use and slow !
As long as the automated systems just flag a potential problem to the "human in the loop" then it's fine
This is the telecoms industry we're talking about - of course they won't employ any humans in the loop. Perhaps a poor chimpanzee to handle the complaints from blocked legitimate businesses, but pay wages to humans ?
All half-competent carriers require some sort of authentication before they'll allow you to spoof a number - basically prove that it is actually your number. The issue is that there isn't any practical way to prevent a dishonest or careless carrier from allowing it as there's no practical way to validate where the call can come from - and in the general case it would need to be a list, not just a single source.
Presentation numbers have a lot of valid uses - for example, arranging that calls made from various offices of a business "come from" a number recognisably as that business regardless of which office originated it.
As I wrote a few posts up, there could be ways to make it in the interests of carriers to be more selective who they'll deal with - but it'll never happen.
As it is, with a previous work hat on, I did have a requirement to set up a presentation number for one of our clients. I was looking at the documentation for the VoIP service - and realised that I didn't need to send anything in, they took our work for it as the reseller that we'd checked that the customer actually owned the number. This was for a legitimate purpose - but the scope for abusing that would be huge.
And therein lies a big chunk of the problem.
I can think of one way to (more or less) stop these calls - make the carrier liable for compensating the victims UNLESS they can positively identify the source.
So (say) BT takes a call from overseas, and it turns out to be a scam call and they are on the hook. Since the UK authorities can't really chase carriers in other countries, it would then be for BT to have a contractual clause with the inbound carrier to recover the fine BT pays. You then put BT in a position where it costs them money if they take calls from "dodgy" foreign carriers - and so they will act ina manner to minimise that cost. It may result in some foreign callers getting a recorded message along the lines of "your call cannot be connected because you are using a scumbag carrier who allowed any old criminal to make scam calls".
Of course, that would only apply to network calls - VoIP is another matter. There the scum just need to sign up with any VoIP provider (who provides UK numbers) and then they can make their calls from anywhere in the world but present a UK number. Here it wold come down to the VoIP provider doing their due diligence in knowing who the customer actually is rather than accepting anyone who can fill in the signup form. Can't finger your customer, you pay (part of) their fine !
I can't see this ever happening - too many vested interests in the status quo as they all make money from it.
I have to admit that over the last 10 months, I have sometimes considered getting a contactless card (of the pre-load it and it can't spend more than that sort). But then when they raised the limit, and you say they are considering doing so again ... I think I'll carry on holding out.
Actually, the main reason I had considered getting a pre-paid contactless card is that at work they've made it so you cannot get a hot drink in the canteen without a contactless card. They had complaints that people couldn't get a drink outside their limited serving hours so added card readers - but only contactless card readers. But since I've not been onsite for 10 months now, that particular problem is on hold.
Sorry, that's not right either.
For NOTIFIABLE work you have to either use a member of a scamscheme who can self notify, or you can notify directly through BC and pay their exorbitant fees.
For non-notifiable work, well you just don't have to notify it at all.
Anyone who is competent to do the work is allowed to do electrical work, including issuing a certificate for it (either an Electrical Installation Certificate or a Minor Works Certificate). It's only notifiable work that needs notifying.
NOTE: The rules differ across the UK. In England, the only notifiable works are replacing a consumer unit, adding a circuit, or works within the zones of a bathroom - nothing else (this was relaxed in 2013). Wales still works to the older (more restrictive and complicated) notification rules introduced in 2005. Scotland has something completely different - more restrictions on who can do works. Dunno about NI.
I didn't know about that - I bet it was "reassuringly expensive" as another brand likes to say in it's adverts.
As to not charging, I suspect that's similar to the older laptops. Back when they used a 3.5mm jack with a ring around it, there was actually documentation on how the laptop determined what power source it had - basically just a resistor between two contacts. For running off 12V (which would be the case on an airplane I believe), the laptop only got 12V rather than the 19V from an AC adapter - enough to run it, but not to charge it.
Technically speaking, it shouldn't be hard to configure a power circuit that can charge from 12V - but a secondary consideration is that many power sockets will be severely restricted in how much power you can draw.
But even if you can't charge, being able to run off external power and conserve your battery has to be a significant benefit.
Perhaps next time the boring corporate software shouldn't be written using a proprietary lock-in language
But that's not a lot of comfort when you dig out that old hardware that's been shuffling packets around in the server room since ... well possibly since before you started there ... and find that you can't even view it's config now as it needs some old version of <something>. Yup, been there, struggled finding a combination of software that would allow me to access said switch. Doesn't help when "helpful" software turns round and tells you that "this software wasn't signed, so I DGAS how important it is to you or whether you actually know better, WE have decided what's good for you and it aint gonna run".
I vaguely recall the guilty parties in that case were HP and Oracle (the ones screwing around with Java).
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
