Posts by SImon Hobson

Re: Something doesn't add up...

> Our voice processors ... could set any originating telephone number, or none.

But your telco would block any numbers that weren't permitted. In simple cases, that would be numbers on that line, but I'm sure there were processes to allow other numbers (such as the main call centre contact number for large orgs) to be used.

The problem is that with the rise of really cheap international calling (via oversees carriers with little motive to do the right thing), and VoIP, there are links in the chain that are much much weaker. I deal with VoIP at work, and the provider we use basically relies on the reseller to vet applications for "foreign" CLI presentation. As we are a reseller, I could easiler permit myself to spoof any number and in reality there's not a lot anyone can do about that.

I think the main target should be within the industry, and telcos where the CLI isn't trustworthy should get some sort of restrictions placed on them until they either go bust or improve their processes. So basically, if a telco is caught allowing spoofed CLI - they should have all their CLI blocks and all their calls flagged as number not available or number withheld (that would allow easy call screening) and unless the telco's only customers are spammers, they'll be under commercial pressure from their custoemrs to "fix the problem". Or even just refuse to accept calls from such carriers.

Now, if the ICO named and shamed the carriers responsible, there's scope for an industry blacklist and a new product to sell to customers "call blocking from spam friendly carriers". Don't expect it from any of the big names, they won't want to miss out on the revenue they get for terminating the calls.

Re: Security helpful...?

> No, because the door would unlock in the event of a fire alarm

Well perhaps it should do ...

>otherwise someone is going to find themselves in court when that person burns to death.

but that won't help the chap behind the locked door !

Re: ... this will validate EU/US data transfers once more...

> What it will do is give companies enough legal cover to claim that they are compliant until someone like Max takes another case through the courts.

Indeed, it will be, at best, a very temporary reprieve - and will last a lot shorter time than Safe Harbour (I'd guess months rather than years). Because I assume the likes of FarceBork will quickly use it and Max will be back in court with the same case again. All the evidence is already there, already assessed by the court, and nothing significant will have changed.

Anyone who uses Safe Shield will be an idiot, and will find themselves in the brown stuff once it too is declared worthless. Well not quite worthless, though I suspect printed material like that isn't very comfortable for use in "the little room".

The USA, and any company with a presence in the USA, will be off the friends list for a long time - basically until the US government caves in and changes it's laws in ways it so far shows no interest in doing. In fact, so far it seems to be negotiating Safe Shield, while at the same time making it's laws even more incompatible with it.

Re: Oracle has to hate this news

With a sensible implementation you NEVER have issues with multiple calendars. Just store the date in some calendar agnostic way (yes I know the baseline won't be calendar agnostic) and convert to/from the user specified calendar as required. That's what Unix systems do - storing timestamps as "seconds since epoch" and converting it to a user understandable date/time using the calendar and timezone rules currently set.

Re: Then start showing ads

> And dump the ridiculous license fee

As with the others, please no - that is the worst way to go.

I think most people agree that the licence fee system is flawed - but it's significantly less flawed that the alternatives. Let me explain the outcome of making the BBC into "just another advert funded channel" ...

Advertising income depends on eyeballs, eyeballs on screen means "popular" material, popular material more often than not means "lowest common denominator". So the high quality programs that perhaps don't get huge audiences will go. In the end it'll be wall to wall dross at the level of "Strictly Come X Voice" and "East Dallasty Side Street Neighbours". As well as the type of program, quality will drop - costs will be cut, so what "period drama" does get made will be less detailed (Mr Darcy wearing a nylon shirt from M&S anyone ?)

And while the BBC are swimming frantically to the bottom of the pond, the other channels will be leading the way. Because we do have some very high quality programs, without as breaks, on the BBC - that sets some expectations, and the knock on effect is that the other channels at least have to maintain some semblance of quality if they want eyeballs on screen. Take that away, and if the BBC can get away with (say) 3off 4 minute ad breaks during a "one hour" program, ITV will figure they can get away with 5 or 6 minute breaks - or 4 minute breaks 5 or 6 times during a "one hour" program.

If you don't believe me, take a trip to the USA where you'll find a typical program starts (after an ad break) with the cold intro, then an ad break, then the title, then an ad break, then the first segment of the program, then ...

What a US import (Ice Road Truckers is a good one for the effect) and you'll eventually notice that many times the voiceover will say something along the lines of "coming up ..." quickly followed by "<someone> just did <something>" - that where in it's original form there's have been another ad break that we (thankfully) don't get.

Re: dial up speeds...

> For filling out a few online forms you really only need dial-up speeds

Yes you'd think so, but by the time the process has been bloated with "eye candy", large images, buttons that are images so must be downloaded before you can see what they are (rather than "cheap" text links), etc, etc - each page can quickly be something you don't want to download over dial-up.

You only need to look at other sites that have been destroyedimproved by GDS to see that the designers assume large hi res screens and "ample" bandwidth.

Re: It doesn't have to be wired

You are lucky, it seems that BT have something of a history of telling people "sorry, no fast broadband for you - not economic", then when it looks like something else will step in, they'll announce that "actually we will be providing service soon". "Soon" seems to be flexible - if the alternative suppliers pull out (can't compete if BT take most of their customers) then "soon" can stretch out a bit.

Not too far from me is such a community project http://b4rn.org.uk

They have tales of some of the villages they serve suddenly going from "never" to "soon" once BT found out about the competition's plans. As far as I can see, it seems to be doing alright, and they have another project on to go west from Lancaster http://www.b4ys.org.uk - though as one of our customers (who would love it, and could contribute being a land owner) puts it, "I don't think they've realise how much rock there is".

Re: We frequently used to get people plugging fan heaters into the "clean power" plugs

Ah yes, the fan heater incident ...

We had one of those. The customer has a large unused (and officially empty) "upstairs" which at some point will become office space as they grow. The server room is also up there out of the way. When I fitted out said server room, I provided some sockets off the UPS in places convenient for powering stuff in the cabling rack - and labelled as something like "UPS maintained - IT equipment only".

One day (a couple of years after this was all installed) we get an "angry" phone call demanding to know why we had installed such crap equipment as the UPS was beeping madly and it's all our fault for installing rubbish. I think many of us know the sort of phone call.

I believe one of my colleagues remotely checked the UPS status and found it in overload bypass.

After a bit of questioning, it was determined that a member of staff working upstairs (they use it for storage of their marketing stuff, I guess they were probably preparing some sort of mailout) was a bit cold, and seeing as there was only one socket at each end of the space, decided the sockets in the server room were more convenient - for the fan heater.

Strangely, when they came to us with long list of gripes* at a meeting, this one wasn't made a big deal of it.

* Many of them of the "why doesn't this work ?" "Well we've been suggesting for ${long period of time} that this part of your system isn't fit for purpose but you refuse pay for a new system" "It's still your fault".

Re: One last missing point on distribution

> I'd like to see examples of "it's that the ZFSoL developers, to get around that incompatibility, just stole code from the kernel

See the link Jeremy posted earlier ...

But, there is in fact a possible easy way round that. Provided the author of that line of code (and anything else allegedly stolen from the Linux kernel) can be identified AND he/she has not assigned copyright to someone else, there is absolutely nothing whatsoever stopping that person from also licensing it under the CDDL - which then makes the problem moot.

And as to "why does it work for nVidia ?". Apart from the way they distribute it - a binary module and a source shim to be compiled for the kernel in use - nVidia are able to give permission for their code to be distributed. I would not be at all surprised if (as has been mentioned) they actually like the module being shipped since it allows people to use their hardware - and if people can use their hardware then that's good for sales.

Of course, there's no such upside for Oracle, so I could see them spotting an opportunity for a shakedown ...

Re: Surprised

> Not that BT won't sell itself off when the right opportunity arises anyway.

No, BT won't sell them off for the same reasons they've been fighting this. Owning OpenRetch gives them control - it means that when OR are making strategic decisions, they'll make them in a way that's beneficial to their owners (BT). For example, when deciding what services to provide at any location and at what cost, they can tilt the field in favour of BT.

For example, for a long time, we had no FTTC round the office (even though almost all other cabs in the town were enabled) because the cabinet didn't serve many (if any) residential customers - an effect reported on from around the country. This forces businesses to either make do with ADSL or buy "more expensive" options. Even if those other options aren't from BT, it makes BT's leased lines business more competitive without having to slash prices.

In the past, you only have to look at the features they left out of ISDN-2 to see how this was designed to not damage their leased lines business.

Without control of OR, BT becomes "just another provider" - ripe for having it's services picked off by more nimble competitors.

Re: Mobile Phone is an App in the phone...

> The virtual SIM would also be a standard, you would be able to use any operator who can provision your virtual SIM

Downvote for being so naive as to believe that. The reality is that you will be able to use any operator that the controller of your device will allow you to. That is what was behind Apple's move - not user convenience (that's just a side effect), but the ability for Apple to have a hand in your ability to connect to a mobile network.

So instead of buying a SIM from whichever carrier (real or virtual) you want and popping it in, in the Apple world, you'll have to connect your device to Apple's infrastructure and select from those operators Apple permits you to use. In reality, that comes down to "whoever will give Apple a cut of your spend". Pretty well everything Apple's done in the iStuff world lately has been down to ensuring that Apple gets it's cut (30%) of everything you spend - and there's no reason to believe other vendors will act much differently.

And puzzled by the expression "controller of your device" ? Well when you buy an iThing, you may have purchased the hardware, but you only have a licence to use the firmware and software on it. In reality, Apple keep a pretty tight reign on what you can use it for - only connect stuff they approve (ever tried connecting a non-approved Bluetooth GPS ?), only run software they approve (via their closed store, they take 30%), only read stuff they take a cut of (c.f. how they changed the rules to prevent newspapers selling a subscription other than through Apple's pay system - allowing Apple to keep your identity away from the paper (Apple gets to sell advertising, not the paper) and taking their 30%), and so on.

Having control of your access to a mobile network would be the cherry on the cake for them.

Re: Cook is just grandstanding

Missed the real biggie - the way they've rigged Safari to send a lot of information to Apple (and Google ?) by default. What's more, you can't turn this off without also turning search hints.

So what does this actually mean in practice ?

Well in the older versions, Safari had a search box - and I don't think many people would be surprise (or worried) that what you type into the search box is sent to a search engine. The address box was a separate entity, and whatever you types there was NOT sent to Apple or any search engine.

In current versions, they've combined the search and address boxes - to make something that's a flipping sight harder to use (I get really really annoyed at the times I have to specifically go to a search engine page to search for things that Safari wrongly thinks look like a URL, and conversely, get even more annoyed when things that actually are a URL are treated as a search term).

So you start typing a URL - with every keystroke, the entire URL is send out to ${somewhere}. That includes if you edit an existing URL - which of course could be a crappy internal system that encodes a lot of stuff into request parameters ...

So to stop that leakage of information, you have to turn off search hints (and IIRC a couple of other things) - but of course you also need to know that you need to do this. But that then means your searches are "less convenient" all because a few people can't cope with the concept of "if you want to search, tell it to search" !

Re: Actually, I more confused now.

> But, but, but - if my kernel isn't built with IPV6, then surely the request isn't processed but dropped?

This has nothing to so with the stacks compiled into your kernel. The client programs will probably still make dual-stack queries, and get dual-stack replies for services with both A and AAAA records. When your client program (browser, email client, whatever) get the reply, it'll see that there are no IPv6 interfaces it can use and so will ignore any AAAA records it's given.

But the DNS lookup and result will still be the same, so still capable of triggering the bug.

It's possible that the client may see that it has no IPv6 interfaces and so only request A records - but I suspect most clients won't bother doing this. In a way, while it would be more efficient on DNS, it's redundant since AAAA records will get ignored later when the code (which must be there) is looking to see which interfaces it can use and selecting one.

> Might be an interesting read. Is this what you're referring to?

Yes indeed, that is it.

> If so then this might have been Ofcom's attempt to address it.

It might have been an attempt, but a completely lame and innefectual attempt.

If you are far enough ahead (or to the side), then you can shine into the front windows - in case you hadn't noticed, the cockpit windows are primarily for forward vision (with quite a bit of sideways vision) and they don't actually have that much upwards vision ;-) Even if you don't have direct line of sight to the pilot/co-pilot's eyes, you only need to get into any of the windows and you'll get reflections around the cockpit. From the side, you probably have a better bet at hitting a crew member.

As for aiming, well to start with you have an aiming device built in since in most atmospheric conditions you'll get a line of light visible from all the water droplets and dirt particles scattering the light. A bit like tracer rounds but travelling at the speed of light ! You only need a momentary hit to cause problems.

But as mentioned, the problem is catching the b'stards. Apart from the clueless f**kwit who decided to shine one at a Police helicopter with high quality video recording, most are unlikely to be caught other than by chance. Short of equipping all aircraft with high-res video cameras, I can't see any easy way round that fundamental problem.

Offering rewards is unlikely to be any good - all the accused has to say is they didn't shine it at an aircraft and they are off the charge. No evidence, no conviction. I doubt if many people are that disliked that multiple (enough to convince a judge) of their "mates" will stand up in court and testify that they did in fact laser an aircraft !

> Forcing the installer to set a new password on first login

Except that only reduces the problem "a bit" - well a fair bit, but it doesn't eliminate it.

As an example, I happen to thing that I could disarm the alarms of a large proportion of local premises - simply by knowing the engineer code (note the singular) that a local alarm company uses. How do I know the code ? Well at a previous job we had a fault that made the alarms keep triggering - they gave us "a code" over the phone that would shut it up until they could come and fix it.

A simple bit of deduction says that they only have one code (or perhaps a very small number of codes). When I rang, he didn't need to think or look it up - therefore he knew the code in his head. Unless he's Rain Man (which he isn't) then he doesn't have a large list of numbers complete with who they are used for - so only one number (or a very short list). And there was none of this "if that doesn't work, they ..."

Such things make life easy for the installer - but don't really do much for security !

Re: This data is increasingly useless...

> Similarly the number of cars that will have changed ownership will get greater and greater, meaning that more and more totally innocent motorists (if such people actually exist) will be having their movements watched and recorded* for no useful purpose whatsoever.

But they also have the DVLA records, so they can look up who the registered keeper was at the time the vehicle was recorded.

> Any glitch, bug or issue will reduce my confidence in the bank as a whole rather than just the software

I recall and old fart I used to work with and some of his tales. His earlier life was spent on the nightshift for a large and well known confectionary manufacturers - the one that built a whole town in it's name - processing batch jobs on a single tasking mainframe.

One day he went into his bank to query something on his statement. After a short while he got what was then a common answer - "the computer made a mistake". Being a bit of a pedant, and mischievous as well, he replied along the lines of "well you'd better fetch the manager". When asked why, he said that he needed to get all his money out while they still had any - before the crash that comes with a run on the bank.

The manager was quickly called, and the old fart then explained that if the computer made mistakes, it couldn't be trusted - and that meant that no figures it produced could be trusted, and anyone who had any sense would get their money out of a bank that couldn't say with any certainty how much money anyone had once it became public knowledge.

The manager sussed that old fart knew about computers, and after a short conversation turned to the cashier and told her "never use that excuse again".

> If the fakes break why bother disabling them in the first place?

Well firstly, if they break then FTDI gets blamed for making unreliable hardware. If they don't break, then as pointed out above, they may not work as expected causing various problems ranging from "doesn't work" to "works in strange ways" - both of which get the users criticising FTDI for producing crap chips.

It really is a tricky one for them. They have every right to protect themselves - both from the financial fraud and from the reputational damage. But they have to do it in a responsible way.

I have no idea what is technically possible, but actually popping up a warning when the device driver is loaded would be (IMO) the best way. I'm guessing that isn't possible.

Re: just ignore FB if it's not your cup of tea

> I find it no problem to ignore Facebook or Twitter, and no none of my immeadiate friends or relatives use FB or twatter

And do you completely avoid all sites that include FarceBork's tracking code ? Do you even know which sites use FarceBork's tracking code ?

No ? Then FarceBork do have a profile on you.

It's "interesting" (more like, scary) to read some of the background documents in the Max Schrems case. The level of detail in a profile they hold on a non-user is disturbing.

Re: Dear Biotech Corporations,

But given a large enough data set, they can probably pick you out anyway.

That's the big problem, and real anonymisation isn't easy. I recall reading about some of the problems many years (decades) ago when technology was somewhat less advanced.

So take your combination. Do a search and you find a dataset that includes not just you but a good few others. Modify the search a bit, and you get a different data set that also includes you - but the intersection of the sets is smaller. Keep running similar but different searches and eventually you find an intersection of one person - you.

All without ever running a search that returns less than "quite a few" people.

Re: I don't see the problem

Yes, you've got the wrong end of the stick.

This is absolutely not about getting India online. This is about getting a "free" service in there that will inevitably be popular with people who are too poor for regular paid internet and/or don't see the problem with "internet == FarceBork". But for those who do want "proper" internet, and the ISPs providing it, it means those providers have to compete with 'free".

To see what that means, just take a little look back in history. Once upon a time Microsoft made a mediocre browser called Internet Explorer, and in their usual way tried to make "the web" into "the Microsoft web". There was a competitor called Netscape Navigator. Both were originally paid for products.

Microsoft didn't like this competitor - not least because it threatened their attempt to proprietise the web. They started giving away Explorer - free, "no strings attached". Of course, Netscape didn't have a cash cow of Windows to pay for things, and eventually Navigator all but disappeared. After that, with no competition, Explorer festered. Microsoft could get away with plying a pile of steaming poo because no-one else could compete with free.

It was only later (IIRC) some years that other alternatives popped up - and eventually people started realises just what a pile of poo Explorer was.

The analogy here is that FarceBork want to do for internet access what Microsoft tried to do for "the web". A big difference is that running an ISP takes real money - other than niche community projects, you don't run one of those as a no-cash open source development !

Of course, as we all know, the EU eventually (about a decade too late when the damage was well and truly done) found Microsoft guilty and imposed a penalty that was barely a slap on the wrists while simultaneously annoying users ! With this judgement, it's clear that the Indian authorities have realised that it's better to prevent the market abuse in the first place than to try and repair the damage afterwards.

Re: Footnote

Almost. In practical terms I think you'll find that some providers will say no even to money no object customers if it's "too far" off their patch. But you are right, the costs can soon put anyone into Yorkshireman mode How Much ? when trenching is typically charged in the 10s of k per kilometer.

Re: Normally I hate the lawsuit mentality

> My kid has just started at a school where everything is powered by Google Apps for Education. As someone who has routinely and actively avoided Google as much as possible (and it's practically impossible) this weirds me out no end.

Did the school ask for your consent ? Did you give it ? Did you give it *freely* ?

If the school has said nothing, then go and ask them a very direct question - along the lines of "I understand you require students to use X, do you, or does the provider of X, intercept/collect information stored or transmitted via X and use it for any purpose other than what is directly required to provide X ?"

If they tell you that no information is collected and it turns out to be false - then you've got them for damages. If they say it is, then you can assess that, and perhaps kick up a sh*t storm about why they are doing this to children.

If the school basically said, we need your consent for Y and if you don't give it then your child will be expelled - well then you've got the makings of a sh*t storm.

The other parents might not understand or care - but if you explain it in the right terms then you can probably turn them around to caring a lot. And if most of the parents descend on the school with pitchforks (metaphorically speaking) then I think you'll find the authorities will crap themselves - especially if you can somehow show that they are effectively acting like peadophiles in tracking pupils personal data.

So my suggestion is - get the information you need. If it's "creepy" then make sure all the other parents know what's going on and why they should care. If it's bad enough, then organise the metaphorical pitchfork gang turning up at school to demand corrections.

> Why does digital radio need synchronisation at all is my question?

As I understand it, the transmitters need very very precise synchronisation as they transmit on a single frequency (well actually a set of frequencies), with the receiver picking up whatever signal is strongest. If they drift off then that creates sum and difference frequencies that cause a lot of interference and block reception. This can be heard on (for example) aviation frequencies near a busy airfield - if two stations transmit at the same time, everyone gets to hear a horrible wailing and screeching from the radio. Also, the actual bitstreams must be synchronised so that every transmitter is sending the same bit at the same time.

> I honestly do not understand why DAB is not just VoIP over 3/4G ...

For the same reason that broadcast TV isn't going anywhere quickly - broadcast like this is a highly efficient mechanism to get the same thing to lots of people (especially when many of them are mobile). Any Something over IP service just doesn't scale that well.

Re: Dammit

> Probably a case of "If it's working, DON'T reboot the router/modem"

There may be an element of that, but we've had customers "just go offline" - router not rebooted, just lost connectivity. I did notice that downstairs where the centre manager has a BT Infinity line that the router was showing a red "b" so it's not just lost packets.

Just checked on another customer router - the router hasn't been rebooted, but they've been offline.

Something else interesting, two customers I monitor have dynamic IPs but they've come back up with the same IPs that they had before the outage. That's unheard of - BT normally force an IP change on every re-connect which is a bit of PITA.

Re: Personal parachute

> Oddly, gliders are the only class of civil aircraft in which all occupants routinely wear parachutes

I think there's a significant factor that the seats are designed for occupants wearing them - so don't fit people not wearing them. Mind you, being a lanky corpulent git, most "normal" glider cockpits don't fit me anyway - unfortunately, the IS28 we have in the club, while having a roomy cockpit that I actually fit in, is (like all of them worldwide) grounded until someone comes up with a way around the paperwork issues.

Re: ... clears throat ...

> I would be more concerned with them being able to deal with data that is right in front of them

Like when a member of the public sees a vehicle for sale that's so obviously a ringer that it goes ding-dong ? In that case a Land Rover described as one thing, but every detail on it said later model - and it's condition explained by having been an estate vehicle and cared for lovingly. No flippin way was that the vehicle described - it would have cost so much in parts to alter the appearance in all those little details that the seller would be shouting about it and wanting a lot more.

So what does plod do when handed this "arrest on a plate" ?

My local county - "nowt to do with us"

County where the vehicle supposedly resides - "we'll add it to the intelligence file"

All it needs is for a plod to pop in when in the area and take a flippin look ! OK, it might have to be someone with a clue what a Land Rover looks like, but it shouldn't be hard to spot as a ringer. The seller gets nicked for having a stolen vehicle, and the original owner gets their pride and joy back - what's not to like ?

You do have to wonder why we bother trying to do the right thing.

> The same situation can occur if you manage to blat the UEFI settings from the UEFI command prompt. I managed to kill (funnily enough), an MSI board doing that, in an attempt to clean out superfluous boot entries.

Exactly the point made by others - if deleting a file makes the mobo unbootable and unrecoverable then the designer f***ed up. There should never be a situation where it doesn't either impose sanity checks and use default values if needed, or have a "reset to sane values" option.

I can see this becoming a fun game - buy a PC, delete the EFI files "just to test", and if it's bricked you get to take it back as not fit for purpose. Now if enough people did "testing" to determine which boards/devices were "faulty" then I think the manufacturers would soon "fix" it !

Who's up for a trip to PC World ;-)

Re: Expiring contracts

What they do as a matter of standard practice is to offer a "free something" to anyone who is coming up to the end of a contract. They won't mention any details - just phone up and offer a freebie. 2 years ago with my now SWMBO it was a "free" new router so she's ready when faster fibre broadband is available. Late last year it was a "free" TV box.

As they phone up, and don't mention any downsides, most idiopunters simply accept. If they decide to leave a month later - they find they can't as the sly beggars signed you up to a new 18 or 24 month contract.

I was "somewhat miffed" to find DWMBO had accepted this deal as I'd been waiting to switch. Of course, when I called to exercise our legal cooling off rights, we got the hard sell - but I think the guy got the idea from the tone of my responses that he needn't try too long.

Didn't stop them trying to bill us an extra £280 in cancellation charges though. Took several hours with their online chat people to sort that out.

Re: Democracy gone.

> Publishing something that merely embarrasses the government would make for a tough job for even the best prosecuting counsel.

However, the fact that it might get thrown out by the judge, and possibly the prosecutors given something of a telling off - doesn't help you when you're banged up in a cell, under arrest, your DNA and fingerprints taken by force for storage forever in the "DNA and fingerprints of terrorists" file, your computers taken away (really f***ing up your business that relies on them - but don't worry, you'll get them back eventually (after a couple of years) and they might even still work afterwards), your passwords "volunteered" under pain of a mandatory jail sentence, ...

In short - yes, such a law can be used to make life exceedingly difficult. Having the case thrown out by a judge with "stern words" about the conduct of the prosecution will not help you when you life has been well and truly f***ed over - and you can no longer get a job since you now have a "police record" when anyone does a check on you.

And for good measure, you can't even emigrate (or go on holiday) to some countries as a lot won't let you in if you've ever been arrested.

Think about it - could you afford to go to court and be found completely innocent of all charges ?

Re: America is threatening to “go it alone” on spectrum policy - What's New?

> Fortunately, transmissions at 5 GHz and 28 GHz don't go too far, and forcing US automobile manufacturers go off standard will affect their exports to countries who follow the ITU plans.

Indeed, if they depart from ITU agreed allocations then we're back to the "different kit for US which is illegal in rest of world". Since compared to "rest of world", USA is a minority, that means they'll pay more for their sub-standard kit.

Re: So the question is....

> IIRC the rules specifically encouraged for-the-time difficult builds such as ... walkers by allowing greater weights etc

Ah yes, a walker was allowed 200kg, a wheeled or tracked one only 100kg.

I had an interesting idea for something that would technically be a walker, while incorporating the idea of stored kinetic energy ala Hypnodisk. Just thing what that could do with another 75-100kg in the rotor :-)

Alas, I would never have been able to afford the bits even if I'd had the time - and then they canned the series.

I did here tales from "unhappy" contestants that the bouts were absolutely not run to the rules. Times were extended if the producers thought they could get another destructed machine for the TV ratings - not very fair on the builders of the machines hacked to bits after the bout should have ended.

Re: Job's the marconi of his day!!

> My problem with the GPL is that it explicitly states that the source code must be published - and there are times where that might be undesirable for competitive reasons

Let me translate that for you, what you really meant to write was "we want to use someone else's software for free but not contribute in any way to the software pool". In other words, the GPL is inconvenient to leaches.

Now the thing is, the GPL does not in any way whatsoever, ever, require you to publish your own source code - because you always have the option of not trying to rip off someone else's work. It's like most things - if you don't like it, don't use it. Just like, if you don't like paying $company for their software, then don't use it !

And don't forget, just because GPL software is used in your project, that doesn't automatically mean you have to publish ALL your source (that's a bit of FUD often thrown at it). Yes, if you link some bit of GPL code into your large blob then the whole blob is covered - but if you are just dynamically linking to libraries then your own code can remain closed.

Re: Impact om Safe Harbour problems?

Indeed it would - but it hardly needs to, if the Merkins had any ideas of negotiating a replacement, this has blown any such possibility right out of the ocean (not that it wasn't sinking on it's own of course).

Re: All we got in my day . . .

> I wonder what the Reverend would say if Morcambe and Wise were still on TV, in the early '70s they were often seen in bed together on TV ...

Yay, have an upvote for that. Took until the third page for a M&W reference. I gather they took the attitude that "it was OK for Laurel & Hardy, it's OK for us".

Re: @Pascal Monett - "things have clearly settled down"

> No, there will never be another viable solution

Never is a long time in computing. It may be a long time coming, but over time you can be sure that two things will happen :

1) People will get fed up of paying the ransom

2) People will find ways of reducing their dependency.