Posts by JaitcH

ACPO guidance which the Supreme Court has now deemed unlawful ....

Once again the unregulated ACPO is wrong.

Why doesn't the Home Office, a ministry rather than a prejudiced bunch of under-employed chief's of police, pass a LAW? Guidance is a recommendation and has little force in law.

The Supreme Court also failed: it should have struck down the ACPO 'guidance' and suspended it for 12 months to allow Parliament to get it's act together. All we have now is an indeterminate process.

Hardly justice.

HTC could complete customer frustration by ...

using an Indian call centre to handle complaints.

So next time a UK citizen proves how insecure a Pentagon computer is ...

the USA will bypass the niceties of deportation, etc and just send a drone to zap the offenders house?

I don't think so - better that server owners accept responsibility for their security.

Customer access to SIM's is key to ...

having the ability to use post or pre-paid services and to make the change without resorting to a fee-based service.

I travel frequently internationally and frequently see fellow passengers switching their SIMs for their destination carrier. Unless there was provision for multiple carriers, software SIMs, as used by the rapidly declining CDMA, the physical SIM will have it's advantages.

There is a limit to Apples stupidity in seeking Thin and that is SIMs need holders and contacts.

Why not have a David Davis unemployable accompany the inspectors ...

and stay in the hotel room guarding the electronic goodies?

You can also buy sealed satphones that cannot be physically accessed apart from charging them and the antennae.

Of course, a tube of glue also provides the potentiality of detecting tampering - a cracked case is a dead giveaway.

Canada, eh? What a pity!

It's most likely the border jumpers from south of the 49th who have just realised that the laws in Canada are way different from the U.S.A.

So many of the heavy handed, draconian laws - such as the DCMA - are not in effective in Canada, plus we have some extremely fast InterNet pipes.

It's similar to the there being no TSA to rifle your air baggage - Canada is much more understanding and offers a great way to avoid the U.S. of A.

And our BC marijuana is way better than anything the U.S.A. has, along with the beer! You know something is going right up here when the DEA is bitching about our laws. What better reasons to come north?

It's not tha Android isn't 'open', it's that Google wants an offset for all of it's free services

Both Google and Apple seem to have gone the same route - only Apple has the applications store hoop for developers to negotiate.

Google offers 'free' services from which it obviously derives benefits and since it allows anyone, seemingly, to use Android at no cost, why can't it make contractual limitations?

Next we'll have the Android pad manufacturers jumping up and down saying but we can't access the Google App Store unless we make our pad a telephone.

Rubin and Jha are experienced businessmen and undoubtedly aware of the niceties of U.S. law. If Skyhook does not have a document that specifically says it's Google or the high road it's all a matter of 'he said' which isn't the greatest evidence to fight a case over.

Recently Skyhook has inveigled it's way on to Android through an App, or two, that uses Skyhook services which sort of weakens it's case. Besides if Skyhook wants on so bad you have to wonder what THEY are doing with the aggregated data and who are they going to SELL it to?

Still, this case makes a change from the petty Samsung stole our rounded corner icons with a black line in it we have from Apple.

This application was a preliminary one for a very minor matter, the type of games lawyers play to bug each other so nothing really flows from the Boston Beaks decision.

Does it really matter when all those little Androids are out there ...

doing such great emulations of ET and phoning home with massive mother loads of pay dirt - all at no cost?

I've never appreciated people's concern anyway - if you have a transmitter, and it is turned on, it may be received by anyone. If people want to get in a tizzy over what Google, and many others, are doing, turn the bloody transmitters off.

If you want keep the transmitters on, learn how to set them up - not take it out of the box and plug it in! And don't use WEP - make anyone wanting to use your WiFi work for the privilege.

Better for Google to help shape "self regulating policy" than simply have it put down it's throat

Google most likely perceives what the ultimate regime will be demanded by the politicians and has wisely decided to participate so it can make it's views known, if not accepted.

The most important thing on the tracking agenda is mobile tracking of any kind without informed user consent.

No doubt it is a novelty for ICE for someone to actually ...

and question their bona fides. After all the are part of the world's greatest government and Mozilla is an American outfit who should be pulling their forelocks and prostrating themselves before the flag.

Could this be a delayed April Fools joke?

Business media channels report that the decision was made by the Microsoft way back in April.

Could it be the jokes on MS?

At least MS won't have my real email address, I always use a different address, each time, when signing up for things.

Quantico official issuing the order responded, "We will do whatever we want to do"

Just proves the marines are mentally as dumb as they look with their short hair cuts - and they think they are above the law.

Little wonder they are behind so much of the excess cruelty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Readers who aren't sure if they're affected might want to err on the side of security ...

Being on FB endangers:

- Your job prospects

- Mortgage potential

- Even, especially for Koreans, prospective wives

- Police interviewees for people associated with criminals

First Apple and now HP, must be a industry trend ...

letting purchasers do the QC for them. Doesn't seem to improve pricing in our favour though.

Next we'll have keyboards and sheets of stickies so we can really have custom keyboards.

If not Legal then it is at least Immoral

First of all I accept that, for purposes of troubleshooting, certain historical datasets are needed. For instance an LG handset with a slider keyboard counts the number of slide operations.

Likewise collecting the last 30-50 cell sites or a similar number of WiFi transmissions (1) If used by the handset in question; (2) Used within the past 7 days; and (3) accessible only to a 'local' service need (i.e. a technician troubleshooting the handset) is OK.

However, TRANSMISSION of this data is wrong and IMMORAL. This involves, usually without INFORMED user consent, the collection of geolocation data (otherwise for what use would it be) and an IDENTIFIER (no identifier reduces the use of the data) and THEFT OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS.

Apple has admitted it has collected data for up to about a year. What use can this aged data be used for?

I do not accept for a minute that it was an oversight. Any software author knows damn well how difficult it can be to get an authorised service to function properly. This infers that a great deal of effort went into this data collection. What triggered a collection and what triggered a transmission?

Then let's consider the transmission. Handsets and cell sites have strict protocols and even if such protocols were successfully navigated, how was the mass transmission of this data 'ignored' by Apple. Stray strings of data, in my experience, almost always result in a Request for Retransmission/NAK and almost always GUARANTEED to trigger an alarm.

This implies either Apple has sloppy server software that ignores certain transmitted data - which requires programming or they are lying - again.

Apple has had sufficient problems with Lemon 4 software for it to have checked, and cross-checked, almost every line of code used in the handset if only to save 'face' in the case yet more weaknesses are exposed.

It is common to find notable 'remarks' in software code but the comments are short whereas Apples data collection code would be far lengthier.

I personally would have less concerns with data collection if (1) Apple and Google, etc. were up front about it; (2) if users had control over transmissions; (3) if users were compensated for transmission time.

No one needs to know a users location unless a handset has gone 'rogue' and cellco's already have plenty of ways to minimise interference since almost all handset operations are subject to their control.

Authorised entities can already interrogate a handset's GPS function without the knowledge of a user so why is it necessary for a MANUFACTURER to know where it's products are?

Since Apple et al cannot be trusted to practice proper privacy it is incumbent upon legislators to put in place the necessary laws, with large financial penalties, to ensure compliance.

What was he convicted of or was he bailed twice?

The Canadian Courts take themselves very seriously and it is quite likely even though the original offence was a nothing, failing to appear IS taken very seriously, even in Quebec, and is often treated as a contempt of court type offence.

The RCMP won't like to be considered to be doing a CDPMA a 'personal' favour as it supposed to treat all people equally. Mind you, it's kind of hard to get hold of them as they use telephone answering machines a lot. The RCMP office for Toronto is about 40 kilometres out of town!

China is hopelessly behind, ... recent testing of a so-called "stealth fighter" prototype indicates

Anyone subscribing to this sentence is somewhat delusional. The existence of the Chinese copy of the U.S. 'stealth' aircraft made the Americans sit up and pay attention. After a U.S. stealth aircraft was downed during the Kosovo non-war the Chinese went around buying, for cash, all the scraps of the plane from which they designed/rebuilt for their own air force.

U.S. analysts estimate the Chinese are only about 4 years behind in this project which means they will be current in a couple of years time.

They already make civilian and military aircraft and are on the way to launching a space station, unaided, which lends further credence to the fact they are sufficiently technologically advanced to match the U.S. on an equal footing.

The West has supplied much of the IP and technology to the Chinese in the rush to acquire modern products are amazingly low cost. If anyone thinks the Chinese even honour production agreements they are fools. Nothing made in China is privy to the manufacturers - all can be considered shared with the military manufacturers.

China leads the world in the use of high-speed transportation; in building railways in poor conditions, etc. They have a very healthy integrated circuit design and manufacturing industry and even though they might not be up to the latest standards used by Intel, they are not far behind.

The Chinese are currently preparing to build aircraft carriers - of which the UK has none!

The Russians have long had jet fighters that can take off in inclement conditions, including grass or mud fields. The U.S. jets require runways be 'walked' before they can be used to remove all debris, etc. before their jets can take off.

The U.S. is an unreliable source for products as it retains control of their use, in the fashion of Apple, even after delivery to it's customers. It has even flexed it's muscles when the UK used U.S. facilities to execute military missions that didn't meet American expectations.

Today's military weapons are so advanced that even shells can be 'programmed' on the fly and this includes rendering them harmless - other than for the fact a whole hunk of metal is headed your way.

Ghadaffi was dumb to buy American weapons with smart technology, he should have bought supplies from the Russians or Chinese whose less sophisticated weapons still work even when fired at the suppliers.

Even the British had to seek technological assistance from the French in order to neutralise missiles fired by the Argentinians during the Thatcher Falklands escapade.

Now that Britain is essentially stripped of it's advanced military industries it is little better than Ghadaffi being dependent upon others for it's military capability, such that it is. Hell, they even depend on U.S. designed radio systems.

Rule Britannia should be read as Fool Britannia (tip of the hat to Fool Britannia (1963) with Peter Sellars, Anthony Newley and Joan Collins)

The U.S. market does not necessarily reflect the world market

The U.S., even the North American market, do not necessarily reflect world trends since the carriers position in the mix is more of a determinant than in the European or Asian markets.

Therefore it can be inferred that Neilsen, or whomever's, numbers are distorted to a degree.

The Apple OS market is monolithic whereas the Android market offers users a wide range of choices allowing them to select hardware most suited to their needs.

Whilst RIM might be facing challenges in it's home continental market it sure seems to be doing well in other parts of the world.

In India, ownership of an IBM Selectric typewriter can be a source of wealth

Travellers to India will see prominent signs in smaller villages proclaiming IBM Typewriter where locals can go to get Important Documents typed up for government, etc. Typewriter owners often make as much money as pre-birth baby sexing clinics.

Computers are less adaptable, more expensive and cannot compete with the manual or electric typewriters for ruggedness and the intrusion of the occasional bug. Maintenance is simplicity itself by people with a touch of mechanical ability.

P.S. Visitors to India should be aware of a new hazard! <http://www.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/science-technology/India-Superbug-120747334.html >

If more WiFi outlets were open Plod might finally figure the futility

When we order in an InterNet connection here, one national ISP inquires whether it is for a hotspot. If the answer is yes, it kindly configures the USER as ftp and the PASSWORD as telecom.

This is almost the standard set up right across the country in coffee shops, fast food outlets, restaurants, etc. It is hard to pinch WiFi time as downloads are unlimited and few locals even bother with WiFi security even in their homes.

As a result the police have decided chasing pornography of any type is an exercise in futility and they simply ignore it.

This way the perverts can do their thing in front of their computer screens and the rest of the world can get on with their pursuits. If there is physical child abuse, the courts are extremely hard on the adults - a case last year involving a man and wife resulted in them getting 20 years each - no time off for good behaviour, either. Convicted rapists are frequently shot - after trial - so there are few repeat offenders.

Mind you, Facebook is blocked along with about 20 other sites.

What do you reckon? The Chinese or the Ruskies?

Given the Russians prowess using the InterNet for fraudulent purposes and the proximity to the Russian border it seems more likely it is the Russians behind this.

The Russian border of China is a pretty desolate place and the comforts of BeiJing or ShangHai are likely more amenable to would be Chinese fraud artists.

Perhaps if a 'holding' period was established in such transactions of around one business day would allow for the bona fides of both parties to be verified.

Not Ready for Prime Time? The Old Maxim, Back Up, Back Up Still Applies

Given Amazons cloud history, along with it's peremptory transactions with Wikileaks, it is obvious the service is not ready for prime time.

Obviously Amazon can't provide reliable back-up, the need for clients to secure their own data remains effective.

Keep Plod out of people's lives

Plod should apprehend alleged scoff-laws and leave the determination of guilt or innocence, as well as punishment, to the Learned Beaks.

Too much power has accreted to Plod and, in particular, that collection of aged reprobates who hide behind ACPO.

Plod has affiliation to government whereas Learned Beaks are, allegedly, independent. Any rule assessment by Plod is a conflict of interest.

Perhaps the working environment is ...

outside those specified in Apples spec's microprint.- Operating temperature: 32° to 95° F

(0° to 35° C). Source: <http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html >.

Obviously iThingy's aren't supposed to operate over 10,000 feet only they omitted to say above what - sea level or ocean floor.

Besides, everyone knows Apple uses customers for quality control - since when has a Lemon 4 ever worked perfectly straight out of the box?

Google participation can only benefit the travelling public

Presently all the GDS/GRS systems such as Sabre, Galiileo, Amadeus - who supply ticketing services to travel agents and the like - all have their own public-facing retail outlets such as Travelocity, etc.

Then you have the 'independent' Expedia (owner of TripAdvisor), Kayak, etc.

What the public doesn't realise is that these outfits are rated as consolidators (airlines aren't allowed to discount flights to the public so they resort to using wholesalers and consolidators) and selling these discounted seats results in substantially higher income.

They foist these odds and sods on an unsuspecting public when they build routing and fares.

Most Register Readers are well travelled people and they know their optimum routing for given destinations. My familiar routings include YYZ (Toronto) to Europe (avoiding Heathrow); YYZ to SGN (SaiGon).

As a test I routinely insert these into the usual search engines just to see how they 'optimise' your routing whilst dumping their discounted seats. Invariably the routing is through the US and then eastbound through some intriguing and imaginative routes and often using numerous carriers. Using numerous segments involves, usually, change of aircraft. Using different carriers puts the passenger at risk of being stranded by the late arrival of one carrier and the need to wait for a seat on the next carrier - and YOU picking up the cost of hotel/food during your wait.

Of course any trip involving the U.S.A. involves giving all your information to Homeland Security as well as having those thieving TSA security/baggage checking agents stealing your stuff. Now TSA gets to look at you stark naked!

The optimum routing is YYZ >> HKG (HongKong) >> SGN (Cathay) or YYZ >> TPE (TaiPei) >> SGN (Eva Air). Today's pricing on these routes - 1 year return - is CAD$2,300 and CAD$1,600 approximately, (Prices from my REAL PERSON travel agent).

You'll never get these prices from an automated search engine as it's not in their interest to offer them.

What Google is bringing to the table is transparency and this will reveal all the competition for what they are - on-line con artists. If your flight is a single segment each way, feel free to use these automated systems. If your journey involves several segments in each direction no one offers a better service for optimising routing/timing/pricing than a real live travel agent in your home town where the travel agents reputation is on the line.

Few people have better search capabilities than Google and their expertise will only benefit travellers but will also definitely impinge on others excessive profits.

There are many reasons not to use on-line res systems as opposed to the real, live, travel agent. The agent does the work, her/his expertise and ongoing knowledge adds benefits to the mix. They can play 'tricks' that on-line bookers won't do to optimise your flight or seat.

How many on-line systems offer access by e-mail and/t telephone? How many res systems will help you get another flight if you miss a connection? How many res systems will keep an eye on you as you follow your itinerary? How many res systems will remind you when your last day of validity is drawing near? How many res systems will tell you when a 'seasonal' price break/increase is coming due?

Smart people use Travel Agents and Google will only add to their performance and services offered to the public which might put a big dent is some peoples profits, but remember that is your money inflating their profits through conflict of interest and deliberate/dubious business methods.

Little wonder they were out there paying lobbyists and calling on their political friends to get this deal killed.

Another overlooked aspect of using on-line bookers is security of YOUR MONEY. Using a booking system outside your country of residence means that most Travel Agent Bonding (as in refunding your money in case of agency/airline failure) does not protect you. Just see how Expedia, etc. help you recover your money!

(I have no interest either in a travel agency or Google)

"all of whom have solid track records of being hostile to privacy"

T-Mobile USA has to comply with CALEA (See: < https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act >) and with the FBI's DCS-6000, known as Digital Storm, and the other, classified, system, called DCS-5000 - which means they think you are a spy or a terrorist - can circumvent most any of the inconveniences that T-Mobile presents.

Triangulation techniques, using cell site reception parameters, have progressed to the point where location can be achieved measured in the single digit metres, unless obscuring RF technology is used.

A single FCC ruling could bring T-Mobile into the standard practice of other carriers. Sprint has gone even further when itestablished a website so that law enforcement agencies would no longer have to go through the trouble of seeking the assistance of Sprint employees in order to locate individual Sprint customers. This website was then used to ping Sprint users more than 8 million times in a single year. (Congressional evidence)

My UK mail handler has opened the package and ...

completed it according to my instructions which were not to complete it as it wasn't confidential and since they failed in this respect, I reciprocate. I also stated my time has a pecuniary worth and they were not offering any compensation.

Do they really care when they ask: How is your health in general? Very good/Good/Fair/Bad/Very bad? Besides since I am not medically qualified I am unable to answer.

Question 17 was an interesting one. Why was it printed?

Just another database filler. I guess we shall find out how proficient a U.S. processor is - no one ever bothered me for all the other census I missed.

Don't forget - use only light blue pencils, make Lockheed work for it's money.

Interested readers might like to check out: < http://www.s3ri.soton.ac.uk/isi2007/papers/Paper14.pdf > as to where the concept was sourced from. Not that it works in that country, either, as I have never completed their census forms no follow up was made.

Unfortunately for the Grubby Glazers, Google has cached them!

< http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QF7nJ__vU60J:wewantglazerout.blogspot.com/+wewantglazerout.blogspot&cd=1&hl=vi&ct=clnk&gl=vn&source=www.google.com.vn >

Tough.

Good conviction! Lousy sentence

The Learned Beak should have tied their sentences to the recovery of the money - say a year off for every £500,000 surrendered and, if the VAT people work hard, and the money is recovered without their help they get zero credit for it.

A long probation, with tracker, should have been added as well. Real downer to have a civil servant probation officer running your life!

RIM, a Canadian brown-noser

I wonder why RIM would bend over backwards to accommodate some U.S. politicians.

Although my first wife died from a rear-ender involving a drunk, I personally don't think the average DUI would have either the wherewithal to manipulate a smartphone or the inclination.

The gesture, on RIMs part is so futile and meaningless, since the App can be sourced from Third Parties and even if the pols banned it in the U.S.A. it could be downloaded from overseas.

Another public donation from the allegedly 'evil' Google.

Apart from the question Why, is is good to see that some of the spirit of early InterNet days where people helped others out, still active in Sourceforge, etc., especially from a large entity like Google.

Likely it will help their competition, too, which is a sign of real philanthropy.

A whole bunch of bull about nothing

The iPhans chant Android is fractured because there are so many variants.

Yet when Google decides to lock the software down during what is effectively a beta stage, everyone complains.

It's like a new house owner trying to move the furniture in before the builders finished building the thing - not very practical.

It makes eminent sense to restrict access until everything is cleaned up and ready for market before addressing software access.

"state-sponsored hackers, most likely from Iran": Where's the proof?

Just because Iran is on many countries bad list why pick on them? All of a sudden they have unbefore heard of expertise whereas China, Russia and a few others have the knowledge and have used it before.

Let's have the proof so we can judge the accuracy of the accusations.

Could Expedia, who owns TripAdvisor, have the same vulnerabilities?

Expedia, the web site that sells circuitous routes to your destinations, owns TripAdvisor and I was wondering if they shared software with similar security weaknesses.

If my memory serves me correctly, TripAdvisor is using someone's cloud services

Make it a condition of installing a transmitter

For the country that controlled every emitter above infra-red things have come to a pretty sad state of affairs. Way back we used to to joke the only thing you didn't need a licence for was semaphore flags and flashing torches.

Most countries require cell sites to be registered within 39 days of their installation. What happens when a frequency oscillator goes wonky and need to eliminate transmitters by turning them off sequentially.

Admittedly they are relatively low power but signal interference can extend for many miles.

The company I work for has 5-watt VHF portable transceivers but we still have to register their approximate location.

The local cell carriers have cell sites mounted in 4-wheel drive vehicles for special events to bump up channel counts and they, too, require notification to spectrum management authorities.

Jehovah's Witnesses next - it'll mean we can sleep in Saturdays

In Toronto the Saturday morning lie-in was usually interrupted by the persistent ring of the door bell.

When answered the sleepless home owner would usually be greeted by a nubile wench, conservatively dressed of course, and wizened partner, of indiscriminate age and sex, preaching the benefits of Hubbard's wacky science.

The Witnesses could have an App written so only those who actually believed that drivel could receive the message whilst everyone else could lie in bed dreaming about nubile wenches!

B-b-bu-but-but i4i is a foreign Canadian company and Microsoft is A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N

This is terrible. After all the money Microsoft has spent on donations to U.S. political parties, after all the money MS has spent on lobbyists the Obama government is backing a Canadian company?

Microsoft, Apple and others, have always stolen other peoples IP - it's the AMERICAN WAY. They have done it many times over the last few decades and have just bought their way out of trouble.

We know we treat Canada like the 51st state when it suits us but this is DIFFERENT. Obama is actually giving the case away.

This means we will actually have to recognise other peoples prior works and it will drive our expenses sky high and it might even mean we have to let people go increasing UNEMPLOYMENT.

If Canada gets away with this we might even have to end up saying 'Eh?' after the end of every sentence.

SOP: "claims by the prosecution ... were overstated"

Most police and prosecutors exaggerate their cases in court. Look at all the drug cases where drugs worth gazillions of dollars when priced by the police actually amount to substantially less in the real market.

Likewise with terrorism cases, some little bomb is going to blow up some metropolis. The FBI affidavits seem to be more fiction that fact.

Arrogant people can make terrible witnesses and, boy, is Jobs arrogant

Certain types of people and professions are simply not cut out for being good witnesses, Lawyers are terrible as they know the law and try to think their way ahead whilst being examined.

Jobs fit another category of poor witnesses for even if he gets coached to the nth degree, one slip and a chasm can open and a good attorney can march an army through it.

Should be interesting to learn what happens.

Why would anyone come to the UK to vacation on the NHS when, just ...

across the channel, is one of the best, most generous health plans around?

I speak of France, of course.

A Vietnamese friend landed a job opening up an office for a Vietnamese company in Paris. She entered France on a work permit. As a resident she is entitled to all manner of health services - far, far, superior than those in VietNam, for which she has to pay!

I am one of "those who are not ordinarily resident" in the UK but the NHS has never queried my status. Many of these 'vacationers' often use siblings identity so it will be hard for the NHS to ever get things right. Unless they use fingerprints!