Posts by VinceH 3483 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Nov 2009
This bit in particular stands out:
"Within a couple of hours of that hitting the world, with the listening systems we have, we knew that we had gone too far and then, of course, it takes some time to roll out the update that changes that behavior."
As I recall, at the time, Microsoft was trying to justify its behaviour, and eventually backed down on it - yet here the guy is saying that within a couple of hours they knew they'd gone too far, that they knew they were in the wrong.
As for the bit I've emboldened - that'll be all the people that ended up with Windows 10 as a result of the trick, with 10's telemetry reporting back to home base when those sufferers went on to talk about it in emails or on forums. 8)
Wait, what?
I haven't powered my PS3 up in ages - I only ever use it once in a blue moon - it's not even currently connected up. Is this fan speed reduction a real thing?
I have an awful lot of games (PS1, 2 and 3) - a very large number of which I have yet to play - so upgrading to a PS4 is absolutely NOT something I want to do.
So if it's a real issue, I guess my best bet might be to lock it out of the network so it doesn't pick up any updates the next time I use it. (I don't play online anyway).
Surely in 2017/2016/2017 no-one runs anything serious that relies on a manual time change?"
Well, there are a couple of ordinary analogue clocks here. I'm going to have to adjust those manually.
But being serious, it seems to me that inserting the extra second before midnight - hence your 2017/2016/2017 point - is not optimum, precisely because it could affect multiple points in the date and time in any software that reads the date and time.
Surely the more logical thing would be to insert the extra second 59 seconds earlier, so that the change only affects one component of the time when looked at as a string.
Another thing to consider is mentioned in the replies to the tweet linked in the article.
Specifically, this reply:
@lucaswoj The person might not have done this. I went from a Note7 to an S7 and the hotspot is actually still called Note7 on my S7."
The article doesn't say what the actual phone was, only:
It wasn't one of the flammable phones, but instead another model belonging to a moron who thought it would be a good wheeze to rename their mobile hotspot and pretend to be carrying a banned handset.
So if it turns out it's an S7, then it wasn't "a moron who thought it would be a good wheeze" at all.
"Now, if they ever figure out how to let people pay without taking objects out of the cart and scanning them individually, that would change things."
I think I've seen TV adverts for one or two of the big stores who are introducing something like that. I don't watch adverts at home (I time shift so I can fast forward through them) so I'll have seen these while elsewhere, and didn't pay much attention ('cos they're adverts) but I think what happens is you collect some handheld scanner thing on the way in, and scan each item as you put it in your basket.
I presume you then pay at some machine on the way out by transferring your shop from the gizmo, and then putting in your debit/credit card. And I also presume there are mechanisms in place to deal with any problems and pitfalls with such a system. I don't remember the advert mentioning such things.
'"We are surprised and disappointed that Soylent rushed to imply that algal flour is to blame and removed the ingredient..."'
"Soylent announced it was cutting the flour out of the new version 1.7 of its product..."
Well, considering the above, I'm betting the answer to this...
"Soylent has yet to comment on this bust up with TerraVia, and on how the boycott will affect supplies to people who think that chewing is too much like hard work."
...is not at all.
Shades of:
"You're dumped!"
"Well, you can't dump be because I've already dumped you!"
Well, if we're talking cars, then I've done a massive facepalm myself.
This was back when I used to off-road for fun; I had two cars - one for that, and one for normal getting around. The 4x4 was a diesel, while the road car had a petrol engine. And as soon as I make that distinction you can probably guess: filled one up with the wrong fuel.
You'd guess right - but that's not the real facepalm.
You might also reasonably guess that I put petrol in the diesel engine. And you'd be guessing wrong with that part - I put diesel in the petrol engine.
As any driver should know, the nozzle on the diesel pump is too big to go into a petrol filler.
The real facepalm, then, is that when I was in that situation I didn't think: Problem - this nozzle is too big. Reason? It's diesel, and this is my petrol car.
Instead, I thought: Problem - this nozzle is too big. How do I get the fuel into my car?
And I proceeded to solve that problem, and filled the petrol car's tank from nearly empty to full.
Around 1990ish, I had to extract a few[1] camera filters from my computer's 3.5" drive. I kept it on a desk in the downstairs back room, and my camera gear was under the desk. The actual floppy discs were locked in a holder, and I came home from work to discover that a sibbling's younglings had tried to use the computer - and presumably tried the filters because it was about the right size, and they couldn't get at the actual discs.
[1] These were very thin bits of plastic that sat in front of the lens in a holder, rather than screw on ones.
"So from the sound of that they're stored in plain text then. Nice"
That was my initial thought when I read that sentence - but in hindsight it's also possible that whoever wrote it might hold the view that victims users wouldn't understand what 'salted and hashed' means so they're keeping the email simple.
Yeah, I know, I don't really buy that possibility, either.
"But I am suddenly remembering one of the directors at a firm I worked at suddenly demanding the latest multimedia desktop PC, big monitor, separate speakers etc."
The bit where this guy wanted it after seeing it on TV struck a not-quite-the-same-but-jogged-my-memory-anyway type chord with me.
At a company I was involved with in the 1990s, a registered charity running a number of care homes, I suggested getting online - I figured some of the communications (particularly forms etc) between head office and the various homes could be improved, and made more efficient. The idea was dismissed...
...until less than a year later when the chief executive heard about the benefits of getting online at some conference or other1, and we were online very shortly after that.
1. I remember the meeting in the office after the event well. Apparently, getting online could improve the communications between head office and the various homes, and make them more efficient.
Quite so - but at least your friends won't have your passwords in their address book! :)
But seriously, this:
"Schönbohm says users should only fill out their real personal information such as address and phone numbers when it is essential."
... means that it may be harder to collate data from a friend's harvested address book with you, if key information doesn't match - so that's one thing. Using different email addresses across different services helps here, too.
"2) Twice the phoning home and snooping and probably advertising in the middle of your session."
^This.
With the "inside out spacial awareness" allowing you to walk around while wearing these things, they'll be able to gather 'telemetry' on more than just what you're doing when sat at your computer.
"That trademark is to stop COMPETITORS passing off as you, not to censor little girl's unrelated artwork."
Quite.
The site in question can print T-shirts from submitted artwork, and that's covered by the trademark - but while the image bears the phrase, the artwork is nothing whatsoever to do with Game of Thrones, it's a completely independent work, with the phrase added as a title afterwards. The girl is not a competitor, and is not passing off her work as relating to Game of Thrones.
Given other uses of the phrase, what's needed is for someone who has in the past used it in a commercial context - preferably predating the trademark, and where the phrase is used in a significant way and is recognisable from that use (which rules out simply being used in a line in a book or whatever) - to produce T-shirts with it in the context of their work.
Then we could all invest heavily in popcorn companies (or just buy lots of popcorn) and see what happens.
"Even the most slothful should now be prodded to move."
A part of the problem is that they also have new customers who have signed up with them since (and despite) the big breach. I know a small (but not small enough) number - and, sadly, I think it would be a waste of time bringing things like this and the router password issue to their attention; it'll just go in one ear, sent through the £££ filter (i.e. their main reason for signing up with TalkTalk was the price) and straight back out the other ear.
"Advertisers in their greed don't care about my security nor my privacy."
It's not so much the advertisers, but the advertising industry - which is probably what you really meant.
And why don't they care about your our security or privacy? Because we are not their customers - the advertisers themselves are the customers, and if the problem is brought to their attention the industry points in another direction and says "Look! Something shiny!"
Well, if you're feeling particularly perverse, the article suggests you can run "classic Win32 programs via x86 emulation" - so you could run something like RPCEmu or VirtualRiscPC. i.e. you could emulate an old ARM platform (to run RISC OS) in an x86 emulator, on an ARM-based device.
The only slight bugbear in that, of course, is the version of Windows.
"What's a bit confusing is that going down Martin's Beach Road (streetview pictured in the article about his novel legal strategy), there are about 40-odd houses on the beachfront in that bay. So either that isn't the beach we are looking for, or that vc chap bought all of them too, as surely they'd have access rights along that road."
I assume you mean the satellite image - which Google now calls Google Earth (wasn't that a different thing at one point?). Streetview doesn't go down that road - and the entrance to it matches the one shown here, so it's definitely the right beach.
I suspect those buildings are the ones referred to in the article as:
"They had instead made two offers: to open the road for a limited number of days a year based on a log of use that Khosla apparently kept in 2008; or to sell both parcels of land that Khosla bought – one covering the road and some surrounding areas and the other with some buildings on it."
"Another comment is oft heard coming from the less well educated in this field (a major majority of people ) - the "animals dead anyway" - clearly, not the point !"
Are you referring to written statements from such people? If not, how on Earth can you be sure they're not pronouncing "animals" with an apostrophe?
"I, for one, would be very interested in a "Windows 11" that combined the speed and usability features of Windows 10 with the Windows 7 user interface. Yes, I'd pay for that."
Ditto - as long as it came with a cast iron guarantee of there being no invasive telemetry, or the ability to switch it off. I doubt it would, though.
"It's a while since I've charged VAT to someone in another EU country, but ISTR charging at my own country's rate. Are you saying that's changed?"
Only for digital goods and services where delivery is automagic - the place of supply rules introduced at the start of last year mean the applicable VAT rate is that of the country into which the goods/service are being supplied.
For physical goods and anything that requires manual intervention, it's still the seller's location that matters (AFAIK, anyway - when the the above was first talked about for digital goods, the suggestion was that it would eventually follow for physical goods as well.)
"My recollection is also that reclaiming VAT on cross-border transactions was something of a nightmare. Anyone know if it still is?"
Yes, it is - better to arrange with the seller to use reverse charging.
"It's only a Freudian slip if it's inappropriate, which is not so in this case."
I think you'll find it's a Freudian slip if it's appropriate rather than inappropriate, or more precisely reveals what you really think. i.e. if people think he's a berk, and accidentally call him Jeremy Berk instead of Jeremy Hunt.
We don't know if that's what those who have accidentally mispronounced the H as a C really think, though. We can only speculate.
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