* Posts by JimmyPage

3215 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Mar 2010

Stupid law of the week: South Carolina wants anti-porno chips in PCs that cost $20 to disable

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3 pages, and no one remembers

the clipper chip ?

HMRC IT cockup misses nearly 1m Scottish taxpayers for devo PAYE letters

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Facepalm

Hints of what Brexit will bring ...

If we can't align two systems in the same country, how on earth can we hope to do it across a continent ?

What's the betting it'll cost .... £350 million ?

Banks 'not doing enough' to protect against bank-transfer scams

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Unhappy

Re: There's a bit of commonality here - email

Dead right. Now try and fix it.

Encrypted and verified email would probably kill 99% of scams dead. But given how few *businesses* bother, you are never going to get the end punter to manage.

Be aware that it's stories like this, which go to support a whole "it's better the government run the internet" sort of movement.

Also, the dirty little secret, is a lot of scams rely on peoples naked greed - either by "saving the <insert local equivalent of VAT>", or promising something for nothing. And then there are the "victims" who - despite all the Daily Mail Sad Face - would would not have been victims if they had followed their banks instructions to start with. I am particularly reminded of a journalist who managed to write a 2-page story about an "incredibly sophisticated scam" which relied on said journalist GIVING THEIR PIN to the scammers. Remind me again about Bank Card Security 101 ????

You can't protect people from their own stupidity or greed. Just can't be done. I'd rather we devoted out efforts to improving the lot of people who aren't greedy - as Einstein observed, there's little that can be done about human stupidity.

'Public Wi-Fi' gang fail in cunning plan to hide £10m cigarette tax fraud

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FAIL

Re: These chaps must have missed the Edward Snowdon news articles.

I refer you to my previous observation that criminals are rarely the brightest tools in the box. They really are thick as pigshit, and the only saving grace is that the police tasked to catch them - generally - are only marginally less thick.

I did hear of a junior barrister who made the mistake of challenging a detective when his clients intelligence was questioned, demanding to know how the policeman was qualified to judge his clients intelligence ...

"Well, your honour; " replied the detective. "The accused did steal a Purdey shotgun, and saw the barrels off to rob a bank of a few thousand pounds".

(This was in the 80s, and I often wondered if it was this story which sparked "Lock, Stock ...")

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FAIL

Proof (if it were needed)

that crims really aren't the brightest bunnies.

For £10million profit, surely investing £100K in some IT security consultancy would have been worth it ?

Move over HoloLens, $30 homebrew cardboard AR is here

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Boffin

Since we're talking V/A-R here ...

does anyone know if the googles would help someone whose vision impaired and struggles to read normally ?

Is it possible they could somehow project lettering the eye could read ?

You can tell I never liked optics at school ....

Bill Gates joins $170bn climate change investment club

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Nice to see the 1%

helping the 99% ...

Major outage at broadband biz 186k

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Is it just me ...

or is there a lack of details about refunds in the whole piece ?

EU dings Sony, Panasonic over rechargeable battery cartel

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Flame

And the victims of the scam ...

see fuck all of this money.

I'm still waiting for a refund on all that VAT I paid (under threat of prison !) on Jaffa cakes.

Brexflation hits Lenovo's Phab2

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Apples, oranges ?

I seem to recall that the US generally has a more diverse consumer protection landscape which permits manufacturers to sell cheap, whereas the UKs consumer legislation requires a higher price to cover it.

Remember, most goods should be covered by a 6-year presumption of quality. SOMEONE has to pay for that ....

Who killed Pebble? Easy: The vulture capitalists

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Meh

Smartwatches/Wearables Not dead - just biding their time

One advantage - often derided by the youngsters - of being an old git is having lived long enough to see patterns and understand (a bit better) how things work. (The cruel irony being that by this stage you are saddled with obligations and a lifetime of baggage which prevents you doing much with your insight).

Smartwatches are still in the "But what do they DO ??????" phase as far as Joe Public is concerned. And while it may be mildly amusing to denigrate the masses in the echo chamber that is El Reg, it doesn't change the underlying argument.

(I am the reason Pebble failed, by the way. Not single handed. But I have had a Pebble in my Amazon wishlist for 18 months. Not on my wrist. In my wishlist).

We're been here before ... long before the iPhone, there was the PSION II. It was innovative. It was hi-tech. It was featured on TV (a lot). And ... it died. And it died to a chorus of "But what does it DO ???". It wasn't that it didn't do anything - quite the reverse (it was the 80s). It was that the mass market had no point of reference, so could not grasp the underlying concept. The general attitude being "I may as well keep my filofax" (Especially when you factor in the price of the PSION - or in this case, the Pebble).

Standards body warned SMS 2FA is insecure and nobody listened

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SMS messages ... may be ... redirected,

Can someone tell me how, please ?

When moving phones, one reason to not change numbers is the inability to forward on SMS. Redirecting voice calls is trivial - the network can simply forward calls (with CLI details) invisibly.

I had to carry two phones for over year because it wasn't possible to redirect SMS,

(I know there are "apps" that claim to do this - but even if they were a solution, they don't forward the CLI details. So you have no idea where the SMS came from.)

Jeremy Hunt: Telcos must block teens from sexting each other

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FAIL

The guy really does define "moron" doesn't he ?

'Tesco Bank's major vulnerability is its ownership by Tesco,' claims ex-employee

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Why ?

If your starting point is systems are inherently insecure, then unless you can prove otherwise (think about it) it's a valid assertion.

So the focus should be on ensuring data breaches can't be of use to hackers. Encryption at rest seems a good start.

Otherwise you are just aping the moronic HMG "can't happen here" stance. Which is scary.

UK's new Snoopers' Charter just passed an encryption backdoor law by the backdoor

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Practical effect on UK IT provision ?

Surely this bill must make the UK impossible as a location for IT provision to elsewhere in the world ? How many countries have laws requiring their companies to protect citizens data which means they now cannot use UK based suppliers ?

Along with Hard Brexit and a seeming determination to rip up established treaties, this is a clear signal that the UK is closing down for business.

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Re: Canaries

Why take the risk ?

Just shift all your traffic to an offshore VPN and be done with it.

Adblock again beats publishers' Adblock-blocking attempts

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Re: Complete Household Ad Blocking Regardless of Device

thanks for the pi-hole tip ! Just installed it and now my home network is pi-holing it from the router - so all devices are covered.

In the first 30 minutes, c. 5% of traffic is adverts. Which, to be fair, is not too unreasonable.

Uncanny hacks-men to attend special school in grand country home

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Stop

Is it just me, or does this whiff of "publicity stunt"

cynical ?

British banks chuck smartphone apps out of Windows

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FAIL

*Shrug*

I still think WP8 pisses all over android - I've liked WP since the 6.5 incarnation. But the lack of apps finally drove me to Android, which had admittedly got much less sucky since KitKat.

If MS were serious about WP (and that's a bit if - they never acted as if they were) they should have noted how being the best (Betamax) isn't the be all and end all when competing with platforms (e.g VHS - who sewed up the rentals market, and froze Betamax to a slow death).

Gone in 70 seconds: Holding Enter key can smash through defense

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Coat

Re: Did they have a Reverse gear?

That would be Italian stallions ?

Virgin Galactic and Boom unveil Concorde 2.0 tester to restart supersonic travel

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Concorde: proof engineering and beauty are not exclusive.

That's all.

Of course Concorde took the effort of two entire nations capabilities, and still never made a profit.

And - as NASA admitted - the challenges made Apollo look like a 4-piece jigsaw.

The Reg seeks online community manager

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FAIL

London Based

so a 20th Century job then.

US citizens crash Canadian immigration site after Trump victory

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Re: It doesn't matter which way I vote - I get a Labour representative

I refer you to my original point. If your attitude to your enfranchisement is to simply say "I'm a Labour voter" without actually taking the time and trouble to understand what that means, then you - dear fellow citizen - are part of the problem.

If *voters* used their minds, there would not be any such thing as a "safe" seat.

Right now, given the perfect shitstorm headed our way, it's hard to support universal suffrage. And it's hard to avoid the sense in the observation - from before our times:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”

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Mushroom

Re: The working man is disenfranchised by essentially undemocratic systems

The working man disenfranchised themselves by persistently - and deliberately - ignoring the chances to have their say when they were enfranchised.

The cruel tragedy is, the 30% who never vote in General Elections (closer to 60% in local elections) have a pulling down effect on the 30% above them who *do* vote.

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Alert

How can any decent voter

feel pleased at electing a candidate supported by the Ku Klux Klan ?

I level the same accusation at the morons who voted Trump, as I do at the Cretins who voted Brexit.

I don't give a rats arse about your protestations of "not being a racist". If you keep voting company with racists, you need to think long and hard about what you are doing.

And then not vote.

It's that simple.

I can only pray that the US doesn't experience the same upswing in racism the UK has since June 23 (*). These guys have guns. Lots of them.

(*)And just for the record, my stating that isn't hyperbole. Sporting a European surname, I grew up with "clever" digs (and just plain old "fuck off home"). Haven't heard them in over a quarter of a century, until my wife mentioned she'd been told to "go home" a few weeks back. It was a shock for her. But then her maiden name is WASP approved.

What do you give a bear that wants to fork SSL? Whatever it wants!

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20K+ 25K

So it could have run in a 48K spectrum ?

Kewl :)

Brexflation: Lenovo, HPE and Walkers crisps all set for double-digit hike

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You know the joke meme about how do you confuse a blonde ?

How do you confuse two Brexiters ?

Ask them to explain what Brexit means to each other.

Karhoo who? Uber challenger shuts down after burning through $250m

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RE:start small, keep your expenses low

Oh how true !

I worked for a small (<10 employee) company a few years back. A newer recruit was heard to grumble that additional office furniture was from a "dodgy bloke in town" rather than an overpriced "corporate" supplier. I, and some colleagues were grateful, and said so.

"I'd rather the money went into my bonus than a sofa" was the attitude.

'Extra-supermoon' to appear next week

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Stop

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/02/xmas_list_suggestions/

that's all

Brexit may not mean Brexit at all: UK.gov loses Article 50 lawsuit

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Mushroom

Re: We have had over a decade of this utopia EU and yet we voted to leave

Speak for yourself.

I have had 43 years of the EU (I was 6 in 1972) and I voted to Remain. The EU certainly isn't perfect. But it's better in that out, IMO.

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Stop

I hate to quote David Davis, but this "will of the people" shite

that is being used to try and shut people up, rather than reasoned debate needs to bear this in mind:

"A democracy that cannot change it's mind has ceased to be a democracy"

This is a very important point, and one BOTH sides would do well to understand.

A British phone you're not embarrassed to carry? You heard that right

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"Glove mode"

if nothing else, this article led me to the Wileyfox site where I first learned of "Glove mode"

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Great phone - but dodgy support

I was wowed by the Regs Swift review last year, so a Swift was my Chrimbo present from Mrs Page.

Really cannot fault the phone. The only niggle I might have is the quirk that it doesn't allow it's own number to be set in the OS - apparently a Cyanogen thing. It hasn't stopped me doing anything - that I know of.

However, the companys support seems to be run by the primary school the Keystone Cops went to. When I got the phone, I tried to register - as advised - which proved impossible due to a clunky website. Eventually, after waiting a couple of weeks (website wasn't fixed and claimed I hadn't entered my email address) I managed to get through to someone who made it plain this was a man+dog operation.

Fast forward 11 months and (1) I am still being spammed by Wileyfox and (2) I am still waiting for the free screen protector I was supposed to get when I registered.

All of that said, I do like the look of the plus. If it's as good as the Swift I've had for a year, it deserves great things.

Stiff upper lips and sun glasses: the Chancellor bets on Brexit feeling

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Mushroom

"Skills crisis"

if I look that up in my dictionary of management-speak, it translates as :

"Since we can't find anyone to fill a vacancy requiring a high level of skills, experience and *judgement* for the pittance we are paying, there must be a skills crisis"

Know what. They're right. There's even an unskills crisis too. I have advertised for someone to cut my grass, and when I advertised the rate as £5 for the job, no one applied. I managed to get some replies by not mentioning the rate, but as soon as I told the caller what it was, they hung up.

So there must be a shortage of unskilled labour.

Now, where's my grant ?

Uber drivers entitled to UK minimum wage, London tribunal rules

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Re: Will this do anything...

at what point does assistance blur into medical care ?

As long as a wheelchair user can enter and direct a driverless car, I imagine all obligations have been met - although fair point about luggage ??????

Let's praise Surface, not bury it

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Larger display - appeals to the older generation

Not just the current "older generation" but the also current generations who will get older.

Every reading of the runes I have done results in the conclusion that there will HAVE to be changes which allow people to continue using their iShinys with older eyes, fingers and ears.

Which is great news for the less able amongst us too.

Password1? You're so random. By which we mean not random at all - UK.gov

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Facepalm

or, they could really encourage 2FA everywhere

much more effective.

LASER RAT FENCE wins €1.7m European Commission funds

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Stop

So it's basically an iScarecrow ?

c'mon.

And for our next trick, says Google while literally wheeling out a humongous tablet ...

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Sorry to be dismissve

but in 2016, it's just a jumped up Smart TV.

Accountant falls for sexy Nigerian email scammer, gives her £150k he cheated out of pal

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Unhappy

Seems it's just me ...

that is a little bit <insert open mouth emoji> that there are people who can afford to throw £150,000 with what seems like abandon in the same country where I heard a story where a street canvasser, asking about town centre developments in a northern town was faced with an upset to the point of tears pensioner who was afraid the local £1 shop might close.

<- something desperately wrong in Britain.

Meet the slimeballs who are openly sabotaging Virgin Media

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Mushroom

Exploding rodents ...

Many years ago, I worked for the predecessor to TransCo (or whatever they are called these days).

Most common call out for the telemetry guys was a loss of signal caused by rabbits and/or squirrels nibbling into power cables which were armoured.

By their very nature, high-pressure grid offtakes and junctions are a *long* way from population centres.

<- nibble, nibble, BANG

Is this the worst Blockchain idea you've ever heard?

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FAIL

Ethereum

I didn't need to read past this ... having grappled with it for the better part of a year now, I know that if I were to come up with *any* blockchain development, it would not be using Ethereum.

Court finds GCHQ and MI5 engaged in illegal bulk data collection

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Big Brother

In other news ..

Secret trials are back in fashion ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36720830

'IS fighter' guilty after trial held partly in secret

Marmite's not the only national treasure hit by Brexit. Will someone think of the PCs?

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Mushroom

Re: Ah, the year 1 school of thought

"Marmite is made here blah, blah blah". It's like the morons who say "look, the sun is shining, why don't we close all the power stations and go solar".

really, Brexiters should realise they are intellectually outgunnned and try and maintain a dignified silence. (Vain hope, I know).

Quite aside from the fact that transport costs (y'know, petrol, oil, gas, and energy in general) are priced - and paid for - in dollars, there's the little fact that foreign companies (like Unilever) are going to have to keep their FOREIGN investors happy.

If that means whacking prices in pounds up 10%, then that's what they have to do. And will do.

Followed by every other company that has to pay dividends in non-sterling currencies.

There were repeated warnings that Brexit would create a UK vs. the rest of the world scenario. Now it's started, it seems some people haven't the stomach for the fight.

Too late was the cry.

Just wait until after Christmas when the projections for 2018/9 are flowing in. Then we will really see some price hikes. Along with some players possibly abandoning the UK as unviable with such a low pound.

Smell burning? Samsung’s 'Death Note 7' could still cause a contagion

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Re: In situations like this . . .

Seven red lines

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WTF?

Seriously, is reality changing ?

Samsung, VW, Hotpoint - all massive fails.

A perpetual war in Syria where no two sides ever seem the same.

A presidential election between two candidates that would lose to Adolf Hitler if he stood.

WTF is going on in reality ? Is the matrix crashing ?

Majority of underage sexting suspects turn out to be underage too

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Childcatcher

Sigh ... once again, using law to dictate morality ..

leads to nonsense.

Sometimes, it's possible to see how and why dictatorships emerge ... mainly because they don't have to give a flying fuck about what the Daily Mail - or any of it's moronic supporters - thinks or says.

They can just pass sensible laws which reduce harm.

(See also "War on Drugs") ....

UK cops failed to act on Canadian intel on child abuse

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Stop

CEOP - IIRC didn't they have an agenda ?

And wanted the powers to snoop everywhere, and close down websites they didn't like without the inconveniences of courts and judges ?

Funny that their own incompetence (the one factor in life they can guarantee) puts them in a position where they can now claim "See ! We really did need those powers after all !".

See also: MI5 having tailed the 7/7 bombers previous to their demise ...

There are some really crap budget phones out there. Vodafone's Smart Ultra 7 isn't

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FAIL

I wouldn't buy one if it came with Noddys Rice Krispies ...

Never, ever again. Quite apart from SIM/Network locking is the sheer amount of shite that you can't remove or disable without rooting the phone.

Never, ever.

Four reasons Pixel turns flagship Android mobe makers into roadkill

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Wither Vodafone, EE, O2 ... ?

So where does this leave the networks ?

Is this a sign that the market is moving towards network-agnostic phones ?

Has Google got the clout - and infrastructure - to bypass the vested interests ?

My memory of the path that led us here is that Google was busy adding serious functionality to Android that was reaching fuck all punters because the networks weren't pushing upgrades ?

Has anything changed ?