Posts by Anthony

Internet

Isn't there already a massively online set of connected computers running different operating systems, protocols and connected in pretty much every conceivable way possible?

You don't see botnetters and hackers looking for funding, they just get on with it. The easiest thing for Darpa to do at this point is just send out one of those emails purporting to be from the DoJ. Half the population will click on them regardless of authenticity and anyone who DOES check the authenticity will also click on it.

Kids eh

I blame the parents. Did she never ONCE ask him if he was trying to take over the world?

"What you doing on the PC all the time love?"

"Same thing we do every night mum"

free

"have free music for a year"

To be honest this is better than "don't have free music for a year".

See the thing about it being free is, if you don't want it.. don't use it and if you do want it.. it does what it says on the tin, gives you access to free music. It's really not possible to knock it, if you don't like it, don't buy a Nokia Comes With Music handset or don't use the service.

On a more personal note, I hate music on phones. More to the point I have the chavs on the bus who play their music aloud and think giving them more free music to pollute my airwaves is a bad idea. I like music on my non-phone devices but then I'm probably old fashioned.

ties in with

The Army using gamers instead of "real" soldiers.

I love flying planes into enemy bases and dropping bombs, sign me up! Long as my PC doesn't crash, this could be just the break I've been waiting for.

"Accidentally destroyed America".. shame..

If only

One of the bigger firms could launch a counter botnet, it could reside in uninfected computers and actively stop nasty worms and trojans coming in. They could call it something catchy like "anti-virus" or something..

Anybody with the privilege to run infected software on unprotected machines deserves to have their Internet cut to protect the Internet and the more responsible users of it. So, being slightly more serious than above, Norton, Mcafee, Sophos et al. should actively target infected machines using the same methods the original botnet teams did and install software that disables the Internet. The only way to reinstate the Internet would be through disinfection of the machine. A flashing pop-up could tell you to call a free number for a free disc to clean your machine and maybe also offer discounts against anti- products or internet awareness lectures.

Statistics

Are figures, anything inferred from them can be entirely misleading.

Everyone knows 95% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Mug

I know there are other biometric systems but I don't really expect my local branch to have a 3d body scanner outside the local hole in the wall. I don't really expect it to have an iris scanner. It will be a simple fingerprint reader on the card or on the machine itself followed by insertion of the card to read the chip (validated as being held by me) and then the PIN (which validates the chip).

I really don't see how this stops the criminal from mugging me as I extract the money from the machine. Tell you what would tho.. simple CCTV.

"Was this you taking the money out of this machine?" "Yes"

"And is this the guy mugging you?" "Yes"

"I'm sorry sir but he doesn't appear to have a National ID card on him, we therefore can't prosecute him".

@library user

Ya know, if you were at home and people kept coming round and infecting your PC, you'd do something to stop them. Just because you're a (presumably public) library doesn't give residents the right to do anything they want. Read email bodies fine, open infected attachments? Surely not.

Our local libraries are subject to local council policies regarding IT. Corporate policies include website filtering and anti-virus and anti-spam packages. If all else fails there is corporate imaging to restore an infected machine. But nothing says "no" like a librarian when asked "can we open this attachment from the DoJ at our local library on our personal mail".

Copyright

I seriously hope they asked permission before making those names up. Pretty sure someone already owns them and their pictorial likenesses...

But why go to all the trouble to involve toon names (I can't imagine anyone actually being called Porky Pig et al outside of maybe Alabama) then use a real name?

Test cases on Cinderella, the Wicked Witch, Father Xmas and Puss in Boots are fine but substitute one of those names with your own and, outside of panto, you could be refused a job? Amusing but insane.

God

Aren't we all missing the real fuel of the future?

Faith is completely carbon neutral, even going so far as to have no carbon footprint.

Putting your trust in God is just like putting petrol in your car.

And what is stopping is doing this?

Those people from the Middle East obviously.

Now.. give me funding.

Simple answer :

"avoid following links to untrusted Web sites."

along with "don't open dodgy emails" and "don't run dodgy programs" this mantra should keep anybody safe.

But surely the whole point of being phished is that you THINK it's a trusted website?

check please

"employers could be prosecuted under race discrimination laws if they only carry out checks on workers who they believe are not British citizens."

Why would they carry out checks on people they don't think need checking?

If the check is carried out at the point of entry into the country and again at the point of application for work/study, why do we need more checks?

Who checks the people who do the checking?

I'd get my coat but I don't know what country it was made in.

Sad

That the reliance on email has led to this state of events. It's amazingly easy to ignore phishing emails, amazingly easy to avoid most spam and scam mails and apparently most people are amazingly stupid and don't do these things.

I wouldn't go so far as to say they deserve to be phished but this is a social phenomena, we have given stupid people advanced technology and then let cleverer people fleece them.

It's a bit like being in Government.

iDiots

"doesn't make them idiots"

Yes.. yes it does.

Shhh.

It's the most secret US base in Britain

It's unaccountable, unlawful and undemocratic

It's integral to US plans to fight in and through space

It's the world's largest spy base and it's getting bigger

No seriously..

http://cndyorks.gn.apc.org/mhs/

Never Off

Of course if you have a device capable of receiving email and of telling you when it has received email, if you have a tarrif that allows you to send and receive emails inclusively, if you have a decent screen and a decent input facility.. you are bound to tick the box that says you don't think that your technology is going to get better in the next 6 months.

I wonder how long before the regular-as-clockwork-2am-EVERYBLOODYMORNING-spam makes people rethink the desire to be always on and to wish it would sometimes just go off?

Nature v Nurture

Well I think this answers that age old question.. Nature wins every time.

They ate Irish Salmon, now they're moving in on Scottish prawns. If only Jamie Oliver could come up with a tasty Jellyfish recipe for Sainsburys.

Or "Organic salmon reared jellyfish. This isn't just jellyfish, it's Marks and Spencers jellyfish."

If all else fails, just pretend they're sensitive data and they'll soon go missing.

Hmm

You couldn't sell the BBC off as a whole, nor could ITV buy the BBC or a major share in it, competition regulations wouldn't allow it.

Splitting the BBC up would give us half of London back, a slew of private production companies and studios and release a lot of celebrities back where they belong - the unemployed actors dole line.

This would force innovation, if you don't work for your money then you don't get paid. The BBC could focus on tv that would make money from syndication and DVD sales - the best kind of tv in my opinion.

But what it will do instead is bid for (with my money) the HD spectrum for Freeview. Now I ask you, how many Freeview audiences have a HD ready TV? Surely the point of Freeview is that it's cheap/free and therefore the choice of the type of people who wont pay £500 for a television.

There is bad thinking in the whole tv game, who wants five (or more) channels of garbage, the BBC should stick to one channel of in-house or outsourced goodness and return to its core values.

I Will NOT resign

Nobody will ever take the blame for their actions or inactions because the standing excuse is "it's my job to fix this mess and I will stay in position and do that."

Of course if they had done their jobs in the first place, there wouldn't be a mess to fix. Yes from that point of view the report was a waste of money but hey, the blogosphere needs these reports, it confirms our beliefs that Government is a mess, regardless of which side you don't vote for.

ex-bbc

So because I don't like or watch the BBC and have something deconstructive to say on the issue I should leave the country? Oh please.. the BBC isn't foreign policy or immigration policy or nuclear policy or any REAL reason to leave the country. It isn't something to get teary eyed and patriotic about, it's an outdated institution funded by tax payers money.

Look at other stations that survive without my licence money.

And for those who say "you should watch American TV" - yeah I mostly do. I flick between hundreds of channels searching for something to watch and it ends up mostly being those "safe humour whilst eating tea with the family" that come from.. oh wait.. America.

You want satirical comedy later on? American. Can't really bring myself to class Little Britain as true satire, too much rings true. Full marks to BBC Documentaries that have gone on to be sold as DVDs and franchised to other countries. My licence money isn't propping them up. Full marks to classic BBC Comedy and Drama that is sold as DVDs and etc...

The problem is, it's a Great British Institution. Like gas and electric and mining used to be. Like public transport used to be. I'd like to see the BBC run privately because I bet they couldn't do it. Then I'd like to see it go back to its roots with a celebrity bypass and fulfil its original charter. Or go out with a bang and do a serious of really biased, offensive documentaries. Brass Eye with Balls.

Relevance

Agree to disagree rather than arguing about the unwinnable. If the world does come to an end because of global warming then will anybody be going "ha.. TOLD YOU SO"?

I think the best way to stop the bias in the BBC news reporting is to simply scrap the BBC in its current (or any) form. I get my licence fee back and can forget about Terry Wogan being paid 10k for presenting charity events.

Maybe combining two channels using that clever time shifting they do can let me watch two opposing newscasts, we can have a nationalistic, borderline racist, honest to goodness Enoch-a-like reporting on a lack of deportation issues on one side and a report on the short term effects of the plant a tree campaign started in London in 1960 when Mr. Blair planted his first apple tree at the tender age of 10.

I'm totally British.. I demand this right now.

Surprised

Richard says that the Lords aren't stupid.. I think if you start from faulty premises, you're bound to be dissapointed.

Agree

The whole currency issue is throwing off what is still a very, very cheap device whose silicon heart is in the right place. For a charitable organisation setting out to produce the $100 laptop they haven't done badly. If you set your sights on the $100 laptop and end up producing the $188 laptop, that's better than planning on the $200 laptop and ending up reselling old Dells to third world countries.

I wonder how many of these devices will actually end up in Britain due to our immigration policies, maybe you'll be able to buy one at PC World and give it to a neighbour at some point. Obviously for £188. Plus VAT.

But does it *do* anything

I've got a quick test, requires no download and hardly any thought.

Answer the question "are you running a Windows PC connected to the Internet?"

If the answer is "yes" then you are potentially vulnerable to various attacks and need anti-virus, anti-spam, anti-phishing and firewall software.

So, how is my test different to their test except that they want you to use THEIR software and I just want you to use whatever software you want?

Video :(

The old type you could fast forward. Didn't have to watch the adverts then. Damn this modern technology. If your tape broke you could just sellotape it back together. Ever tried returning a game your xbox has scratched?

You know this piracy thing though, the industry is forever telling us how much it costs. So, somewhere, there is a really really rich guy isn't there? Because someone must be making all the money they say they lose. Best place to look for pirates therefore is probably on the worlds richest list. Not thinking of anyone in particular of course..

Chop Chop

I don't understand the need for invasive surgery here. Whatever happened to a magazine and a cup?

@TeeCee

True, of all the things Google wishes to do and do better, becoming embroiled in anti-competitive lawsuits won't be on their list. However is it such a stretch to suggest that in order to be safe (from Googleblock) a user should a) host their own ads as suggested above or b) use only ads marked safe by Google.

Personally I don't see why everyone and his dog *NEEEDS* to be ad supported. Everywhere. Every page. Several ads. But let's pretend it's a necessary evil and without it all the important net things will never happen like web 3.0 or 4G or 18+ servers. If we HAVE to have ads they should be cleared somewhere centrally OR you run the risk of the GoogleBanHammerWidgetforWindows (Mac version coming soon). The obvious solution would be for pre-approval by Google and using GoogleAds. Maybe all pages could have a standard GoogleLayout and use standard GoogleClickToPay methods to ensure revenue streams (less any GoogleFees) between advertiser and advertisee.

Not that I'm advocating this, just it would seem an almost logical solution to the problem, especially when one of the site owners in the story says that he doesn't rely on his site for revenue. Why not take down ALL THE ADS then?

Hmm

I work at a school and there isn't the level of competency amongst staff to do this, nor is it fair to suggest that teachers are responsible for students to this extent. If it was a more physical form of bullying like Charlie kicks a ball at Fred, should the PE teacher write to the football manufacturer or close the public playing fields where it happened? Something this important cannot be left to local policy or even Government guidelines, it needs a law and the staff to manage that law. Maybe this could be passed upwards to the Internet Police as it's presumably cybercrime.

And how can anyone demand to see emails? Or text messages? The Data Protection Act would suggest otherwise.

Particularly laughable is that the Governments response (fobbing off imho) has been done in conjunction with YouTube, Bebo and MySpace. Smacks of buckpassing. The only way to prevent bullying on the Internet is to block the Internet and use a local cache or selected, relevant material that users can view but not post to. Bullying via mobile phones can be prevented using phone signal absorbing paint on all the school walls. As a bonus this also prevents using your phone to cheat in exams.

Or maybe, just maybe, responsibility for site content and email content and text content could remain with the user and action against users could remain with the relevant police departments.

Competition

When you develop a service or a product that makes money, everyone else suddenly thinks they could do the same as well. Zune anybody?

Online transactions

How do you pay for credit card information? Obviously you can't use a credit card as your payment option..

Greenbacks

So I take your computer off you, charge you for this service then sell your reclaimed product to someone else. Where is the incentive for me to recycle?

Always On.. not for much longer

In an effort to save electricity the Government is going to invent a machine that bypasses the standby button.

Internet Humour

Notice the u - not American. How many people fit into the "outraged reader" type bracket? The same number who "hate" Microsoft?

Some of the funniest pictures on the net are totally inappropriate to their subject matter, that bridge that collapsed changed so it's actually eating the cars, people smiling for holiday snaps whilst a tsunami looms over them. Something about disaster lends itself to humour, the Belsen badge is a good example even if you didn't know about the Sex Pistols.

I don't think it should be used to promote a company but equally being hyper sensitive about it online just adds you to the "outraged reader" mentioned earlier. Being sympathetic to WWII outrages is one thing, trying to appear morally outraged about it just makes me think tsunami lol.

Cafe

Is this an Eastern thing? All the shops near me close at 10pm unless they are a takeaway, the nearest Internet cafe closes even earlier than that and has Sunday hours, you certainly can't move in to one for a few days.

Ha

No getting away from the fact that whether it's mindless violence, harmless fun, sexual depravation, organised incitement to smite or whatever the game world allows you to do, you're still playing WoW. There are so many better things to do such as appreciate a rose, hold your new born baby, buy that big fridge you've always wanted, you know the one with the ice maker on the front. It's ironic that people who choose to live in an MMO can call anyone else sad or attempt to control how other players act. Gotta love the outraged majority.