* Posts by The JP

25 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Dec 2014

Dry patch? Have you considered peppering your flirts with emojis?

The JP

Why can't we use emojis when...

...being a commentard on The Register?

Surely its about time the comments are livened up with a few well placed strawberry, donut, peach emojis etc.

Autonomy's financial reports? I didn't even read KPMG's due-diligence, says ex-HP CEO Léo Apotheker

The JP

Awesome reporting!

Keep it up el Reg.

I am fully stocked with popcorn as events unfold.

ICO, forgive me – it has been three weeks since I discovered my breach

The JP

In the real world...

...lots of these breaches are not very big and not very exciting. Think documents left on the bus rather than cyber attackers.

Thought process if the breach occurs on a Monday - Lets find out what happened and wait until the end of the deadline to make sure we have all the facts.

Thought process if the breach occurs on a Thursday - Do I really want to spend my weekend sorting this out or shall I just chuck the notification on Friday afternoon...?

Mark Zuckerberg did everything in his power to avoid Facebook becoming the next MySpace – but forgot one crucial detail…

The JP

Re: Is this libel?

Presumably the point here is not about the truth or not of the article.

Its the fact Facebook might happily spend millions on lawyers (and thus force The Register to likewise) knowing it is likely to lose in the end.

That's how English libel law works.

Anyway I salute your lawyers and their huge cojones.

Google CEO tells US Congress Chocolate Factory will unleash Dragonfly in China

The JP

Its also interesting to see who comes top when you google images of "racist"....at least it is when I do it.

Brits' DNA data sent to military base after 'foreign' hack attacks – report

The JP

Re: Weaponised? - British X-Men?

C'mon. We all know what is happening here. We are developing British X-Men with mutant superpowers to defend Britain from the corrupt EUSSR after Brexit.

I for one welcome our new laser-eyed, telekinetic, psychic protectors

Excuse me, but have you heard the teachings of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Chr-AI-st?

The JP

Rab C Nesbit

What about using AI for something more worthwhile. What about a plug-in that will automatically translate articles in the Register into the words of Rab C Nesbit?

I predict a riot: Amazon UK chief foresees 'civil unrest' for no-deal Brexit

The JP

Re: eh?

@Phil - I'm not sure you have much of clue how customs controls work, nor of the impact of the rules of origin, nor of the phyiscal limitations of Dover, nor the impact of even minor delays on the throughput from customs.

The problem with Brexit is that facts and evidence has long since been replaced by blind belief.

Scottish govt mulled scrapping £178m car-crash IT system

The JP

Goverment & IT systems

Another IT project, another massive cost and time overrun.

At least the Government will not have to build a large number of new IT systems to deal with new customs, agriculture, fisheries and immigration policies with a hard two year deadline......Seriously, given the number of complete IT disasters in the past does anyone think we can Brexit in less than 10 years?

Heard of Brexit? The UK vows to join Europe’s Patent Titanic

The JP

Not a money spinner for lawyers...

...actually a lot of UK patent lawyers were hoping the UPC would die a death as they make more money from a fragmented national patent system than they would do under a unified Europe wide patent system.

Presumably this was instead driven by industry that wants a simpler and more efficient patent system but I guess "The first thing we do, let's kill all the [businessmen]" isn't such a good catchphrase.

Silicon Valley's oligarchs got a punch in the head – and that's actually good thing

The JP

I think we all agree on the problem, but what is the solution?

I think everyone agrees that the fall in good quality blue collar jobs is a problem, as is rising inequalities in wealth. I think everyone also agrees that advances in technology, such as automated vehicles, is going to make the issue more pronounced.

The real issue is what is the solution? I don't think Trump is the solution. Nor is attacking immigrants and minorities. Nor is attacks on new technology - smashing the weaving looms didn't stop the industrial revolution.

Do we need a new form of social contract? Do we need to weather the pain on this transition in the hope new jobs will appear in the post-AI world? That is what we should really be thinking about.

Fear and Brexit in Tech City: Digital 'elite' are having a nervous breakdown

The JP

Really its up to Boris to take the lead now

Ha ha ha! Your new leader realises he has broken it, and doesn't know how to fix it. The funny thing is, no one else knows how to fix it either.

Top cops demand access to the UK's entire web browsing history

The JP

Re: Will be struck down ....

...frankly in Tropic Thunder terms this is the Conservatives going full Stasi.

The JP

Re: Will be struck down ....

...not sure I agree. The European Court of Justice was pretty firmly against "mass and indiscriminate" surveillance (Digital Rights Ireland) and the English Courts have followed suit.

You can monitor people for national security purposes so long as it is reasonably and proportionate. However, tracking the whole UK population's porn/medical/political etc. internet viewing habits is so far off the "reasonable and proportionate" scale its not funny.

The JP

Will be struck down ....

...zero chance of this surviving a human rights challenge in the Courts.

And a good thing to.

Grossly intrusive and a huge security risk (imagine if TalkTalk also kept and lost its customers' browsing records).

Our cookies save you from TERRORISTS, Facebook thunders to Belgian judge

The JP

Re: Apostrophes or apostrophe's

Sorry - guilty as charged. It happened before my morning coffee if that provides a defence.

The JP

Pseudonym's not permitted!

Isn't it "Stephen" Deadman? I thought Facebook prohibited the use of pseudonyms.

Get that OFF dot-com, hysterical France screeches at Google

The JP

Geo-blocking?

Surely the obvious solution is to just geo-block requests from France rather than censure the whole of Google.com.

The interesting thing is why neither the CNIL nor Google are talking about this. Perhaps some huffing and puffing and manoeuvring from each before they actually get down to business and sort this out?

(And yes geo-blocking isn't perfect, and yes maybe you would have to apply geo-blocking to proxy servers, but what's the alternative).

Ashley Madison: ‘Our site is full of women, and members are growing’

The JP

When will these new sign on figures be validated...

...by the Impact Team?

Ashley Madison wide open to UK privacy lawsuits, claim lawyers

The JP

Might not be as easy as that...

1. Will AM have the funds to pay when you finally get judgment? Or will your compensation be left over stationary and AM-branded T-shirts?

2. AM is based in Canada so probably not subject to the UK data protection act (and ditto re tort based claims). Contract claims are also presumably Canadian law, though I haven't tried to register to check!

3. You would have to prove AM failed to implement suitable security measures (i.e. the mere fact the breach occurred is not sufficient). This could be difficult if this is in fact an inside job.

Britain beats back Argies over Falklands online land grab

The JP

Did Mr Carvell...

...just tell them to get .fk 'ed?

MIT bods' digital economy babblings are tosh. C'mon guys, Economics 101

The JP

Will you feel differently..

...when strong AI systems are able to produce witty critiques of academic musings without human intervention?

California Uber Alles: Google wants to become the World Privacy Court

The JP

sui generis?

I'd say the public interest test is probably sui generis.

The standard art.8 v art.10 balancing act requires equal weight to be given to both rights. I don't see how that could be applied here given the CJEU's clear instruction that, as a general rule, privacy trumps freedom of speech when it comes to search results.

The old English cases on equitable duties of confidence are neither here not there....

Europe's top court mulls vandal's right to privacy after bloke catches thug on home CCTV

The JP

Film Photography

@ AC: Pictures on camera film are not caught by data protection laws. Apparently the Swedish police kept using film camera for sometime after digital cameras became widely available for this very reason....

The JP

What the judgment actually considers...

...is two things:

A. Can you use CCTV to record criminal activity? The answer is probably yes. However, this isn't really what the judgment is about.

B. If you as a private individual place a CCTV camera on your house, and it records a public space, are you subject to the full weight of data protection law? The answer to this is a definite yes. So you need to put up signage, register with your local data protection authority, ensure appropriate security measures etc etc

You may (or may not) think this is a good idea. However, similar reasoning is likely to apply to other technology, e.g. Google Glass, social media etc. meaning that many private individuals are treated as businesses when it comes to complying with data protection law. In the UK, the Information Commissioner has stuck his head in the sand on this issue and I expect it to remain firmly embedded there for the foreseeable future.