* Posts by ratfox

3721 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Sep 2007

Google QUIC-ly left privacy behind in its quest for a speedier internet, boffins find

ratfox
Stop

As noted above, this doesn't help Google to spy on you; rather it helps your government and your ISP to spy on you. It's not even in Google's interest, because it helps their competition — and indeed, Google is usually all interested in making your connection secure with DNS-over-HTTPS, because it screws ISPs.

IBM cloud tries to subvert subscriptions with pricing plan that stretches some discounts

ratfox

Re: This kind of makes the financial motivation of moving to the cloud moot

But at least, if you go over usual capacity, you just pay more instead of everything crashing around you!

Google allows 15 more nations to offer gambling in the Play store

ratfox

They don't care.... they just want their commission. So irresponsible

From the article itself: "Google won’t take a cut because such apps must be free, and Google Play In-app Billing is forbidden to developers of such apps."

Google's Alphabet sticks a pin in its Loon internet broadband service

ratfox
Angel

Re: Google abandons a project?

They kept that one a lot longer than other services that had more users. Rule of Cool, I guess.

We'd rather go down in Down Under, says Google: Search biz threatens to quit Australia if forced to pay for news

ratfox

The law says Google are not allowed to stop indexing news sites; and news sites want to be indexed (and get traffic from Google... plus some cash, ta).

Epic Games files competition lawsuit against Google in the UK over Fortnite's ejection from Play Store

ratfox

Looks difficult

They might have more chances with Apple, which restricts the ability of users to install apps from anywhere else... But it's not that hard to sideload on Android. And yes, this is not possible with the default config, but the security argument of not letting people install anything they want by default unless they are at least able to uncheck the right box in the settings is not completely devoid of common sense.

The 30% cut does seem too much. Maybe it should be mandatory to have at least three app stores installed by default on every phone, to add a bit more competition?

That's it. It's over. It's really over. From today, Adobe Flash Player no longer works. We're free. We can just leave

ratfox
Pint

Re: Amen....

This deserves a beer for optimism!

Facial recog biz denies its software identified 'antifa members' among mob that stormed Capitol Hill

ratfox
Angel

Re: The main problem with trying to spot antifa members...

Logic does not necessarily have to go into it. Even the Jamiroquai guy who posed on the podium of the Senate, who is a well-known and identified person openly advocating for Trump, has been claimed to be an actor on the basis of him showing up once at a climate change event.

On a related note, Jamiroquai has been trending on Google

US backs down from slapping import taxes on French goods over Macron's web giant tax

ratfox

Arguably, it makes sense to let small companies pay tax in a single jurisdiction when it would be too costly for them to declare tax in multiple countries... But when anyway the corporation controls offices in every country of the world, and is paying tax there, much of this argument falls. I'm not entirely sure whether this was foreseen by the politicians who wrote the laws, or whether this was an unintended consequence. The world is often more complicated than we think, though; and when corporations can save billions in tax by changing the way they operate, it's no wonder that they try.

Amazon Web Services launches appeal after losing $12m AWS trademark war in China to local biz Actionsoft

ratfox

On that basis, I take it you think that Zoom invented video meetings...

I'm not talking of popularity. Zoom is not particularly advanced compared to what already existed; it was just a bit easier to use for people who where trying to videoconference for the first time.

ratfox
Windows

Yes and no. There is almost no comparison possible between what Amazon has created and the services that existed before them. It's quite similar to how there were search engines before Google, and smartphones before Apple made the iPhone, but what they created was so much more advanced than anything that existed before that they might have well have invented it.

UK competition watchdog calls for views on Nvidia's prospective $40bn acquisition of Brit chip designer Arm

ratfox
Mushroom

I'm not sure why regulators are even examining this

The answer should be not only no, but hell no. This goes for American regulators as well. What's that lawsuit about Facebook buying WhatsApp, and now they intend to let this happen??

Amazon turns Victorian industrialist with $2bn building project to house workers near new headquarters

ratfox
Go

"quasi-Socialist"

Hey, if you don't like the government elected by your fellow citizens, you're free to fuck off.

If you're a WhatsApp user, you'll have to share your personal data with Facebook's empire from next month – or stop using the chat app

ratfox

That's a bold strategy

Interesting move when you are being under scrutiny by the US government.

U-U-turn: New York Stock Exchange backtracks on previous backtrack, will de-list China's biggest telcos after all

ratfox
Joke

Why not a W-turn?

Or should that be an O-turn? In any case, they can keep going for a while, the Kannada script offers a lot of solutions, like the ೞೂ-turn.

Trump administration bans eight Chinese apps

ratfox
Paris Hilton

As the ban takes effect 45 days from the signing of the executive order, that’s a problem the incoming Biden Administration gets to solve.

More likely, that's a problem they can void entirely by signing an opposite statement, no?

At historic Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google CEOs hearing, congressmen ramble, congresswomen home in on tech market abuse

ratfox
Angel

Re: Only Jeff bothered to find an interesting room for the video-chat hearing ...

Looks like preconceived opinions are more important than actually reading the article

Irony isn't dead... Facebook sues EU on data privacy grounds for requesting too much personal data

ratfox
Paris Hilton

I'm sure Google isn't hurting much about the €600k fine, but... How does that work? The ECJ ordered Google to examine requests for delisting, and now Google gets fined every time the regulators thinks it didn't take the right decision?

I thought the regulators had outsourced their job of handling privacy requests to Google, but I hadn't realized they would also make Google pay for the privilege...

Google allowed to remember search results to news articles it was asked to forget. Good

ratfox

Re: Suing the wrong party

The recording industry is fighting millions of individuals each looking for a personal gain. This would be against a handful of websites that probably don't care that much.

ratfox
Unhappy

Re: Why I love the Right to be Forgotten

In this case, I think that a stronger law should be used to completely take down the pages, and possibly go after the ex-boyfriend. The RTBF is made for removing results on old stories that no one cares about; it would be relatively powerless against a deliberate character assassination strategy.

'First ever' snap emerges of something vaguely resembling our solar system 300 ly away. We'll take 10 tickets

ratfox
Headmaster

Re: Are those numbers right???

Gravity goes on forever, in theory.

Well actually, gravity does not transmit faster than the speed of light; so it stops at the Hubble horizon!

My life as a criminal cookie clearer: Register vulture writes Chrome extension, realizes it probably breaks US law

ratfox

Re: My computer, my rules.

Some websites refuse to show you articles if you are incognito, though. In principle, it should be impossible to know that you're in incognito mode, but preventing detection is an arm race between browsers and websites...

Microsoft accused of sharing data of Office 365 business subscribers with Facebook and its app devs

ratfox
Paris Hilton

Wait. The claim is that by default, unless you turn off an option somewhere in some disused-leopard-lavatory settings screen, Microsoft sends the email address of its paying customers to Facebook? If it's true, wow. Just wow.

Apple and Google, take note: Newly enacted EU law aims to protect developers from arbitrary decisions of tech giants

ratfox

Re: Well let me tell you a story...

As mentioned by the article, apps are usually kicked out because the AI thought it was doing something illegal or dangerous. Of course it's often a false positive, but they are not going to wait to kick out illegal stuff.

USA ends Hong Kong's special treatment, crimping flow of tech to territory

ratfox
Meh

There's no such thing as international law. At best, there's international peer pressure.

A match made in SEV-en: Google touts Confidential VMs using AMD's Epyc on-the-fly memory encryption

ratfox
Paris Hilton

I would have thought that if you are willing to let your code run on somebody's cloud, you are fine with the basic promise that only your program can read your data (at least, I'm assuming that Google is promising this with or without this encryption). Ultimately, you have to trust Google are not lying to you and that they know what they are doing, because I don't see how you can get proof that your program is really running on the encrypted machine and not any old random server.

So Darned Kind of you, Facebook: SDK bug sends popular iOS apps crashing earthwards

ratfox
Mushroom

Should have bought an Android. OH BURN!

FYI: You do all know that America's tech giants, even Google, supply IT to the US military, right?

ratfox
Happy

Re: Aid and comfort?

If the Navy and the FBI is using GSuite, does that count as Google helping, or sabotaging the US military?

Linux kernel coders propose inclusive terminology coding guidelines, note: 'Arguments about why people should not be offended do not scale'

ratfox
Boffin

Re: Loaded words replaced by euphemisms

That concept was in the English language a thousand or more years before anyone English encountered a black person

Er, no. Black people were known in Europe since before English language existed. Vikings were actually known for traveling a lot and bringing back prisoners, e.g:

"In 862 AD the Annals of Ireland record the landing of black slaves [...] by Vikings returning from raids on Spain and North Africa."

Consumer orgs ask world's competition watchdogs: Are you really going to let Google walk off with all Fitbit's data?

ratfox
Paris Hilton

Does FitBit data even register compared to how much data Google already has? There's way more Android phones than fitbits...

The incumbent President of the United States of America ran now-banned Facebook ads loaded with Nazi references

ratfox
Happy

Re: Pro Tip...Again

I downvoted your second post, and I wouldn't normally have bothered to say why I disagreed; but I'll make an exception this time: Downvoting is a fast and easy way to say I disagree, but I don't see the need to explain every single time the details of my opinion and how it differs from yours. The voting system is a useful way to measure sentiment for and against posts, but second-guessing the meaning and value of each vote is at best a waste of time, and at worst masturbatory.

Feel free to downvote my post without replying to it.

ratfox
Devil

Waiting for the Trump campaign to claim they were using it as a symbol of family planning.

iPadOS 14: Apple's attempt to pry fondleslab from toddlers' mitts and make it more businesslike

ratfox

Why not give the choice to people?

I find it annoying when designers decide they know better than you how you should use their product and what for. In general, this happens by removing features which I find useful, and adding others which make no sense to me.

Admittedly, listening to users often results in designing a faster horse rather than a car; and Apple has had some success in designing products that were hugely successful even though nobody had asked for them. But they've been burnt a few times as well.

Step on it, I've got the police on my hack: Anon swipes, leaks online 269GB of crime intel docs from cops, Feds

ratfox
Happy

Nice

These documents would or should be available with a Freedom of Information request anyway, but this saves a lot of time

Facebook accused of trying to bypass GDPR, slurp domain owners' personal Whois info via an obscure process

ratfox
Trollface

"That’s not the answer that’s going to work for us."

Sucks to have to obey the laws, doesn't it?

Couple wrongly arrested over Gatwick Airport drone debacle score £200k payout from cops

ratfox

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. — Henry VI, part 2, act 4, scene 2.

EU aviation wonks give all-electric training aeroplane the green light – but noob pilots only have 50 mins before they have to land it

ratfox

It's good that this is becoming possible, but what I'm wondering is if it will open new possibilities. Electric engines are more versatile than gas ones; for instance it's not a problem at all to cut the engine and restart it later. Could this enable hybrid plane-gliders that would glide as much as possible, and only restart the engine when needed?

One thing that has struck me is how remote-controlled drones are almost always quadcopters, instead of looking like regular helicopters. If you take away some constraints, suddenly you have a lot more possibilities and you find different solutions. I hope that electric planes could bring some fresh designs.

City of London Corporation explores options to escape Oracle's clutches

ratfox
Go

Good luck, they'll need it

Huawei's latest smartphone for the UK market costs £1,299. And yes, that's without Google apps

ratfox
Devil

Re: OTOH

At least with this device (excluding the price) you are free of their snooping.

You wish

City of Los Angeles sued for tracking rental scooter rides – that's the rideshare company's job says EFF and ACLU

ratfox

I guess from the city's point of view, they're tracking the position of the scooters, not the users... I think that the city has a legitimate interest in knowing what type of trips are made, if only to optimise traffic, possibly add new bus lines, etc. Of course, it might be wishful thinking to imagine something useful is done with this data, rather than just letting it sit in an unsecured AWS storage. The city has a better chance of winning the lawsuit if they demonstrate that the data is actively used for legitimate purpose, rather than just Silicon Valley-style data hoarding "because we can".

25 years of PHP: The personal web tools that ended up everywhere

ratfox

I think this excerpt from Rasmus himself pretty much encapsulates how PHP was designed:

Well, there were other factors in play there. htmlspecialchars was a very early function. Back when PHP had less than 100 functions and the function hashing mechanism was strlen(). In order to get a nice hash distribution of function names across the various function name lengths names were picked specifically to make them fit into a specific length bucket. This was circa late 1994 when PHP was a tool just for my own personal use and I wasn't too worried about not being able to remember the few function names.

https://news-web.php.net/php.internals/70691

BoJo looks to jumpstart UK economy with £6k taxpayer-funded incentive for Brits to buy electric cars – report

ratfox
Paris Hilton

That's sure to jump start Tesla sales...

Are there any UK manufacturers of electric cars?

Moore's Law is deader than corduroy bell bottoms. But with a bit of smart coding it's not the end of the road

ratfox
Pint

The authors stress the need for hardware makers to focus on less rather than Moore.

*clap clap clap*

Google India says Play store policy, not geopolitics, behind removal of Chinese-app-deleting app

ratfox

Re: Tiktok versus mitron: What a crock

Mitron seems to be back.

This makes sense. If an app just shows videos, it matters little that the app resembles another, as long as it does not show the same videos.

Amazon declined to sell a book so Elon Musk called for it to be broken up

ratfox

Re: Oh Elon - where did you lose your way?

I think he's never been extremely stable, and often he's said stuff that were downright stupid. He's just currently ranting on a particularly bad subject, because his precious Tesla factory in California got impacted by the shutdowns, so he's yapping at the mainstream Covid response.

For a guy who has admittedly accomplished quite a lot, he does seem to have a rather fragile ego. I'm not sure whether he thinks giving his kid a stupid name is a proof of his genius or originality...?

ratfox
Headmaster

We would not have this problem if the word had been properly formed as podometer from two Greek roots, rather than as pedometer from a mix of Latin and Greek!

Legal complaint lodged with UK data watchdog over claims coronavirus Test and Trace programme flouts GDPR

ratfox
Paris Hilton

GDPR?

I thought Brexit had happened?

'5G for Five Eyes!' US senator tells Parliamentarians the world would be better without Huawei

ratfox
Go

Do it! Chicken.

I'm betting that the proposition to restrict the sale of F35 is reaaally popular with the other part of the government which is trying to sell as many of the birds as possible... And that a lot of people in UK are hoping this will happen.

Watchdog slams Pentagon for failing – for a third time – to migrate US military to IPv6

ratfox
Angel

I appreciate the fact that all of these steps that the Pentagon were supposed to accomplish are preparatory. As in "scope the project". The hard part of actually doing it, ah well, miracles require a delay.

Trump issues toothless exec order to show donors, fans he's doing something about those Twitter twerps

ratfox
Happy

Re: Trumpetsters Trumpet Drumpfs Lumps

It's a spell to make you very small. You can also take a potion labeled "Drink me"