Posts by Nick Palmer
275 posts • joined Wednesday 28th February 2007 09:47 GMT
Posted in Mike O'Brien becomes NHS IT minister
One almost feels sorry for the guy.
The words "chalice" and "poisoned" leap all unbidden to mind...
IT? because they can't seem to work out where it is either...
Posted in Wikipedia bans Church of Scientology
So, CoS are banned...
...on the basis that they're a deceptive and dangerous cult, with a willingness to practice deception, retcon their own history, indulge in self-serving edits, exploit the unwary and pass off a load of twaddle as facts. And this is WIKIPEDIA banning them for this...??? Oh, the irony...
PH because she's dedicated to stopping people self-serving....
Distributed Denial of...
...Scumbags? Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice...
OK, correct me if I'm wrong...
...and I'm sure you will because this is the Reg comments we're talking about, but isn't their argument in both this and the pandemic stuff broadly akin to "You should let us shaft you now, because that way it'll hurt less when we do it later"?
PH, since I'm calling her as an expert witness...
This kind of thing...
...is what really REALLY brings on the descending red mist as far as I'm concerned; it's that blithe unconcern and o'erweening arrogance that says that even when the highest court in Europe and our own legislature are telling them that they've overstepped the mark, that they're abusing their own citizens, that the sort of massive and unwarranted surveillance that they're implementing is completely wrong, THEY STILL KNOW BEST. That, and if I hear the phrase "We must strike a balance between..." one more time, just once more, THERE WILL BE BLOOD. I utterly fucking despise the phrase, and anyone who uses it; it's mere weaselling to excuse the further erosion of our rights. Our rights aren't a "balance"; they should be an absolute whose abrogation should only ever occur subject to cause being shown for it that would be sufficient to satisfy a judge or upon actual conviction of an offence. And that should be the case for everyone, even the people we don't necessarily like very much, because if that protection doesn't extend to everyone, then it doesn't protect anyone.
Good story...
...stupid company. Thumbs! Down! For! Yahoo!
Posted in NebuAd knocks at death's door
Plus one for...
...the nuclear option. Plus for chucking the whole of the ICO, Home Office (and especially Wacqui Jacqui), CLP and Ofcom in there with 'em, the useless overpaid effete ineffectual negligent incompetent mendacious corrupt WANKERS. Surely the fact that a company that's going into meltdown in the US because it can't get past their laughably "austere" (thanks, Eurofighter...) privacy laws chooses to set up shop here instead ought to give them SOME sort of fucking clue that they've screwed up.
Also worth noting...
...that quite a few hosted Exchange providers will provide you with Sharepoint space as well (in the case of mine, FOC). Good article, loved the "storage card".
Sounds really useful
But I can see it getting quite complicated quite quickly; presumably different sources will have to be assigned a weighting in determining where one is, and that kind of thing.
@Geoff Mackenzie
That's a nonsensical statement; if you were to send me an email with a virused attachment and my AV software caught it and cleaned it, would it have got to my machine? Yes. Would you have "pwned " my machine? Would you bollocks. Security works best in layers. In an ideal world, would the malware never have got as far as the machines in question? Certainly. Given that it's not an ideal world, however, does the fact that it was caught at the machines mean that they were "pwned"? No. It means that they were caught by one layer of security, albeit later than one would ideally like.
"Four in five Parliamentary machines...
...pwned in last year"?
Come on, that's NOT what it says at all. 86% have been attacked and 78% were successfully defended automatically by their existing security measures; a long way off perfect, sure, but way WAY off what your sub-heading implies.
As far as use of encryption's concerned, I'd have thought PGP was something of a red herring; better to start with ensuring that all internal traffic is encrypted and use policy-based NAC to ensure that only authorised devices, and even then only authorised devices that meet minimum security requirements can connect in to the network. THEN you can worry about PGP or whatever.
All that said, it's still a huge leap from what's reported to "4 out of 5 machines pwned". Must try harder.
@Dominic Tristram
Bravo, sir, and I'm with you 100%.
@Tathan Jones
On the offchance that you're serious, V wore a Guy Fawkes mask.
*cough*
"but Thomson told the FT ominously that the sum would be "rightfully high.""
So...not-so-micro-payments then. Fail.
NB: Need WSJ tombstone alongside Reg one.
Eh?
"investing in broadband upgrades." in VM's case appears to consist of trumpeting ever higher headline speeds whilst imposing increasingly onerous traffic management on the people trying to use them...
Subheading should surely read...
"Good news for mustachioed Ferrari borrowers"
/coat
And they thought...
...the new administration'd be softies, eh? You have to admit, it's the hard-assed way to quell any possible comments about not taking security seriously! Black helicopter, cause that's the only way I'm travelling anywhere near there in future...
Posted in Meet Phorm's PR genius
*Ahem*
"Patrick does not claim credit for launching Stopphoulplay but wholeheartedly supports the initiative." AND HE SHOULD ENJOY OUR VOCAL AND UNEQUIVOCAL SUPPORT WHILE HE DOES SO! Let's face it, if he's such a champion of something which involves Ertegrul's merry men happily and hyperbolically shooting themselves in the arse, we should be all for it...
Posted in Fujitsu LifeBook P8020
Words like...
...ugly, boring and overpriced leap to mind all unbidden...
SPLORF
""Is that a Firefox problem or just what you get when you buy Apple?" before adding helpfully, "You can always load Linux on that box when Apple stops supporting it.""
Veditz, you bastard! New keyboard and monitor! Now! *choke*! *giggle*!
Evil Stevil on general principles...
Posted in Windows 7 gets built in XP mode
@tony72 - VirtualBox...
...is very good; I've used it to access USB storage devices at least, and that seems to be handled OK.
Posted in UK agent leaves secret drugs info on bus
@AC "It's no surprise that "
Absolutely; they wouldn't screw you over by accident; no, sir, they'd betray their entire country and cause hundreds (if not many more) deaths on purpose...or have white male Oxbridge grads like Burgess, Blunt, Philby, McClean and Cairncross been forgotten. Of course, we should completely discount the contributions of, say, people like Violette Szabo or Odette Sansom who were neither male nor Oxbridge. Wanker.
OK, Lewis...
...I know you're still highly sceptical about the F35-B, but if the report's accurate, that's got to be good news.
As much...
...as I concur with PI's view that the ICO has signally failed in its duties, this really is the most pointlessly stupid cause to champion; it sounds more to me as though they're trading credibility for headlines. They're right that the ICO has not merely failed, but not even attempted to succeed. However, there are enough genuine privacy threats without harping on about this nonsense.
Posted in Spy chiefs size up net snoop gear
Repetition don't make it so
Anyone else noticed how this mob repeatedly stress the word "lawful" as though just saying it often enough'll make it so?
Posted in iPhone beta OS cracks before release
Stolen?
"but most need to put bread on the table and won't support a community whose primary motivation is the use of stolen software. "
Easy, tiger - "bought from somewhere other than Apple's approved AppStore" != stolen, you know. Perhaps you need to back off on the Kupertino Kool-Aid. Evil Stevil for obvious reasons.
Posted in Wikimedia becomes latest to ban Phorm
For once...
...they've done something reasonable - big hand for the Wikians
Posted in BOFH: Grand Theft Auto
Symantec reseller?
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Actually their board of directors would have been more to the point, but still, a good effort!
*Ahem*
"meaning that the whole mighty power of their engines could be used by electrical weapon systems on occasion (at the cost of briefly losing propulsion)."
Believe I've see this one already - "Excalibur", think it was - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade_(TV_series)
@AC
OK, that's what YOU want from a netbook, but not everyone wants the same thing. I couldn't really care less about 3G and the 10" screen's a bit too big for me - I prefer the 8.9" screen, since it makes the machines about as compact as the original 7" Eee, but has the same 1024x600 display as the 10" machines.
When you look at it hard enough
IBM doesn't need MySQL - it has DB2. It doesn't need Solaris - there are other Unices which are at least as good. It doesn't need the hardware side, 'cause IBM know how to flog posh iron. That kind of just leaves Java. Not feeling the value there, somehow...
IT? Although really it's more of a "Where's The <Anything> Angle?" from Big Blue's point of view...
So...
...the approach is that there's no scientific evidence of a problem, so we're going to halve the budget for finding actual evidence and use it to support a publicity campaign predicated on the hypotheses for which we haven't been able to find any supporting evidence, despite spending millions looking for it, as well as banning the equipment that we haven't been able to implicate in anything harmful, despite trying our damnedest....
hang on a minute, go with me here...
I haven't got any actual EVIDENCE that Jacqui Smith's been involved in producing crush videos and kiddie porn, but on the basis that there's a risk that she MIGHT be...
Posted in Photocops: Home Office concedes concern
@ Ted Green
In case you didn't read the article properly, the particular searches referred to were being carried out under S1 of PACE which was passed in (appropriately enough) 1984 under the Tories.
Posted in Asus Eee Linux-based Skype Videophone
Sod the phone...
...I think beach girl may just have been supplanted in the affections of a sizeable portion of the Reg's Eee-perving readership...
Seriously, though, it does look fun - shame it can't be either cheaper or more functional; either would do.
Yay!
I can (continue to) has cheezburger!
Well...
...that's my ski-boxing sorted...
*facepalm*
You know, initially I thought this must be just the latest variant of that weird seizure disorder that afflicts the public sector when they get hold of a computer with sensitive data on it; you know, the one that renders them completely unable to keep hold of it, wipe it, find it or stop blabbing about it to other departments. Then I realised, it was an Information Sharing Order, it's just that the recipient part of the form was blank, so the ****wits thought that meant the ENTIRE BLOODY WORLD...
Seriously, DBAN. It's not hard FFS and it's free.
You no can has title
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-03-16/
Robo-carp?
I see El Reg's pun development department isn't flounder-ing; it's stilled perch-ed at the top of the pile, wrass-ling humour from the most unlikely sources...
Mine's the one with the trout in its pocket...
Posted in Government flags ID cost increase
"not a strong enough...
...counter-voice from the government about the benefits"
Well, you hardly need one if you stifle opposition, curtail any discussion and ignore any evidence that calls this disgusting scheme exactly what it is, do you?
Posted in Ingram ups small biz credit
More power to 'em
Seriously, it beggars belief that it's a distie like Ingram that's stepping up and making additional credit available, when the banks who are being subbed incredible amounts of money to do the same are either sitting on it or paying inflated bonuses with it.
Posted in Tiscali shares suspended on titsup fears
Another Nildram user
We've been using Nildram to provide ADSL to our remote sites for years now, and while it's true that there was a bit of decline after Tiscali took over, more recently they've been great, very reliable and easy to talk to. Fingers crossed they get bought by a decent outfit.
Posted in BOFH: Aspie no questions
"A title is required." is it?
"It's more of a sliding scale"???? ROFL! Awesome!
Posted in Watchdog mauls billboard sex ads
@nobby
"Can you imagine, if you just got Hugh Laurie's voice-over on a TV add for a prescription medicine,..."
Well, on the bright side, whatever was wrong there'd be a cast-iron guarantee that it wouldn't be lupus...
Posted in BT Granite slimline DECT cordless phone
"Fortunately, ...
....a monochrome picture's been placed in the battery bay to ensure you fix the red wire at the right end."
ROFL! A truly inspired Motty-ism ("For those watching in black and white, Spurs are in the yellow shirts.")! Well done, sir!
@Duh...
What do you think makes more money - a generic charger, using an industry standard connector that any company can produce and get certified, or a proprietary one using a non-standard connector that the manufacturer of the phone has to grant a license to produce (or better yet, just makes them themselves), and voids the warranty if a third-party one is used? Especially if the latter costs no more to produce than the former?
Personally...
...I'm more interested in the revamped Touch Pro 2 and Diamond 2 that are on show on the HTC website; they look, frankly, awesome.
*sigh*
"The Pro 2’s screen also has the advantage of being able to tilt Xpedia X1-fashion."
Never mind the spelling fail, I think you mean "TyTN II-fashion", which, oddly enough, has been doing this for a while now...
@Stuart Van Onselen
As regards point 3, there was a pretty good novel about that sort of thing called "To Kill The Potemkin" set during the late '60s IIRC.
