* Posts by Mage

9252 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Nov 2007

UK taxman falls foul of GDPR, agrees to wipe 5 million voice recordings used to make biometric IDs

Mage Silver badge
Devil

Now the other voice collectors:

Alphabetically

Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft

Probably many others.

Also repeat after me, BIOMETRICS should NEVER be used as security. They are like a name tag, except you can change your name by deed pole (rules vary by Country) but you can't easily change your voice, fingerprints, retina, face, blood vessels etc.

Thank you, your DNA data will help secure your… oh dear, we've lost that too

Mage Silver badge
Coffee/keyboard

Re: Hotel Security

Because it's stupid.

What if you are visiting a friend or colleague also staying at hotel?

Not another pro-Brexit demo... though easy to confuse: Each Union Jack marks a pile of poo

Mage Silver badge

Re: And a variant...

Sit, unless you can do a hole in one every time at Golf.

High Court confirms the way UK banned GSM gateways was illegal

Mage Silver badge
Big Brother

Even if it makes it harder to track Criminals and Terrorists:

You can't take away commercial, civil, privacy or other rights just because they are inconvenient to state security organisations. They have to keep the law.

Also even where there is a "right to snoop" the agencies should need a specific court order against an individual, with due cause. No fishing expeditions or entrapment. It's a democracy, not a dictatorship or evil regime.

Surprising absolutely no one at all, Samsung's folding-screen phones knackered within days

Mage Silver badge
Devil

Re: USPTO

Another example of a totally speculative un-original idea being approved by USPTO as that's how they make money and the philosophy is to keep lawyers employed, the procedure is to bring a court case.

So the system doesn't encourage innovation or give inventors a head start. It rewards corporates that spend a fortune on patents rather than real R & D (Research, then develop a product), Stifles innovation and locks out small companies.

Mage Silver badge

Re: 70" TV that can be scaled down so you can take it on holiday

A projector?

Mind a small one is VERY dim at 70".

Also with now 42" 4K smart TVs cheap, why can't I get a decent projector with motorised 3:1 zoom for same price. Need not be 4K, but better than 1920 x 1080 would be good.

Mage Silver badge
Boffin

Re: 'variable size screen' for TV

It's called a video projector with a zoom lens. Ideally a motorised projection screen with a motorised Matte frame too.

Mage Silver badge

Re: Rollable screen

Earth Final Conflict.

Also a real sort of roll up Philips phone using an eink type of display. Perhaps not one of Philips better ideas. Tech sold to someone Asian, then Amazon bought and buried it. It's not used in the Kindle.

Sony also had a roll up eink. Mysteriously not used for rolling up, though the Sony Digital Paper (for PDFs, not ebooks) is reputed to be plastic.

In theory AMOLED (which are really electroluminescent dots, not true LEDs) can be pretty flexible. The unsolved issue is suitably flexible wiring. Millions of nano sized strands in Litz type cables?

Facebook: Yeah, we hoovered up 1.5 million email address books without permission. But it was an accident!

Mage Silver badge

Re: "Please, pardon us as it looks we don't know we're doing what we actually do"

Wasn't proven that that they have been doing this for ages on phones, of EVERY user of ANY Facebook family app, not just facebook.

Bridge etc anyone thinks it's only 1.5M or an accident.

Fines work out at cents per user. Should be an additional $100 / £100 / €100 per user on top of the fine, paid to users. Home Office, Microsoft (inc LinkedIn pressure), Google, Facebook, etc.

Server at web host 1&1 Ionos decides to take unscheduled day off, sinks a bunch of sites

Mage Silver badge

Ionos UK

It does seem to be only the UK division in the last while that's been having problems. I wonder have they lost some experts lately?

Why Qualcomm won – and why Tim Cook had to eat humble Apple pie

Mage Silver badge

Sad

Very sad.

You're not our FRAND any more, Apple tells Qualcomm: iGiant and pals lob $30bn sueball

Mage Silver badge

Re:Qualcomm singlehandedly created 2G

Only the inferior USA kind, later called CDMA-one for data. They recycled ideas going back to 1930s (NOT Heidi Lamar) and used by Racal and others in Military Equipment.

Qualcomm did a lot on CDMA, the rubbish USA "2G", inferior to GSM. They got the worst bit (CDMA mechanism) included in 3G, making 3G less reliable than GSM. It was an already obsolete idea and disproportionately slows 3G as more users are added and shrinks cell range. The 3G used 5MHz channels. USA CDMA/CDMA-1 used 1MHz channels. GSM uses 200kHz channels, but can bond time slots in those or use multiple channels. LTE uses loads of multiple "channels" in the overall 5MHz, 10MHz or 20MHz channel, thus it's OFDMA like Flash-OFDMA and Wimax and related to how DAB and DTT (outside USA) works.

We'd have been better off without Qualcomm and some others in the 3G "patent pool". Politics. Then Qualcomm bought and buried companies like Flarion to ensure leverage and power in the 4G patent pool. I'm no Apple fan, but time someone stood up to Qualcomm's manipulation of patents.

Mage Silver badge
Devil

Re: Dumb questoin.....

They are trollish. They buy a lot of small companies to monetise the patents and bury the products. It will be bad if they get NXP.

They double dip. They want a % of the product price. Not just content to sell the chips. With other chip makers and companies developing chips (Texas, Intel, Analog Devices, Microchip etc) selling the chips is the aim.

With Qualcomm the aim is to licence, the chips aid that end and provide leverage.

Google Fiber experiment ends with Choc Factory paying Louisville $3.8m to clean up its mess

Mage Silver badge

Re: 'disruptive internet company'

Disruptive Advertising company.

Either Facebook is building yet another massive bit barn in Iowa, and doesn't want you to know about it....

Mage Silver badge

Re: every data centre job, there were five jobs supported elsewhere in the economy

Pizza, taxis, coffee

All at what cost to Facebooks's product, the people that provide content for the adverts to go on.

As to how real Facebook's claims to the advertisers are?

A quick cup of coffee leaves production manager in fits and a cleaner in tears

Mage Silver badge
Coat

Re: So...

The first AS/400 I saw was about the size of three filing cabinets. The last AS/400 computers I saw looked like an ordinary "desktop" towers, except they were on the floor. Only lucky ones were plugged into a UPS.

It is but 'LTE with new shoes': Industry bod points a judgy finger at the US and Korea's 5G fakery

Mage Silver badge

Wimax?

It and Flash-OFDMA were doomed, but they are 4G, just not LTE 4G.

However most marketing and press about so called "5G" is hype. It's not even about the speed and capacity unless it's one of the new bands above 5GHz, which are only good for stadiums, auditoriums, open plan offices etc. Even most of the 4G marketing of speed is totally misleading, and in the same size channels there isn't much difference. Channel aggregation only works if few people are using the network and the signals are good. Adding more masts adds capacity and thus speed.

User secures floppies to a filing cabinet with a magnet, but at least they backed up daily... right?

Mage Silver badge
FAIL

Re: and cloud storage for all their work

Cloud: Someone else's server you are renting with unknown security, unknown backups, unknown privacy from the Cloud operator and needs a massively fast & reliable broadband connection?

No, Cloud is for temporary collaboration and customer facing web sites (but not the databases). If you are big and distributed, then use co-location of your own servers in the "Cloud" operator datacentre. The Cloud isn't suitable for core systems and internal information. That's retro, going back to 1960s timesharing and an big obnoxious company having control/management of your data.

See "No Silver Lining" as to one future Cloud scenario.

Motion detectors: say hello, wave goodbye and… flushhhhhh

Mage Silver badge
Coffee/keyboard

Strange Toilets

Also why does the spring loaded main door usually open INWARDS, thusly you have to grasp the vertical rod that other people with unwashed hands have groped?

I'm tempted to avoid trips where at some stage I might have to use the loo. Check a restaurant toilet BEFORE you order. Hygiene is maybe more important than menu or culinary skill?

Menu mischief and interface deceit targeted by US lawmakers

Mage Silver badge
Joke

I'm amazed!

It's a little worrying that the US lawmakers care. What is it a smokescreen for?

As Alexa's secret human army is revealed, we ask: Who else has been listening in on you?

Mage Silver badge

Simple, don't connect "smart TVs" to web (use a tablet/netbook/phone/laptop to stream, not a "stick"), don't buy any gadget with a microphone, especially so called "smart speakers", except laptop/tablet/phone.

Try and set suitable security on things that HAVE to have a microphone. Why is it enabled by default on most web browsers?

Don't have any toy that needs the Internet.

We know that big tech is about as honest, transparent and moral as your local drug dealer and quite like security agencies in behaviour.

Uncle Sam charges Julian Assange with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion

Mage Silver badge
Alert

Re: Is this the best that the USA can come up with ?

Bagged ready-to-eat salad is easily avoided even if you are a Vegan or vegetarian. It's nasty, not as fresh, higher risk as well as expensive compared to regular salad vegetables. In countries with chlorinated chicken the alternative chicken is more expensive and harder to find. USA also has a much poorer track record over animal conditions and food safety.

Mage Silver badge
Big Brother

USA

Certainly no-one should be extradited anywhere for practising Journalism.

However why did he break bail and refuse to answer the Swedish charges? They would not have extradited him to USA on a dubious charge nor was it anything about journalism.

He's a coward and narcissist for spending seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy.

London's Metropolitan Police arrest Julian Assange

Mage Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: hear Assange's side of the story

We have, endlessly.

Mage Silver badge
Coat

Sweden vs UK Poodle

He shouldn't have skipped bail. Sweden would never have extradited him. The truth is that *then* the only risk was facing the Swedish allegations. Back then the US had asked for no extradition, which is hugely easier from the UK to USA than from Sweden.

Apple disables iPad for 48 years after toddler runs amok

Mage Silver badge

Re: Emojis?

You always could:

West:)and-East^_^

Amazon woes and wins, IBM thinks it's solved employee happiness and Duplex phony phone calls everywhere!

Mage Silver badge
Coffee/keyboard

Re: it really understands what is said

You forgot the joke icon.

Sometimes humans understand other humans. Machines never do. No matter how cleverly programmed and trained (by humans).

Mage Silver badge
Devil

Duplex: Google doesn’t seem bothered

Well, an advertising company harvesting private information wouldn't.

"and has instead allowed people to opt out of receiving calls from Duplex instead."

So WRONG. The default should be opted out, people should have to opt in. How on earth would opting out work anyway? You'd have have to give Google info, log in and do that on an Google account. Ah, that's why it's allowed by default.

Reminds me of USA CAN-SPAM and the fact that USA Robo callers and cold callers might sometimes get fined but little is collected.

This will also be a boon to those "offering support for windows" via phone. They won't have to employ probably unsuspecting Indian Call centre staff. The last one of those I got had a spoofed Caller ID in Iceland!

Mage Silver badge
Alert

Alexa can talk to you about your health privately

I seriously doubt it.

Plasma bubbles 500 times the size of earth, ultra-hot rain - let's face it, the Sun's not a place to hang out nearby

Mage Silver badge
Flame

Re: " radiating is just as easy in vacuum as it is elsewhere"

Indeed it's the only way in a vacuum. Car radiators, fridge & Freezer radiators, household radiators are, to the pedant, misnamed. They are transferring heat by conduction to the atmosphere, aided by either convection of the heated air or a forced airflow.

I was using radiate in the casual "wrong" everyday sense. A "radiator panel" on spacecraft will work very poorly as it can only radiate electromagnetic waves. A laser or Magnetron works better, but a lamp filament is maybe more efficient way to dump electrical energy considering the total system.

Mage Silver badge
Alien

Re: A (mostly) serious question

The problems INCLUDE the efficiency of the laser and the heat engine. A hot resistor or filament lamp in front of a mirror on the craft, but shaded from the sun will be more efficient at radiating energy than a laser and its electronics. Also dark side has a problem for the heat engine. That needs to radiate heat to stay cool, that's very difficult in a vacuum.

I'm not sure the cooling problems for spaceships has any simple solution.

As the UK updates its .eu Brexit advice yet again, an alternative hovers into view

Mage Silver badge
Coat

Re: five UK countries

Only N.I., England, Scotland and Wales are countries of the UK.

Cornwall is now an English Duchy, though was originally not part of England.

Gibraltar, Channel Is, Isle of Man are not part of the UK and never have been. They are territories controlled by the UK. They don't have the same status as Falklands, Cayman Is, Bermuda, Chagos Is, British Virgin Is or other Territories.

I think the change of status of Gibraltar from Colony in 1981 was to aid the removal of British Citizenship from people in Hong Kong.

I don't agree with the Spanish argument, but it's ironic it's fuelled by a change the UK made to Gibraltar to disenfranchise people in Hong Kong. BTW, did the lease run out on Hong Kong Island proper or ONLY on the mainland territories part of the Hong Kong Colony?

Mage Silver badge
Pirate

Pointless

The ".inc" is a non-geographic vanity domain. Anyone registering is wasting their money.

Mage Silver badge
Devil

Re: UK oversenstive

Gibraltar has a special, unique EU relationship. UK called it a colony till 1981. Only the name has changed, not status, it's not IN the UK, unlike Northern Ireland it returns no MPs.

The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands not only are not part of the UK, Gibraltar is not part of the UK either, but unlike Gibraltar which has full EU status, no other UK Crown Colony/Dependency is part of the EU. The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are under something called Protocol Three, which allows them to be in the EU Customs Union and Single Market.

If the UK is serious that Gibraltar isn't a colony, then they should return MPs to Parliament, like Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Cornwall do.

Not only are Cayman Is, Bermuda and other UK Overseas territories not yet implementing EU laws on banking transparency, money laundering and Offshore accounts, but the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are in violation of EU law too. The EU has officially complained about UK tardiness on these laws which the UK agreed. Switzerland has implemented them and isn't even in the EU.

Luxembourg, Dutch and Irish tax and banking are now compliant, or in the process of becoming so. The Irish Corporate Tax Rate is perfectly legal, the problem was Companies not even paying that due to offshoring "royalties" (Starbucks, Microsoft, etc,) or even illegal special deals (Apple).

Is the real reason for the Hard Brexiteers that they want parasitic behaviour to continue in the City of London (which gives UK its 5th ranking) and continued secretive banking, money laundering and Offshore accounts on UK controlled territories that return no MPs to Parliament?

Is the solution to Brexit for some UK Territories (Islands in the West) to get full independence, England to leave UK, and for Isle Of Man, Channel Is. and Gibraltar to join the UK? Downgrade the devolved Assemblies and rotate Parliament every 4 months or so between N.I., Wales, Scotland, Isle of Man, Gibraltar and Channel Is? Or have Parliament in Wales.

Also when will UK give back Cyprus territory and then there is their illegal action in the Indian Ocean?

The UK "bought" Chagos Archipelago, which includes Diego Garcia, from the then self-governing colony of Mauritius for £3 million to create the British Indian Ocean Territory. This was illegal. The Diego Garcia inhabitants were illegally deported.

Hams try to re-carve the amateur radio spectrum in fight over open or encoded transmissions

Mage Silver badge

Re: I operate a dstar repeater

How many USERS can use the Repeater with:

A) A commercial Rig not Icom.

B) A legal homebrew rig

Such a repeater is only really of value to Icom unless it ALWAYS supports any mode of transmission (technically possible on Duplex frequency pairs using linear amplifiers)

Mage Silver badge
Devil

Re: licenced by Ofcom are forbidden

D-Star isn't encryption, but it's a closed, proprietary system used to sell Icom rigs. I can't understand why (a) It has support and (b) Why Comreg and Ofcom allow it and repeaters designed for it. It's inferior to FM and especially SSB for coverage and basically needs an Icom rig or an Icom licensed massively overpriced USB stick.

Mage Silver badge
Alert

Re: "nothing but lose privacy"

Yes, D-Star is just a scam to sell Icom radios. It doesn't even use a particularly good codec. But it's all patented, copyrighted and controlled by Icom.

Amateur radio historically wasn't private and in most countries it was a licence violation to use encrypted Morse or RTTY. Both possible in 1930s.

So two issues are PROPRIETARY modes, codecs, protocols and also ENCRYPTION. There should not be either. Especially in an Emergency situation as that limits those able to help to a rich elite.

No Widevine DRM for you! Developer left with two years of work stymied by Google snub

Mage Silver badge
Devil

Re: excessive copyright duration?

20 or 25 years after creators death, i.e. the creator children. The 75 years is mostly benefiting large corporations and not estates. Corporations that made a huge profit in the 1st 5 years.

If the book,program, magazine, DVD, CD etc is out of print for maybe 5 years, then the copyright should revert to the author(s), or if that's inappropriate, then public domain.

DRM locks content out of public domain forever, except the pirate copies.

Mage Silver badge

Re: DRM and cartels... shocked?

Yes, DRM is all about controlling markets and distribution. It's a lie about it maintaining copyright. Industrial pirates have never much been impacted by DRM. Also DRM is incompatible with innovation and the traditional concepts of copyright. It's even added to content originating in the public domain.

We don't know whether 737 Max MCAS update is coming or Boeing: Anti-stall safety fix delayed

Mage Silver badge
Alert

Re: Neither.

That would be acceptable if the system was simply indicative, giving an audible warning etc. It's not acceptable for a system that automatically takes control.

Mage Silver badge
Alert

Re: Question for the experts

There needs to be three sensors, because if there are two, which do you believe?

Mystery of the Chinese woman who allegedly tried to sneak into Trump's Mar-a-Lago with a USB stick of malware

Mage Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Re: Sounds unprofessional all round

Yes, it sounds weird. What on earth would any miscreant want with so much kit simply walking up to the entrance.

"Zhang produced two Chinese passports displaying her photo." Why produce TWO passports?

"Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday: 'I have no understanding of the situation you mention.' " That seems a reasonable statement even if she is a Chinese agent.

Tin foil hat Conspiracy Theory: It's someone [American?] that hired her and set her up to make the Chinese Government look bad?

"In a court filing on Tuesday, a public defender representing Zhang said she was invoking her right to remain silent." A good plan when you have already demonstrated idiocy. What exactly can she be charged with on the evidence? She was LET in without being searched or anyone qualified to decide explaining who she might me. She didn't use any of the equipment?

Easy-to-hack combat systems, years-old flaws and a massive bill – yup, that's America's F-35

Mage Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Ships

Typo ... missed the key!

Mage Silver badge

Re: Ships

Octavia (later Augustus) won. The civil war was like Brexit. Invoked without a plan. They assassinated Julius because they wanted the old Republic and not an Emperor. They had no plan about the next stage. So Octavia won and as Augustus became the first real Emperor as Julius, while naming himself Caesar, didn't really become Emperor.

Also: England vs Princess / Queen O'Malley. Grianne / Grace usually won. Very large galleys with sails, but English ships needed wind and to avoid inshore. Grainne sailed to Greenwich to visit Queen Elizabeth I in her galley. She got to go home too. Side Note: This was the reign when the idea of the British Empire was invented though the 1st successful American colony wasn't until a few years after her death. Also both ladies born and died about the same time. Elizabeth was the first ruler to consolidate control over Ireland. Grianne / Grace is usually called a Princess, but by Celtic traditions she was probably the last regional ruler (King / Queen = ri / rigan, the High King, the ard ri was never a ruler in the Scottish or English sense of a king).

England vs Armada. Though English had standardised canon/shot and weather helped. Spaniards had too tall / large ships, too many sizes of canon.

Apple redesigns wireless AirPower charger to be world's smallest, thinnest, lightest, cheapest, invisible... OK, it doesn't exist anymore

Mage Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: distance charging

Fantasy. So called "wireless charging" can have as much distance as my cordless kettle or an induction hob. The "wireless charger" needs a cable and a LARGER mains SMPSU as it has losses. It's inductive magnetic transfer, like a transformer core in two halves, primary on one and secondary on the other. An air gap more than a few mm and it doesn't work at all. A cordless kettle is just like a DECT phone dock, or security two-way radio dock. Actually very long ago you could charge a phone in a dock in the car or in the office. Easier than a fiddly connector. Bring them back as an option!

If you use RF to get range, then you create massive interference and need more complex certification. A lot more losses in the transmitter, path and receiver. You might need x10 the power of the existing inductive/transformer types.

Also for travelling a so called wireless charging plate takes up more space in your bag than a conventional charger, as it needs a larger PSU to power it!

Ignore the noise about a scary hidden backdoor in Intel processors: It's a fascinating debug port

Mage Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Apple 4K DRM broken

Or pointed a 4K camera at a 4K TV in a dark room?

DRM is stupid and mainly used to enforce abusive splitting of markets to rip off consumers. It's never stopped piracy / copyright violation.

TP-Link 'smart' router proves to be anything but smart – just like its maker: Zero-day vuln dropped after silence

Mage Silver badge

Bridged Mode?

No idea. Probably not. Some ISPs now supply modem / routers with no bridge mode. No idea if this includes TP-Link.

Mage Silver badge
Devil

Re: Nearshore?

Yes, Eir & Vodafone supply semi-locked down Huawei models. It's not Chinese Gov that worries me on those, but BOTH are only remote Firmware update (but DSL / VDSL security is not like Cablelabs DOCSIS 2.x and 3.x), both are rubbish for blocking URLs or IPs and Eir remotely enables "public" WiFi sharing for Eir customers. Without telling you, by default. Can only be turned off by Eir, no setting on user settings of modem on LAN.

My experience over the last 15 years is that all the makers are rubbish to deal with. Even if you are the ISP buying them!

Lip-reading smart speakers: Just what no one always wanted

Mage Silver badge
Big Brother

Wonderful

Also absolutely dystopian. I was just saying earlier that if the Stasi & DDR still exisited that everyone would get free Smart speakers. Private Enterprise (IoT, Smart speakers, smart TV, Android, Windows 10) is saving the state a fortune. GCHQ, CIA, China & Russia must be delighted.

If you can't nail Mike Lynch with fraud claim, judge asks HPE, can he score a win over you?

Mage Silver badge
Meh

One thing is sure.

The legal profession will make a profit from this.

If it *WAS* only curiously creative accounting, will shareholders sue someone (who?) for not doing proper due diligence?