So what happens with the super-safe version of memcpy?

You truncate the source data into the destination buffer then something else somewhere else in the program either can't make sense of it or goes through the data with a pointer and gallops off into the sunset as the data terminator didn't get copied across or trashes the stack or causes a page fault or etc...

I think the best idea would be knowing how to program in the first place...

@nbc

I think the BBC is pushing for what is already being done in France and will be introduced in Spain soon, which is that ISPs 'donate' 3% of their profits to public television (or in France's case Sarkozy's mate as TF1 is privatised).

Spain came up with the exact same 3% figure as in France, must be someone in government discovered how to use copy and paste.

In France and Spain the excuse is the advertising downturn, but the BBC can't use that excuse.

France's ISPs are taking it to the European court and Spain's ISPs are threatening to add another line to each customer's bill with their proportion of the charge if the government goes through with it.

Am I going mad?

Legal powers for the fashion police to enforce correct dress code... I think she's reaching a level of madness that makes me start to doubt my own sanity.

@Anonymous Coward

I'm not 100% sure that Portugal stores ID card fingerprints in a database for police access, but I am 100% sure that Spain do; if you want to live and work in Spain one of the first things you have to do is go to a police station and hand over your fingerprints to get two documents; one is a foreigner ID number and one is an certificate for EU nationals saying your application for residency has been granted and your details have been stored on a central database for residents from other EU countries.

The usual response when raising this subject with a local is that it's a shame that those credit-card sized residency cards for EU nationals were removed (by EU directive) as A4 certificates aren't very practical. The idea is that you show your own EU ID card or passport instead.

When mentioning that the UK doesn't have any ID card that I can use in its place and I'm not dragging my passport everywhere, the response is utter bafflement. How can the state not give people ID numbers? Isn't the result utter administrative chaos? Well, certainly no worse than in Spain... And mention the privacy issue. But how can you get things done if you don't have an ID number?

But anyway, from the different stories that appear in the press, it looks like the idea in Brussels seems to be is that each EU state is responsible for putting its own citizens on their own national database and putting foreign residents from other EU countries into a second database which can easily be linked to their entry in their home country's national database should it be deemed necessary. This is why ID cards are popping up in EU countries which didn't have them before and are becoming compulsary in those EU countries which had optional ID cards before.

@Anonymous Coward

Sorry to go on a two-post ment but in another Register story it seems that there's a new EU working body which will specify what data will be held and how. And ID cards in Europe have a spangly new name, European eID...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/03/enisa_id_cards_analysis/

Obviously this kind of thing is easier to sell in some countries than others.

In Spain there was no practically no discussion at all about the move to chipped ID cards because it was basically the same information held in chip form in addition to what was already written on the card and stored in the national database, what little complaint about privacy there was confined to easily-ignorable blogs. There was more complaint about why the photo is now in black and white instead of colour (probably because of the chip's capacity) and why are we having to wait so long for it to be rolled out in (insert town here).

In the UK it seems this is dragging out quite a while in spite of Labour's efforts, which is nice.

@Robbie Simpson

> Surely this will be ruled illegal by the European courts at the first opportunity ?

No, this is already done in Spain and possibly Portugal, you know, those ex-dictatorships.

I expect it's another exercise in harmonisation.

So say that MS do this...

Say their Internet Connection wizard connects to MS to download a list of browsers and then it opens a wizard to give you the choice of browser (i.e. each browser's icon with its name underneath and a bit of blurb selling the snakeoil) followed by an invitation to click on a browser you want to use. It then downloads the browser installer from MS, Mozilla, Opera, Apple, Google, or whoever, runs it, runs the browser itself, and brings up the home page.

It has to be done like this otherwise MS can get shafted from another browser provider when they go bleating to the EU, and it's easy enough to do because the MSHTML and MSXML DLLs will have to be on the system anyway.

So how would the uninitiated user know to click on the red O instead of the blue e? Everyone knows what the blue e does. And the blurb would be something like "Windows Internet Explorer is the standard browser that was built into Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000, XP, and Vista" just to hammer the point home. And the uninitiated user will willingly press the mouse button over the blue e to remove all doubt and the browser they know and love will appear about a nanosecond later as it's all built in anyway.

So I'm not too sure that Opera's usage is going to skyrocket.

And what about those broadband connections that need a browser to configure them in the first place? Getting an offline installation from another computer will be close to an insurmountable task.

And then we need to wait for a complaint to the EU over the order of browsers in the list...

@Very Impressive

If you can't depend on non-blessed software working on the iPhone as whenever update time comes around you run the risk of it not working, and most other manufacturers have caught up with the iPhone's user interface, why not just buy a more open system if you want to have freedom to run whatever software you want on it?

Here's a nice website by the EU

It says what services each country offers if you call 112.

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/112/ms/index_en.htm

@Embarrassingly bad

"How can completing a form when auto-complete is set to "off" be anything other than "go to fail, go directly to fail"?"

Because there's a difference between not saving it when autocomplete is off and not completing it when autocomplete is off.

As an example, Firefox doesn't save the password if autocomplete is off, so it'll never get filled in later. But if I go to the effort of modifying the DOM so that it will get saved (e.g. using the Enable Password Manager bookmarklet) then it's obvious that I do want it autocompleted later. Even then, Firefox doesn't autocomplete it automatically, I have to go to the field, hit the down cursor to select the user, and then hit return.

And I'm quite happy with that because I want to decide which passwords I save instead of some arbitrary decision by the website owner. And, in the event of having a keylogger installed, it's probably more secure.

"Savvy end users"?

'Dickens noted that "large groups" of users have therefore not been clicking into compatibility mode and are consequentially getting the screwed-up page views. He claimed the button was working for "savvy end users" but not the great majority of web users who don't meet Dickens's savviness standards.'

"Savvy end users" use IE?

Note: apart from employees in antivirus companies who need to download malware as part of their job so they can analyse it.

Odd

Why haven't they recommended ClamAV for home users and is free? They ship it MacOS X Server.

@The issue is more grave then it means...

Like India, you mean?

It's not US only

If you didn't have the money to buy an iMac before, I doubt 30 quid off would change your mind.

A little late, and with "serious bugs"

Mac users have got Transmission.

Biggest mistake

Someone got a draft script for Burne and did a global replace of his name to Bond.

Oh dear

They wouldn't be having problems updating their creaking rendering engine, would they?

Oh look, another power grab

Bad content isn't divided up neatly by domain names. A mainstream UK server can serve up ads from Russia with a trojan attached via a US advertising broker and the government taking over Nominet wouldn't affect this, they still wouldn't have any power to block the trojan.

Was there any particular /technical/ problem with Nominet until the government came up and said "We have a problem with you"?

@Won't help

The problem of businesses having to act in the interests of their stockholders is that many stockholders don't understand the business and don't know how to measure success. Secondly, the stock market is basically a pyramid scam and many only buy stock just to sell it later.

How are you going to run a business to please these people when a geek like Yang would be running it to please customers and developers?

And on that note, I must get round to backing up my Yahoo Mail a little more often than yearly, what with the stock market such at it is. Hopefully Yahoo won't get bought up by Microsoft, who bought HoTMaiL, turned it into multicoloured disaster which runs at the speed of a turtle, and pleased their shareholders.

Taking Apple's approach, I see

Delete posts from forums, respond tersely (or just don't bother responding), carry on regardless.

AVG is sinking, arrr

Abandon ship, switch to Avast!, me 'arties.

@the bug

More information:

"It looks like there is a /system/bin/sh process running in the background with

/dev/console mapped to stdin. That has the effect that everything you type on your

keyboard is actually being executed as root in the background even though you don't

see the output."

http://code.google.com/p/connectbot/issues/detail?id=64

Which means everything you type is being executed, most of it returns "<command>: not found", but do not under any circumstances send a text message about anything computer related or it'll run with root privileges.

Ye Gods, give me Symbian or even Windows Mobile any day. Who in their right mind would use one of these shiny new devices from a latecomer like Google or Apple to access a network if they're going to get billed for it?

Nonsense

The example given in the blog (browsing for a new job while at work) is nonsense unless you have a PC connected to the Internet without a LAN and gateway in the middle and it's misleading to suggest it that you can browse for a new job privately in work.

And even then, if Firefox generates temporary files or uses virtual memory while in private browsing mode, it's not really private either.

Not got a bone to pick with Firefox (apart from the blog entry), IE8 and Safari are also guilty of generating same false sense of security. And probably Opera, if it has one (I don't know but I haven't yet read anything about an Opera private browsing mode).

Future generations won't judge us on anything...

... if they live in a future where it's seen as normal to track everybody. If someone in the future goes around saying maybe it's a good idea not to be tracked then they obviously have got something to hide.

Too complicated

Al that's needed is a new flag on the DVLA database that makes the printer print out a different kind of road tax badge for that car. But it wouldn't be the government if they didn't waste millions.

Oh just get it over with already

Chip everyone at birth, make chips a requirement to travel on any mode of transport/have a job/claim benefits/pay, and give everyone a pen to live in, like cattle. Just stop pretending everyone should be greatful for the favour.

One-line bill?

Better correct that, it's a one-page bill. A one-line bill would be "All your civil liberties are belong to us."

The government can rush the one-page bill through if they've declared a national emergency. I can't remember off-hand exactly under what conditions they have can declare national emergency but I do remember they've been broadened under previous crime and terrorism bills and I believe parliamentary majority is not required.

It's a trap!

They'll go after BT Wholesale. Job done, all small ISPs present and correct.

Just for Merkins?

Or are the barbarian hoards afforded some rights as well?

Anyway, I'm sure this will soon be gotten round. Probable causes could include:

He looked at me funny.

He had a haircut like the man in the wanted photo on the wall next to me.

Eyebrows too close together.

Etc... etc...

Hint for police

Instead of sending the storm troopers round to someone's house and seizing their property, why not interview the person who bought the camera to find out who the person who sold it to him was? It makes for better public relations and encourages the public to be more willing to step forward when they see something that needs the police's attention.

I wonder how much I could make as a consultant for the public sector.