Posts by adnim

Consumers must bare some of the blame

for DRM and not for the obvious reason of piracy. It is the consumers who buy DRM products who support and encourage DRM.

If one is not permitted to transfer legally purchased media amongst devices, I suggest not buying that manufacturers devices or published media, it really is as simple as that. If sales of proprietary DRM devices and protected media was practically zero, I wonder how long such DRM mechanisms would survive.

Regardless of what the law might say, If I purchase some electronic media, be it a book, game, film or music I have the right to read, play or view that media on ANY device I have that is capable of rendering the data stream, not just the one that has the proprietary DRM mechanism.

Proprietary DRM:Don't buy it, don't support it.

Which rings the more true?

"We're a proud supporter of Microsoft's Bing search engine,"

"We're a proud supporter of money, it means far more to us than customer satisfaction or choice"

@Bassey

I get your point, and pretty much agree, but cannot handset manufacturers customise Android to the point that it no longer resembles or behaves as a completely open install of Android would? I presume it can be locked down to the point where there is no access to the underlying OS itself. Apple do this quite well, one of the reasons I don't own, sorry rent an iPhone.

@ AC 15:22, no you didn't miss a joke, just the point.

Green eyed monster

"Recorder Jeremy Freedman disagreed, and said of the Cartwrights' sexual performance: "It was clearly of a very disturbing nature and it was also compounded by the duration - this was not a one-off, it went on for hours at a time. It is further compounded by the frequency of the episode, virtually every night.""

Methinks Mr Jeremy Freedman may be a tad jealous.

What's in a list?

"...suggesting a parallel list of social networks, forums and real time messaging sites judged to be risky could be created."

Seeing as anyone can pretend to be anyone, that'll be all of 'em then.

Budget re-allocation required

"...Today's news however seemingly indicates officals[sic] believe police are not making best use of surveillance cameras, which account for three-quarters of the Home Office crime prevention budget."

That 75% of crime prevention budget spent on cameras would be better spent on a system which not only detects crime as it happens, but also makes the public feel safer, actually deters crime, even drunken criminal behavior and can actually apprehend miscreants in real time.

Such a system does not exist? Well no, not anymore but it did once. They were called policemen, affectionately known as bobbies, they used to actually walk the streets and got to know their beat and the people in their area pretty well. A honest bobby, yes they do exist, interacting with the public and allowed to use his/her own discretion based on local knowledge garners far more respect than an inanimate spy on a pole.

Who's phone is it?

Company owns phone, company pays bills, company supplies phone to employee for business purposes. Company has the right to monitor usage and content of communications.

Want to have a private conversation? Want to send a personal text message? Use your own phone.

Just an opinion.

The planet does NOT need saving

It may be a surprise to those who have swallowed the propaganda surrounding global warming but this is a fact I promise... The planet does not need saving.

No it really does not need saving.

The only thing under threat from global warming are a few beach front properties and the lifestyles of humans. Global warming might cause a thinning of the number of humans here on this planet, and perhaps thin down the number of creatures from other species. But the planet will get on quite well, even better I would imagine without the human race.

All this whining to save the planet is nothing but the cry for attention of a selfish little infant who has soiled his nappy and has no one to change it.

Stop shitting on mother Earth now by all means, but please don't try to convince me that the planet needs our help. Earth is not going to suffer, just some of the humans and a few of the more socially developed species that share the planet with us.

Not sure about this

"Not even PayPal support can tell the difference between a legitimate PayPal email and a phishing attack,"

Surely the embedded link that points to paypal.com.ddsrv.cz gives the game away,

Why don't Paypal and banks etc. sign their emails with pgp?

faster than instant, saftey from what?

Don't like it? Don't use 'em. I never will.

Unfortunately the average consumer who is not at all savvy in the ways of the Internet and data collection tech will. Still who gives a .... isn't that what lambs are for anyway?

As much as I would like to wise up and help my brothers and sisters in the human race, and I do try, I see no problem in allowing the weak to be devoured if being chased by a shark. Perhaps this is the next stage in evolution, those who understand and can counter the threat, imaginary or not, from the likes of Google and governments go on to live relatively free and fruitful lives, while those that don't just think they do. Mind you, belief wears some very strong rose tinted glasses. Think of the children and the next generation, what they have never had they will never miss, they will embrace what we abhor with conviction.

@AC:@adnim

>>This will be good for the power/gas supply business, think of the money saved when they sack all those meter readers.

>Good isnt it? Less expenses means cheaper prices. It also means I dont get massivly over\under changed for my useage and have to take half a day off to let a random guy come into my home and read a meter.

Of course these cost savings are going to be passed on to the consumer...Wake up! I would guess you are not a meter reader with a family to support. And how many times have you taken time off work to allow someone access to your home to read a meter? Have you never filled in a little card and posted it back?

>>I guess the next step after the install of these smart meters will be laws ensuring that all white goods, televisions, computers and other consumer electrical goods have an interface that can communicate via the mains supply to these smart meters.

>Because asking your fridge to delay activating the compressor during peak usage is a bad thing?

Did I suggest such? I was hinting at compulsory spyware in the hardware.

>>our fridge/freezer by scanning the RFID tags in packaging will know what it contains and so will those monitoring your meter.

>This already happens. Got a Tesco club card, or a Nectar card? Wonder how Tesco can 'fill' your online basket from your normal usage on the very first time you log onto their site? Hell, you dont even need their store card as you can be tied with your bank card. Why would you bog down the power system with this meaningless data?

No I don't supply Tesco or Nectar partners with my data. I have never visited the Tesco website. Don't have a Tesco nor Nectar card. At this time I have choice. I consider Tesco and Nectar cards spyware. And no, I wouldn't, given a choice, bog down the system with this data, but those who have access and control of this system may feel different and just because the bandwidth may not be there to monitor all households at this time doesn't mean it won't be at some point in the future.

> >Your television will be able to report what is being displayed on screen, perhaps even supplying a feed back along the mains.

>Sky\Virgin already log everything you watch. As for a live stream back along the mains? Why have millions of houses streaming BBC 1 back to the provider. And on what magic bandwith will this be happening?

Did I say anything about streaming back to the provider? A Dword would probably suffice, and no I don't use Sky or Virgin and never will.

>>All use of electricity, and gas will be monitored

>So like it is now? You know, to charge you for what you use?

Not in real time nor is which device is in use is being reported, only how much is used over a three month period.

>>Am I paranoid? Is this a ridiculous suggestion?

>Yes.

That's your opinion and judging by your response to my thoughts on this matter the populace of the UK who think the way you do will just blindly accept it. I did state in my title that this was just another step toward the total monitoring of the UK populace. I repeat a STEP.

>Now the cut off feature I'm against. Given a cort[sic] order has to be involved in the process, you might as well send a bod round to do the cutting.

Why? from your own view point this only costs more money and a reduction in cost can be passed on to the consumer. So a remote cutoff is a positive.

>>If you need to stop power for reasons like lack of generation, then you'd do a rolling brown out well up stream of the end user anyway.

Beyond my knowledge, I'm not qualified or knowledgeable enough to respond or know what you are talking about.

>But transmitting what electricty[sic] im[sic] using back to the grid provider? Nah, thats fine. Smart devices that don't power up at peak times and thus saving me cash? Sure thing.

Devices like your kettle, TV, cooker, server, water boiler etc, etc?

>Also think about what that data can do for you and your household.

My household runs just fine without that data, I am very happy in my ignorance of that data, I don't leave devices powered up that I am not using including lighting. This data is pointless to me.

There may or not be a conspiracy amongst those in power to have full visibility and total control of the populace, but this is a step in that direction regardless of what you may think the benefits may be. Until we get a benevolent leadership as opposed to a leadership who's main concern is holding on to power and making themselves rich and even more powerful I will never trust such technology. Do you really think this has been approved for altruistic reason? When has a commercial interest ever thought this will be beneficial for the consumer let us implement it despite the cost? Until all the greedy bastard megalomaniac ideals that lead businesses and run the government are removed or replaced I will never trust the system. I will be dead before the potential nightmare future we are heading for becomes a reality. Unfortunately my children and their children won't.

Basically I am as off the grid as is possible in todays technological invasion into every persons life, I want to and will remain that way as long as I can.

roflmao

Obviously this is just provocative marketing in order to raise a few hackles and increase publicity.

Still it caused offense to the catholic church, so it's not all bad.

As for a pussy joke, there are no pussies only dogs in that image and being a pussy lover I am a bit peeved about it.

Sorted

I can't wait to get mine, I hope it is a high spec one with a big fuckoff graphics card in it. I have a PC and a laptop alredy. I could sell my PC, after I grind the serial number off and delete the originul owners docs and stuff. My mate'll show me how to do that. I could then score some weed, tissues and special brew and keep the one the dole give me for watching utube, downloading me porn and playin games.

I don't want one if it's only got a cheapo video card in it, I might as well keep me own and avoid the paper work. I am sick of the paper work, 30 minutes to fill in a form and for what? A miserible £64 a week theys takin the piss. I have to spend ten minutes every fortnight thinking up stuff for the silly little bit of paper I gots to fill in to show I bin lookin for work. Cheeky bastards wot business is it of theirs whats I do in my own time. Wow a new computa fuckin great.

Shoots wide of the goal

"India's government claims these untraceable phones are a potential security threat when in the hands of unsavory individuals." As are hammers, knives, wire cutters, bent law enforcement officers, computers, greedy bankers and politicians and so, so many other things.

This change will allow calls to no longer be anonymous, to be traced to a phone and associated with other calls, it does nothing to identify the owner of the phone. I imagine people buy these phones because they are cheap, so they move to a cheap pay as you go system (presuming such exists in India). Those that buy these phones for "unsavoury" purposes will find an alternative, hack the IMEI (is this even possible?) or just buy pay as you go for cash and still remain anonymous. Even though the phone itself can be associated with calls and the shop it was purchased from, it still cannot be associated with a person or valid name and address. So those that can only afford this kind of cheap Chinese import will suffer, whilst any "unsavoury" character will use a more expensive alternative.

Seems that this is another situation where the innocent pay the price whilst the criminals/terrorists just change M.O. It's a familiar scenario, has the Indian government been taking tips from the UK government?

Interoperability

would not be an issue if cloud service providers were required by law to store all data in open standards formats, using open source encryption technologies. Migration to another provider could then be as simple as drag and drop.

Of course cloud providers are going to attempt to lock in customers, they don't want customers leaving for other providers when data loss, data theft, inaccessibility and price increases take place. The harder for the customer to migrate, the larger the acceptable risk to service continuity and customer data.

Pentest

your own websites and databases. The tools are out there, they are free and they can be automated. What's more the results can be searched, so how hard can it be?

There is no excuse for having a database vulnerable to injection, just as there is no excuse for storing passwords in plain text. I don't have an excuse for not testing my MySql backend yet, and to be honest I can't think of one so I better get my finger out and blindly poke it around my backend just in case

Don't Symantec do security?

Even if...

there is no back door in Win 7, I have to ask.. do the NSA have a skeleton key to BitLocker?

As I will never use Windows 7, other than messing around with the release candidate, I am not particularly concerned.

To those of you who will use Win 7... Use trycrypt, a trusted hardware firewall and trusted software firewall and remove the Windows 7 firewall just to be on the safe-ish side. ;-)

@ Reallydo Wannaknow

Very clever, well done.

Here's my attempt:

Asus and HP

reliable may be true

MS f*cks it up

Cool... Free porn

No seriously, this is not nice, the fake AV proggy could download anything onto a PC... Become a terrorist or a pedophile in a couple of clicks. Not nice at all. I research malware, and to be honest something as nasty as this never crossed my mind. I guess I am pretty thick.

It has now however, care to view my blog little girl?

All I can say is use NoScript and if the site you want to access fails without it, look elsewhere. There is no Javascript on my site. In fact I think I will get cron to run a script to grep through my content and email me if it finds any.

This should be good

After T-Mobile staff selling customer data: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8364421.stm How anyone would trust the cloud with anything other than a grocery list baffles me.

It's not so much hackers that one needs to worry about when trusting ones data to the cloud... It's with the custodians of that data where the real worry lies.

More of my opinion on data theft and the cloud in general on my blog: http://www.propergander.org.uk/properblog/?p=40 should anyone be interested in debating further. And yes it is a shameless plug for my new website, so please forgive me, and there is no advertising I am trying to garner interest and debate not make money.

Mmmm...

I would have though a more suitable punishment would be to allow the continuing sale of XP. After all MS seem to be trying real hard to stop people buying XP in favour of Vista and Windows 7. MS must be celebrating this ban.

The real problem with this

will be the inability to install Firefox and use AdBlock. Still, I guess with absolutely no viable alternative to the, you don't own me I own you iPhone...

@Sikas Aparat

"what exactly were you expecting an inanimate lump of miscellaneous hydrocarbons to do without human intervention?": Crack twofish encryption, it could at least have a bobble head.

"Did you have a deprived childhood by any chance?": Yes, seriously yes.

"Did you talk to dolls and expect them to reply?": No, that would have been silly, I used to converse with my bendy Sooty via telepathy though. He helped me through a particularly bad patch due to my unrequited love for Sue. Although to this day I still suspect he had an ulterior motive.

Sorry for my outburst it's just that sometimes I don't hide the scars too well.

Beauty is skin deep so...

I shan't apply. To look at me one would presume I was inside out.

I wonder how many of the accepted "elite" are also members of mensa?

Lester, where did you get the picture of my mother in law?

A waste of the 4th dimension.

..."a three-dimensional look back at the life and times of... er... the Queen during her coronation in 1953."... "Some of the channel’s scheduled multi-dimensional treats will include Derren Brown's 3D Magic Spectacular, Friday the 13th Part III and a joint concert by Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus."

I am so grateful that watching this 3D content is optional. I shall be putting the 4th dimension to much better use.

How about

Gnome or KDE themes?

Isn't Windows 7 already sponsored by those people that buy it? Sorry, rent it.

Not exactly sudo

"Systems and/or methods are described that enable a user to elevate his or her rights. In one embodiment, these systems and/or methods present a user interface identifying an account having a right to permit a task in response to the task being prohibited based on a user's current account not having that right. "

Sudo does not identify an account to the user that has rights to complete the task... An information disclosure security risk in itself. Sudo defaults to root but using sudo whilst specifying the -u command line switch will allow sudo to execute the command as that named user.

I can only presume that MS using a GUI and presenting a list of accounts with suitable privileges is what make this idea different enough to warrant a patent.

Imho they are as bad as Apple at patenting prior art with a twist of lemon. They should not have been allowed the patent because it is just sudo in a dress wearing a name badge.

The human tongue

is perfectly capable of unhooding a clitoris. Ladies:If your partner cannot find your clitoris, educate them instead and donate that obviously excess wealth to a charity that supports victims of failed female circumcision procedures.

@Hermes Conran: Too right!

Isn't this kind of thing illegal?

I am sure I would be busted if if I did such a thing.

Yes I know some are above the law.

No thanks

What a lame excuse for that search for those "fifteen" minutes of fame. I am sure there is plenty of footage of child birth around should one wish to see such a thing.

Watch one's own child being born maybe... someone else's, not if you paid me.

And what is it that makes pregnant women think that pregnancy, let alone child birth is a visually beautiful thing?

Some

of the PC that were used to program the Messer cutters and Heckler Koch CNC machines on the workshop floor of the place of my last employ were much worse than that... Until I cleaned them all up that was.

@truCido

I expected this kind of pedantic response from at least one person.... Did you not see the joke icon? Though why I should defend my joke and assert that I do have at least a rudimentary understanding of statistics and set theory I don't know, I certainly don't feel aggrieved. Perhaps it is because it is a slow day and I am fed up fiddling with my LAMP server. Mmmm... fiddling, I know what I can do next ;-)

My new site will be live soon.... Can I plug it here Sarah... Please?

Thanks for the heads up

I just visited my dashboard and deleted everything. Yes absolutely everything. Now to check on the account I use for Google analytics. But just because I cannot see it any more, has it really been deleted?

Gmail is a good disposable email address for pointless, inane and non secure communication.

For those of you surprised or even shocked by your web history... Use Scroogle

Thermodynamics

Hot air rises... So a hot keyboard? I guess they would realise that rising hot air will suck cooler air in from the base... I do hope there are holes in the bottom. Er no I don't, I will never own one so I don't care.

@James Robertson 2: Not worth it

"I guess however that this shows that Apple are in the right in locking down the phone for the average user anyway"

Whilst I agree with you that certain functions should be locked down by default, consumers are just that, consumers. They shouldn't be expected to understand what an operating system is wrt to a phone let alone ssh. I would however take your "Not worth it" sentiment a little further and apply it to the handset itself, or at least to the control that Apple wish to exercise over it.

Apple could have supplied iPhones unlocked with sshd disabled. If the IPhone was not locked down in the first place, there would be no need to jail break them resulting in sshd running with a default password. Apple's greed and desire for control of their hardware is the root cause of this issue, not the consumers desire to fully utilise a device as they see fit.

If Apple and the operators which push the iPhone were a little more honest and told users that they are renting and not buying the device, and that it is and always be the property of Apple then perhaps jail breaking would be less of an issue, but consumers like to own things and making such statements would likely affect iPhone rentals, er sales, mmm rentals, er sales?

Well,

it used to take time and effort to gather enough information about a person in order to steal an identity, commit fraud or indeed locate a person in the real world in order to possibly inflict harm upon them. Only the most dedicated and patient psychopath was prepared to go that far and fortunately they are still in the minority. Thanks to this pooling of publicly available information any part-time psychopath no matter how temporarily psychotic or lacking in smarts, has the tools at his or her disposal to quickly follow up on a knee jerk reaction to any petty slight they feel they might have received.

Be nice out there ;-)

CV details

Is it really necessary for a jobsite to know your address? Admittedly in the past have have supplied these details on my CV. But for quite sometime now my CV address consists of the town I live in and a pay as you go mobile phone number. Only an employer needs to know your full address, home telephone number, date of birth, national insurance number and bank details, and then only when you take up a position.

Email addresses are something else, use a disposable one and unsubscribe from the spam that comes from real agencies and training providers. Or as suggested go on a crusade, determine who's sharing your data and threaten, preferably with a solicitor.

As for the sharing and or selling of personal and what should be private information amongst agencies and so called partners, we need a few court cases and big fines, or stronger data protection law to deal with it.

Damned if you do....

A double edged sword to be true.

On one hand we have greedy and monopolistic entities vying for control of the Internet, it's products and services in an attempt to manipulate such products and services to suit their own agenda be that altruistic or otherwise... Usually otherwise.

Yet if that control over potential markets and profit is rested from them then what is the motivation for such entities to innovate and provide such services?

Still I am for net neutrality, one does not need control and or dominance to make a comfortable living. Of course if one wishes to fleece the sheep, impose control and restriction, a neutral Internet is not the way to go.

I know life is instinctively and genetically predisposed to survival, but greed? Where did that come from? It seems to be a wholly human trait.

@Matt Bryant

Unfortunately it is only greedy people that amass such wealth. If they were not so greedy they would not be so rich in the first place.

@Anonymous Hero

I knew the flame bait statement regarding Windows being fit for nothing but games and media would spark such a reaction. At least your tears will quench the flames ;-) However I withdraw that statement because with draconian DRM windows isn't fit for media either. However it is excellent at running Cubase as well as allowing criminals to earn a bob or two.

Ooooo, wankers and penetration in the same sentence, I'm getting hot.

Linux audio works fine although it would work even better if hardware manufacturers wrote Linux drivers or released sufficient documentation to allow OS developers to leverage the best from their kit.

I have cause to be optimistic, if Windows was secure and Linux easier to get working with obscure hardware I would have likely been a bus driver or gigolo perhaps.

/removes tongue from cheek

I like ducks, have you seen the way water flows of their back?