Posts by Colin Wilson

$2000 dust free room

In all fairness to the guy who suggested the hard drive - it if *was* the hard drive, and the data was important to the customer, he was probably quite close to the truth as far as costs for recovering the data was concerned...

In the meantime, he should have re-checked his diagnosis in-situ, then tried to verify the drive was dead by use of a spare PSU and USB to IDE/SATA adaptor on another system.

One of my colleagues recently learned this lesson the hard way when their old 8Gb drive failed, losing the last photos of a relative before they died (sadly, it really was shot, but out of the question getting it recovered). Not even the freezer trick or "flicking" the drive (spinning it in your hand to see if it releases a sticky platter / helps a weak motor) worked.

How does that song go again ?

Tears on my pillow, pain in my heart, no backups have you - oo-oo-oo-oo ooooh

Largest user database ?

Google might have a "large" database, but bear in mind Microsoft has had EVERY copy of Windows phoning home telling them what people had installed for a number of years now - what was it for Vista, something like 27 different processes that phone home for no apparent reason ?

That's omitting to mention any of the more nefarious activities Microsoft have been caught up in, such as the US secret service "hooks" that enable them to get into any machine running Windows - including those of foreign governments.

Let us also not forget they're part of the "Trusted Computing Group" (see below) that proclaims that the system belongs to the owner, not the software company - and how Microsoft ignored those tenets to force a "Windows update" on everyones' machines, whether they had updates switched off or not.

( from https://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/faq/ )

-----

The TCG specifications support privacy principles in a number of ways:

1. The owner controls personalization.

2. The owner controls the trust relationship.

3. The system provides private object storage and digital signature capability.

4. Private personalization information is never exposed.

5. Owner keys are encrypted prior to transmission.

It is also important to know what the solutions are not:

1. They are not global identifiers.

2. They are not personalized before user interaction.

3. They are not fixed functions—they can be disabled permanently.

4. They are not controlled by others (only the owner controls them).

-----

At least Google tell you they're using your data !

Example of bank "sense"

My credit card statement invites me to check my account online here:

http://www.abbeycreditcard.com

- this redirects immediately to:

http://www.applyonlinenow.com/uk/abbeyna_jmp/abbeyna_jmp.htm

...this presents an option "click here to access www.abbeycreditcard.com" - but it actually sends you to...

https://www.bankcardservices.co.uk/NASApp/NetAccessXX/WelcomeScreen?country=uk&language=en&group=AAHE

I was actually on the phone to them at the time over an unrelated issue, and the call centre was asking me to log in to their site via http://www.aandl.com which redirects to a variant of the third link when you click the "Go" to manage your account.

They seemed confused when I told them that the pages I was being directed to, either directly or indirectly were not what they were telling me they should be, but insisted they must be right.

Customer service...

...has sunk to new Lowes...

Banking security

If the banks (or any site that needed a login) had a clue, they wouldn't send html email, full stop.

All links would be in plain text, and "tracking links" should be banned.

I once had one from Morgan Stanley in html - the links they gave to log in to my account were via a third party site, and the email was sent by yet another unknown third party.

The worrying part is the email _was_ legitimate, so I sent a complaint to the banking ombudsman to notify them of their stupid practices.

impartial ?

...about as impartial as the Food & Drug Administration !

Boeing are a major defence contractor / supplier for the US Gov, so a few more civillian deaths can be swept under the carpet if / when it happens.

They'll probably blame <pick a country* with oil> for a "terrorist attack" as an excuse to start another war !

*not Saudi, it'll never be Saudi...

Correction:

"Anyway, this seems to be the first government 'Green' scheme that doesn't save the planet by taking money from my wallet."

They add a surcharge for paying by credit / debit card.

First you...

1) Create a "threat" to your country

2) Even if the threat may be from multiple unassociated sources would would just as happily kill each other, not just the "target of electronic terrorism", give it one name like "Al-Qae^V NingPongTing" so even the dumbest merkans think they know who "the enemy" is

3) Declare a "peaceful mission" ("war against terror") to liberate^V invade and steal the resources of this years' target^V terrorists

The solution:

Force Microsoft to send patches to *ALL REGISTERED USERS* via regular postal mail every month, and again if any "emergency" patches are released.

How many billions of users would they have to send patches out to ? - who cares, it's a problem of their making, and their problem to resolve - they've got enough in the bank to cover it :-)

I'd forsee one of two things happening quickly:

1) Autopatcher would be renamed / released by Microsoft immediately

2) They'd take a LOT more care over their sloppy coding !

Thankfully...

Someone has the guts to give the US the Arkell vs Pressdram response (google it !)

Perhaps...

...they find it even easier to write than a name in simplified chinese ?

I know what i'd prefer to use, going by some of the examples on wikipedia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character

I'm impressed !

It sounds like BMW have done a cracking job of making the boot watertight.

Russian sites / credit cards

At the end of the day, you're protected by virtue that any "iffy" debits have to be proven by the credit card company to have been made by you.

If you didn't authorise a payment, that's their problem to resolve, although it still typically appears on your statement until it's resolved "properly".

When the yanks...

...send the people requested by UK courts over "friendly fire" incidents, maybe we'd consider releasing commercially sensitive documents to a potential rival bidder...

allofmp3 login details

work with mp3sparks :-p

What worries me...

...is why the law in the country where the perp lived and carried out their chosen activity is somehow superceded by the laws of another country.

There should have been _no_ extradition in this case.

If the yanks want to set a precedent like this, will they now force the extradition of anyone worldwide who might have somehow breached US law in some obscure manner - jaywalking in Rome perhaps ? Polygamous marriage in a tribe in a jungle somewhere ?

I'd love to see them extradite everyone with a hacked copy of Windows in China !

The perp's "crime" might have had some financial impact, but it's absolutely insignificant when compared to crimes committed by the US Gov and funded by the american people.

Tao / target processor

ISTR Tao would seamlessly load-share across _any_ hardware platform for which an interpreter had been compiled and thrown into the network, not restricted to hardware with m68k interpreters.

It was like a distributed computing Java platform on steroids, and it's shame to see such an innovative technology go to the wall.

Make him...

...break rocks in the desert for six months - something completely and utterly mind numbing - like deleting unwanted spam - would seem to be a suitable punishment.

...if we can send the over-hyped drink-driving chavette with him, all the better !

Alternatively, i'd love to see him forced to work (for free) for an ISP, deleting every single spam mail to every single user one at a time :-p

Linux / Keyloggers

About 2 years ago, keylogging devices started to appear on the market that evaded the OS altogether - the only problem being you needed physical access to the machine twice (once to install, once to uninstall)*

* IIRC this was how a large japanese bank was robbed, the office cleaners were either in on the act, or had been offered bungs to fit them

The device was a simple in-line through connector that the keyboard plugged into, then the device plugged into the PC, and internal memory on the device would store every keypress which could later be downloaded for examination.

Just because you run a linux distrib doesn't mean you're safe - i'd guess that very few people visually check all their hardware in work on a daily basis...

Tom Robinson got it right...

...and you can download a load of his music for free from http://www.tomrobinson.com - his reasoning goes like this:

"Free Downloads: iTunes downloads cost 79p per track. Writer/publisher get 6p, Performer 6-8p, Visa/Mastercard 7p, Apple 12p, and Record Company almost 50p. Sod that. Help yourself to my songs & share them with your friends: right-click (Mac: ctrl-click) on titles to download. Optional: if you'd like to help with hosting costs, click below"

Incidentally, I hadn't heard much of it before, and will happily make a donation to his site :-)

But not in the UK...

I read the news elsewhere and headed over to Dell UK pick up a new machine - no sign of XP unless I go the small business route.

One (more) sale lost.

Explain this then...

Ref: One Laptop Per Child / Patent taxes

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6571139.stm

...Microsoft's student Innovation Suite...

The package includes Windows XP Starter Edition, Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, as well as other educational software.

Cost: *** $3 ***

OK, so how do the rest of the world buy this ?