Posts by smudge
210 posts • joined Friday 8th August 2008 08:50 GMT
Re: You have to laugh
What cost? :)
I remember some Tory minister arguing on TV that Thatcher's funeral was costing nothing like the surmised amount (£10M?), because all of the police and military were already employed and would have been paid anyway.
So surely the same argument applies here.
Either Thatch's funeral and guarding Jools cost nothing, or they both cost a fortune.
Unless you're a Tory, in which case Thatch cost nothing, Jools is costing a fortune, and you still have another two impossible things to believe before breakfast.
Re: What happens
I think you're 100% wrong there. English law applies.
That's why it's illegal to shoot police officers from, say, the Libyan Embassy, and to hold hostages in, say, the Iranian Embassy.
And why it would also be illegal for the Americans to snatch him, take him across to Grosvenor Square, and apply capital punishment, however tempted they may be.
The real reason
I understand that it was Amazon's Free Super Saver delivery that really swung the deal.
Re: Reading Uni
... I was tempted to say to myself "what a Grade A plonker" and move on. I only hope that his employers don't read it. Any headhunter with an attitude of such certainty as this must be completely useless.
I'm afraid that it's you who are the plonker. Anyone in the real world knows that employers generally have their preferred universities, and that these can be pretty short lists. So it's probably not only his attitude, but also his employer's attitude, and indeed their employers' attitude.
In fact he said so later in the article: "...the very short list I have of UK universities that high-end employers mention by name".
But you'd probably arrived at your attitude of certainty by then.
Essays! In a CS degree. Plural.
In my comp sci course (St Andrews, late 70s) we did have to write essays, one a term. Looking at their website today, I can see a link to an "essay guidance" handbook, so presumably writing essays is still part of the course.
I'm all for it. Not everyone needs to write essays in their professional life, but many us of need to write proposals, reports and other documentation. The ability to research and collate information, and then present it in a comprehensible and coherent manner, is vitally important, and writing essays certainly helped me understand how to do that.
Too often in the industry I have had to work with illiterates who can't form a sentence or communicate in any language other than C++.
Just testing the waters
Its real purpose is to research more ways of screwing the workers and lining the fat cats' pockets.
Expect a commitment to re-introduce slavery to be prominent in the Conservatives' 2015 election manifesto.
Re: No you choose your degree at 13
In Scotland, strictly speaking you don't choose your degree until after the second year of a four year honours course, so you could be 19 or 20. Of course, your choice is limited by what you did in the first two years, and that in turn by what exams you took in school. So, yes, what you decide in school DOES affect your choice of degree - just not as finally as it does in England.
Caught bang to rights
Blatant copyright violation.
You have no choice. You must send in Kim Dotcom to take down all NSA sites, confiscate all their data, apply for extradition of General Keith Alexander, and then... errr... find out if what you did was legal.
Do tell how many responses you get...
...and how many said "It was me!", and came from security/intelligence services.
ISC: "We're on the case!"
... the chairman of Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee, Malcolm Rifkind, hastily [announced] before the weekend that his panel of MPs expect a full report from GCHQ about PRISM imminently.
That'll be the same committee that only discovered last week that BT had signed up Huawei as a supplier eight years ago.
Sir Humphrey would be so proud of them.
Thank you!
Funniest thing I've read about this whole affair.
Sure proves that some Americans do understand irony.
"Cybersecurity ... should be a new bright spot in our cooperation," Yang said
"So we've agreed that we will collect all their Internet data and sell it back to them."
"... a possible obtain everything, analyse later approach"
An approach that makes sense. Before you reach for the downvote button, I'm not saying that I approve of it, or support it - merely that I can see why they might adopt that approach.
Basically, if the spooks make a specific request to the data providers, or run a specific query on the data provider's system, then they are potentially signalling to the data providers what or who they are interested in. Which is probably classified TOP SECRET with umpty-umpty codewords.
The less specific the request, the less specific the information you leak. So slurp up everything, and you leak nothing.
Not approving, nor supporting - just saying.
Installing updates...
Installation of New Security Adaptor technology now initiated :)
One more
What if it's made by Diebold, who also makes electronic voting machines which aren't trusted?
Re: important for a radio presenter to be good looking
Yes. I read it in the article. Didn't you?
Re: GCHQ
"The US agencies can spy on all of us. And GCHQ can spy on all of the Americans."
This is, of course, a very serious matter. But it does remind me of the story of when the new CIA HQ was being built, quite a few years ago now. The local realtors (estate agents) not surprisingly wanted to know how many new people/families would be moving into the area, but were told that this was classified information.
So one bright thinker phoned the Soviet embassy in Washington - and got the answer straight away.
You are joking
Why don't (didn't) you ask your Data Protection Officer?
You do have one, don't you?
Doesn't anyone read James Bamford?
I can't be the only one!
From Amazon's description of "The Shadow Factory", published five years ago - "... describes the transformation of the NSA since 9/11, as the agency increasingly turns its high-tech ears on the American public.
... reconstructs how the NSA missed a chance to thwart the 9/11 hijackers and details how this mistake has led to a heightening of domestic surveillance. In disturbing detail, Bamford describes exactly how every American’s data is being mined and what is being done with it. Any reader who thinks America’s liberties are being protected by Congress will be shocked and appalled at what is revealed here."
Re: Committee says "We're always the last to know!"
"Wrong question."
I disagree.
This has been public knowledge for years. I've known about it for years. GCHQ will have known about it for longer. Just Google for "Huawei", "BT" and "21CN".
Your questions may have been the right ones some time ago, but the deal is history now.
So I stand by my original question. If they are a (the?) parliamentary security and intelligence committee, why have they only discovered this now?
Committee says "We're always the last to know!"
The company was forced to defend itself today, after a parliamentary security and intelligence committee report attacked the civil service for failing to inform ministers of BT and Huawei's close relationship, which first started in 2005.
So where have the parliamentary security and intelligence committee been for the last 8 years? The relationship has hardly been secret.
Ah, I know, they've been researching the links between this confounded Interweb thing and nutters with machetes.
What's in a name?
I agree with the correspondents above who note that gender differences probably have a lot to do with it.
But I can't help thinking that the term "cyber security" must put off a lot of people, especially women. To me - and I've worked in this area since before some of you were born - it suggests robotic machines, automatic locks and cameras and weapons, the Terminator, certain enemies of Dr Who. Hard, nasty things. Attractive to macho blokes, maybe - to women, not.
So maybe a gentler, less in-yer-face term might make a difference. A more empathetic term. Might even make an improvement to the whole subject area, if followed through. For starters, I suggest the well-used term "information assurance". Any more?
Astounding!
"They come without warning. From anywhere in the world. And they can have devastating consequences."
F*** me - you've got to be Secretary General of NATO to have insight like that.
I shall sleep soundly tonight, knowing that men and women of his calibre are protecting me.
and the easiest to find...
... by a clear 13 points, are marketing/PR types.
Symptomatic of the sorry state of the UK today.
HMG is off its face?
"Or a doctor is prescribing the wrong drugs, because they don’t know what drugs their patient is already on."
Ehh??? My doctor sure knows what I'm on - he has one of these telebox things with a keyboard, and it tells him.
Mind you, if Government ministers have doctors who prescribe stuff without knowing what else these people are on, then that explains an awful lot of the last three years' idiocy.
Check it for rocket motors
"...a "colossal super hangar" crammed with thousands of "digital and creative" workers who won't have needed to be "brilliant at school"."
Sounds to me suspiciously like the Hitchhiker's Guide's B-Ark.
Re: To fix the problem
I've solved that in the past by voting Green.
I certainly don't agree with all their policies, but I also think that climate change is a real problem that far outweighs stuff like economic difficulties, terrorism or immigration.
Re: To fix the problem
Mr Farage, how many times do we have to tell you?
This is a UK IT forum - not a UKIP one.
Posted in Paying a TV tax makes you happy - BBC
Re: money handed to it on a plate
> seems to also not be offering (as it used to) a better service -
> instead driving to the bottom of the pile with the same 'reality/talent' trash that the other channels have.
Suggest you investigate some of the buttons on your remote control. You'll find wonderful things called "BBC2" and "BBC4".
Have just finished catching up on Howard Goodall's "Story of Music". Absolutely superb.
And last night's drama-doc about Richard Feynman and the Challenger enquiry - made by BBC Scotland, I noticed - was most excellent (even if William Hurt made Feynman more of a hick than he actually was).
Not to mention all the radio stations, too...
Easy-peasy
First bring ISO27001 up to date. Then you can create a whole series of more detailed standards from it, each addressing a particular area of information security that you think needs attention.
There - my employer would have charged many thousands for that - you've had it for free whilst I'm having my breakfast .
Re: If you have any interest at all in the subject...
> I really hope that story is true, it has brightened my day no end.
I have read it - or something very similar - in other places, so you can sure that something like it IS true. The weakest link in the best crypto system is usually the human operator and their sloppy procedures.
"Heil Hitler" was another text string always worth searching for.
But Bletchley Park also acted proactively. They would get the RAF to drop some mines at a certain location in the sea, and would then start looking for German reports which included the word "minen" and/or the details of the location. This was called "gardening".
Re: Life moves so fast...
Damn - you moved so fast! :)
Little point now in making a comment about them flogging digital books and music instead of flogging dead horses....
Would you like a free personality test?
The Scientologists used to - maybe still do - stand outside their place on Tottenham Court Road (in London) and invite passers-by to come in and have a "free personality test".
One of my mates took up the offer.
They told him that he was "gullible, and easily-led"...
...but that they could help him with that.
I used to wonder whether this was irony, cynicism or even chutzpah, but eventually concluded that they were simply taking the piss...
What we bring to it is process, rule-based systems, and workflow management tools.
Anyone else, thanks to events elsewhere, expect that to finish "....and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope!" ?
Re: Maybe he read Richard Dawkin's "The God Delusion"
Actually, I agree about the arrogance, even though I'm on the side of rationality and science.
Whenever he's arguing, whether in print or on film, he always seems to descend to snide, smartarse comments that do his case no good whatsoever.
I jokingly used to say that I was on the "Richard Dawkins paramilitary wing of atheism", until he made such a tit of himself that it stopped being funny - if it ever was.
Re: Maybe he read Richard Dawkin's "The God Delusion"
Eh? I've read a few of Dawkins' books - not many, so I may have missed something.
But surely one of his main points - indeed, one of the principles of evolution by natural selection - is that there is no design in nature, whether good, bad or indifferent.
Where does Dawkins try to "prove bad desigh"?
Take them to the cleaners, Benny!
What sort of outfit lets their head honcho step down on less than 3 weeks' notice, without even having a successor or succession plan in place?
If he plays his cards right and negotiates well, he could probably hang on to that nice apartment in central Rome. He could hold out for the wine cellar, some of the jewels, and maybe a few nuns and/or Swiss Guards too.
Ask for the Michelangelo Pieta as a leaving present.
Although now he'll have to figure out what to do when everything is shut at Easter and Christmas...
Re: new god required
> To report a suspected bug, please adopt a kneeling position with your hands clasped firmly together, close your eyes and explain your problem starting with "Dear GOD..."
This is because GOD V2.0 features the new Metro UI....
Re: Lies, Damn lies, and... well ,you know the rest...
"'Allo darlin' - 'ave you seen the size of my IQ?"
And what does this say about Paris...?
....and they thought it was a really quiet day?
"It's Friday - lotta people taking the day off, innit!"
But what about the number of calls?
My first thought was that the calls may be getting shorter, but more frequent.
Which could fit in with the observations of a couple of other posters above. The phone is now being used to enable ongoing ad-hoc interactive conversation with someone at a distance, instead of the old-fashioned concept of "making a call to someone".
So are there any stats on the number or frequency of calls?
Re: If they win?
> What makes them think they'll win the next one?
Easy! Scotland will have voted for independence by then - so the rest of the UK will have a permanent Conservative majority.
An independent Scotland will remain in - or get themselves re-admitted to - Europe.
The referendum will then be about whether England, Wales and Northern Ireland remain in Europe or leave.
If all this happens, then as a Scot who has lived in England for 35 years, I'll make damn sure that I get Scottish nationality.
I might even move from England - to somewhere warmer, not Scotland. Could even stay in the Paris Hilton whilst looking for somewhere :)
What el Reg didn't tell you...
...is that the researchers are from a private Christian university in Waco, Texas.
I'm sure that's not relevant, but there, I've told you anyway.
She might soon need them herself
Saw her on a flight very recently. She had a metal tin of Krispy Kreme doughnuts to see her through the flight. They clearly weren't a gift for someone at her destination....
(What icon other than "d'oh" could I choose? :) )
Re: Indistinguishable?
Not being a Skype user, I had forgotten - or never thought about it - that Skype packets, including those representing silence, would be encrypted anyway. So yes, packets carrying a secret message should be indistinguishable from silence.
As for your idea of structuring the silence packets - that would be feasible, if low bandwidth. But you might now be adding structure (ie information) to something that is normally random.
I wonder how they manage key distribution - assuming that Big Brother can intercept any initial key exchange by Skype.
Indistinguishable?
For the secret messages to be indistinguishable from silence, the 70-byte packets generated by Skype to represent silence must contain proper random data.
This seems unlikely to me. All zeroes, or all ones, or 70 copies of a single byte from elsewhere all seem more likely to me.
Anyone know Skype in enough detail to comment?
> I also believe a large number of the smaller NCP car parks
> were using spaces cleared by bomb damage.
Correct! I started working in London in 1978, and didn't get a car until a couple of years later. It took me a long time to realise that many of those handy little - but rough - car parks in London were bomb sites that had not been redeveloped, over 35 years after the war had ended.
So what would you have written?
"souk" is how I'd have written it. Looks like you can have your choice of soq, souk, esouk, suk, sooq, souq, or suq.
Re: Let's hope it wasn't bought by someone in Hollywood...
Maybe. Perhaps.
From the BBC: "Bonhams was unable to reveal the names of the parties involved, but said that the seller was from Europe and the buyer from the US. ".
