Posts by Mostor Astrakan

This is a secure and encrypted communication.

Lr tbqf... Jr'er gnyxvat nobhg fb-pnyyrq frphevgl rkcregf urer. Gurl ner tvira GUR cer-funerq xrl gb gur ragver Juvssl argjbex. Naq gurl qb abg frr n ceboyrz jvgu guvf naq npg nyy fhecevfrq naq bhgentrq? Gurl arrqrq n tbbq uneq xvpx hc gur nefr. Whfg orpnhfr fbzrguvat fnlf FRPHER ba gur gva, qbrfa'g zrna vg vf.

Ohg yhpxvyl, nyy gur qngn gung jnf favssrq, unf orra qrfgeblrq. Bu lrf. Hfvat n irel gubebhtu qryrgvba cebtenz. Vg unf npebalzf. Abj... Ubj znal crbcyr jrer favssvat gur "frpher" arg gung gur Betnavfngvba qvqa'g nfx gb, xabj nobhg be pner nobhg? Rirelobql unq gur xrl.

V ungr frphevgl pvephf. V ungr vg gung V pna'g oevat n obggyr bs qvulqebtra zbabkvqr ba n cynar. V ungr vg gung vg'f nccneragyl nyevtug sbe n ohapu bs cybqf gb fabbc guebhtu zl uneq qevir ybbxvat sbe puvyq cbea. V ungr vg gung crbcyr pna nqiregvfr "frpher guvf" naq "frpher gung" jura gur guvat vf nalguvat ohg. Guvf qbrf abg znxr hf fnsre, ohg ol tbqf, qbrf vg znxr gur cbyvgvpvnaf ybbx tbbq.

Gurer. Naq abj V jvyy rapelcg guvf hfvat ROT-13 fb lbh jvyy arire or noyr gb ernq vg.

I resisted!

Since the advent of adware for the epileptic*, I run flashblock so that flash animations have to ask permission to run. I stared at the little "f" in a ball. Should I click it? What would I see? Happy bouncy Windows 7 users-to-be? Remember folks, the first is always free! Even though I am not an epileptic, I am sure it would give me fits. So... No.

* Yes, I do know someone who gets fits from flashing icons. So I'm the 100.000th visitor to your website? Just let me lie in a darkened room trying to get my nerve stimuli back under control while I contemplate how I can bring down the wrath of the Gods on you, you morons.

It seems that the neo-nazis are passe

It used to be that any new political party with the Wrong Ideas would be linked, somehow, to Neo-Nazi organisations. I suppose the bogeyman du jour is now the child molester. I see it as a sign that the other parties are mildly worried.

@Jamie 19 11:37

Sluff? That doesn't rhyme with "now".

The cabbages are coming now.

The earth exhales!

Paris, because she is known to frizz out peroxide hair.

YOU WOULD NOT STEAL A CAR

You would not kill a policeman

Then steal his helmet.

Then go to the toilet in it and send it to his bereaved wife.

Then steal it again.

PIRACY IS THEFT!

Damn.... Should have done it all in all caps. Oh well.

Okay...

Another sex survey, as performed in front of a live audience...

Presenter: "Right. Let me see some hands How many of you have sex every day?"

A few hands go up.

Presenter: "Well, that's heartening. How many of you do it every week?"

Many more hands go up.

Presenter: "Oh good! Nice to see that we're still practicing the marital arts on a regular basis. Okay, once per month?"

A few hesitant hands go up.

Presenter: "Oh you have my sympathy. Okay. Once per year?"

One man jumps up: "Me, me, ME!"

Presenter: [boggles] "Uhhh... Why are you so happy about doing it only once per year?"

Man: "Cause tonight is the night!"

OMG... Features!

Background Intelligent Transfer Service - Yup. We have Secure Shell for that. Also, Linux has loads of QoS options that you can use, should you desire to do so. It's actually pretty typical of Microsoft to implement bandwidth throttling in their file transfer program, instead of at the network level where it belongs.

Windows Management Instrumentation - Sounds lovely, doesn't it? I was most surprised when Linux told me the amount of juice left in my cordless mouse's battery. It would be even nicer if all hardware manufacturers would implement those management functions consistently. Just getting the serial number off all the machines would be nice. However, there are still machines where you're reduced to crawling behind them and copying faded little stickers...

Microsoft Installer - Oh my god... You mean MS has an installer now? Based on Relational Database Files? Yeah, whatever. I forget when the Debian Package Manager made its appearance, but it's been with us for a good bit. It will auto-install and auto-configure all software, and administer package name, version number and whatnot in a neat list so you can easily see what's on there. It also automatically resolves requisites, downloading them off teh Internets where required. (So nice not to have to worry about license keys, license daemons, activation, Windows Ginuwine Advantage, copy protection and all those other things that MS wastes your time with). Or you can point it at your own repository. The MS installer has nothing on Debian Package Manager and APT. You didn't think we were still busily hand-crufting installs with "make install" did you?

Group Policy Management - What Linux don't do out of the install images, you can usually control with a small shellscript. I can control up to the last comma what someone gets on their screen with Linux.

"(ironically, we've had to disable some of the encryption features to allow our Unix server to authenticate, due to it's limited Kerberos facilities.)"

Yeah... There's a reason for that. You see, what you Windows people see as "Kerberos", is actually Mostly-Kerberos with a few little non-standard MS pimples added, just to be incompatible with anything else. So-called-LDAP is the same. I'm actually surprised that MS *lets* you disable their pimples. You see, in our happy Unix world, the word "standard" actually means something. It means that all the Unix-makers (Sun, IBM, HP, and the Linux Hive-mind) have agreed to do things all the same. That means, for instance, that graphical X11 applications from all those platforms happily display next to each other on my Linux workstation. It also means that I don't care what Unix a DNS server is running, because it's standard and will always work. Even after fifteen years or so in IT, I still have to see my first correctly-functioning Windows-based DNS server.

So yes, any idiot can configure a DNS server on Windows. However, that also means that you get a DNS server configured by an idiot. Ask them to do something not immediately obvious, and they're at a loss and muttering direly about how only a freak would want something like that.

Am I the only one...

Who wants a bloody simple phone without all this graphical crap? At the risk of being called a Luddite, given that I already have a very nice 15" laptop with GPRS, for internet on the go, I want my phone to bloody well call people, and that's *it*. My bread-lord had bestowed one of those glorified calculators on me for my use. Always fun to see which menu options I have selected with my ear. It's a crap phone and it's a crap computer. For actually making calls, I much *much* prefer my 20 quid Tesco pay-as-you-go jobbie.

Add to that Microsoft's dedication to making things not work, and I'm left with the question: Why bother?

Hey! I resent that!

I did all the quests for D.E.H.T.A. and earned the "D.E.H.T.A.'s little P.I.T.A." achievement! I slaughtered the lackeys of Hemet Nessingwary, preventing them from devastating clam fields and trapping baby mammoths. I trapped them in their own traps using nothing but fake fur! Haha! Take that, you baby mammoth murderer!

Druids for the Ethical and Humane Treatment of Animals, since you asked. In the Borean Tundra. Level 80 elites, so if you want a piece of them, better bring a few friends. But hey... You can get the G.E.H.T.A. off them. Yes, Gun for the Ethical...

(Now has anyone got page bloody four of "Green Hills of Stranglethorn?")

So... next time you visit a cinema...

Do warn the attendant to give you back the correct change, because if they don't they are STEALING. If they give you too much back, they are STEALING from their employer. If they give you too little, then they are STEALING from you. THEFT IS A CRIME! Did you know that MURDERERS and RAPISTS and TERRORISTS all started with STEALING?

Keep this up for twenty minutes. Be sure to tell the person behind you in the queue to check the teller as well.

Michelle Knight

http://forum.icann.org/lists/cyber-safety-petition/msg00190.html

I was going to open up the dungeons and show these people what I think of their misguided attempts to impose on all of us their view of the world, and then I read this, and I saw that it has been done already, politely, convincingly, and finally.

Oh, I saw there were exactly 69 comments. But I'm posting this anyway.

I never quibbled, when it was ribald...

I must confess, I am a great admirer of the works of Tom Lehrer. While some of his songs ("Who's Next", "So Long Mom") have lapsed in relevance, there are others which I would really, really hope would have lapsed by now, but haven't. One is "Send the Marines", and the other one is "Smut". The first time I hard the intro to that last one, I couldn't help grinning.

"I do have a cause, though. It is obscenity. I'm for it."

Visual clues my foot.

If you go purely for "Visual clues", then Vista does indeed boot in ten seconds. However, having lately had this monstrosity foisted on me, I can tell you that the thing is not usable until the little drive light stops blinking, which takes a few minutes, or one trip to the coffee machine.

Paris, because she's all about visual clues.

De-duplication ratios?

There may be a good reason why IBM is somewhat reticent in specifying the space saved by de-duplication. It depends on your data. If you have no duplicates in your data, then you will gain nothing. I like IBM's approach better than that of a better-unnamed sales rep who tried to convince me that de-duplication would save me up to 80% storage, even though no two of our servers were even running the same level of OS. While on the subject of specifying storage space: I'm also annoyed by tape drive manufacturers who happily market their tape drives as being capable of storing twice their native amount of data because of compression. Give me bloody numbers I can work with, you morons!

Cool. I'll go look at Amazon.

I've never denied that musos have kids to feed, too. The only reason I haven't been buying OR downloading music is that current offerings are crap. The reasons I won't buy DRM-encrusted "offerings" are that it either tries to make me run Windows, tries to keep me from actually listening to it, buggers up my system, or any and all of the above. Trying to keep my music collection to ransom is also reason to decline. Musicians don't seem to realise how easy it is to do without their products.

If Amazon were to hide a message in their files saying "We sold this to Mostor Astrakan", I would not mind at all. I may let someone else listen to it, but If they want it, they should go to the original source.

These "download it for free" pissants are, not to put too fine a point on it, lying. Music is NOT a free commodity - people produce it for a living. They're already getting shafted by the music industry, they don't need to be shafted by the fanbase as well. With sold MP3s, the most important stumbling blocks are no longer there.

Yabbut...

While it couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of people, I agree with the poster elsewhere who said that leaking of membership lists of minority parties is a Bad Thing. This time, it happened to people We Don't Like. Next time, it could happen to someone We Do Like.

Also, I'm sure that people have already started adding names to the list. I'm sure there's one floating about with Gordon Brown and Jaqui Smith on... Hilarious. What better way to assassinate your rival?

One of the things that made me vote blank every time, was the sheer disgust at politicians who will happily try to associate anyone they don't like with neo-nazis.

Nonono...

It is very easy to implement a protection method. Whenever anyone downloads or uploads a file using Bittorrent, you send it by email to abuse@sppf.fr, and ask them if it belongs to them. If they don't respond within five minutes, then you can assume it's OK.

@Roger Williams

Well, you see... Everybody keeps yelling at them: "Eff off, retard!" for obvious reasons, and they didn't catch that the F isn't part of the Retard bit. That's the danger in using other people's insults.

Honestly, if Windows is so user-friendly...

Then why does the guy sitting next to me at work have a full-time job guessing the applications everybody has on their systems? As is the Windows users' wont, he's using something third-party and expensive to do it because MS hasn't implemented a package manager that anyone wants to use. I hear a lot of low-level swearing.

Compare and contrast. On my Linux boxen, I can get a full report on all of them in a minute or so. Using commands that someone here has now explained to the newbies.

Can I have a job at Microsoft?

Really... To have your highest boss come out saying that he officially doesn't know or approve of what the hell you think you're doing. A day to call in sick, methinks...

This may actually be a better one.

"11. If you end your agreement for the service during the relevant minimum

period you will have to pay a charge, by way of compensation to us, for

ending it early unless paragraphs 9 or 10 of these service terms apply or

you are ending your agreement because of a change made which is to your

significant disadvantage. You will find details of these charges in the

price terms."

Hmm... This may actually be good news. Since the disadvantage need no longer be material, it brings into play the condition that now, you have the uneasy feeling that your doings on-line are being monitored and you feel you can no longer trust your ISP. That may well be a "significant" disadvantage, though not a "material" one.

That means that you can avoid the penalty charges for ending early if you no longer trust BT.

As a counter-example...

World of Warcraft has no DRM that I am aware of (please do educate me if I'm wrong). In fact, they suggest lending your CD to a friend if you want to give them a trial account. You get an account on their server, and that is what you pay for. As long as you keep your password secure, you're fine, Blizzard is satisfied that you have paid for your pleasure and everybody's happy.

Copy protection went out of fashion some time in the seventies.

Preloads? Schmeeloads.

To get a cheap Linux laptop, you buy a Windows one. Software manufacturers will actually pay hardware people to get their <del>trash</del> Valuable Merchandise preloaded on their boxes. This makes hardware cheaper. So you buy one of these boxes, boot it up with the Umbongo CD already in the drive, scrub the disks from top to bottom (Recovery partition? What's that for?) and soon you'll have a system that's usable.

You get a cheap box that's so ridiculously overspecced that even Vista runs on it, the software peddlers get the warm fuzzy feeling that someone out there may be using their junk, Microsoft gets another Imaginary Happy Vista User. Everybody happy!

Kind request...

Would the government kindly stop pissing about and start working on the people who are, you know, actually molesting children? On the one hand we have small children being raped repeatedly under the eye of the camera. On the other we have some sad fucker fapping off to a drawing.

Which is more important then?

I'll say this for Vista...

It makes hardware vendors stick in obscene amounts of RAM. Which (once you get rid of the trash on the harddisk), you then get to use for your own applications.

Another thing is that Vista PCs are cheaper than clean ones of similar spec. Yes, with clean ones you avoid the risk that it suddenly starts showing you MS logos, but I find that they respond perfectly well to a boot CD and the standard "Use the entire disk" procedure. So if MS is willing to pay for the illusion that the warez on the harddisk will ever see the light of day, then thank you Bill!

I used to be worried about the statistics, and go all: "Don't register me as a Windows user you bastards!" But MS probably has me listed as a happy Vista user twice over already, so what's the point? It's not like anyone even believes in the numbers coming out of Windows PCs...

Because packets should run free!

What John said.

Lusers who think that they can get 8Mbit/sec out of whatever site on the Internet simply because their link to the nearest router will support it should (for preference) educate themselves, or shut up. I have absolutely NOTHING against traffic shaping, network optimisation, QoS and the like. Pipes are not infinitely wide, so there will be queues. If throttling P2P packets means that my latency sensitive WoW packets and my interactive web sessions go faster, then it's a GOOD thing.

I remember when the net performance would basically come to a complete stop when the schools went out and the script kiddies came out of class and started downloading whatever tickled their fancy. Traffic shaping means my webmail session has a fighting chance out there. Prime time would be around 9am when the little darlings were either still in bed or in class.

For crying out loud, what are you using P2P for? This is a download of a movie or a Linux distro, Windows fixes or something else that is Large. It's going to take a while anyway, so you may as well stop staring at that torrent screen, click it away and do something interesting. It's not that your life grinds to a halt untill you can watch that last episode of Crotchwoot innit? Oh it is? You sad fuck.

Oh joy...

A post by one of the effluent-spillers. I'm assuming that this one comes from Phorm or one of its well-wishers. Since the main perpetrators seem to be unavailable, let's rip this post into tiny shreds, shall we?

"This is unbelievable- do you people really have nothing better to worry about?"

Why, yes. But you, my little pond scum, have managed to attract the attention of the Angry Mob, and much deservedly so. I cannot see this die down until your company files for bankruptcy.

"Don't you worry that Sky is analysing your viewing habits when your box dials BskyB every night?"

No, I don't. The reason being, I know that no privacy sensitive data goes into my skybox. So Sky is welcome to deduce from my viewing habits that QI is a very popular program. The Internet on the other hand, is worming its way into more and more of my financial arrangements.

"Or your bank knows where you are spending money then sending you junk mail offering you loans/insurance?"

Well, no they don't. I have told them in no uncertain terms to refrain from such activities or lose a customer. So far they have abided by that request.

"For Fucks sake grow up, if you don't like the idea, opt out. Simple."

As has been pointed out, opting out is not *that* simple, and involves switching ISPs. Because while opting out returns the annoyances to their old scattergun approach, you will still be stealing my data regardless of whether I opt in or out.

"(I'd like to see one of you IT sophisticates actually hack into Phorm and crack the anonymising data_- oh sorry, little too difficult? maybe it really is secure."

That's not the point. However secure it is, it's *in the wrong hands*. You filth-encrusted bottom feeders are stealing *my* data for your own grubby purposes. As has been pointed out: that is illegal.

"But don't pretend to be anything other than a Luddite."

I have been waiting for an excuse to use the phrase "arse-gravy of the worst description". You are clearly not up to date with the life and works of General Ludd, if you compare it to the well-deserved trashing you are receiving from Internet users who do not appreciate their data being copied to your sneaky eavesdropping box, for *you* to decide whether it's privacy sensitive or not.

But maybe I'm too harsh. After all, Phorm has done the Internet an invaluable service by serving as an example of what happens to organisations that are found helping themselves to data that doesn't belong to them. $DEITY knows that there are plenty of other unscrupulous bottom feeders out there that haven't been caught yet.

Like the noise. Noise good.

My learned friend informs me that "Due Diligence" in law has a well defined meaning. STFW comes up with this link:

http://research.lawyers.com/glossary/due-diligence.html

This definition I think is most relevant: "The care that a prudent person might be expected to exercise in the examination and evaluation of risks affecting a business transaction." You can use it as a defense if one of your jobs goes pear-shaped, but you genuinely analysed all the risks and nobody would have expected the sudden outbreak of squid in the computer room.

Now "significant due diligence" on the other hand, has no legal meaning whatsoever. If taken logically (hah!) it means that Due Diligence was <i>not</i> taken, only a "significant" portion thereof.

Frankly, not telling a number of users that you're syphoning off their -until then- private conversations on the web is about as far away from "Due Diligence" as it is possible to get without actually breaking into their homes.

Paris, because she, too, is now an expert on legal matters.

Plain and simple.

1. I have NOT given anyone permission to intercept my web traffic.

2. BT now intercepts everything I do on the Web and sends it to a Phorm server. (Or would if I had my connection with them, which I don't).

I do NOT care about or mind:

- Phishing sites. I have adequate defenses against that.

- Making web site advertising more relevant. The interesting bit on the website is what its webmasters have put there, NOT advertisements. They are the distractions.

- Normal and non-intrusive ads on pages, ESPECIALLY if they happen to be on the same subject as the website I'm browsing. Pssst... Corporate World: You can do that by advertising your cars on... an automotive oriented website!

I DO care about:

- Security on-line. Phorm seems to employ the same magic smoke vendors as the ID card database vendors who claim that their systems are "Unhackable". This is not Hogwarts, you myopic blunderheads! You may not keep the data on YOUR systems, but what exactly prevents someone from compromising your systems and making them send the uncut version somewhere else?

- Making those fetid crack-smoking customer-sodomising bottom feeders that put wild blinking ads on what might otherwise have been a useful website, INCLUDING the excrement-encrusted coprophages that put a huge rolling corporate logo on top of and over these very Register pages, die a long, slow, protracted and painful death.

My home Internets come from a small Internet company that does charge me more than others, but doesn't try and "monetise" MY web surfing.

Anyone who is considering making money by distracting web surfers from their work, should ask themselves this question: "DO I *REALLY* want my corporate name to be associated with the words SMEG OFF!?"