* Posts by Raumkraut

424 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Aug 2009

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Chrome devs hatch plan to mark all HTTP traffic insecure

Raumkraut

The vast majority of web content has zero security relevance. Who [i]cares[/i] if that cat picture is sent securely?

Do you like your web traffic to have ISP-injected advertising added to it?

Do you enjoy having your ISP add uniquely-identifying tokens to every page request?

Do you enjoy not knowing whether that file you just downloaded from $reputable_site has been tampered with?

Do you like receiving web pages which could be trivially rewritten to directly contain malware?

I don't. That's why I prefer the authentication and privacy offered by TLS.

Microsoft, rivals together fight US govt's cloud data snatch

Raumkraut

And when we do "finally come to realise" that, what do you think will follow?

If this decision goes "against" Microsoft, et al, I think that what will follow will be a series of large multinational corporations splitting some of their operations and services into multiple individual national-level companies, rather than everything being directly owned by a single parent entity.

For the governments, it would reduce the ability of companies to "avoid" taxes, or other local laws, whenever it suited them.

For the corporations, they'd get a single, known, legal jurisdiction to deal with; and generally much smaller market variation to tailor their product to. They'd also, in theory, have more autonomy from "head office", and freedom to choose business partners (local laws permitting).

For the customer, we'd effectively get more competition between companies and legal jurisdictions; with the customer deciding which jurisdiction is best for them, and not the corporations deciding for everyone purely for their own financial gain.

I, for one, welcome our new federated corporate overlords.

Apple lawyers fight to silence dead Steve Jobs: 'No right' to hear him from beyond the grave

Raumkraut

Class-action suits aren't about getting the plaintiffs rich, they're about punishing corporate activity which illegally harms the consumer. Of course lawyers get rich in the process, but they do that whatever the case, so that's neither here nor there.

The interesting (and often most questionable) part IMO is what will become of the portion of the inevitable settlement which remains unclaimed by class members (which is usually most of it).

Parliament face-sit-in to spark mass debate on UK's stiff smut stance

Raumkraut

I think the thing with "female ejaculation" is that it looks very much (to law-makers) like urination, which is a big(ger) no-no (for some reason). Particularly in porn, they tend to squirt a lot of water into the woman beforehand, so to amplify the visual effect, but this also raises the similarity to peeing. Or so I hear.

It's the banning of "abusive language" I really don't get. I'm sure people hear worse things on TV all the time.

Review mass-snoop laws regularly, says RIPA daddy Blunkett

Raumkraut
Trollface

Re: Oh dear

> Just to add to that; you're four times as likely to be killed by a lightning strike than by an act of terrorism.

> something less likely to kill us than choking on a peanut

> There have been far more citizens of this country forced into despair and suicide by benefit 'sanctions' than there have been people killed by terrorism.

> The ONS statistics show no deaths from any terrorism-related cause in the UK in 2013.

And yet you all still doubt the worthiness of the resources spent on anti-terror measures. What better evidence can there be of their efficacy?

Why, hello there, Foxy... BYE GOOGLE! Mozilla's browser is a video star

Raumkraut
Thumb Down

Re: Powered by Telefonica?

Telefonica are behind Tokbox, which IIRC is the back-end system which powers Firefox Hello.

Now I'm not usually one to bash Firefox or Mozilla (I use a FxOS phone, FFS!), but IMO this is a stupid thing for Mozilla to embed directly in the web browser. It's effectively siding with one particular WebRTC service provider, and directly competing with all the other providers out there - providers which rely on Mozilla to remain neutral (at least technologically). Unless Telefonica came to them with a big bag of money, I really don't understand what they were thinking.

Not to mention that the feature may well suddenly stop working at some point in the future, once the business deal has run its course.

#Gamergate folk load flamethrower, roast own feet over GTA V 'ban'

Raumkraut

Right on target

While it may be a misunderstanding that led to people targeting Target US, it is not necessarily a futile gesture if Target Aus licenses the brand from Target US (or from the same licensor if Target US is also a franchise).

The licensor of the shared Target brand should well take an interest in what license-holders do with that brand, and they could certainly threaten to withdraw (or at least not renew) the franchisee's ability to use the Target brand name, if they strongly disagreed with a decision.

Is EU right to expand 'right to be forgotten' to Google.com?

Raumkraut

Re: Please start thinking

So Google deletes all references to RaumKraut on their servers. Their spider finds the offensive web page with your name in it again, and because all instructions to the contrary have been deleted, it puts an entry in Google's index linking your name to the web page you do not like.

That's a fair retort to my explanation (which I guess in future I'll have to amend), but it doesn't change the essence of what Google are required to do by law. If the information was deemed - by Google - to be irrelevant, then the act of spidering it again won't change that relevance.

All those who think the 'right to be forgotten laws' are a good idea,

FWIW, there are no "right to be forgotten laws". These are data protection laws.

...point your browser's search box at google.eu

Everyone else use google.com or duckduckgo.com or baidu, bing, ¡Yahoo!, AOL, ask, wow, webcrawler, infospace, blekko, contenko, dogpile, alhea, ...

Yet, in fact, people using those search engines/domains which ignore these requests will see worse search results, because the only results removed due to this legislation should be incorrect or irrelevant.

Raumkraut

Re: Please start thinking

The offensive material is not on a website controlled or owned by Google. They cannot delete it. What they are required to do is not show links to particular web pages when someone in the EU does a web search for a particular name.

No. While that is the narrative which seems to be encouraged by Google, it is factually incorrect.

The data in question is exactly on Google's website, because the data in question is the association (stored and displayed by Google) between a person's name and a particular third-party website. The third-party website itself might be entirely truthful and accurate, but the association made by Google is no longer relevant to searches performed today..

Raumkraut

Completely missing the point (don't worry, you're not alone)

It's possible to see this working out in two different ways. Google might decide to simply scrub the offending pieces from the entire index. Or it might try some form of geo-location decisions on where the engine is being accessed from.

No. Only the first option would fulfil the requirement of the law. The issue isn't just about what gets shown to users. The issue is that Google continues to retain the information at all.

This is about data protection. Google have data on people (the associations between names and.search results). Those people, by right, can ask that that Google remove irrelevant and/or incorrect parts of that data. Google have a legal responsibility to delete that data where it is irrelevant and/or incorrect. Not "hide" or "censor"; delete.

Ten Linux freeware apps to feed your penguin

Raumkraut

Re: Hmm. Geany could be worth a look...

Kate and Geany are both good ATEs. I used Kate when KDE was in the 3.x days, then Geany in the time between KDE 4.x being adopted and it becoming stable enough, and now I'm back to Kate - though ever wavering.

I use Kate day-to-day, but if asked for a recommendation I'd probably say Geany is the better of the two. Kate seems to have a lot more niggles and irritating bugs which I hit. I feel that Geany behaves more like what most people would expect (ctrl+tabbing between recent documents is only a recent addition to Kate!).

Honestly, the only things keeping me with Kate at the moment are how the "Documents" side-pane works (Geany has functionality close, but not close enough), and the MiniMap/DocumentMap which can replace the scrollbar (one mailing list post I saw says it'd be "trivial" to implement in Geany, yet nobody has done it yet).

One thing Geany does much better than Kate IME is indentation. I've had nothing but pain with how Kate handles indentation (particularly, its complete lack of automatic detection).

Knockoff knockdown: Euro cops shutter 300 'counterfeit' domains

Raumkraut

If the goods are a 1-1 copy of an original product, then it is counterfeit.

If someone manufactures a physical good which is identical to another product, there's nothing implicitly against the law about that AFAIK. If the recreation is represented as being an original - and not a replica - then it could be labelled as "counterfeit". What they're actually liable for depends on how they mis-represent the item:

* If they use a brand name - as part of the design, marketing, etc. - they could be liable for trademark infringement.

* If they use a brand logo, or a close approximation - as part of the design, marketing, etc. - then they could be liable for both copyright infringement (of the logo) and trademark infringement (of the logo specifically, and brand in general).

Additionally, even without the copyright/trademark aspect, a replica product could still infringe any (design/functional) patents which may apply to the product.

(IANAIPLBIPOOTI)

Star Wars: Episode VII trailer lands. You call that a lightsaber? THIS is a lightsaber

Raumkraut

Re: OMG... A little restraint please...

On the specific note, the crossguard is naff. ... have the 'light' part substituting for the part you hit people with, which makes sense. A guard is an odd choice here.

Not really. AIUI, the point of a crossguard is to protect the wielder from the opposition's blade "sliding" down their own, and lopping their hand or arm off. Since pretty much the only thing which can stop a lightsaber is another lightsaber, then you couldn't really make a functional crossguard out of anything else.

That said, the plain crossguard seen in the clip I would more expect from a Jedi, since its role is going to be mostly defensive. I would expect a Sith to have a more upturned guard, which would be more suited to an aggressive role of trapping the opponent's lightsaber, and wrenching it from their grip - disarming the opponent for an easier kill.

But yes, it does feel a bit naff.

Right to be forgotten should apply to Google.com too: EU

Raumkraut

Re: First Amendment ?

If they want to operate in the EU, and shuttle a great deal of their money through the EU, then they need to play by EU rules.

The option to exit the EU market is always open to them, if they decide the rules are too onerous.

Raumkraut

Re: Unnecessary by their own admission

So if the obligations already apply to websites, such content should be dealt with by issuing a request to the publisher themselves to take down the offending content.

This is exactly what is being done, since the search listing is the content in question.

It's not a question of the information being available on other sites, and it never has been. It's a question of what Google, and other search engines, show on their own websites.

Bloke fighting Facebook in court says ad network claims its users lack 'legal capacity' to sue it

Raumkraut

Who do you think you are?

What I suspect Facebook's leeches *meant*, from my position of almost complete ignorance of the case, is that there is no evidence that the 25,000+ plaintiffs are, or ever have been, actual Facebook users.

Is/was there required any proof that one was a Facebook user, when signing up to be a plaintiff? The simplest way would probably be to have them sign up with their Facebook account...

Antarctic ice THICKER than first feared – penguin-bot boffins

Raumkraut
Thumb Up

Re: Ah...

I was fully prepared for another tiresome climate-scientist-bashing article from Ol' Reg, but what I got instead was a proper report of an interesting scientific survey.

ESA's spaceplane cleared for lift-off in February 2015

Raumkraut

Pix or it doesn't xist

I wonder how long it will be before the/an English language ditches the initial "e" on "experimental", etc. so all these acronyms start making logical sense.

And for those wondering what the actual IXV space-plane looks like, I found this: http://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESTEC/Last_chance_to_see_ESA_s_spaceplane

Download alert: Nearly ALL top 100 Android, iOS paid apps hacked

Raumkraut

Re: Simple Really!

With great freedom comes great personal responsibility.

Apple on the art of the deal: 'Put on your big boy pants and accept the agreement'

Raumkraut

Re: Cheapo sapphire machines?

Just wait a little while and you might be able to pick up one of the good ones that GTAT's creditors will force them to sell off.

If you get there before Apple snap them all up for a song, that is.

'You have no right to see me naked!' Suddenly, everyone wakes up at the Google-EU face-off

Raumkraut

Re: Wrong Target?

Alas, it seems you've drunk the Google Koolaid. The point is not that the information is available on the internet. The point is that Google are making certain assertions about people, by virtue of search result rankings for peoples' names.

If you search Google for "viagra", you expect to get the most relevant results about the drug, not one hundred billion linkspam sites.

If you search Google for one "Horatio Hornswaggle", virtuoso Xylophone player, you expect to get the most relevant results about that person; which perhaps doesn't include their 1st grade homework, nor a "drunk and disorderly" conviction from 20 years ago.

The key phrase is "most relevant results". Google are still claiming this to be a censorship issue, thereby bringing up the region-locking and "OMG CHINA" bogeymen. What they should be doing is saying "thank you for the additional source of relevancy data, we have updated our search algorithms to provide even better search results".

Because that's effectively what this is all about: improving the relevancy of Google's search results.

Trolls pop malformed heads above bridge to sling abuse at Tim Cook

Raumkraut

Re: one in four gays suffer online bullying - very low

To put this in perspective this is a lower rate of being subject to bullying and cyber-bullying than average.

The "one in four" is only counting homophobic bullying, so the remainder of the bullied gay young people probably just get it exclusively for other reasons instead (for being poor, rich, tall, short, fat, thin, etc.).

But it does somewhat depend on the definition of "homophobic" bullying used. If being called a "faggot" counts, then given some of the environments young people are likely expose themselves to on the Internet, I'd expect one in four heterosexual young people experience homophobic bullying as well.

Brazil greenlights $200m internet cable to Europe in bid to outfox NSA

Raumkraut

Re: Encryption is a good option

Cryptography is a complete waste of time if you have any closed-source software on your computer

If the closed-source (or open-source) software on your computer is compromised/malware, then that malicious party could get access to your data, indeed. But if you don't use cryptography, then anyone could get access to your data.

This time it's SO REAL: Overcoming the open-source orgasm myth with TODO

Raumkraut

Join our FLOSS party! No FLOSSies allowed.

So a bunch of proprietary-software companies decide to set up an open-source software organisation, but they apparently didn't think to invite any of the already established Free/Open-source software organisations?

Yeah, call me sceptical.

No nudity, please, we're GAMING: Twitch asks players to cover up

Raumkraut
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Humdrum Entertainment Inc.

What exactly was the problem with hosting these videos? Unless such content is highlighted by Twitch on the main page or something, people have to actively go out and seek these streams. So surely the sensible answer would be for Twitch not to highlight such streams, and have people who want to see them go find them specifically.

But instead we get the moral police waving their truncheons.

Netflix and other OTT giants use 'net neutrality' rules to clobber EU rivals

Raumkraut

Norway’s biggest ISP, Telenor, was keen to improve the quality of its OTT video service, and offered a commercial rates direct connection, said Layton...

“Telenor said ‘send it direct to us and customers will get a better experience’, but the US company said it preferred direct connection,” said Layton.

What?

Telenor offered a direct connection, but Netflix refused because they wanted a direct connection?

What?

CBS goes OTT, releases EVERY EPISODE of Star Trek EVER MADE

Raumkraut

Who ransoms whom?

Going OTT lets CBS simultaneously cut out the middleman and hold him to ransom. That is: it can bypass the cablecos, ISPs and satellite companies by going straight to any consumer with an adequate internet connection, while also using that threat as a hammer to beat them down in contract negotiations.

You can't bypass the ISPs, if you rely on your customer's ISP to deliver your content.

"That's a nice content delivery platform you have there, Mister CBS. Would be a shame if it were to get... congested."

UNIX greybeards threaten Debian fork over systemd plan

Raumkraut

Re: So fork, then

Personally I have never liked sysv init much with its huge pile of little shell scripts sequenced by a funny naming rule. The systemd can hardly be worse. Haven't used it much yet, but it appears to be well-documented, and brings up my personal OpenSuse spin snappily.

Ah, you've fallen into the same trap as Debian did. You've mistaken systemd for a sysvinit replacement. It's not. It's a replacement for just about the entire operating system stack (the clue is in the name). Where currently the argument is about "GNU/Linux", it may soon be better phrased "systemd/Linux".

The fear is that once you adopt systemd, it will be unreasonably difficult to replace it with anything better in the future, thanks to its all-encompassing nature, and the encouragement of *explicit* dependencies by user-facing software. There's no reason why the Gnome DE should strictly require one particular init system, but it does.

Arab States make play for greater government control of the internet

Raumkraut

Re: Ok.. I'll get behind this...

In 30 days, the UN might just about have gotten around to scheduling the first pre-pre-planning meeting, for deciding how to decide who should be involved in the pre-planning meeting.

If you're afraid of rapid change, the UN is not your enemy.

'Theoretical' Nobel economics explain WHY the tech industry's such a damned mess

Raumkraut

Sometimes I can't tell whether something in a headline is about "US" the country, or "US" the emphasised collective of El Reg readership.

"GIANT FLAMING BADGERS are out to get US!"

Return of the Jedi – Apache reclaims web server crown

Raumkraut

Re: Hooray for Apache!

Good luck with your bumper Patch Tuesday tomorrow, Anonymous Coward.

Nadella's Karmagate howler was response to MICROSOFT BOARD DIRECTOR – report

Raumkraut

Stack overpay

I wonder if Nadalla's answer to the question might have something to do with Microsoft's (past?) culture of stack ranking? As I understand it, under MS' stack ranking system, your bonuses and pay raises are tied to your performance in the ranking. The idea being that, if you deserve a raise then "the system" will work that out automatically based on how well you do your job (or, more realistically, how well you can game the stack-ranking system).

So Nadalla might be correct when it comes to large companies which have "a system" in place, but being such a long-time Microsoft person, he may not have realised that most of the rest of the world isn't so algorithmically organised.

Brits: Google, can you scrape 60k pages from web, pleeease

Raumkraut

Re: Other search engines?

Does anybody knows if this "right to be forgotten" thing applies to all search engines even future ones?

It's the law, so it's not specific to one particular company, no. If a search engine provides results pertaining to an individual, then they have some responsibility to keep those results accurate and relevant.

I know, shocking isn't it? Search engines returning useful results? Socialism gone mad, I tell you!

Remember that tale of a fired accountant who blamed Comcast? It's kinda true, says telco

Raumkraut

He'll have violated the policy which says you can't threaten clients.

Perhaps, but based on what evidence? Comcast appear to be adamant that there is no recorded evidence of any threats made by anyone. So if that were the reason, PWC would be doing Comcast's bidding without any evidence of wrongdoing - which could be grounds for a wrongful dismissal lawsuit against PWC.

Personally, I think it's more likely that PWC have enormously byzantine ethics rules, and they found some minor infraction (like using the wrong kind of smiley face in an old email, or such) they could use to justify hanging the guy out to dry.

Chatting to Al Qaeda? Try not to do that – Ex spy chief defends post-Snowden NSA

Raumkraut

Alexander urged the security faithful to unite, even calling for banks to operate out of a united facility to harden the nations' financial capabilities.

Having everyone's financial data stored in a single place? How very... convenient.

Yes. Economists do love magical, lovely human selfishness

Raumkraut

What is this? A chart for ants?

If you're going to put charts into articles, please make them a link to a full-size version. You know, one where the legend is actually legible.

Google ordered to tear down search results from its global dotcom by French court

Raumkraut

And they'll show your middle finger a "contempt of court" ruling.

Companies should either obey the law, or get out of the region.

Raumkraut

The only law is US law

When Google comply with a US DMCA request, do they only remove the entry from their .us search results?

IRONY ALERT: Former MI6 chief warns of 'mass snooping' - by PAEDOS

Raumkraut

The govt is mother, the govt is father, trust the govt

> But we are a law-based state operating very tightly within a legal framework and a cultural environment and that is where your protection must lie.

So our protection must lie in the following (non-exhaustive) list of groups all being entirely trustworthy and reliable (eg. not leaving documents on trains):

* This government, and every future government.

* Every judge who will ever authorise warrants.

* Every person who currently, or at any future time, works for the government.

* Every employee of the police service, present and future.

* Every security service agent, present and future.

Yeah, nah. I'd rather trust the mathematics.

Coming to a theater near you: the TETRIS MOVIE

Raumkraut

Re: Duh,

I'll never forget this historical epic, either:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWTFG3J1CP8

Third patch brings more admin Shellshock for the battered and Bashed

Raumkraut

Re: @Eddy Ito

> Outside the Linux realm, sh(1) is not bash(1), not even with bash in Posix mode.

Even Debian (and by extension Ubuntu, etc.) has /bin/sh linked to dash (Debian Almquist Shell), and not bash.

And I let them talk me into using CentOS for our servers. Shame on me.

Raumkraut
Alert

Re: More patches....

> Also keep in mind that 90% of what you read casually omits the fact that this is only an issue for servers, not for desktops (unless I got this wrong, happy to be corrected).

Unfortunately, you are indeed mistaken. It turns out that, at the very least, DHCP - the service which likely assigns you your IP address on a network - is often implemented on a *nix client using calls out to a shell. So a malicious DHCP server on your network could exploit this flaw on any machine (or router, storage device, thermostat, lightbulb, etc.) which uses Bash - completely without user intervention!

Of course, getting that rogue DHCP server on your network is another matter, so this is mostly a concern when using open WiFi networks.

Inequality increasing? BOLLOCKS! You heard me: 'Screw the 1%'

Raumkraut

Re: Apologetic.

> Yes: http://spiritleveldelusion.blogspot.cz/

Ta for that. Though maybe it's just my own biases, but I'm highly sceptical of any "scientific" argument (or rebuttal, for that matter) made via sales of a book. Especially if its (sub)title refers to "the left" or "the right" as if that means anything.

> Further, I'm discussing something, globalisation, that has different effects on the two things. It increase the incomes of the absolutely poor. It also increases inequality within the rich countries.

This is my other point of contention. Is this necessarily the case? Are the two really inextricably entwined? Are there not governmental mechanisms which can be used to reduce national inequality, without lowering the demand for international trade?

I would guess that the money/trade going from the wealthy nations to the growing ones is generated from goods and services in demand by the general public, moreso than those just the very wealthy demand. So would it not be logical that more wealthy-nation people with more money to spend (via closer income/wealth equality) would increase the demand for such goods, thus increasing global trade, and reducing global inequality further?

I'm also idly curious as to how global inequality is affected by clamp-downs on grey-market imports (an anti-globalisation policy, AFAICT), but that's an aside.

Raumkraut

Re: Apologetic.

> Yeah, but you did notice the bit in the piece where I say I think the Spirit Level is hokum?

Yeah. but do you have any actual evidence or reasoning behind that belief?

Giuliani's Call of Duty: defeat Noriega in epic boss battle

Raumkraut

Re: I respawn my case

> sports people SELL their image through their agents so that they can get revenue from product endorsements etc.

You said:

> if you are/were a public figure ... then you pretty much give up your right for your image to be used in material

If they'd "pretty much given up their right to their image", why would *anyone* pay them for something that they didn't have any power to restrict the use of? The athletes would be unable to SELL their image for endorsements, etc. because there would be nobody willing to buy - because nobody would need permission to use their image in the first place.

Raumkraut

Re: I respawn my case

> Ugh no, if you are/were a public figure (being a despot counts) then you pretty much give up your right for your image to be used in material. That is the price of public office and/or being a celebrity.

In that case, why do EA pay real money to use the likenesses of professional sports-people they depict in their games? Out of the goodness of their hearts?

Raumkraut

I respawn my case

So it seems Activision/Giuliani have two defences; "free speech", and "ad hominem". And they seem to prefer to use the latter.

AFAIK, outside of specifically defined use-cases (journalism, education, parody, etc.), nobody has a right to use someone's likeness without their permission, even if that person has been a bad man.

BitTorrent's peer-to-peer chat app Bleep goes live as public alpha

Raumkraut

A Tox on both your houses

No mention of Tox? Which, AFAICT, already has encrypted p2p IM, voice and video?

SCREW YOU, Russia! NASA lobs $6.8bn at Boeing AND SpaceX to run space station taxis

Raumkraut

> where does musk find the time ?

In his wallet. Time is plentiful when you can simply pay other people to do all the real work.

It's a pain in the ASCII, so what can be done to make patching easier?

Raumkraut
Linux

Engage smug mode

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