* Posts by Bernard M. Orwell

1177 publicly visible posts • joined 12 May 2010

Alphabay shutdown: Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do? Not use your Hotmail...

Bernard M. Orwell
WTF?

uhhhmeeeeriiika!

"arrested earlier this month in Thailand ", "email address belonged to a Canadian man", "investigators stormed Cazes' house in Bangkok", "Other houses were found in Phuket, Cyprus, Antigua and Barbuda and added to the asset seizure.", "He sought – and achieved – citizenship of Antigua and Barbuda ", "He even sent money from Thailand through Liechtenstein to Cyprus".

America, World Police. Fuck Yeah.

UK regulator set to ban ads depicting bumbling manchildren

Bernard M. Orwell
Happy

I'll admit, there are some things my daughter watches that will put me to sleep in a heartbeat, but Pepper Pig was a staple in our house for many years. The trauma has stuck with me.

It also taught my daughter to expect me to be a stupid bumbling fool and my wife to be the decision maker in all things.... ....more than usual, that is.

Bernard M. Orwell
Megaphone

About bloody time too!

I've been harping on about this for years and years. Now, let's take the next step and deal with the same problem in childrens television programming where it goes without saying that men/fathers are always shown as stupid, incompetent comic figures whilst women/mothers are wise, always right and competent at everything.

Pepper Pig, I'm looking at your producers.

Trump tramples US Constitution by blocking Twitter critics – lawsuit

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: ID 10 T alert

"Notice that it is the Declaration of Independence and not the US Constitution, so doesn't pertain to this case."

It is the founding statement of intent and principle of your nation. Or is it just bullshit words?

It's make your mind up time, America.

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: ID 10 T alert

".. If they were, These principles would and actually could be applied to "all people"."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

- US Declaration of Independence"

I'm finding it amazing how often I have to quote this to Americans. Notice how that very famous paragraph doesn't say "....that all AMERICANS are created equal." it says "All men".

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: ID 10 T alert

"ID 10 T alert"

Good of you to use that as your post title, just to warn us you were posting.

UK.gov snaps on rubber gloves, prepares for mandatory porn checks

Bernard M. Orwell

"I read that legislation somewhere in the pipeline will allow businesses to sue the government for lost revenue due to their changing the rules."

That was part of TTIP, which I understand is now dead in the water. This is a good thing.

Bernard M. Orwell

"Also will tumblr be included..."

Or Reddit, Imgur, Pintrest, Google, Facebook, DeviantArt....? Or are they, de facto, not "porn sites"?

Trump to world: Forget moving to America to do a startup

Bernard M. Orwell

He just doesn't want the competition coming in. After all, it'd only take *one* good idea from an entrepreneur and they'd be 100% ahead of him.

It's time for a long, hard mass debate over sex robots, experts conclude

Bernard M. Orwell

"How long before your sex robot has your browser history and knows what you have looked for on PornHub, it can then offer you whatever fetish is in your browsing history even if you are too scared to ask your robot directly."

Dunno. That wasn't the result when my wife found my browsing history. Oh no, not at all.

Civil rights warriors get green light to challenge UK mass surveillance

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: It's not often I agree with the folks at Liberty

"hence my suggestion that it [IPA] is restricted to only the security services."

So, who exactly, we must wonder, are these 'security services'? MI5? MI6? GCHQ? Cobra? Metropolitan Police? Local Government Response teams? The NCA? Embassies dealing with foreign powers? the NHS? FiT Police Teams? The Cabinet? The Ambulance Service? The Gambling Commission? HMRC?

Well yes, all of those as it currently stands... .

..AND their "selected partners in the private sector". Read that again. Selected Partners. Private Sector. That'd be all those out-sourced service providers we all love then. G4S, Serco, Atos, Capita. I'll be a pound to a penny that they have clauses in their supplier contracts that let them "sell" that data to their own "partners" too.

yeah, here's my tenner to the kickstarter.

Five-eyes nations want comms providers to bust crypto for them

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: Breaking News: Water is wet

"uses old-school style cyphers to hide the messages inside innocuous looking plain-text internet posts?"

Like UseNet?

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: Germany

"Agreed: A court order that enables state-sponsored-hacking to infect and control a suspect's device to capture information before/after encryption is different from weakening encryption in general. It will not enable mass-surveillance."

Unless, of course, you don't assume that one court order is for one subject. It's simple enough for a single court order to permit the surveillance of very, very large numbers of people. Ask FISA for details. (though they may refuse to admit how many people are affected by their rulings, only the number of rulings themselves).

UK parliamentary email compromised after 'sustained and determined cyber attack'

Bernard M. Orwell

"would being dismissed out of hand as a pompous, self-obsessed and talent free clown put you off?"

Didn't stop May, Trump, Hunt, Farage, BoJo.... etc. etc.

Bernard M. Orwell

"I presume you have submitted the evidence you obviously have to the police?"

How about a tacit confession of collusion? Buckle up and watch this BBC clip. Once you've done so, understand that it was part of the body of evidence against parliamentarians that caused an inquest to be opened. An inquest that was deliberately derailed by T. May and co. She "lost" records more than once, had the chairperson removed at least twice and finally, quietly closed down the inquiry.

yeah, pretty sure there was sufficient evidence for plod to proceed.

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

[Transcript for those who can't watch YouTube right now]

A short extract from the Michael Cockerell documentary 'Westminster's Secret Service' broadcast by the BBC in 1995.

Tim Fortescue was a Whip under Edward Heath between 1970 and 1973. In the documentary it was revealed that the Chief Whip kept a little black 'dirt book' which contained information about MPs, and this was used as a method of political control.

"Anyone with any sense who was in trouble would come to the Whips and tell them the truth, and say now, "I'm in a jam, can you help?" It might be debt, it might be a scandal involving small boys, or any kind of scandal which a member seemed likely to be mixed up in, they'd come and ask if we could help. And if we could, we did. We would do everything we can because we would store up brownie points. That sounds a pretty nasty reason but one of the reasons is, if we can get a chap out of trouble, he'll do as we ask forever more."

Russian hackers selling login credentials of UK politicians, diplomats – report

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: What Is The Policy For MP's E-Mail ?

"It's a privileged communication so should not become a matter of official record. That's why the intelligence services are not supposed to tap MPs' communications; a point which is widely misunderstood."

If this were true, then doctors and other medical professions should be exempt, and, arguably, so too should lawyers, priests (inc. Imam) and financial advisors.

That rule ONLY serves MPs.

Tech industry thumps Trump's rump over decision to leave Paris climate agreement

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: strum Stick to business

"he/she relies on consensus amongst those who have studied those theories....." Sorry, but that is a complete load of cobblers. "

Once in a blue moon I have cause to agree with Matt Bryant. Today is one of those days. The Scientific Method has no room for "consensus" as scientific evidence. It demands experimentation and analysis of results. Good scientists will accept findings from experimentation that refute their theories and still think of it as science, they won't bend the data or adjust mathematical models until the data fits the theory.

Explanation by consensus alone is the domain of religion.

Lordy! Trump admits there are no tapes of his chats with Comey

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: It only gets worse

"surely you'd feel compelled..."

Careful there, it almost looked for a second as though you expected logic and reason from a right-wing voter and we all know that doesn't work.

Conservative manifesto disappears offline – then mysteriously reappears

Bernard M. Orwell

I've found the magic money tree! It was here all along!

There's £85bn being handed over to corporations in corporate welfare; incentives, tax breaks, grants and so forth. That's quite a lot of money, isn't it? That's more than the "bloody spongers" welfare bill, isn't it? Now, suppose we don't give them those breaks, what happens? Oh yeah, the conventional wisdom says that they'll leave the UK... "Screw you guys, I'm going home".

Seriously? Let's think about that a second. Large corporations, who don't pay taxes and get huge sums in corporate welfare are going to stop doing business in the UK? Amazon not delivering? Starbucks not making coffee? in the sixth largest consumer market in the world? Yeah, right, sure. They'll all be prepared to lose millions per year from lost business just to stick to a principle. Corporations are clearly well known for not being guided by the almighty bottom line, eh?

And if I'm wrong and they do? Well, we're not making any money from taxing them, and we'll save money by not giving them welfare. Off you go, I say. Bye, bye. I also don't think it'd be very long before other business, perhaps even home-grown UK ones, would step into a market breach suddenly left begging. People still want online junk ordering and crappy drive-through (sorry, "thru") coffee you know, no reason why a UK new starter couldn't fill that gap and create jobs (not off shored, even!) in the process.

lack of tax income from multinationals and corporate welfare handouts dwarf the costs given in Labours manifesto; it dwarfs the cost we currently pay in benefits to people who actually need it. Top it all off with a tax hike for the 1% wealthiest and/or a 1p increase in income tax and we could easily fund all of the suggested programs and more. We might even have a few bob left over for other projects, like, say, education and enterprise intiatives for SMEs.

So, stop pretending the money isn't there because its just being given to the wrong people and the wrong causes.

[Sauce] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/06/benefits-corporate-welfare-research-public-money-businesses

Bernard M. Orwell

"I Googled Labour's manifesto but the only hits I had were for "The Magic Money Tree And Other Fairy Stories"

Turn the page and you'll see "The Bus That Lied and Got Away With It" and "The March of the Orange Morons". You can find this and many other stories in the "Bumper Book of Fascism" by T. May and Friends. Reprints in "Voting for Dummies".

You can't take the pervs off Facebook, says US Supreme Court

Bernard M. Orwell

"the court decided that copyright holders have to "consider fair use" before sending takedown notices "

I wonder how this law will end up sitting with the companies that run web-crawlers on sites such as YouTube to identify copyright content? As I understand it, these bots are let loose to find *any* video that has no copyright information on it and then immediately slap a takedown notice on them in order to provoke either royalty payments or a copyright infringement claim regardless of whether there is a legal claim or not, and seemingly ignorant of fair use rules. Anyone have any direct experience of this issue?

Capita call centre chap wins landmark sex discrimination lawsuit

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: Nice to see a win in favour of equality of treatment!

"specific and accurate"

Cheers mate. This is the crux of my argument with the feminist movement, especially the so-called "second wave". Whilst feminism is often presented as a singular concept, in practice it is far from that. Feminism is an entirely different thing depending on your social and cultural viewpoint. If you're living in one of several middle-eastern countries then your feminism is likely to be focused on the treatment of women in politics or society, if its India then FGM may be your focus, in LA its likely to be whether your campus toilets are gender specific or not, in NYC its about man-spreading, and in London its about the wagegap. Feminism means a lot of different things to different people and its only defining attribute is that its about women. If you take Feminism to mean equality (another poor word that I eschew in favour of egality, but that's perhaps for another post.) then it diminishes the value that it has; ie that it becomes representative of all instead of being focused on issues affecting women alone.

Personally, I believe that a lack of egality underpins nearly all social issues, from race to gender to religion to class and only when we recognize that each member of our human race deserves the same opportiunities in life will we begin to break down these artificial borders that divide us. I think of this movement as an egalitarian one.

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: Nice to see a win in favour of equality of treatment!

it's not feminism, it's egalitarianism - the accordance of equality of opportunity to all regardless of gender, race or social status.

feminism is about advancing action to address the social inequalities that pertain to women specifically, in a similar manner to racism being about addressing inequities due to racial prejudice.

Congressman drafts COVFEFE Act to preserve Trump's Twitter tantrums

Bernard M. Orwell
Coat

Re: It's a good idea

"No, it was Bill Clinton's "pearls of wisdom" that were swept under the carpet...."

Those that didn't end up on a certain interns dress, that is.

When can real-world laws invade augmented reality fantasies? A trial in Milwaukee will decide

Bernard M. Orwell

"What's your address? I want to nominate your garden"

There's a distinction to be had here, chap, between private and public access to property.

I don't have the legal right to enter your garden to take pictures, for example, but there's no law to stop me taking a picture of your garden from outside the boundaries. You could of course put up a fence to prevent me doing so, that's your right, and I'd have no legal right to circumvent that fence to obtain a picture, but as it stands, if your garden is 'on view' in a public space, I can take a picture of it.

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: a Mortal Threat...to augmented reality games

"A counter-counter argument for you"

When a city plays host to a major sporting event, and thousands of visitors descend on said metropolis, who is liable for the cleanup? The sporting club? The owners of the venue? The City authorities? Is a surcharge applied to the ticket price to cover the *anticipated* costs of damage and litter?

If some of those attending such an event then cause criminal damage to the civic amenities in public areas, who is liable? Do the authorities pursue those committing the damage or the club hosting the event?

Bernard M. Orwell
Facepalm

"If this stops future Pokemon Go games I'm all for it."

Why? Don't you like Pokémon Go? I get that.

Personally, I f'in loathe football. All those crowds in the city with their stupid chanting and drinking.. and the damage and litter they cause! Utterly unbearable.

If this stops future football games I'm all for it.

[In case you missed the sarcasm, there is some there if you look hard enough.]

DUP site crashes after UK general election

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: DUP?

"Clue is in the name "The Conservative and Unionist Party..."

No doubt they will be sending the "Conservative and Unionist Negotiating Team" to sort Brexit for us.

Bernard M. Orwell

Nah mate, only our elite overlords actually look down their noses at anything. The rest of us are looking sidelong at Trump, one eyebrow raised, and with an unspoken "you f'in what, mate?" hanging in the air.

We're not saying we're living in a simulation but someone's simulated the universe in a computer

Bernard M. Orwell

The "sound of the universe", sometimes called the lowest note possible, is a B Flat, so its said. This has been extrapolated by "listening" to black holes, background radiation, and the "noises" that planetary objects allegedly make.

It also happens to be the central note of Tibetan Gyuto Monks chanting, which they have long claimed is the "voice of the universe".

There ya go, monk quota fulfilled!

sauce: http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=18938&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=45&sid=c3c5846db883b18971937a99710133f1

Teen texted boyfriend to kill himself. It worked. Will the law change to deal with digital reality?

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: He who has no sin can cast the first stone...

"This is NOT "thought crime" a la 1984. She TEXTED him"

My gut reaction is to agree that this woman is either criminally culpable for encouraging the victims suicide, or is clinically insane and needs treatment in a secure facility, but...hang on a moment...

If we accept that it is possible to cause someone to kill themselves by use of the written word (in any media whatsoever, I don't think its 'worse because internet/technology' particularly), but then we get into how many words do you need to send before you can be charged as the prime cause of that death?

For instance, if I get into a political row with someone on social media and post something like "Just feck off and die, will you?", even just the once, and then they kill themselves, am I immediately liable, or do you have to show that there was an intentional campaign of harassment to bring about that suicide? Such a call would surely be more than a little subjective?

I'm not certain it would be a simple matter for the law to rule on. What laws already exist that cover this? Say someone killed themselves as a result of a defamatory article in a newspaper, or as the result of a letter they've received?

The internet may well be the root cause of today's problems… but not in the way you think

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: The problem isn't ideologies spreading on the Internet

" Stopping social benefits, and introduce a national wide work duty will help, this includes introducing permits for taking leave, which have to be carried so they can be checked by police officers on the street."

Fuck off, brown shirt.

My forebears fought and died to prevent this kind of bullcrap being imposed on us, and I'm certainly not going to stand idle if nobbers like you decide to try and impose it anyway.

UK PM May's response to London terror attack: Time to 'regulate' internet companies

Bernard M. Orwell
Black Helicopters

Re: Bomb the terrorists!

"we can all hate each other with real conviction."

A community divided into small, poorly informed, poorly educated conflicting groups each with limited resources available to, is far easier to control (through social demonization) than an educated, resourced and unified public.

Thus the policy of gently boiling the British frog.

BH, because it's happening.

Bernard M. Orwell
Facepalm

Re: Ban showers, bakeries and sunglasses!

But wait, all terrorpedos use cars and, lately, that can be seen to be a Bad Thing(tm), Ergo, ban cars!

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: "Does the idiot woman realize how bloody stupid she sounds?"

"many terrorist plots have been successfully disrupted by the security services. Far more than have actually been carried out in the UK as a matter of fact."

Citation for that matter of fact, please. Part of the issue is that there are no figures to sustain that notion in the public domain.

Life is... pushing all the right buttons on the wrong remote control

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: Not Just Us Then

"Allo Allo was the funniest thing ever written."

No! Surely it's Father Ted?!

UK ministers to push anti-encryption laws after election

Bernard M. Orwell

"The justification is that you should be able to discuss matters confidentially with your MP"

That justification could and should be applied elsewhere....almost anywhere in fact...

If I choose to have a private conversation with someone else, I should be able, (pay attention here, fans of totalitarianism) *short of a court order to the contrary*, to rest assured that my conversation IS private, regardless of the medium I choose.

Of course, if I choose to broadcast my conversation publically, such as on Facebook, Twitter or yelling it in the street, then my reasonable expectation of privacy is no longer reasonable, and I have no recourse, having made my speech public.

What the MPs are saying here is that this right to expectation of privacy ONLY applies to communications involving them, either to or from and to NO ONE else. Not your doctor, your friends, your employer, your counsellor, your children's teachers, or a (perhaps worst of all) journalist. Those are all subject to automatic interception, cataloguing and trend analysis.

And that's just the starter. The Digital Economy Bill goes on to grant the government the power to actually SILENCE those conversations should they choose to do so.

We can't let them do this.

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: As if the government had done so much...

"Well, the next obvious question is whether they choose to ignore the information, or do not have the resources to handle it?"

Well, whilst this annoys the hell out of me too, I have to play devils advocate here for a moment and voice the opposing argument; would you really want a state where someone/anyone can be arrested BEFORE committing a crime?

Broadens the debate, eh?

Bernard M. Orwell

"You tell me if that's an innocent probationary co-hab off to Asda, or a coded message meaning something a lot more sinister."

That will depend entirely on whether the Government want to get you or not.

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: Have no problem with this at al IF . . . .

"IIRC Didn't MPs insert a clause that says their internet access is excluded from surveillance?"

They did indeed.

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/investigatory-powers-bill-a7447781.html

They also promised us that they had no interest in the content of communications, merely the meta-data. Interestingly, there was also a "sunset clause" intended to deregulate at the end of 2016. Instead, all we actually see is more data harvesting and greater surveillance week by week.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28245589

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: Clueless govt...

"This goes beyond party politics"

can't argue with that PoV. Problem is that the only party saying they would dismantle the surveillance state is the LibDems and they've got zero chance and zero influence. If they had a chance, I'd vote for them in a heartbeat.

I'm pinning hope that Corbyn is more likely to listen to sense, reason, expertise and public opinion than May is.

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: Manifesto

June should be the end of May.

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: good idea but seriously

"1) Who will get us the best deal in the Brexit talks?"

I'll answer just this one question to put your whole argument to bed.

If Corbyn wins, the Brexit negotiation will be carried out by Sir Keir Starmer, KCB, QC. If May wins, she will send Boris Johnson.

So, who do you want to negotiate Brexit again?

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: Clueless govt...

People can downvote that all they want, mate, but the fact of the matter is that you're right. Labour are making gains and May...sorry, I mean the Conservatives, are losing points rapidly. The gap is thinning.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2017/may/08/general-election-2017-poll-tracker-who-is-in-the-lead

Bernard M. Orwell

Known to Authorities.

Can't help but agree with the AC at the top of the thread. Our clueless so-called intelligence operatives failed to see even the most obvious of clues:

* Suddenly wearing different clothing, associated with this form of terrorism.

* Chanting prayers loudly in the streets

* Changed social behavior massively

* Trips back and forth to Libya

* and the obscure clue.... he had an ISIS flag on his fucking roof!

If they can't see that, I fail to see how cracking WhatsApp is going to help them.

Why is it that whenever this crap happens we get told "He was known to authorities", but they still need yet more surveillance powers used on the rest of us?

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/salman-abedi-manchester-libya-syria-suicide-bomber-terrorist-attack-middle-east-islamist-a7752761.html

Virtual reality upstart UploadVR allegedly had in-house 'kink room,' drugs, rampant sexism

Bernard M. Orwell

The law?

There are a lot of complaints embedded in the plaintiffs statement, according to the article, but how many of them are actually grounded in law? I accept that some of the things in the article are clearly illegal, drug use, exploitative pay processes, gender based harrasement etc. but there are some things in there that surely aren't illegal? On what grounds are the following complaints made?

"set the firm up as a "boys club" and would spend time during the day discussing their sexual exploits." - Pretty sure that, whilst possibly distasteful to some, its not illegal to talk this way?

"alleged to have told the plaintiff that she wasn't his type sexually " - I'm pretty sure we should be allowed to say this to people. Especially if unwanted advances are made, regardless of gender.

"employee would boast about having slept with over 1,000 women and never wearing condoms" - Well, that employee is crass and not someone I'd want to hold a conversation with, but is this actually against the law to say?

"sent out emails looking for submissive female partners known as "Samurai girls," it is claimed." - Illegal? I've no idea...

"Another executive circulated details of a sexually transmitted disease he picked up on a trip to the Far East" - Everyone consider themselves warned, stay away from this moron! But has he broken an actual law?

IANAL, but it looks to me like there's some legitimate grounds for complaint and action here, but excess emotional baggage has been tacked on for good measure. Problem is that if that baggage becomes part of the ruling we get into a reduction of the right to hold a conversation without thinking over every word we say.

I'm not defending anyone here, not criticizing anyone, but perhaps the complaint should be focused on matters of civil and criminal law?

Warm, wet, mysterious... sound familiar? Ah, yes, you've heard of this second Neptune, too

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: To a first approximation

"...or should that be plankton?"

Nah, we're all just wet.

We are 'heroes,' says police chief whose force frisked a photographer

Bernard M. Orwell

Re: Time for an experiment.

So, I went off to photograph some things around town. Churches, a mosque, city council, police station, and I got stopped by an officer of the law!

....who wanted to know what kind of camera I used and we had a lovely chat about lenses.

Yep, no issues at all. :)

FBI boss James Comey was probing Trump's team for Russia links. You're fired, says Donald

Bernard M. Orwell
Happy

Re: Please stay more on topic / tech site

"limbo = (metaphorically) a place between other places

i think the word you were looking for was vacuum"

Nah, he's right...

Limbo; a bar set unusually low that others are then expected to get under.