Posts by Highlander

But....

In reality, it's 'OK' to jailbreak the phone beause doing so does not require you to do anything that breaks the DMCA, Jailbreaking the iPhone is not done through breaking encryption keys and re-distributing hacked firmware. Rooting a phone and installing custom firmware, on the other hand, would be actionable. Simply unlocking the phone isn't a major issue as long as you don't circumvent digital protection methods such as encryption and/or distribute copyrighted information.

Wrong on nearly every count.

The fire burned for 2 hours, and was not fueled by nuclear material.

The primary containment may, or may not have been broken, it is not the only element of the reactor's containment system.

One of the reactors used MOX

I can't remember which is is.

Putting the diesel generators and fuel on the roof is safe in what way?

What of earthquake or other damage to those generators and fuel dumps you want high up off the ground?

There's a lot of 20-20 hindsight going on here and very little analysis or perspective.

Failure modes?

The control rods fell into place automatically when the earthquake hit and the reactors shut down. They failed safely. The residual isotopes that are decaying are providing less than 1% of the normal heat the reactor creates and are decaying quickly. The cooling efforts and boric acid will inhibt this further. But ultimately, the reactor will cool naturally. the system is designed with three failure mode backups. the primary cooling system, the diesel driven backup, the batteries and finally the fire system used to inject sea water and boric acid. As another commenter points out the failure mode of the reactor is that if the core suffers a catastrophic melt down, it falls to the base of the reactor containment vessel and solidifies in a safer state.

There's a thing called research, do it.

If you examine the safety...

...safety record of nuclear energy vs coal fired power and include the dangers of mining the fuel and disposing of the waste, you might be surprised by how safe Nuclear energy is and how dangerous coal can be.

The reactors are all already shut down

none of the reactors are active or in a generating mode. The heat is decay heat, and will not continue indefinitely. Do some bloody research will you?

You're forgetting that the source of the radiation...

...the source of the radiation detected is particularly short lived isotopes that pose no long term health threat.

These reactors will be cold by the weekend. The control rods are in place, all that is left is the decay heat as the transient short lived isotopes created during operation decay. The reactor temperatures will cool gradually as more of the isotopes cease being significantly active. This is inevitable, and why a Chernobyl style meltdown can't happen. The other thing is that Chernobyl was an uncontained reactor which used graphite rods in it's design. The fire inside the reactor building was naturally fed by the heat of the reactor and the graphite burning. As the heat increased the fuel rods broke down and the radioactive material was sublimed into the smoke of the fire, hence the release of actual fuel in the fire.

These reactors are boiling water reactors, they don't use graphite or any combustible material in the reactor. The control rods are in place, and their are several elements to the containment system of the reactors. A Chernobyl incident can't happen with these reactors.

Not really, perhaps you need to read the IAEA's news brief on the subject?

Short lived isotopes giving a locally high reading, does not equate to major release of radiation or radioactive material.

Larry you *must* do some actual research before opening your mouth for your foot.

The spent fuel in the containment pool can't catch fire, it's not combustible. However aside from that minor, but important point, the fire at reactor 4 was put out within 2 hours and as of 02:00 UTC (02:00 GMT) the fire had been extinguished. But perhaps the most important point is that the pools were no on fire, the fuel was not on fire. So your post is wrong on several levels. Frankly, you're doing nothing more than falling for the media crap. as of this morning more than 12 hours (US time) after the fire was put out, the US media are still reporting a fire at the plant, not that it's extinguished and are talking of growing radiation levels when in fact the radiation levels have been falling for the majority of the last 8 hours.

No one in the media has bothered to point out that the reactors are shut down and that the issue is that the residual isotopes that decay quickly are what is causing the continued heat. Once those isotopes decay (which should happen in the next few days) the reactors will effectively go cold because the control rods are in place in all three reactors.

This entire story has been utterly mis-reported by the 'news' media. So much so that I can only describe what they are doing as scaremongering and driving panic so that they have something to report. It's not so much fun reporting that the Japanese people are reacting with stoicism and calm to a disaster that would be incomprehensible to most people. It's much sexier to open news broadcasts with days old footage of a hydrogen explosion or some anonymous nuclear fuel storage pond and then spout words like meltdown and Chernobyl. That's what beings in the viewers and advertisers.

Frankly the media's response to the calamity in Japan has been offensive. They have trivialized he loss of life by not reporting anything by the supposed international nuclear crisis unfolding at Fukushima Daiichi.

Not that it will happen, but I would so love, once this is over, for someone in a major news organization to go back and retell the story with the truth, and contrast that time line with the news reports coming from the major media organizations. There are so many 'journalists' who don't deserve the title now.

Maybe you should actually read the story and do some research?

Before inserting both feet in your mouth and jumping to a biased, agenda driven conclusion?

Well, while we're evaluating the safety of power generation

Would anyone like to take a guess at the number of deaths (annually) that are directly attributable to coal fired power stations?

Seriously Let's look at this;

Coal mining - dangerous, there are deaths.

Burning the coal, not so dangerous, unless there is an accident, then, who knows.

Pollution - heavy metals in the exhaust gas, CO2 in epic quantities.

Coal Ash - Look this one up folks. this stuff is nasty. It contains high concentrations of dangerous heavy metals and is produced in huge quantities by coal powered power plants. It's often stored in landfill, or as a slag heap and contaminates the local water table. Of particular note is that there have been huge accidents with Coal ash containment 'ponds' failing and the resulting landslide of poisonous ash mud has killed many people.

I have to wonder how many people annually die as a direct result of generating electricity by burning coal. I bet it's far, far more than anyone things and far exceeds even the most doom laden information about Nuclear power. That doesn't even include the potential attributable death and injury caused by global climate change induced in part by increase CO2 output.

We always here about the specter of Nuclear contamination by radioactive waste or other materials. what about the contamination of the land by the coal ash, or the exhaust gasses?

Nuclear power is an easy target because people don't understand radiation, or atomic energy and whenever it's mentioned they get images f mushroom clouds or Chernobyl in their head. Nuclear energy is beset by the largest myths around, and there appears to be no sign of those myths being torn down - no matter the truth or evidence.

I disagree with you completely. There is a triumph here, you just don't want to see it.

The triumph is there, if you look, you simply don't wish to see it.

Show me a power plant anywhere else in the world that can survive a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a Tsunami higher than 7 meters and still be halfway safe or even partially operable. Go on, oh, wait, you can't, because they don't exist.

Nothing in the original article was guessing.

If you actually research the information on this story, you can find it, all. The original article and this one are factual in all regards about the events at Fukushima Daiichi. I understand that reality may in fact conflict with your world view, and there's nothing much I can do about that, but it is, what it is.

You know, The shanter not being an actor jokes got old a long time ago..

and as someone else already said, 2 words....Denny Crane.

If you know anything about Shatner in terms of who and what he *really* is, you might find yourself hoping you can be as he is at his age. the man has an infections joy for life, and is as straight a shooter as you'll ever meet. No guile or obfuscation, just direct, and open, always. Between his character Denny Crane from Boston Legal, and his own real personality, he is a far more humble and real person than you'd ever suspect.

Ironically, he'd probably put scare quotes around the word "actor" too, and then grin about it.

Why would you pay hundreds for a PSP anyway, they're only $129.99

Hundreds for a PSP? excuse me? PSP retails for $129.99, in the UK that's under 100 quid. there aren't many currencies left in the world in which the PSP costs hundreds of anything.

Not really....

LG has had nearly 5 years to determine that Sony's use of their technology was somehow infringing. Sony was the major driving force behind the development of Bluray technologies, this dispute and LG's actions over BluRay have really got nothing to do with BluRay, and it's a stretch to argue as you have. I suspect you simply wish to justify LGs actions because it apparently suits your world view that Sony is the bad guy.

The dispute here is about cell phone technology, and LG has hastily targeted Bluray and pecifically the PS3 because they know it can cause Sony a significant inconvenience. they are not acting within the terms of their BluRay Disc Association membership, the cross licensing that the BDA entails is pretty much cast iron and it specifically covers the manufacture of BluRay devices and media. LG is gaming the system to make a point in another dispute. In doing so they are directly and indirectly affecting many consumers who were not affected by the dispute over cellphones. In essence LG is using consumers as weapons in a dispute with Sony.

Indeed

The thing is, BluRay technology is licensed through the BluRay Disk Association, of which LG is a member. All these patents ought to be covered within that. Especially if the original PS3 uses the technology, it was practically the blueprint for BluRay 1.0.

Oh yes, because they *never* had a camera like this before....

Good god, it's a bloody cheap webcam with an infra red sensor. Even the PS3's PS Eye has resolution/frame rates than this thing. The article is incorrect as well, Kinect doesn't grant 3D sight. Kinect is a mono-scopic camera system with an infra-red based active sensor for mapping 3D environments.

But really, are you honestly saying that this POS camera is somehow something that DARPA has never seen anything like before? Seriously?

Whast incentive would they have...

Why would Sony spend additional time and resources building an alternate PSN for cheaters? What is in it for them? Not a lot really,

Sorry, I have no sympathy at all for cheaters or thieves or morons like GeoHots.

Sorry, Danny B, you fail.

20+ years as a professional in IT, graduated with honours in Computer Science given by a very well respected Computer Science department, and a gamer since before most commenters here were born. And I'll just point out that the only feature removed from the firmware was the OtherOS ability. PS2 compatibility was a hardware feature and when it was removed, it was removed as part of a price reduction in the hardware. So people had a choice with regard to the only significant feature removal from the hardware. With regard to the removal of OtherOS, people had/have a choice as well, the continued existence and function of various PS3 super computing clusters proves that. No one (except you) is equating Linus with piracy. All I see is a lot of people very reasonably pointing out that the vast majority of people who hack their games console to play 'backups' obtain those backups either via torrent, or by copying a friends disk and then starting the game using a donor disk of their choosing.

All the moral outrage on behalf of the Linux community is somewhat forced since Linux isn't an issue with game piracy. Hacking a console to do more than enable a boot loader for Linux *is* an issue for piracy. Any reasonable Homebrew enthusiast acknowledges that the hacks that enable them to produce custom applications are primarily used to play unpurchased (aka stolen) copies of games.

As for the part about buying a PC to run Linux, I agree whole heartedly with that sentiment, the PS3 is a fairly poor Linux platform thanks to the comparatively tiny system memory and inability to access the hardware directly. I get that some people (a relatively *tiny* number are interested in PowerPC anf Linux, but there are better platforms from that point of view as well. OK, if you're desperate to program the CellBE, it's the only realistic choice, but the number of people wanting Linux on a PS3 so that they can code specifically for the CellBE is almost as small as the collected staff of the computer departments running PS3 super computing clusters.

Most of the faux outrage being developed here is coming from pirates who are not happy, slightly anarchistic hackers who seem to believe that once a piece of software leaves a developers finger tips it's their toy to screw with and people who still believe that Sony invented DRM, or that Sony invented and developed the DRM that BMG used on their CDs.

First of all, The majority of people that are affected by this are game pirates and people who want to cheat online, so who honestly gives a crap about thieves and cheaters? Secondly, commercial software can only exist as a viable product because of licensing agreements, and that includes the license agreements governing console firmware and games. It may offend the libertarian souls of the more anarchistic minds out there, but without license agreements and all the other elements of software licensing, no one would get paid for their software, and no one would write anything new. Finally, the usual bogey-man that people raise against Sony, the infamous DRM rootkit affair. In fact, the DRM software wasn't developed by Sony at all. In fact, it was a 3rd party solution, already developed. That was offered to and selected by BMG, but let's not let the truth get in the way of anything shall we?

I'm not sure it's defending Sony to point out that if you broke your user agreement with PSN, you have your service terminated. It's all laid out in the Terms of service you agree to every time you go online. It's not defending Sony to point out that game (and movie/music) 'piracy' is in fact theft. It's not defending Sony to point out that cheaters are scum and disrupt games and service for everyone. It's not defending Sony to point out that this is no more than Microsoft has already done, and was completely inevitable ever since the first major hack of the PS3 was published. How is it defending Sony to point out that in fact the removal of OtherOS was preceded by GeoHot cracking the Hypervisor on the PS3? How is it defending Sony to point out the simple fact that hacking of the PS3 did not (I repeat NOT) only start after the removal of OtherOS. In fact hacking began almost immediately it was launched. The biggest 'break' for the hackers was the PS3 Jailbreak, and *that* was accomplished with a stolen USM service key that was cloned and disassembled. That led to the fail0verflow guys breaking the chain of trust and reversing the old private signing key. The methods and techniques used by Fail0verflow were then co-opted by ego-manchild GeoHot to deduce the metldr key. There are probably a few additonal highlights I've missed, but the point is that OtherOS was removed after a significant hacking achievement on the PS3, as a response to that. The hacking of the PS3 was ongoing already, and the PS3Jailbreak was not done by a high minded 'security researcher' it was a money grubbing individual who wanted to make a quick buck selling the USB keys.

You know, having principles and paying attention to fact doesn't make you a Sony defender, that is a label applied by people who find the truth inconvenient.

Sony isn't responsible for torrents...

Sony does not publish those, and any distribution via Torrent violates their license and copyrights.

You should research the civil law process of discovery

Lawyers know that discovery requests have to be as broad as possible, because there are no second chances to get more information once discovery ens, therefore Sony's lawyers have requested everything they can think of. Sony isn't directing them to harass anyone, this is all standard operating procedure in a civil case in the US legal system. If you want to blame someone, blame the legal system since it effectively encourages overly broad discovery requests in the first place.

Hots did *nothing*

Fail0verflow were able to reverse engineer the old private signing key because of an egregious coding error that allowed them to determine sufficient information to use some very complex mathematics to reverse engineer the key. Hots simply reposted the key along with other information and software. Not sure of his motives, he always claimed not to support piracy, but there's really only one use for the information he posted. I guess he didn;t like the Fail0verflow guys succeeding where he failed.

Either way, the private key is never distributed with the hardware or software. The new private key - which is likely to remain secure for a long while, similarly does not exist in the software or hardware. Sony fixed the software flaw exploited by Fail0verflow, and so the new private signing key is probably secure until enough brute force computing is available to crack it that way.

No, that was BMG, actually it was...

Actually the CD CRM crapolla wasn't Sony at all. No offense to anyone who wishes to believe that Sony is the great Satan, but you are very wrong. Sony is a large multi-national corporation that owns many different companies, and is split across many different products and markets. Music CD production is/was owned, operated by Song BMG. BMG is a separate company within Sony, and operates that way. The CD DRM technology deployed was developed by a company BMG hired to protect their music CDs against copying. As it happens, few people inside BMG had even a partial understanding of how the technology worked. The point though is that It wasn't Sony. BMG is owned by Sony, but a wholly owned subsidiary company runs itself as part of the Sony group and has no relationship with SCE - Sony Computer Entertainment, which is the parent for SCEI, SCEJ, SCEE and SCEA.

Now, Sony being a good corporate decided to take it on the chin and took responsibility for what had happened, but, the truth of the matter is that someone in BMG wanted to stop their CDs from being copied and bought some DRM technology that was implemented by a third party. But you know, it's much easier just to say that Sony did it.

What bothers me is the way people who *should* know better, swallow all the half truths and myths as fact around here.

Well...it wasn't even Sony who retweeted...

In all honesty, shouldn't we be more truthful than this? From what I understand reading other reports of this stupidity, someone sent the old private SELF signing key to the fake (clearly) Kevin Butler twitter account that is managed by a marketing person who works not for Sony, but for the marketing firm that Sony uses to handle the Kevin Butler campaign. The person behind the twitter account isn't a Sony employee, nor are they technical, nor should the be technical, or expected to be approving every retweet with some Sony legal team. Kevin Butler is a fictional person, so anything said it neither official, nor can it be attributed as authoritative. Not only that, but the point behind the twitter and other social networking elements of the Kevin Butler personality is to interact with gamers in a humorous manner to generate positive buzz. Therefore when someone tweets that account, they normally will get some kind of joking reply - like "You sank my battle ship!".

Of course sending the hex key yo that twitter and seeing it retweeted must have felt really good for the guy that did it, but it's hardly Sony leaking or giving away the signing key - is it? This is what really bugs me about The Register and tech media in general. Never let the truth get in the way of a hit generating headline. I used to think that the Register was better than that. Not any more.

Let's see, "Hacker Exploits Marketing Lack of Knowledge, Spreads Old PS3 Key" just doesn't have quite the same ring to it as "Sony tweets 'secret' key at heart of PS3 jailbreak case" does it? Perhaps one is more accurate than the other, but one is more likely to generate hits than the other. Guess which is which.