Re: Don't mess with evolution!
@AC
bottom of the lake
That's the version of Pokemon reserved for lawyers.
Posts by Cynical Observer
458 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Dec 2007
Blighty's Coastguard goes into battle against waterborne Pokemon
UK 'emergency' bulk data slurp permissible in pursuit of 'serious crime'
Tuesday 19th July 2016 14:53 GMT
Re: Starting To Make Sense
@Shades..
Ironically the Eurosceptic MP goes to the big bad EU's Court of Justice over the same legislation and pulls out of the action before the eventual ruling against it. (Withdrew during the lead up to the referendum? Can't be seen to be taking advantage of the EU when you're rallying against it!)
His name was still on the case in early June when the last of the hearings was held. It's believed that he removed his name from the case once he was appointed - to be mentioned on the case it as odds with the concept of Cabinet Collective Responsibility.
So it would seem it became a "You Choose! Brexit or Privacy rights.... Which is more important?"
Now we know.
Tuesday 19th July 2016 13:16 GMT 
Reasonable Suspicion?
IANAL
One slant on this might be that HM Gov cannot get away with simply slurping everything on the basis that it might one day be useful - rather than the body wanting access to comms data will need to establish a reasonable suspicion and present a case to some form of judicial oversight process. Problem is that that was one of the things the former Home Sec. didn't seem overly enamoured of.
It's analogous to the old fashioned application for tapping a telephone line - there is a suspect (or person of interest) and a judge signs off on a focused, constrained warrant. Anything gathered outside the scope of the warrant ranges from wholly inadmissible to precarious at best.
One way or another, right now it can only be read as a set back for the wholesale
....That is until we trip merrily over the Brexit rainbow.
RIght.... popcorn anyone? Looks about ready ------->
UK's climate change dept abolished, but 'smart meters and all our policies strong as ever'
Monday 18th July 2016 20:43 GMT
Finally......
@ephemeral...
I finally see. It's the electricity generated from powdered unicorn horn....
Why didn't anyone say before now. I can finally use it to power the Retro Encabulator
Monday 18th July 2016 17:26 GMT
Re: Consumer benefits are not falling!
@Missing Semicolon ;
From the British Gas website - as they are the ones curently touting free weekend electricity
Q. Will I be on a different tariff when I get my smart meters?
A: No, you can stay on the same tariff. Though we’ll be introducing some smart meter specific tariffs in the future, so look out for those.
From smartenergygb.org
In the future, we can look forward to being rewarded with cheaper tariffs at off-peak times. This means we will pay less to mow the lawn or run the washing machine when electricity is not in high demand. It will also mean less pressure on the grid at busier times when we’re all rustling up our dinner, or putting on the kettle whilst the adverts are on TV.
Scottish Power
What smart meters mean for youSee how much gas and electricity you're using
See how much activities are costing you in pounds and pence
You could change your behaviours to save and reduce your carbon footprint
No more manually submitting meter reads
No more need for someone to come and read your meter
No more estimated bills, so they'll be accurate ones every time*
Not one of them - and to be fair I got fed up looking for any others - mentions wholesale pricing. In fact all of the focus seems to be "No more estimated bills" and "Shape your own behaviour" which is a paraphrase for "Let your power bill scare you into making changes to your lifestyle." In the mean time it suggests that much like today, tariffs will be struck at the start of a supply agreement, probably with a tiered pricing structure but would anyone be surprised if they will follow declared time slots.
In the mean time - here's a question. If we all have smart meters, and they power companies can flip the pricing based on demand, are we going to pay more when all those kettles go on at half time in an FA Cup final, or during the Corrie Ad break. Is my cuppa suddenly going to cost more than my cuppa earlier in the morning?
Still listening - waiting for the clinching argument if favour of the change.
Monday 18th July 2016 16:21 GMT
Re: Consumer benefits are not falling!
@Ellis...
I may have missed this.... but I thought the smart meter push was to domestic customers in the main.
So paragraphs one and two - essentially arguments about large customers don't apply to this discussion. We are focusing on why a domestic customer should feel motivated to using a smart meter.
Free Period - Back to Economy 7 concept. I've granted that finer granularity would be attainable but I still doubt that it merits the £10billion.
Allowing Fridges to Warm up - That scares me witless if you think about people storing medicines at home. OK Insulin can be stored at temperatures under 25C for 4 weeks (had to Google it) but there may be other use cases to be addressed. What other complications present themselves with appliances being manipulated unexpectedly. Food that started to cook... but was delayed - or was never cooked hot enough for long enough to make it safe to eat?
And the point that all of this leads to.. which remains the unanswered - is that any sort of smart control is only one step away from a remote kill switch - used at the suppliers discretion for non-payment or other reasons.
Without smart meters, home owners cannot benefit from such measures, meaning we have to build more power stations.
Of course they can - A dumb meter with two charge bands can deliver cheap evening or weekend tariffs. Customers can choose to operate the appliance in the window of opportunity. Cash is a fairly good motivator of human behaviour.
I'm still willing to listen - but it does need to be a really strong argument. And that rather sadly is something that HM Gov has also yet to present.
Monday 18th July 2016 14:34 GMT
Re: Consumer benefits are not falling!
OK..... I'll bite,
Please, rather than making bald statements such as Smart meters allow such 'demand control' measures which will only increase as more homes get smart meters. and offering no reason behind the assertion.... please, do develop the argument.
The free energy on Saturday/Sunday - which by the way is only available to dual fuel customers (always a sodding catch isn't there!) is just a glorified Economy 7 billing scheme. There's a Cheap Period, there's a not so cheap period. The concept is not new - though I will grant that the granularity is more defined than before - but does that merit £10billion in costs.
I'm willing to listen, even to be persuaded - but you will have to work for it.
We ain't in 1996 anymore, Dorothy: SQL Server 2016 proves it
Debian: s/Chairman/Chair/g
Saturday 16th July 2016 19:20 GMT
This change can be applied by a simple sed command (s/Chairman/Chair/g).
I'm more concerned that a dev would propose a case sensitive sed command where it should be case intensive. Surely (yes I did just call you....) not all instances of chairman/chair/chairperson would be capitalised? .....
FWIW - I gave up years ago on the degenderfication of positions - they told me I was being silly when I suggested it should be personholes! I'm now too old to care what the call them.
Though thinking on it, should we have Personchester where Personcunians live?
Lily Cole: Profit still looks almost Impossible.com
Friday 15th July 2016 16:01 GMT
Re: Cameron's Legacy
The problem was not with counting them out....
Ban ISPs from 'speeding up' the internet: Ex-Obama tech guru
Friday 15th July 2016 15:19 GMT
Read this
senior member of Obama’s White House crack tech team
as
senior member of Obama’s White House crackand figured that it probably explained an awful lot.techteam
Really - those involved with legislating in the tech arena should be compelled to demonstrate a minimum level of knowledge and proficiency before being let off the leash.
Same applies this side of the pond.
Microsoft wins landmark Irish data slurp warrant case against the US
Thursday 14th July 2016 18:23 GMT
Re: And the next chapter.....
@Charlie,
Sorry but I don't agree. There was a warrant in this case - It was served on MS and they were expected to pull the data from outside of the US and deliver it to the authorities. The issue about paper trails and warrants does not apply in this case - or in the precedent that they would have expected to set. In any case, I would imagine that the powers that be can list more than one judge who is suitably disposed to issuing warrants.
As I understand it Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the 1986 Stored Communication Act are two different beasties. This ruling doesn't need to be overturned - there is simply a different avenue of attack/investigation that remains open.
But hey! IANAL
BTW - The down vote wasn't me.
Thursday 14th July 2016 16:30 GMT 
And the next chapter.....
Does Uncle Sam really care?
Is this really over yet?
Under amendments to rule 41, the US Supreme Court gave its blessing to judges handing out search warrants, not only for computers located in their jurisdiction but also outside their jurisdiction; the key being that the FBI has to plead that it is unsure of the geographical location of the target system.
Oooo - it's in the cloud - well your honour, that could be anywhere couldn't it. Can we hack it?
Sure thing Mr G-man - JFDI!
There's more left to play on this track before the fat lady sings.
You really do want to use biometrics for payments, beam banks
Thursday 14th July 2016 13:18 GMT
Oy Vey!
Two-thirds (68 per cent of those quizzed) want to use biometric authentication methods to pay for things,
LMFTFY
Two-thirds (68 per cent of those quizzed) are blithely willing to allow biometric data - or some hash thereof -to be stored in a database that may or may not be accessed by person or persons unknown.
Any such persons may or may not be acting within the auspices of the legal system.
What could possibly go wrong?
Tupperware vehemently denies any link to storage containerisation
Dolphin fans freak, blast browser's bumbling bundles of bloatware
Wednesday 6th July 2016 07:57 GMT 
Contrite?
Was curious -as a Dolphin User, I'd had no recollection of the forced Add-Ons. Just looked now and the following is on the Play Store page for Dolphin
What's New
Note: So Sorry for force addon installed. This issue has been resolved. Please uninstall and reinstall Dolphin from Play Store to fix it. Please Give Me one More Chance."
Interesting to see a developer respond so quickly to negative feedback - but perhaps it is time to have a look around at other browsers. Hopefully there's a better selection than the last time I looked - about 2 years ago.
400 million Foxit users need to catch up with patched-up reader
Friday 1st July 2016 11:10 GMT
Re: Android
Nice recommendation on Document Viewer - as you pointed out, they don't make it overly easy to locate.
Direct Play Store link:
Document Viewer: PDF, DjVu,...
Worth one ---->
This local council paid HOW MUCH for an SD card?!
Wednesday 29th June 2016 10:19 GMT
This local council paid HOW MUCH for an SD card?!
I don't know - the article doesn't actually say and I couldn't find a link.
I'm sure there's some really juicy numbers in the survey - but please why not actually give at least the equivalent of they spent £#### on an Xgb card.
Bearing in mind that 100% margin is a doubling in cost price, coughing up a 1095 per cent margin on an SD memory card. is 11 times bigger than that. But on what starting price?
Devil's in the detail.
ICO slapped data blabbers with £2m in fines last year
Tuesday 28th June 2016 17:21 GMT
"Some patients told their GP that they objected to having their data shared. However, despite these objections, data sharing has taken place. We have secured a legal undertaking from HSCIC to put measures in place to better respect patient objections," it said.
The cash penalty isn't any incentive to change - it's not their money. In fact, it's ours the taxpayer's. So we get stuffed on a data breach and we pay for it thereafter.
Does that legal agreement now include prison sentences for future breaches? Because the totally crappy side of data escaping into the 3rd party system is that we can never be reassured that it has been fully eradicated from the system, never feel fully reassured that the data is not somehow still be used for purposes other than what it was originally intended for.
Visiting America? US border agents want your Twitter, Facebook URLs
Monday 27th June 2016 21:36 GMT
Re: Is there a kickstarter fund i can contribute to....
Adam Hills and The Last Leg crew have made excellent progress on the northern border with Canada.
Quick note: Brexit consequences for IT
Monday 27th June 2016 15:34 GMT
Re: Switzerland
The new government surely realise trade and commercial continuity are key and will keep many agreements in place. Its possible they even negociate a deal that keeps much of the EU policies as they are, after all, most MPs dont want to sever links with europe.
Phil Hammond (Foreign Secretary) addressed this at the weekend -
“Here’s the rub: the fundamental dilemma at the heart of the Brexit position is that we will have to now make a decision about how much access to that single market we want and need to protect our economy and how much freedom of movement we are going to accept in order to buy it. Those who say, ‘No, they need us more than we need them. Don’t worry. They’ll allow us to have control of migration from the European Union while maintaining access to the single market’ are simply mistaken about the balance of power and the level of commitment to this agenda in Europe.“We will not be able to negotiate control of migration from the European Union and at the same time full access to the single market. There will have to be a trade-off, and that is essentially why the Prime Minister has made the decision he has because only a new Prime Minister can make the decision about what that trade-off will look like.”
That's likely enough to have those who voted out based on a desire to reduce the number of people moving to the UK foaming at the mouth in fits of apoplexy. The irony of this - with a Brexit in place, the UK has no veto on Turkey’s accession but if a member of the Free Trade Area, it would be required to accept Turkish migrants.
You can almost hear the synapses pop as those opposed to migration realise that they have discarded one of their trump cards.
Ah well - more popcorn anyone?
PM resigns as Britain votes to leave EU
Friday 24th June 2016 11:09 GMT
I'm genuinely bemused by the down vote. Assuming that the down vote indicates agreement with Phil's original paragraph, that's analogous to saying that after the last general election, it was incumbent upon Labour to bring forward policies that would improve the lot of the UK electorate - but they (Labour) are not the government.
Friday 24th June 2016 11:05 GMT
@TRT
It's the chief benefit/drawback to a written constitution.
The reason that our neighbours in Ireland get to vote on so many things - including those pesky Euro treaties where they have had to go round again in order to get the right answer.
Rightly or wrongly (The latter in my opinion) the UK governments of the past have insisted we stick with the status quo - namely that Britain does not have a codified constitution but an unwritten one formed of Acts of Parliament, court judgments and conventions.
And as such referendums play no part in it as an Act of Parliament can be changed by any later parliament should it so desire.
Friday 24th June 2016 10:32 GMT
The big question now is whether the "remainers", in the UK and Europe, are willing to make the result work, or are they just going to whinge about how terrible it all is, while doing sweet FA to actually solve the problems as they arise?
LMFTFY
The big question now is whether the "Brexiteers" have the ability to make the result work, or are they just going to stand around wondering how the hell they ended up there when at the closing of the polls, everyone had thought the Remain side had won. Will the Brexiteers actually be able to achieve any more than Sweet FA now that they need to do more than deliver sound bites to actually solve the problems as they arise?
The Remain portion of the campaign/political class has no mandate - the electorate charged the Brexiteers with taking action and it is up to the politicians of that flavour to now pick up the baton and get all the ducks lined up and lead the charge (to mix a metaphor or two.)
Why you should Vote Remain: Bananas, bathwater and babies
Wednesday 22nd June 2016 16:04 GMT
Re: You can't fix it
in fact many of us (I'm a Yank) will increase trade with UK when a few obvious barriers are gone.
Many of us - I'm not a Yank - worry that these barriers are all that's preventing a race to the bottom. For as much as it is loathed, EU regulation has broadly driven improvements in environmental protections, consumer protections, data protections.
Those regulations are sometimes seen as a barrier to trade by others - indeed TTIP seems intent on trying to scrap or circumvent as many of them as possible.
So - sounds a bit selfish at face value - but those who want those barriers to trade eased can shove it up their collective arses, get their act together and raise their standards to the level that the EU has given us cause to demand as reasonable.
Wednesday 22nd June 2016 14:43 GMT
Re: E(USSR)
It was poor the first time it was posted - it is no better even with the typo's corrected.
In a direct EU/USSR/Russia link.....
I suspect that the Baltic states who are now members of the EU were more than a little grateful that they had those ties in place when Mr Putin was flexing the muscles of Russian military might on the Ukrainian border.
I will readily acknowledge that the EU is not without issues, many serious that need to be fixed. I do not believe however that it is as yet irredeemably damaged beyond recovery. I do believe that such a recovery is better assisted by us staying inside and working from within to rectify the problems.
Is it more difficult than tearing the whole edifice down and starting again - certainly.
But in the period of fixing it, we maintain the relative peace that has characterised the last 50 years in Europe - we hold Mr Putin in check.
Intel still chip, chip, chippin' away at the European Commission's anti-trust fine
Wednesday 22nd June 2016 13:51 GMT
Adjust for Inflation
Re the comments about the fine no longer having the sting that it would have had when first determined upon, future judgements such as this could/should be worded with a clause to safeguard against unduly long delays.
Tack on a clause to the effect that the fine increases in line with RPI (Deliberately picking RPI as it tends to be higher than CPI)
Pushing the original €1.06 billion through an inflation calculation returns €1.175 billion. That's €115 million for dragging their heels.
Assuming of course that the judgement is upheld and not overturned in the appeal.
... and then more for time wasting if they lose?
Three non-obvious reasons to Vote Leave on the 23rd
Wednesday 22nd June 2016 11:56 GMT
Re: Please - read the history
M7S
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=britain+rejection+of+european+coal+and+steel+community
The declaration led to the Treaty of Paris (1951) forming the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), it was formed by "the inner six": France, Italy, the Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg) together with West Germany. The United Kingdom refused to participate due to a rejection of supranational authority. The common market was opened on 10 February 1953 for coal, and on 1 May 1953 for steel.
In fact the UK was so dismissive of the initiative that instead of sending ministers to the negotiations as the other nations had, it sent civil servants who were perceived as relatively minor.
Yes by the time the error was seen, de Gaulle was behaving like an arse - that only reinforces my point - that being outside a club, banging on the door for admission places you at a disadvantage.
Wednesday 22nd June 2016 11:55 GMT
Re: Please - read the history
@Walter
Promises may have been made, promises may even have been broken. But joining any enterprise and expecting it to be beneficial without putting any effort into it seems to be somewhat delusional.
It is like joining a club - you can pay your membership and be a consumer, getting some of the benefits that have been secured though the hard work and sterling efforts of the committee.
Or - you can roll up your sleeves, and muck in with shaping the club. You might not get everything you want, but the odds are that you will get more of what you want than you would if you just sat back a let everyone else take the lead.
The UK formerly prided itself on its outstanding diplomacy - yet wrt the EU, it seems to have just decided not to play to its strengths. It seems to be always at odds with every other country, never building the necessary support BEFORE launching an offensive.
And the fact remains - if post a Brexit, we want access to the single market, it is inconceivable that it will be possible without free movement and payment of a membership fee. So we will carry all of the burdens with even less of the opportunity to influence the direction.
In my analogy - we've gone from club member to pay and play - and as such we have absolutely no say in what happens to the club rules. I can't see any logic in that.
Wednesday 22nd June 2016 09:30 GMT
Please - read the history
Why give up independence for a club which never really wanted us, and whose rules already appeared rigged to constrain us?
Europe did want UK participation - right from the start. But the powers that be in the UK at the time decided to turn their backs on this venture and walk away. Until years later when the error of their ways was realised.
They say that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat their mistakes. Turning our backs on Europe and walking away would the most colossal of mistakes to repeat.
Winston Churchill glowers from Blighty's plastic fiver
TeamViewer denies hack after PCs hijacked, PayPal accounts drained
Wednesday 1st June 2016 19:54 GMT
Re: Happened last week
Likewise here
Do my best to keep the parents out of trouble and used Teamviewer heavily for that purpose.
They reported random activity last week which had them power the machine down double quick and take it to a local PC shop for a once over. No discernible nasties found.
But with this story, suddenly things make a bit more sense. Just been through 15 minutes of torture trying to take them through uninstalling Teamviewer for now.
ARSE!
Feinstein-Burr's bonkers backdoor crypto law is dead in the water
Saturday 28th May 2016 10:55 GMT
Too early to celebrate
While it's great to see such idiocy consigned to the soulless oblivion that it so richly deserves, we should always remember that this side of the pond has its own selection of home grown idiotic measures. The UK Snoopers Charter is the 200 pound gorilla to the 5 stone weakling that this US bill represented. And unless the opposition parties and Tory rebels find their resolve*, we will have the likes of this to contend with in the not to distant future. From the Independent...
Snooper's Charter: Tech companies will have to give police 'back-door' access to customers' data.
* One wonders whether the MP's resolve is sometimes shaped by a quiet word based on information already gathered to date. While one might think so, obviously one could not possibly comment.
Microsoft and Facebook, swimming in the sea,
N-E-T-W-O-R-K-I-N-G
Photoplethysmography up
Friday 20th May 2016 12:38 GMT
Re: Why?
@DougS
In such a scenario, I'd want an alarm a damn sight sooner than when my body is already shutting down. As I understand it, the problem with carbon monoxide poisoning is that it overwhelms you pretty quickly - by the time you realise you have an issue, it may well be too late/difficult to react.
Google asks the public to name the forthcoming Android N operating system
Android Pay debuts in UK
Wednesday 18th May 2016 17:32 GMT
@Patrician
Do you use a debit or credit card to make purchases? If so there already 3rd parties that know exactly what you buy, when, how much you paid and where from.
Way to miss the point by a country mile! The bank and the retailer know about the purchase - and that is to be expected and accepted. But that does not mean that a third party who is not directly relevant to the transaction has any access to the details of the transaction.
Why in the name of all that is F$%king stupid would I want to share all of my purchasing habits with a company whose primary purpose in life is to sell highly targeted advertising based on some very advanced analytical data processing. It's bad enough already without being further inundated.
Wednesday 18th May 2016 13:07 GMT 
It arrives with standard industry security measures for contactless payments.
i.e. wholly inadequate controls to try and reign in what was a stupid idea in the first place
But more importantly, Google gain even more information on their product users.
It has been said in the past that the one advantage Amazon had over Google was that the former knew for certain what you actually spent your money on whereas the latter only knew what you searched for.
I can't help but believe that this will provide Google with that missing piece of intelligence. Sorry but my privacy is worth way more than that!
GM crops are good for you and the planet, reckon boffins
Wednesday 18th May 2016 15:52 GMT
@ Alex Read
Who mentioned the FDA?
The report was produced by The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine
- analogous to the Royal Society or the Royal Institution.
It's also not a single study - as has been referenced already, it's a meta-study. It's a summation of many studies with a view to deriving a common result.
Or all they all disreputable? Your helicopter awaits.
Wednesday 18th May 2016 15:52 GMT
Re: Why all the negativity to GM foods?
@Named Coward
It's the first one. The areas that have the existing infrastructure so that the crops can be gotten to market with reduced cost and effort.
Because when all else is equal, things have a habit of following the path of least resistance - i.e. they use the already established transport networks which serve the already establish planting areas.
Wednesday 18th May 2016 15:50 GMT
@Charles 9
One of the problems with trying to understand cross-pollination is the almost religious fervour with which GM crops trials were destroyed.
A very considerable challenge that the science faces is that there is a sector of the anti-GM fraternity with a pathological hatred of the concept so extreme that it will not tolerate any attempt to answer those questions.
It's almost as if they are afraid that the answer will be
There is no evidence of any detrimental effect
In which case, they lose yet another leg on which to stand their precarious argument.
Wednesday 18th May 2016 12:54 GMT
Re: Gene escape
Oh Please!
Every cross breeding attempt where farmers have tried to eliminate undesirable elements of a crop/animal strain amounts to tinkering with the gene pool. The difference here is that instead of doing it in a farmyard with a hit or miss approach, it has been done in a laboratory with a targeted approach.
The shite that was trotted out this lunch time on the BBC news was (paraphrased)
There's no evidence that they do harm but I don't accept that they are safe. You've got to keep on looking.
For how long?
Landmark computer hacking archive deposited at TNMOC
Wednesday 18th May 2016 12:55 GMT
Re: "In 1985, the internet did not exist"
From Brief History of the Internet
Thus, by 1985, Internet was already well established as a technology supporting a broad community of researchers and developers, and was beginning to be used by other communities for daily computer communications. Electronic mail was being used broadly across several communities, often with different systems, but interconnection between different mail systems was demonstrating the utility of broad based electronic communications between people.
Microsoft and Hewlett Packard Enterprise salute EU flag, blast Brexiteers
Tuesday 17th May 2016 19:48 GMT 
Why Bother
I was all set to write a rebuttal to some of the utter loose stool water dripping through some the posts above and then thought....
Ah Sod it! It won't change any one's mind.
Suffice to say that I fear for my kid's futures if the country votes to leave - and should that happen, I'd really appreciate it if some one could lend me an electronic thumb.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
