Posts by Tim

Dexys Midnight Autorunners

Windows "autorun" has long been known to be a security vulnerability and a backdoor to MS operating systems. A pity that some security "professionals" overlooked this in a number of organisations in the UK.

"Chocalate Tax" by a different name?

The proposals are clearly influenced by an agenda rather principle. They are not drawn up by people wishing to protect or add value to the Internet and clearly they know very little about the Internet except from what they can easily reference in Wikipedia. The people behind this do understand everything about extracting money from the proletariat.

The Government have managed to tax drinking in a pub to such a level that it is a leisure pastime only contemplated by the rich and have taxed nicotine addicts to a level where some may consider street crime to support their habit. Alternative tax revenue is required and some see the Internet as the next easy target.

The WWW is the Global Public Library of the 21st Century. If the UK Government gets its way the vast majority of people in the UK will end up reading electronic comics because they can't afford the books.

PS Is it just me or is there a sense that a people's revolution may be in the air?

Awsome Payload

No doubt the "Katana" monoblade nano-copter's missiles will strike fear in the hearts of the peoples of Lilliput and Blefuscu.

Focus and be effective.

Governments need to allocate and manage some special domains for national infrastructure and leave the non-national infrastructure to others. They can then focus their security efforts on what is is critical and important to their national interests and not get side-tracked and overwhelmed by trying to control everything.

Clubbers beware.

As you come out of the club at six in the morning, the last thing you want is a "podule" dropping out of the sky and rendering you even more incapable.

Got signal?

Don't want to lose all that useful information about Taliban activity supplied by the local populace.

It's either time to issue free satellite phones or to start night-time overflights by aircraft equipped with cellular microwave antennae.

Dark Riders so no to iPod ID

Even your iPod emits RF and every RF emission has it's own unique characteristics, so Gandalf will know the unique identity of your iPod.

News just in ..... I hear Sauron is equipping the Dark Riders with Faraday cage cloaks and has issued orders that all future operations will in be carried under cloud filled skies in the pouring rain, preferably accompanied by heavy lightning.

Children's Internet Portal?

I think there is an opportunity to regulate the internet for children. This could be achieved through a children's internet portal. A children's internet portal would at least give a tool to parents to help prevent children from being exposed to extremism, hate, violence and pornography. Parents would have to exercise some responsibility to ensure that their children's computers, mobile phones, games consoles, etc were set up to use such a portal.

I am sure the government could easily come up with a suitably bureaucratic nightmare of system for getting sites included in the children's internet portal.

Trying to sanitise and filter the whole internet for the adult population is a step too far. However It would be useful to have a more publicised system for reporting illegal sites, so that where necessary the authorities could take appropriate legal action or follow up with the authorities who had jurisdiction over such websites. Reporting might be made easier by having a suitable reporting add-on available for Internet Explorer, Firefox etc.

CIA data loss

"Last week I lost our agent list. Don't worry, it's encrypted and I'm the only one with the key."

Aldrich Ames - famous quotes that never were

Environmentally Friendly

This will truly revolutionise the war on insects. The days of toxic fly sprays are surely numbered.

@ Andy Enderby

Naked shorts are about taking a bet, and they usually don't come off. If the risk is too high the bet won't be made.

As an enhancement the tax could be returned to the company involved in the short so in the example if the punter made 26.8m, the company would receive a cash injection of 243.2 million.