* Posts by Captain Hogwash

1168 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Feb 2009

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Oh look, cracking down on Big Tech works. Brave, Firefox, Vivaldi surge on iOS

Captain Hogwash

Re: fire up your VPN

I put all of my guests on a WiFi access point which routes everything through a VPN. They get to use whatever rubbish they like (including Google) and I get to hear their complaints about all of the captchas whenever they do.

UK council yanks IT systems and phone lines offline following cyber ambush

Captain Hogwash

Re: One has to ask whether councils are specifically targeted in advance

Possibly. It depends who's behind the attack. If I was a criminal opportunist then I'd sneak in wherever I saw an opening. If I was the kind of aggressive nation state who liked to try and interfere in another country's elections then I'd definitely be targeting councils in order to disrupt services, cost money and sow much dissatisfaction among the populace. I understand it's known as hybrid warfare.

The S in IoT stands for security. You'll never secure all the Things

Captain Hogwash

They are risky

But using only those that can be controlled locally, putting them on their own subnet and denying internet access to everything on that subnet goes some way toward mitigating the risks.

Willy Wonka event leaves bitter taste with artificially sweetened promises

Captain Hogwash

Re: FANTASY

If you're googling from the UK and don't want a knock at the door, use TOR.

ChatGPT starts spouting nonsense in 'unexpected responses' shocker

Captain Hogwash

Re: Probably finally ingested the lyrics to Close to the Edge

Or perhaps what we are witnessing is The Revealing Science Of God.

Vietnam to collect biometrics - even DNA - for new ID cards

Captain Hogwash

https://jacquesmattheij.com/if-you-have-nothing-to-hide/

India to make its digital currency programmable

Captain Hogwash

Re: if the time comes

When!

AI models just love escalating conflict to all-out nuclear war

Captain Hogwash

Re: Unsurprising....

"Politicians hide themselves away

They only started the war

Why should they go out to fight?

They leave that all to the poor, yeah"

Did Harry know Geezer Butler? I think they'd have got on.

Amazon Ring sounds death knell for surveillance as a service

Captain Hogwash

Re: But why would you want to?

I'd rather it was waiting for me when I get home in an hour than possibly have to go through the whole rigmarole again in three days.

Captain Hogwash

Re: But why would you want to?

Sure but who knows two days in advance that some emergency will require that, contrary to expectations, you will not be at home to accept the package.

Captain Hogwash

Re: meet a 'need'

I'm that old too. Having to cross town to go to the post office is a right royal PITA. They don't seem to stay open as late as they used to either.

Captain Hogwash

Re: Intercom entry systems have existed for many years

Only useful if you are at home though. Not much use if you need to tell the courier what to do with the package while you are elsewhere. Or if you need to tell the Conservative canvasser to shove his manifesto where the sun don't shine while you're having a grunty.

Captain Hogwash

Re: But why would you want to?

Oh, hi. I wasn't expecting it to arrive today/can't come to the door right now. Would you mind:

1. leaving it with number 9

2. leaving behind the blue bin

3. coming back tomorrow

4. <your preference>

Captain Hogwash

Re: meet a 'need'

Being able to speak to whoever is at the door while not being physically present is genuinely useful sometimes.

That said, it's perfectly possible to rig up an old phone with a FOSS sip app and converse with callers without resorting to Amazon spy products.

Drivers: We'll take that plain dumb car over a flashy data-spilling internet one, thanks

Captain Hogwash

"only five percent believe this surveillance should be unrestricted"

Why isn't this zero percent? Are they working for the manufacturers or whomever the data is shared with?

It's absolutely jaw dropping that this is so high.

Is it time for 6G already? Traffic analysis says yep

Captain Hogwash

All I've really noticed is that 5G runs the battery down faster.

Japanese brewery using generative AI to dream up new beverages

Captain Hogwash

Re: Alcoholic fizzy apple drink.

>Have they not heard of Cider?

the best varieties are not fizzy.

Epic decision sees jury find Google's Play store is illegal monopoly

Captain Hogwash

Re: Not so much anymore

I disagree. MicroG deals with most problems caused by the lack of Play Services. Updates are available which allow devices to run Android several versions later than the point at which the manufacturers abandon them. If you mean "There are several usable, functional AOSP based Android OS that work without Google Play Services and without data grabbing" and devices which can be bought running such an OS from a retailer, then yes I agree a little. But Europe is leading the way on this.

Captain Hogwash

Re: Where Could This Go?

There are several usable, functional AOSP based Android OS that work without Google Play Services and without data grabbing.

UK government rings the death knell for SIM farms

Captain Hogwash

Re: produce a side-loaded app

Forgive the lateness, I've been ill.

SmsMatrix is what I use. It requires a couple of Matrix accounts. I'd recommend self-hosted unless you want to count responses in geological time.

MAXS and its various modules are also available but I found it less reliable. This would require XMPP rather than Matrix.

Captain Hogwash

Re: produce a side-loaded app

Such apps already exist, for Android at least. I use one in order to be able to send and receive SMS from the number everybody knows, at my domestic rate, regardless of where I am in the world.

It also prevents those who know that number and would track my movements via VLR/HLR data from being able to do so.

YouTube cares less for your privacy than its revenues

Captain Hogwash

Re: Why not let content creators pick from a list of advertiser categories?

Because the content creators aren't paying for the eyeballs.

King Charles III signs off on UK Online Safety Act, with unenforceable spying clause

Captain Hogwash

Re: Poor, deprived Americans

Cowboys International?

Captain Hogwash
Big Brother

Re: Safe

If the politicos get their wish then the UK will be one of the least safe places to be online for anyone who might express some criticism of the government.

This is what they're aiming for with this law.

Microsoft says VBScript will be ripped from Windows in future release

Captain Hogwash

Re: small number of people who have inherited some ancient scripts

Or any company whose product makes extensive use of the scripting engine!

Huawei's UK tech eviction reportedly caused Sky to fall on mobile customers

Captain Hogwash

Re: Don't keep repeating a lie

Maybe it is a lie but it's the only explanation I've heard. If you know more please explain.

UK Online Safety Bill to become law – and encryption busting clause is still there

Captain Hogwash

Re: What does that even mean?

Cheese pizza, I guess, is from the same linguistic school as old fashioned Staffordshire plate.

It could just as easily have been clay pipes.

Techie labelled 'disgusting filth merchant' by disgusting hypocrite

Captain Hogwash

Re: "The caller had paid the bill, but wasn't happy."

Ah such fond memories. In the UK in the 1980s and early 1990s Channel 4 used to show Peter Greenaway films quite frequently. Also it showed many other films from Europe and beyond which were seen as somewhat outside the mainstream. Today Channel 4 is a case study in enshittification.

Dutch consumer groups sue Google over its entire business model

Captain Hogwash

Re: Illness

I've never seen that.

Captain Hogwash

Re: Illness

I've seen the Coutts ones too. No idea why. At my house everything is subject to regulation by Pi-Hole and phones go over VPN, whereas at my SO's everything is slurped by whoever wants to. We also see the Coutts ads at her place so it's either based entirely on the shows we watch or they're shown to everybody.

If you like to play along with the illusion of privacy, smart devices are a dumb idea

Captain Hogwash

Re: please forgive my lack of knowledge...

That's why they go on their own subnet.

In reality, as others have said, sniffing your comms data is likely to involve criminality so probably doesn't happen. What is more likely is that they will map out your network and send back details of whatever other devices they find. I'm pretty sure I read about Facebook doing this some time back.

Captain Hogwash

Or maybe...

Your account was logged in to a device identified as spending some time at the same location as the origin of numerous searches for obscure century old bit of equipment.

Sounds a lot simpler.

Captain Hogwash

Similarly

All this stuff is initially provisioned via the app with fake credentials entered and goes on it's own subnet.

After provisioning it is denied internet access.

As Paul Hibbert would say... HOME ASSISTANT! HOME ASSISTANT!

So you want to save energy? Ditch web apps and go native, boffins say

Captain Hogwash

Re: web devs being incentivized to reduce bandwidth usage

Web apps not having access to as many slurpable parts of the phone sounds more like it.

Not call: Open source gurus urge you to dump Zoom

Captain Hogwash

Re: I'm sorry, I just can't dump Zoom.

I'd add that a telephone call is no more private than a Zoom meeting.

Norway to hit Meta with fines over Facebook user privacy from next week

Captain Hogwash

Re: Less than 1%

Even if they remain small they could be significant in aggregate once countries follow the Norwegian example.

Google's next big idea for browser security looks like another freedom grab to some

Captain Hogwash

I think we could get them to brush their tongues

It's about driving everyone to Chrome and forcing them to log in with a Google account.

1 in 4 Brits are playing with generative AI, and some take its word as gospel

Captain Hogwash

I gave it...

characters, motivations, location & props. Yet it couldn't write an imaginative story. It came up with something an average human might have written. I was quite impressed with the language processing but it's clearly not going to "take over" any more than Dave the plumber or Jill the checkout girl are going to.

After Meta hands over DMs, mom pleads guilty to giving daughter abortion pills

Captain Hogwash

Re: I'm sure some will suggest it is her fault for using Facebook Messenger to communicate

Have you confused P2P and E2EE?

Meta's data-hungry Threads skips over EU but lands in Britain

Captain Hogwash

Re: the natural party of government

Please use quotes. It's not good to propagate the lie.

Captain Hogwash

Re: "Other Data"

Anything they think of later.

Oh, great. Yet another tech billionaire thinks he can get microblogging right

Captain Hogwash

Re: personal details aren't that precious

Until aggregated in databases and demanded by governments intent on silencing opposition.

Inclusive Naming Initiative limps towards release of dangerous digital dictionary

Captain Hogwash

Heard this before somewhere

It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.

Another redesign on the cards for iPhone as EU rules call for removable batteries

Captain Hogwash

Re: UK specific model?

I had an S5 and there's no way I'd trust the IP rating on it.

Captain Hogwash

Re: UK specific model?

They'll design phones with snap on backs and glue them shut for all destinations except EU countries.

Thus continuing to use IP ratings as a selling point for non-EU countries.

Hopefully the UK will see a thriving grey market in EU specification devices.

Gen Z and Millennials don't know what their colleagues are talking about half the time

Captain Hogwash

Those numbers...

would be similar if this had been done 20 or 30 years ago. We all had to learn it and the young team shouldn't expect it to be any different for them. Unless of course the global management caste have some sort of epiphany regarding the soul destroying nature of the way it uses words.

Eta Aquariid meteor shower peaks this weekend, and will be one for the ages

Captain Hogwash

Re: wait around for October's Orionids

Perseids in August are usually better.

Shocks from a hairy jumper crashed a PC, but the boss wouldn't believe it

Captain Hogwash

Re: "Hairy jumper"

Not in rhotic Bristol it isn't!

Brits start 'em young with 20% of tots 'owning' a smartphone

Captain Hogwash

I agree. What the piles of skulls in Cambodia and the discovery of the body of Lesley Whittle did to my prepubescent mind is quite literally the stuff of nightmares.

It's time to reveal all recommendation algorithms – by law if necessary

Captain Hogwash

Re: Too little grist for the mill?

I think you're right. I have no Youtube/Google account and actively resist data collection generally. This means the Youtube algorithm probably has only the VPN provided IP address and current session history on which to base any recommendations. This can produce odd results at the start of a session but recommendations tend towards similar subjects as the session goes on.

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