* Posts by Ross 7

293 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Jun 2009

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Anti-piracy lawyers' email database leaked after hack

Ross 7

Hate that I have to do this but..

Jesus... Language changes! Hacking *is* the correct term for exploiting security deficiencies because that's how language has changed to define it.

If you don't believe me feel free to walk up to a bunch of delirious football fans post-match and exclaim how gay you think they look....

CIA used 'illegal, inaccurate code to target kill drones'

Ross 7

Salesmen

Well they did tell them!

To be fair, 13m out when you're dropping 100lb of RDX on someone is still going to end in a successful, yet messy outcome. The only real difference is which particular passers-by happen to die at the same time.

The term surgical strike when using anti tank rounds is hardly accurate after all...

The sad thing is I imagine that rather than suspending their actions until the issue was fixed, the CIA just upped the lb-age on their on their weps to make doubly sure of a kill, ensuring more deaths of non-targetted people.

MS offers Security Essentials to small business

Ross 7

Quote

"How do you compete with a freebie?"

Total cost of ownership ;o)

Portable, rapid DNA analysis tech developed

Ross 7

A couple of issues

1) Days to do PCR?!? lolz. It takes a few hours tops, and that's doing it all manually. Still, putting it all on a chip is pretty clever. However, how do they clean it between uses? And what happens when some numpty drops the ethidium bromide refill in the street and some kiddy thinks it looks tasty?

2) "At present this can normally only be done at a station, meaning that plods must arrest anyone unwilling to give their prints in order to conduct a check" (re: fingerprinting on the street)

Erm, they'd still need to arrest the person to take their prints if they refused to allow it voluntarily. I suggest you check out s.61 PACE 1984. However, s.61(2) makes for very interesting reading in light of a portable finger print checking thingummy. I foresee many claims of "oh yes m'Lud, he consented to giving his fingerprints... No, we didn;t get it in writing 'cause we were in the back of the van"

Thieves jam key-fob lock signals in mystery car thefts

Ross 7

Misunderstanding of the tech

It appears ppl here don't understand how the fobs work.

In order to avoid replay attacks the fob has a OTP which is also held in the car. You press the button, the next item in the OTP is sent over the air, the car recognises it as the item it is expecting and opens (or locks) up.

Your fob can easily be desync'd by accident. Your car will give it some allowance for that. However with a jammer in effect (intentionally or otherwise) you can permanently desync the fob on some cars. Once it gets too far out of sync you need to pay for a manufacturers reset. Ouch.

The crime as reported is stupid - as pointed out, cars beep / flash / clunk when the central locking activates. Jammers can 'cause you grief, but can't enable crims to access your car unless you're stupid enough to let them. This is just a bunch of idiots forgetting to lock the car as they walk away. Simples.

Surprise Automotive X Prize winners announced

Ross 7

I agree, BUT

Just one point. Ek = 0.5mv^2

In other words an increase in velocity adds much more kinetic energy to an object than an increase in mass. Given the speeds I see motorbikes doing round my way I'm not sure there'd be any less energy in a crash involving one of them.

I don't judge you or your driving btw. And bikes are much better than cars for the environment when they're only carrying one person. Just a pity the environment is so much worse for the person when they crash on a bike than a car...

Unofficial fix brings temporary relief for critical Adobe vuln

Ross 7

Brick?

Rather weird claim in the article.

Testing the patch / update is a thoroughly good idea, and apparantly something they've not done before given the quality of output we get from Adobe. However, testing it to make sure it doesn't brick any Win installations?!

It takes some pretty impressive coding to brick an OS from ring-3 these days.

And who the hell uses strcat and its ilk outside of homebrew kludge-ware intended for personal use only?! When did Aleph1 explain buffer overflows in extremely simple terms? 10 years ago? Pretty sure he advocated keeping well away from strcat, sprintf etc. Organisations the size of Adobe have ridiculous numbers of policies and procedures when it comes to coding - surely that should include the public flogging of anyone using such functions...

Google Instant a potential bonanza for search scams

Ross 7

Scary as hell...

...but not for the reasons mentioned in the article.

Google is reading your mind! Google will learn from what you type, as you type, learning from its mistakes, providing what you want before you've even finished typing it in. Then ofc it will use this against us in the impending war. Mark my words...

PayPal update email 'violates own anti-phishing advice'

Ross 7

Bad advice

"Users are advised to check the URL of any link to make sure it does not direct them to something unexpected, as you know they can do this by hovering their mouse over the link"

Errmmmm what now?! Last time I checked that wasn't a particularly secure way of checking where a link points (altho I do admit it is a step up from clicking on it to see).

PayPal screwed up not sticking to their own advice - it makes it sooo much easier for scammers to target them because they can't say "we never put links in our emails - just type it in the addr bar!" any more. It's easy to confuse ppl that are already likely to fall for that kind of scam by padding the hell out of the link URL with a ?randomcrapgoeshere on the end. As long as they see PayPal.com somewhere in there chances are they'll click.

Child Support Agency system hit by new problems

Ross 7

Typo

> ...influential Public Accounts Committee labelled it "a turkey from day one".

Ahhh, now it makes sense! All of this stems from a typo. The brochure said turnkey solution...

My fave bit tho -

> staff unable to access case files because it is running so slowly ... Callers are being advised to try again later in the week.

I thought my lasses Celeron box running Vista was slow!

You've got to wonder when they'll learn not to let EDS / Crapita et al anywhere near their contracts, and that £400m is not good value for anything let alone a ****ty system running on MSSQL server 7.

New 'iPhoD' can 'adjust the speed of light by turning a knob'

Ross 7

Cherenkov radiation

I always thought that was a cool step up from cold cathode lighting for a games rig, but the health and safety implications (not to mention getting raided by SO13 at 4am for being a terrorist implications) make it a little less attractive.

You;ve gotta admit tho - the cooling and visual benefits of dropping your rig in heavy water with some beta emmitters are definitely there...

Hands on with Nintendo 3DS

Ross 7

Photographs

I don't imagine photographs would be any use anyway would they? Kinda like those old SkyHD ads of old (well, 2 years ago) that tried to show you how good HD was. On an SD set :o/

Still, nice to know it works well. Could be tempted...

Adobe confirms remote code-execution flaw in Reader (again)

Ross 7

Love that line

"There are no reports of the flaw being targeted for malicious purposes"

3...2...1...

Whilst the info is not fully disclosed yet knowing that there is *definitely* an exploit in there and it's an integer overflow makes it worthwhile hunting for it and lets you know (roughly) where to focus your attention.

I don't see it being more than a week or two before it's weaponised and actively exploited by someone like the Zeus team (not the httpd one). I hope Adobe et al are working hard!

Re: Connor - if you're paid to code production quality software, esp. software that is going to be a large target for blackhats you really ought to read the compiler notes. Being paid £30k+ comes with certain responsiblities. Not being a lazy bugger is probably in there somewhere. I agree with your points which are well made, but many security flaws are the result of stupid or lazy coding. Relying on implicit type conversion in C++ without reading the compiler notes is risky at best. Doing anything in C++ is risky tbh but hoping the complier does what you want it to do without checking first?..

Botnet that pwned 100,000 UK PCs taken out

Ross 7

Nice work, wrong target

Fighting the wrong fires really aren't they? Always nice to hear that botnets are taken down, but it would make rather more sense to use their skills and resources to track and prosecute the ppl creating and selling the Zeus kit.

Pentagon Wikileaks probe reaches MIT

Ross 7

Ouch

"He was flown back to the US from the Middle East on Friday"

Ah, so they've finished "questionning" him then?

Botnet with 60GB of stolen data cracked wide open

Ross 7

Diversity

Divertsity is NOT security through obscurity, not even close. Diversity doesn't hide possible exploit routes and hope that nobody finds them - it limits the damage that any one exploit can do.

If an organisation runs all of its boxes on one OS (doesn't matter whether it's Win, Lin, HPUX or whatever) then one exploit can move throughout their entire network. If you have 5 OSes then one exploit will likely not be able to affect all 5 OSes. It's not necessarily impossible, but the work involved would outweigh the benefits unless you're talking about targetted industrial/state espionage.

Your argument that you can find 55k vulnerable OSes has *some* merit but not as much as you think. The fact is the bot only found 55k vulnerable Win installations. If 10k of those boxes had another OS on them the botnet size would be 45k, because regardless of the millions of other Win boxes out there they were never subject to the bot were they?

Diversification is not a magic bullet that stops all exploits, but it helps mitigate the damage that they can cause. Arguing that because it isn;t perfect means it has no value is like arguing for the cessation of immunisation because it doesn't protect against all diseases. You fix what you can...

Social-engineering contest reveals secret BP info

Ross 7

James Randi

I looked at that guys website as the name wasn't familiar. Best FAQ I've ever read -

"It's important to realize that if at this point you still doubt that the money exists, your doubt is in the entire American bond system in general and Goldman Sachs specifically"

The guy should consider entering an app himself!

Data.gov.uk chief admits transparency concerns

Ross 7

Bit like OSS

I can see the guys point - why spend public money putting raw data out there that very few people can really understand and be bothered to take the time to understand? That money has to come from somewhere.

On the other hand openess is good. Seems like they are looking to be open but aren't sure of the best way to go about it. Which is a good thing!

Cost permitting releasing both together would seem the best solution - their work can easily be checked by anyone with the relevant skill set and time on their hands, but those people for whom stats is an arcane and interminably boring art can just download the summary, knowing that it has been scrutinised.

Kinda like OSS really - some guys check the src, but most ppl just download the bin from the official site and rely on the few to check it's all fine and dandy.

DfT 'unwittingly' bigged-up speed camera benefits

Ross 7

*sigh* @ Sarev

Other ppl do it so why can't I? Great argument there!

Nothing wrong with driving at 80mph on an empty motorway, but how do you *know* it's empty, without the slightest possible doubt? You don't ofc. You *think* it's empty, like those ppl that *thought* there was nobody coming the other way.

The speed limits are there to limit the devastation that unfolds when someone ****s up as they inevitably will. Until we're all perfect drivers then we need speed limits. You can argue all you like about what they are, but that they don.t apply to you? Do grow up.

"And if we decide to break those laws, so be it. We know the risks"

Great, so *you* decide to take a risk by speeding and someone else dies. Nice. You don;t have the right in law or morals to risk someone elses well being. That's the issue that escapes your massive IQ. Integer overflow ftl eh?

Ross 7

NOOOOOOOO!

I knew someone would misquote that report. You got two things right - they bagged the cameras, and accidents stayed approximately the same. However you missed out one rather important fact - they installed speed bumps etc.

In other words, speed bumps are as effective as cameras, OR, speed cameras are as effective as speed bumps (and other engineering work).

So, given that we know that accidents are reduced by approx 20% by engineering or cameras, do we want engineering or cameras, or are we happy with people being injured or killed when some of them need not necessarily be? If we do want to take measures to reduce speed do we want engineering or cameras?

Engineering is good in that it *forces* you to slow down (except for those stupid spilt bumps that any decent sized car fits easily around) although it can also damage your car even when driving slowly. Cameras are good in that paying out money is a proven disincentive to do many things, but you get the 'tards that slow down to 20 mph under the limit for no obvious reason.

I personally think they should have a mix, and hide all the cameras thereby solving the idiots overbreaking issue. Plus you don't get ppl speeding because there's no engineering to prevent it and no visible cameras to deter it. Plus cameras make money, which can be ringfenced for engineering. Bonus!

In anticipation of the ppl with a sub 80 IQ stating "but I only speed when it's safe and I shouldn't be penalised" - lolz.

Couple charged over hybrid car industrial espionage plot

Ross 7

$40m?

"GM reportedly places a value of $40m on the stolen documents."

Steve bend over! I need to pull a number out of your arse

Unpatched shortcut vuln exploited by mainstream malware

Ross 7

Source

Seems like it may be Russian in source. They are big on using energy as a blackmail tool. Presume they let it loose amongst their neighbours so they could 'cause energy shortages and it spread.

Spitzer 'scope spots Buckyballs in spaaace

Ross 7

Science funding ftw

"Bob Curl, Harry Kroto and Rick Smalley created it in the lab by firing a laser at a graphite disk..."

"Buckyballs and other fullerenes have since been found to exist in nature, notably in candle soot."

You can imagine the meeting where they discussed filling out the funding application

Bob: We should get a massive laser and shoot it at some carbon!!

Rick: Hmm, the models show that you could probably do it with just a candle.

Bob: LASER!

Rick: It would be cheaper and easier and...

Bob: LASER!!!!!

Rick: Seriou...

Bob: LASER!!!!

Harry: OK, but where do we keep the shark?

IT delays cost HMRC £33m

Ross 7

Change of purpose

From the article the issue appears to be backwards compatibility with old data formats. It;s an age old problem - you have a system, you put data into it, then something changes so you need to record extra information, but the database doesn't really cater for it so you start kludging e.g. recording it in general areas like memos etc.

Trouble is not everyone records the data in exactly the same way. Then you get a replacement system that can handle the new data, but how the hell do you migrate 20m peoples records to the new system when the new data isn't uniform?

I agree with Aristotle above that relying on Crapita / Fujitsu / EDS to do the job properly is ridiculous. The "solutions" they provide and the costs they charge are both a joke. I've been harping on for what seems like ever to break such contracts down into units and have smaller UK IT firms tender for them which would provide better results and better value for money. However, no matter who produces the software, if it's job changes substantially it still needs a re-write. The speed that happens, and the change management leading up to that are both vital, and in this case are the job of HMRC management who apparently failed. I imagine it's the front line staff who are taking the abuse for it too.

The Gov really needs to look at IT procurement - they could save hundreds of millions if they stopped taking bribes from EDS / Fujitsu etc.

Yellow alert over Windows shortcut flaw

Ross 7

Surely a first?

Wow, Seimens outdoing MS? Hard coded admin user/pass is pure genius! Makes you wonder why they bothered having one. Also makes you wonder who's lost what IP and how long ago it all started.

PS - I remember the old (I mean like 10 years old) .lnk overflow that broke Windows but was considered non-exploitable. Is this related?

Flaw could expose 'millions' of home routers

Ross 7

No

No, that would secure you against the attack, but it would have the same effect as unplugging your PC from the router which again would secure you from the attack but have rather noticable side effects.

The attack on the router comes from *YOUR* PC (your browser to be specific). If you block your MAC bye-bye internet. There are a number of possible hardening solutions you can use. e.g. force your browser to use a non-existent proxy when accessingr your routers IP, set a decent user/pass combo on the router, change the routers IP from its usual 192.168.0.1 / 192.168.1.1 to make it harder to find etc.

Personally I would go with more than one.

NHS loses massive Microsoft licensing rebate

Ross 7

Numbers

So, pay £225m and use the software for as long as you like, or pay £65m a year for 12 years, with an option to leave the agreement every 3 years? I know they are big numbers, but seriously - knock the 0's off the end and it should be pretty straightforward even for NHS management! It appears MS hadn't anticipated the NHS actually pulling the plug, and now are refusing to relicense unless the new cost covers their "losses" on the old scheme. Great excuse to go OSS.

The benefits are huge - if the NHS can go OSS, then *everyone* can. They're absolutely huge! That's going to worry MS. Initial costs may be no lower, but anyone with half a brain knows it's better to pay £150 this year and £50 every year after that than to pay £100 every year. Plus it forces ppl to dump their IE5/6 based solutions which can only be a good thing (presuming you value the privacy of your medical records).

Training only really needs to be done for admins not the plebs. If you can't figure out how to use any word processor having used another one extensively then maybe the NHS isn;t the best place for you? At least not on the employee side...

I'm fairly certain the NHS side are just playing chicken (as are MS) to get the best deal they can, and don't really want to go OSS, but we can but dream.

Miracle-tech that could fix almost everything: Major advance

Ross 7

Fat pipes

"superconducting technology is thought to offer "Super routers" (pdf) capable of handling pipes so fat as to stun the imagination"

More than 2Mb/s?!!?!?

Blizzard climbs down on real names for WoW forums

Ross 7

RealID

Bit of misunderstanding about what RealID is and why Blizz thought it was a good idea.

1) RealID is not your real name (unless you choose it to be, in which case wtf are you complaining about?)

2) The idea is to provide benefits to Blizz (centralised admin, disincentivising spam/trolls) and benefits to the player (you can be sure ppl aren't posting as you in forums with a lvl 1 toon, you can spot your mates and be spotted by your mates in game, including from *other* Blizz games).

I have to presume that those folk complaining that they don;t want random friends talking to them in game either don't actually play, or entirely misunderstand the situation. Right now ppl can add you to a friends list and see when you are on! No really they can!! Only diff with RealID in game is you don't have to add per toon, you do it per account.

If you;re worried about ppl googling you up then the horse has already bolted my friend - your info is already out there to be googled.

PCI approval yanked from PIN entry kit

Ross 7

Re: sigs

Sigs were never a secure way to validate the card user. Way too subjective. How do you ensure that everyone applies the same care and attention in checking it, and how do you guarantee it's an accurate enough representation? You can't. Sigs can also easily be replaced with your own making forging one unnecessary. It also takes us backwards, to a place where the physical card details alone are sufficent to clone it.

C&P makes the verification much simpler - it's either right or it's wrong - but it is still flawed. 2 factor would appear to be one of the better options with PIN + PRNG token. It wouldn't fix physical theft, but as you say yourself you'd likely become aware of that fairly swiftly, and you may even have the brains to keep card and token seperately (say bag and pocket).

The most important change however would be to internet payments. As it stands card details can be compromised and used to shop on t'internet/clone it sans chip. 2 factor solves that issue nicely. Ofc until *everyone* uses C&P/2 factor there's always the age old fallback mode hack that has been used to compromise a variety of systems. Folk in the 2nd/3rd world still on sigs could still abuse your card details.

The issue with this at the moment is that the banks/processors DO NOT CARE. Not one jot. The lass had her account siphoned a cpl of years back. Took ages to get it sorted. I went in to the Halifax and said I want all foreign transfers on my account blocked to make sure I was as safe as I could reasonably manage. "No can do". Protecting us isn;t their aim, unless it makes them more money than it costs them :o(

It's non-stop fun in Zero Carbon Britain, 2030

Ross 7

Re:

"There's lots of green where there used to be deserts. As agricultural productivity goes up, there's more "green space" than ever."

Whoa, whoa, whoa - what?! I generally agree with the vast majority of your IP stuff, but you don't appear to have as good a grasp when it comes to energy. That "green space" you're referring to comes at the expense of other types of land. Often forest (rain or otherwise). If you think they just turn desert into high production arable land by spilling seeds on it you need to think again. Such things require **** loads of water and nitrates, both of which require energy and lots of it.

It also has issues with variation. 5000 hectares of single crop doesn't actually count as green space you know?

Energy IS an issue. Carbon too (but not for the climate change reason - because we burnt all of the easy (i.e. cheap) to reach stuff). Prices will rise. A lot. Ppl will suddenly realise that 'leccy and gas on tap isn't a right, it's something the rich can afford to pay for.

Your argument that the Germans built 5 coal fired stations to support the wind farms is ridiculous. 5?! Really? Do you have any clue how many coal fired stations we have here in the UK, and how much bigger Germanys energy requirement is than ours? 5 stations are gonna generate 10,000MW tops. Now go Google Germanys peak energy usage.

If they can reduce the total number of carbon using stations to 5 max at any given point by using wind power then they've performed a miracle 'cause that's nowt.

I know bashing the climate change lot is funny (and easy to boot) but I would genuinely ask that you go speak with a variety of ppl about energy, land usage and economy before you write anything else on the subject. It's a ****ing HUUUUUUUUUGE area and putting your fingers in your ears and saying that we have enough oil to continue as we are for ever 'cause some idiot forged some temp data with tree rings ain't helping anyone.

There are plenty of things to write about, but this ain't one of 'em.

Secret ancient code, basis of all modern civilisation, cracked

Ross 7

Re:

Alas plenty of scientists are extremely religious (in the non-denominational sense) in their views - "science the way we know it is the way it is, no questions. If you question it you're wrong!". Just look at the schmucks that think the Standard Model is the right one! It's close enough to be going on with, but it sure as hell ain't right.

As for the guy in the article - "The result was amazing – it was like opening a tomb and finding new set of gospels written by Jesus Christ himself". Say what?! He said that? About himself? I don't care if you managed to beautifully and efficiently bring gravity into the SM whilst scaling Mount Everest on a unicycle you'd still be looked at rather oddly for saying that about yourself.

'Biggest thing in farming for 10,000 years on horizon'

Ross 7

Re:

The main issues are us only eating a very small portion of the plant, and (primarily) awful soil quality so the fertilizer gets leached out of the soil by rain/irrigation. Bit of a vicious circle that last one - they need to add more NPK which kills just about everything living in the soil, which makes the soil much poorer quality so nutrients are more easily leached out so you need more NPK :o/

By using perennials you can get deeper roots (water it really heavily but rarely) and stronger roots which will hold the soil better preventing leaching. With a bit of clever selection in your GM/breeeding process you can get nitrogen fixing roots which further reduce the amount of chemical fertilizer you need. You also retain ground coverage and so outcompete many weeds reducing herbicide costs etc.

It's a great idea, but not a profitable one

AMD muscles Nvidia with fanless GPU coprocessors

Ross 7

Cooling

I don't think they require no cooling - they just have sufficiently efficient passive cooling to allow the actively cooled atmosphere the server lives in to take the heat away. In other words you'd need to cool your room to near freezing :o) Cost aside, try playing CoD in mittens...

Nintendo shows off 3D DS

Ross 7

Eh?

So this is like those dotty pictures where you have to defocus your eyes and squint some? I foresee headaches and squinty children!

Easy-peasy science GCSEs binned

Ross 7

Re:

That's the problem right there - and it's political.

The lass is a secondary science teacher. She does KS4 and 5. I see loads of the kids work that she marks, and my God a *lot* of it is awful. I don't mean 30-40%, I mean 70%+. There are some extremely bright kids, and a lot of really thick ones. How do you balance the following two requirements:

1. Everyone gets A-C in English, Maths, Science; and

2. The brightest kids stand out from the crowd?

You can't (without a logarithmic scale). They're trying to squeeze everyone into the 70-100% bracket and still have the brightest and best stand out. Can't happen. Unless and until they accept that a minority should get A-C and a tiny minority get A then GCSEs will be good for nothing other than spotting the *really* thick kids.

Science *is* a lot easier than it was. I haven't done Bio since my GCSE 16 years ago. I did the A2 paper she was checking the other week and got a B (I had no idea on the few technical bits, but thankfully the vast majority was just common sense ergo an easy mark). Science qualifications need more science in 'em. End of. If that A2 paper was actual science I would have been screwed. As it was you get questions asking why white snow geese like to live where it snows more and grey snow geese prefer to live where it snows less. How the hell is that on an A2 paper?! Any muppet (me included) can figure that one!

God particles breeding like bosons

Ross 7

Re:

It was always understood that the SM was wrong. However it is sufficiently accurate in specific circumstances to be of value. It's when ppl try to expand it to include things it can't cope with that the problems occur.

The main issue I see with it is people trying to build on it and expand it. It;s clearly not capable of being used like that, ergo all the added crap to make it "work". It's useful as far as it goes, but future models that do things like incorporate gravity will be different to the SM and not merely an extension of it.

In many years time I'm sure ppl will look back at the SM and laugh at how foolish we were, but that's advancement for you.

Humanity evolved to cope with 30°C+ heat, says prof

Ross 7

Natural selection

Ummm, natural selection doesn't work that way. Things don't evolve to suit their environs. They mutate entirely randomly - if the mutation harms them they die off and are less likely to have offspring that survive to carry on the mutation; if the mutation helps them they are more likely to have offpsring that survive to carry on the mutation and so the population is more likely to end up with the new/improved feature.

If gazelles, chimps etc never had the random mutations that reduces hair/increases sweat etc then they won't have those features. If they did have those mutations but the one creature that had it got eaten/disease/wasn't strong enough to get mates etc then it won;t show in the population.

In other words, we got lucky.

Mobiles back in the frame as bee killers

Ross 7

Controls

The controls were - as far as can be told from the text - awful. Plus sample size is pitiful. It makes a L'Oreal advert seem statistically valid.

Approaching space object 'artificial, not asteroid' says NASA

Ross 7

Rubbish

Tenner says it's of earthly origin but has a note stuck on it saying "put your bloody rubbish in the bin!" ('cause we all know aliens speak English - why wouldn't they?)

X-51 hypersonic scramjet test: Flameout at Mach 5?

Ross 7

Blackbird v2

I can't see turbojet -> scramjet being a particularly pleasant (or survivable) experience for a squidgy human. Then there's the whole issue of materials science - throw away experiments (as impressive as this one is) are one thing, having a boat that can fly mach 5+, be refuelled and turn around for another sortie without bits (like engines, wings etc) falling off is another.

The friction on that thing must be crazy. I know it's not quite in the region of atmospheric re-entry, but it ain't *that* far off.

I don't imagine ejection would be that healthy an option either!

Hope they (as in America) don't think that using it as a cruise/exocet type missile is a good idea tho. You can imagine the news story already - "an American missile today destroyed a terrorist training camp killing 80 combatants. On its path to its target its shockwave destroyed 14 schools and 3 market towns killing 1500 civilians. Officials said they were 'looking into the matter'".

Statistics prof nails Blackpool hoopla scam

Ross 7

Re:

Whilst I understand that it can get a bit scary when things like that happen, you only need to choose between 2 options:

1) phone the police on your mobile right there in front of him and report the theft; or

2) walk a few yards away if you feel ill at ease and then phone the police.

The guy was relying on the fact that £20 is decent money for him, but not so much you'd start a brawl or call the police. Best to call their bluff. Having the Blues poking around their stall tends to put prospective punters off and they don't want that.

PS - you weren't stupid. Don;t be blaming yourself. You were just doing what you do in any shop/market situation. You were just too nice really. These ppl are pests. Treat them as such.

Ross 7

<stands and salutes>

"The Doctor (not that one) should have known better."

Quite possibly the best sentence on el Reg *ever* :o)

Capita immediately suffers over government cuts

Ross 7

Capita

lolz!

But seriously, have you seen that news a few weeks ago about some guy in the south east I think that formed a co-op of farmers that now provide all the food to their local NHS PCT? I;ve harped on about this for years now but please God can we have something similar for Gov IT contracts? Please, please, pretty please with sugar and sprinkles on top?

If they designed the jobs properly they could unitise many large contracts and save a fortune by having smaller (and probably better) companies involved, whilst keeping jobs in the UK. Ok, time for the pills....

School IT quango to be expelled

Ross 7

Re:

You need to differentiate between primary and secondary education. Primary tends to have smaller schools, whereas secondary tend towards being larger organisations.

Secondary should be straightforward (except in very rural areas where the school is still small, i.e <700 kids on the roll) - you have IT staff (*not* teachers), they procure, or at least design the spec that is to be procured, and install and maintain (senior management often sort the actual spending of money).

Smaller schools like primaries and some secondaries can either do the same, or if they are too small and lack the specialism they GO TO THE LOCAL AUTHORITY!!!!1!!11!! Piggy backing procurement in LAs is pretty common. The LA will be sourcing lots of stuff, so the schools (and libraries etc) can piggy back on to that for a decent deal and without needing any rare skills.

No (state) school is ever on its own, it's part of an LEA. That it turn is part of the LA. If the schools aren't working together or with the LEA/LA and they are finding things hard then it's time to pick up the phone and network (if you'll pardon the appalling pun) Everyone can help each other, save the tax payer some money and stick something nice on their CV.

PS - I don't disagree with what you're saying, I'm just pointing out that "one-woman bands" and their ilk aren't all alone in a scary world.

PPS - Ubuntu in enterprise situations isn't the greatest idea. Linux is, but the support life of Ubuntu is too darned short (it is a really nice OS tho). All of the local LAs and LEAs here are still on XP (how old is that now?!) because it's still supoprted. How many versions of Ubuntu released since XP are now beyond their support period?

Exploding-battery epidemic caused by 'lithium moss'

Ross 7

NMR?

"which is why NMR is now being proposed"

Whilst it is the correct term for it, but didn't we stop using it circa 1980 something? It scares the tabloid readers...

Trident, nuke energy looking poorly under LibCons

Ross 7

Foreign materials bad?

Ah, so you want us to make use of all those uranium mines we have in Blighty so we can be self sufficient?

Hang on, someones poking me....ah, apparantly we don't have any uranium mines. So, rethink?...

Aussie MP slapped with $10k phone bill

Ross 7

*cough* duckhouse *cough*

See title

US prosecution of McKinnon 'spiteful', says ex-top cop

Ross 7

Burglary

Burglary != stealing stuff. It's basically trespass + theft/GBH/rape, or the intent to do one of those things. His example would have been fine had be used "putting a sledge hammer through your 42" Sony Bravia".

Illegally entering someones house intending to give them a sound beating, finding them not in and so leaving = burglary (proving it beyond reasonable doubt is ofc another matter). Max penalty is 25 years as I recall, so on a par with GBH/rape. Theft on the other hand is 7 I think, showing that it's socially less acceptable to break into a house (a mans house is his castle and all that) or business premises and nick stuff than just to nick stuff out of your open car boot.

I think what he was trying to say is "he committed an offence". Based on what's come out I agree that he did, and either did know he was doing as much, or should reasonably have known. However I don't believe he should be extradited. To be honest, given the whole palava (sp?) and the assiociated cost to both sets of tax payers they should just drop the charges, keeping them on record in case he's stupid enough to do it again. It's beyond ridiculous now.

UK polling stations turn away 'hundreds' of voters

Ross 7

Lovin' the bitterness

Clearly one El Reg reader missed out having turned up at 21:55 and has been downvoting the "postal vote ftw" posts :o) I'm lovin't it (yes, it seems I watch too much commercial TV).

I must correct one point tho' - turning up at 21:59 ain't sufficient. The vote must be cast by 22:00 unless the Presiding Officer allows otherwise. It's just like turning up to the match on a Sat (or Mon, or Tues, bloody Sky...) 2 minutes before kick-off. They might let you in, they might not if the queue is huge and you can't get in before kick-off. It's your job to be there in sufficient time, bearing in mind that most ppl will be voting 5pm-9pm with a smaller rush from 7am-9am. Plan accordingly.

Postal votes are a good idea if you have family/work commitments that may impact on your ability to vote - it;s exactly why they are provided for. Anyone worried about changing their mind in the last 7 days of the election campaign based on what someone might say on the tele really needs to give some thought to what basis they are voting on. Sounds like fluff...

Finally, it would be interesting to see what proportion of those non-voters sans polling cards were actually registered to vote. Students are notorious for not being registered ("I don;t need to pay council tax so why should I tell the council I live here?")

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