Bout time...
You mean americans can do MORE than just turn left?
:D
Scott.
Posts by Scott McMeekin
9 publicly visible posts • joined 30 May 2007
YouTube injects cash into US F1 team
BT's third Phorm trial starts tomorrow
Monday 29th September 2008 12:28 GMT 
Do NOT want!
BT, what part of this sentence do you not understand?
First time I get this opt-in page, I'm switching to another provider. I mean, I could understand (and tolerate) a system like this if I was getting a free service, but I'm not. I'm paying a service fee for a clearly defined and pre-agreed service. It's a bit like the cheeky b'stards at Sky who charge me a fortune for several hundred channels of crap laced with incessant adverts every few minutes.
Marketing/advertising executives - the first against the wall when the revolution came.
EFF reveals vastly expanded search policy at US borders
Tuesday 23rd September 2008 23:59 GMT 
Pointsec-a-go-go!
Full disk encryption. There's just no excuse not to have it/use it these days, especially if it's a work laptop. I'd like to see full encryption used in mobile phones as standard as well - it's prolly possible on my n95, I'm just not particularly paranoid about people reading my endless "working late - will get dinner myself" texts. =p
"Welcome to America! Thanks for bringing us your business, your much needed tourist dollars, and your biometrics! Now bend over..."
Waiting patiently for a sane US administration,
Scott.
Grissom bows out of CSI
Wednesday 16th July 2008 14:59 GMT 
CSI Vegas rawks
I just hope they don't replace him with a plank of wood like the lead guy in CSI Miami. At least the CSI New York has a little bit of something to it. CSI Miami's just a little bit too "CSI-for-good-ole-boys" for me.
Just give us the science, and lay-off the machismo, Horatio.
Paris, cos CSI Miami's just her thang, Y'all.
Phorm protestors picket BT AGM
Wednesday 16th July 2008 14:32 GMT 
MP's, BT and the value of irony
Actually, I've had nothing but positive experiences with my own MP. We had some trouble with gangs of kids smashing windows etc in the local area and the police were a bit slow to react. One letter to my MP and she immediately contacted the Chief Superintendent for the area - within a week, the culprits were all lifted, ASBO's and curfews applied and they were all told in no uncertain terms that if it didn't stop, they'd all be evicted. Not a single bit of trouble since. Try writing or phoning your MP if you feel strongly about something. It really couldn't hurt.
I remember hearing about the Phorm thing from El Reg, and nearly choking on my coffee - I have a new irony meter being shipped out as I type. A previous commenter mentioned the fact that they are happy to hand over people's info to the authorities when a song is downloaded, and help prosecute, but the same level of vigilance doesn't appear to apply to their own business dealings. I'm sorry, but if you take my browsing habits and pass them to an external company without my consent, then you are breaching the laws of the land. The lawyers who advised BT should be sacked. The executives who made the decision should be made to apologise, and the regulatory watchdog should pursue the matter to its logical conclusion to ensure that this never happens again. What's the problem? The whole Iraqi Information Minister tactic of simply saying the opposite of what is true, simply doesn't make it so. That may work for the US electorate, but it bloody-well won't work here.
I think it's about time we got a nice, clear statement from the UK government and regulatory authorities about what ISPs can and can't do with our information.
Scott.
Irate sysadmin locks San Francisco officials out of network
Tuesday 15th July 2008 21:43 GMT
More federal BS
Bullshit. Millions of dollars, my arse.
The only reason they're bumping up the supposed damages is down to the fact that they want to turn it into a federal case. If I remember correctly I don't think the feds will get involved unless the damages involved are over $50,000 for each occurance. I'm sorry, but refusing to hand over the admin password for a router doesn't cost $50 grand to fix in anybody's book - even via the "think of a number and double it, and add 20% contingency" style contracts the US government uses.
In any case, what kind of dumb-ass management allows a single administrator complete access to the entire network. Should be using centralised access based on securID or RADIUS anyway. While you're at it guys, sack the clearly neglegent operations manager.
Bleh.
US: GPS-Galileo agreement to be inked this week
Tuesday 17th July 2007 12:54 GMT
Independence
I think the point of the Galileo system was simply to offer the same service, only not subject to the same uni-lateral self-serving control that the US seems to exhibit in every other area of politics. They can't even follow laws that they helped set up (see Antigua/Remote Gambling/GAT). It therefore seems reasonable that noone would want to base future advancements like self-navigating vehicles on something that some wingnut in the US administration can just switch off.
As for the frequencies, right now there's multiple satellites all operating on the same frequencies which is how you triangulate your position. I presume that the proposal is to have the galileo system simply add to the number of satellites you could access via the same kit. If at some point someone decides to restrict the GPS system, you'd still have 30 Galileo sats to triangulate from instead of the 60 GPS + Galileos.
Obviously the devil is in the detail, but from the sound of it sounds like a pretty reasonable idea to me.
Scott.
Westminster blows £29m to save £20k
Wednesday 30th May 2007 12:37 GMT
Govt spending
£1000 a pop? Gimmie a break! Sounds like the BOFH is doing the negotiation for the manufacturer. How about someone at the council grows a set of balls. Cut a deal where we say, ok, say we turn this into a national scheme rather than a limited local one. Say you sell us the bulbs at £50 a pop, multiply that by the number of street lights in the UK, and add to that the contract value of replacements, maintenance etc, the repeat business generated by other governments seeing the resulting savings and jumping on the band-wagon...
Or, alternatively, you continue to sell your £1000 a time bulbs on the open market and we give our massive contract to someone else, and good luck with that, by the way.
Yeah it's naive and over-simplistic, but it really shouldn't be.
Pentagon: China threatens space and cyberspace
Wednesday 30th May 2007 12:07 GMT
What a complete load of bollocks
Am I the only one who is sick of to the back-teeth with America's bullshit? Honestly. All this pissing and moaning about what the Chinese are doing, what the Iranians are doing... Here's a few suggestions. Stop feckin propping up yer arms industry and start concentrating on stopping your ceasless violation of international law and put the entire CIA and current US administration on trial at the Hague for war crimes. Perhaps if the US stopped acting like the rest of the world is their sex-toy then maybe it would stand a chance of not being so widly hated and reviled.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
