* Posts by Chronos

1257 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Oct 2007

TalkTalk downplays extent of breach damage, gives extra details

Chronos
Flame

Why the giddy frig...

...does an ISP need your date of birth? You're obviously old enough to be paying the sodding bills. At some point there has to be a stop put to this nonsense of dragging as much personal data out of customers as possible. You can't even buy a Mars bar these days without some pillock wants your post code and inside leg measurement.

Also, why was this data Internet facing? If you must have someone's date of birth, they're not going to want to change the bloody thing in "My Account" are they? Oh, sorry, I'm a reborn Christian. My new date of birth is...

Safe Harbor 2.0: Judges to keep NSA spying in check – EU justice boss

Chronos
Go

The correct answer

Of course, the correct method of controlling the flow of data is not to give the buggers any in the first place. I have no reasonable expectation that things like my banking and financial records stay in the EU, let alone Britain but I can't really do much about that. Seppos will always be interested in your money and that's one area where regulation can make a difference. I won't hold my breath, though.

Everything else gets "need to know." If they ask for my DoB with no reason and no way to verify it, they get a fake one. It gets stored in KeePassX along with the password and it then becomes another factor of authentication on my side rather than a relational key for their data mining op. Get yourself a cheap domain name and use different e-mail addresses for every company so you can see who is selling your details on. All my passwords are different and I'll even falsify my address in cases where they don't need to know it, i.e. the local telephone exchange must be getting sick of getting Screwfix catalogues and Maplin vouchers by now. Oh, and don't give any personal information over the telephone to incoming callers. Ever.

If you drop a dead cow down the well of your personal data they'll have to stop drinking from it eventually.

Bacon can kill: Official

Chronos
Mushroom

You first

I suggest they try living without all the Class 1 carcinogens. Please let us know how the day WOO (without oxygen, as Mr Flibble suggested) goes. I can see some handy results coming from that study...

Bacon as deadly as cigarettes and asbestos

Chronos
FAIL

WHO cares?

The pharmaceutical trough union. Putting their invective in the Daily Fail is likely to cause a rift in reality.

So, let me get this straight, you want us to wake up, go to work in some mundane job full of petty and pointless corporate rules that never gives you a sense of fulfilment under managers who struggle to get their shoelaces tied, eat cardboard for lunch when you actually get a lunch break, go home on the politically correct eco-bus to more cardboard, drink, smoke and do sod all because it might be dangerous, rinse, repeat?

What the fuck is the point of a life like that? I'd love to follow a couple of these arseholes around with a video camera for a while. I'll bet they don't practice what they preach.

WikiLeaks leaks CIA director's private emails – including his nat sec clearance dossier

Chronos
Trollface

And, Crilly...

"If you ever try to leak my e-mails like that again, I will rip off your arms."

Wait, wrong Brennan.

WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

Chronos
Facepalm

Windows 10

...Australian edition.

WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

Chronos

If there's an NSA ear in the woods and there's nobody around worth listening to, the other four eyes probably won't find anything either.

Big Blue welds bits of carbon for nanotube transistor

Chronos

A new story at this time of night?

Have you no Ω to go to?

You started it :-P

Is Windows 10 slurping too much data? No, says Microsoft. Nuh-uh. Nope

Chronos
Flame

Re: Jesus wept.

David 132 wrote:Microsoft are selling - OK, giving away - colossal numbers of Windows 10 licenses, so there's obviously many, many people in the world who don't share my opinion & concerns.

Or are not technically literate enough to know or care about the implications as long as funny cat videos may be viewed, Aunty Mabel's joke e-mails still come through (with all the addresses in the "To:" field, of course) and they can play the odd hand of Solitaire. To them, a computer is a black box and the intricacies of the OS are as out of reach as the bottom of the Mariana Trench. These are people who can't even find the latest piece of crapware they downloaded even though the Downloads folder is pinned in Explorer. And Windows 10 has to be better, because it's a bigger number, right?

To cut a long waffle short, IT has gone Mainstream - with a capital daft.

Do I come across as the guy in this icon? --->

No, you come across as a normal, rational, intelligent human being who is sick to the back teeth of people screwing with his basic human right to privacy and hiding it beneath a semi-transparent veneer of bullshit that not only insults your intelligence but also takes advantage of, shall we say, the less cerebrally endowed to create a critical mass of people who "don't mind" because they don't understand what they're giving away to legitimise the whole damned thing. And you're not alone.

Privacy, net neutrality, security, encryption ... Europe tells Obama, US Congress to back off

Chronos

Re: Bot

He's just an Eggdrop with a very specific set of scripts timed to run in the Yvening.

More email misery and pillory for Hillary as FBI starts quizzery

Chronos
Joke

Conspiracy

Is it not possible that Hillary's e-mail spillary is ancillary and the grillery is artillery from the deep south Conservative hillbillary?

11 MILLION VW cars used Dieselgate cheatware – what the clutch, Volkswagen?

Chronos

Re: Confused…

Aimee wrote: I cant believe it 'knows' its in an mot testing station, that would be technically possible, but spooky!!

Being revved to the red line and held there for a few seconds while in neutral is something that tends to only be done in testing stations, if we conveniently ignore bellends in McD's car park. Add the immobility of the steering to that and you have a fairly sound recipe for detecting whether you need the testing or the road fuel map switched in.

Besides which, MOT stations test for particulate emissions (smoke test), not NO, so this little trick will be missed completely.

Chronos
Flame

Re: DMCA

Or, you know, just do it outside of the USA, perhaps? I'm sorry but I'm totally unmoved by this use of the DMCA as a bludgeon to stop hacking (in the original context of the word, not the meeja definition).

There's a swagger with these three and four letter acronym laws that needs firm modification with a clue-by-four. They need to be reminded that their jurisdiction is not universal. IMHO, if you own a piece of hardware which relies on soft/firmware to function, personal reverse engineering, security auditing and removing restrictions once title has passed is fair game.

Naturally, the code is still subject to copyright so your analysis and patches belong to you but the original code and the derivative doesn't, even outside the Land of the Non-Free - but the derivative doesn't solely belong to them, either.

TL;DR: Fuck 'em, we're not American.

Crash Google Chrome with one tiny URL: We cram a probe in this bug

Chronos

Linux+Chromium

[2708:2708:0920/140109:FATAL:navigation_controller_impl.cc(927)] Check failed: active_entry->site_instance() == rfh->GetSiteInstance().

[1] 2708 abort chromium

Debian Jessie 64 bit. Looks like it's pretty universal.

Jeremy Corbyn wins Labour leadership election

Chronos

Re: Little musical interlude...

Apologies to the down-voters for the irreverence but, as eny fule no, it comes as standard on El Reg. Incidentally, it was originally because said chap had just become foreman, so s/leader's/foreman's/ and the third line was "I've got a raise, I'm off the dole" and it just struck me as hilariously funny at the time - until I realised that people's principles have a price and the whole thing's a truism on human nature.

Time will tell if it applies here. As for the disapproval, I throw myself upon the mercy of the Commentardosphere.

Chronos
Joke

Little musical interlude...

The working class can kiss my ass

I've got the leader's job at last

Annoying Dave is my new role

You can stick the red flag up your hole!

With apologies to the chap I first heard singing something like it on the shop floor of an electronics company.

Chronos

Re: i for one, welcome... (actually I don't but that's by the by)

Precisely. It could have been much worse. Have a search on El Reg for Burnham, concentrating on his stint as Culture Secretary. He hasn't a sodding clue. Some of the rot he came out with in cahoots with Wacky Jacqui was almost as bad as Call-Me-Dave's stance on encryption.

Don't want to upgrade to Windows 10? You'll download it WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT

Chronos
Thumb Up

Re: "Personal" computer no more

David 132 wrote: Up until about 2-3 years ago, my computers were under my control - a small oasis of control in a world in which I'm largely powerless and my ability to live my life as I see fit is being systematically stripped away.

My sentiments exactly - and I've been using FreeBSD and Linux ever since I can remember. Anything that wasn't a desktop PC had these "features" where it isn't really your choice as to what happens and it's a continuing uphill struggle to wrestle control back, which gradient gets steeper with every iteration.

There's seemingly no end to it and the really remarkable thing is people don't seem to care that it's creeping into every aspect of their lives by extension. I suspect it's the slowly boiling frog effect but, whatever it is, it's not healthy.

Thank you for articulating those concerns far more eloquently than I ever could.

Wileyfox Swift: Brit startup budget 'droid is the mutt's nuts

Chronos
Happy

Looking forward to the Storm

Swift's all very good (if you're not as fussy as me, get one) but I want a real back/home/menu button set, not something stealing a goodly bit of my screen. 128GB SD and 1080p (for the occasional VR headset use) are nice to have, too.

I will be on the list when the Storm launches, no doubt about it. That fixed battery isn't really a problem if it's like the one in the Moto G - changing that is a five minute job. I just hope the build finds its way into the public Cyanogenmod repo but, as long as I can get root and fastboot access, I don't care enough for it to be a blocker issue.

While we're on the subject of CyanogenMod, please note that CyanogenOS and CyanogenMod are two very different things. The former does take a lot from the latter but there's no guarantee that the CyanogenOS devices will be backported or that a CyanogenOS device will be CM-like in the things you can do to it, eg bootloader and custom recovery. cyngn.com is a commercial entity, cyanogenmod.org is a community site.

Grinning BBC boss blows raspberry at UK.gov, eyes up buffet

Chronos
Devil

Re: Print Media

Which only works for them because of a giant captive market twice daily.

Yet more reason to eschew public transport, as if we need more...

Chronos

Re: Normally...

Rainbow was Thames TV, if I recall correctly. Now I'm off to play with my twanger...

Chronos
Flame

Great

So I'm stuck paying the telly tax if I want to use my computer because we all know the iPlayer "loophole" being closed will mean anyone capable of using iPlayer in the UK will be rogered senseless until they pay up.

Not only is the telly tax regressive, it originally depended on the WT Act for its existence. I suppose you could argue that anyone using WiFi is technically receiving TV off-air but that's pure sophistry.

Also, isn't it a bugger when a tin-pot broadcasting company full of luvvies can hold your democratically elected government to ransom? There's something seriously amiss with that situation.

Debian upgrades Wheezy and Jessie with a combined 372 updates

Chronos

Re: Bloody systemd!

Shouldn't you be pitting a new file in /etc/systemd/system instead of modifying the existing one in /lib/systemd/system?

Not at the moment, no. I deliberately put that there so that when (if) nfs-common gets the update to a proper unit file, the next systemd update will wipe out my changes which then allows systemd updates to make other changes to that file without my modification becoming persistent. Method in the madness.

I don't want custom stuff hanging around that could potentially screw up rc ordering unless it's absolutely necessary. I had enough of that on FreeBSD, thanks. At least if it gets wiped out before nfs-common is dragged up to date I'll have known behaviour to go on. rc ordering screwups, on the other hand, are fast-tracks to male pattern baldness.

Also and probably mainly, I'm lazy ;-)

Chronos
Joke

Bloody systemd!

NFS mounts are still in a race condition with the remote filesystem target! It's unacceptable, I tell you! /lib/systemd/system, add "After=nfs-common.service" to remote-fs-pre.target and all should then be well.

Joking aside, this stuff should be in nfs-common's run control files. The reason it can't be is that nfs-common still uses an old style init script. As Creslin says, we're waiting for the legacy stuff to go away before everything starts to just work again.

WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

Chronos
Happy

Re: I had a Western Digital drive ONCE. Load of carp.

I beg to differ. WD's range and Travelstar 2.5" drives both pre and post Borgmentation have turned out to be the most reliable drives for me. I still have a couple of first generation 160GB REs in a RAID1 set running 24/7, way past their five year warranty period.

So I'm absolutely chuffed to bits. Thanks, El Reg!

BOFH: Power corrupts, uninterrupted power corrupts absolutely

Chronos
Coffee/keyboard

Bastard! T|N>K

Usually, BOfH leaves me nodding sagely in agreement. This time it's full on belly laugh - and I have a lot of belly ;-)

You owe me a new bloody K120 and a pot of screen wipes from Poundland.

Another chance to win a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive

Chronos

Oh my god, Boris! We've just been chosen to meet and greet Donald Trump!

Google: Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am – stuck in the middle of EU

Chronos
Flame

Bloody ads again.

Perhaps when you have to defend your business model every ten minutes, it may just be that your business model is a parasitic nuisance.

I know people, myself included, who will not buy anything advertised aggressively on principle. If your ad makes it harder for me to find the information I wanted (specs on a 'phone, a schematic, some code snippet with a common name) then not only am I never going to touch that product or the site pushing it with a ten foot pole, I'm going to actively ask others to avoid them as well. It's why StartPage and DDG are doing so well right now.

I don't particularly care about positioning of ads because, patently, anyone serving them has a pecuniary interest in people seeing them anyway. Arguing over rankings is just splitting hairs. For those of us who use the web for research there is nothing more annoying and dispiriting than trying to find something and every promising link for information turns out to be another bloody digital salesweasel trying to pry open your wallet.

So no, Google, not everyone universally adores your ads. A lot of us think that they, and you, suck.

Wileyfox smartphones: SD card, no bloatware, Cyanogen, big battery – yes to all!

Chronos

Re: Wileyfox phone looks nice but...

Jetpacks and rollerskates as options?

I think I may have that as my ringtone.

Twenty years since Windows 95, and we still love our Start buttons

Chronos
Devil

Bloat

I think we need to remember that, along with new features and shiny bling, MS have had to put up with "my stone-age application, cavepaint 22B.C., must work, dammit!" from all comers. It's this backwards compatibility that has caused a lot of the beer gut Windows currently has.

I'm not for one second saying MS is blameless for the lardy arse-cheeks dangling pendulous over the edge of the platters in your HDD, just that they have been, on occasion, unfairly criticised for bloat when it's in response to customer demands for legacy code not to break - without the ability to recompile it against newer libraries. It's a bit like the stick Pirelli is currently getting for crap tyres that don't last 31 laps after F1 management asked them for crap tyres that won't last 31 laps...

Icon: Devil's advocate, natch.

Enjoy vaping while you still can, warns Public Health England

Chronos

Re: Ban it. Ban what?

MonkeyFedge wrote: I was under the impression that the vapour from ecigs was not just water vapour (and nicotine), but also propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin, and whatever flavourings are present.

You are correct. It's actually an aerosol of liquid disassociating from the bulk in the wick and becoming suspended in air due to applied heat from a coil. The nicotine is almost all absorbed by the user immediately, thus there are only trace amounts of that in the exhale. There is flavouring, PG and/or VG, as you rightly point out. There's a "Goldilocks zone" temperature range for this aerosol process, above which the heat causes unwanted chemical reactions in the liquid and you get a few nasties (acrolein, aldehydes) in the aerosol. This only affects the user, though. Sidestream, even on a badly set up atomiser/power combo, is negligible, especially when compared to smoking.

I've often toyed with the idea of a piezoelectric system similar to that used in ink jet printers as a safer method of obtaining the aerosol. Few problems, not least of which is the variable composition of e-liquids.

I have heard that the origin of the 'water vapour' claim was someone saying that ecig vapour was no more harmful than water vapour, not that it /was/ water vapour.

There's actually very little water vapour at all, above what a human would normally exhale with a breath plus what is used to thin the VG. It was actually a misquote taken a bit further by critics and used to trick naïve supporters into making the false statement which can be easily knocked down with the facts - a straw man, if you will - which then makes anything factual that person quotes less likely to be accepted. I know that sounds a bit "conspiracy theory" and I'm sorry for that but there's billions in big pharma and big tobacco profits at stake here.

What would also help is if people supporting the right to vape would kindly get their facts straight before mounting the soap box, otherwise "please don't stick up for me any more, I don't think my nerves can take it" applies. I'd also add that the "right to vape" includes, as rights very often do, responsibilities to others, which probably includes not cloud-chasing at work, not vaping sickly or pungent flavours in an enclosed space and maybe even asking if it's okay to vape as we used to when we smoked before all the smoking ban nonsense came in and buggered up everyone's ability to interact courteously. A PG heavy flavourless mix will give you the same nic and throat hit (actually, PG heavy is more effective as VG mutes the hit) without fogging up the room or offending anyone's digestive system. Surely we can switch atties for half an hour when asked just to keep the peace?

And non-vapers, ask me politely to modify my behaviour if my vaping affects you in any way. You'll be pleasantly surprised at the result. Tell me and you'll get exactly what you deserve. Courtesy cuts both ways.

Chronos

Re: Who should take the credit for this?

@Joe 48

Thank you, kind sir.

Candour compels me to admit that, towards the end, it was becoming a little like shooting mirror carp side-on in a small barrel of undiluted glycerine. One glance at the Daily Fail and they're all experts :-)

If only the same experts in the legislature were so easy to deal with. The HoL has some pretty clued up people - Viscount Ridley springs immediately to mind - but they don't make the law, they simply have a veto on new bills. in the case of the TPD I doubt we even have that luxury as implementing it is a treaty obligation. The odds really are stacked against us at this point and it's going to take a minor miracle to undo all the damage done by moral crusaders and the clueless.

My DNA40 and Kayfun 3.1ES combo? The thing to remember about the TPD is it legislates for vendors, not the general public. Your e-cig isn't going to become illegal overnight, it'll just be verboten to sell them. It's not me I'm concerned for, it's the millions of smokers who haven't had the chance I've had to escape the clutches of big tobacco, government sin tax gouging, being treated like a leper and the smoke->quit->smoke->quit cycle that NRT forces upon you. Once vaping is driven underground, the same cluelessness that drove it there will pollute the supply chain with such massive awfulness that it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and we truly will have awful, dangerous products out there. Imagine V4p3rm4n-69 (Bitcoin welcome) mixing your juice in his bathroom: Green Fairy, a cheeky little absinthe number with a hint of toilet duck...

Chronos
Thumb Up

Re: Sigh...

@Salts,

Yes, looks like you've covered all the bases there and you're in several orders of magnitude territory.

Congratulations on the health gains. I'm not sure you can ascribe those to vaping solely; you seem to have a positive attitude to turning your health around, which is probably the bigger contributor. Vaping will help as part of an overall harm reduction strategy but it's not a sovereign specific. Even if it is safer than breathing the air in London, if you're in London you've no choice but to do that as well.

Chronos
Facepalm

Re: Does anyone know...

They're not oils. PG and VG are alcohols. Oil would give you lipoid pneumonia, which you really, really don't want.

Anyone putting Diethylene Glycol in e-liquid will quickly find themselves on a (recklessly) negligent manslaughter charge.

Yes, monopropylene glycol can be used as an anti freeze. That doesn't make it the same as DEG, it just means it modifies water's freezing point, as does salt. Anything else you want me to debunk, or are you done?

I don't particularly want your exhaled carbon dioxide blown in my face, which is probably a damned sight more dangerous than anything in e-cig vapour given that CO2 an asphyxiant[1]. The chances of you stopping exhaling are about the same as your ill-informed rant stopping me from vaping, though.

[1] Yes, okay, I'm fighting fire with fire. It's all in the concentration, something a lot of people commenting on this don't seem to be able to do when it comes to facts.

Chronos
Facepalm

Re: Does anyone know...

Well, actually, they DO stink. It's not just water vapour, and if it is there must be trace elements come with it because I can not only tell that someone is vaping nearby, it affects me (it's usually how I fnd out, it's not like I'm looking for it)

Oh, poor you! Tell me, do you refrain from cooking just in case someone doesn't like the smell of what you're having for tea? Clue: If it's chips, it is also creating more acrolein (a toxin) than a vaper will produce in his entire lifetime. If said vaper is nic-free, it'll also contain more nicotine.

Nobody who knows how vaping works will tell you the exhaled vapour is just water vapour. Of course it isn't, or it would dissipate like steam from a kettle. It's an aerosol of PG and/or VG carrier plus the flavouring and nicotine, if any. The "water vapour" myth was a straw man set up by vaping's critics.

I have family using this stuff and while I'm happy they're off tobacco, I also note that their use has no end. So it's not helping to close down an addiction, it's replacing it with another.

Oh naturally people must give up something they enjoy, even though it it harmless just to comfort your fragile sensibilities, mustn't they?

Yeah, sure, ad hominem is the best way to discuss things. Let's not look at the data, let's go personal on someone who doesn't agree.

Utter rubbish. The data don't support the PP's assertion, nor do they support yours unless you can't stand to be near anything that smells of anything. My summary of his post was an opinion based on the facts and his or her ignorance of them. You're an anonymous tosser. That was an ad-hom. See the difference?

Chronos
Devil

Re: Does anyone know...

Moktu wrote: Downvoted because I like Vanilla Custard.

Fair enough, you custarding heathen, you! :-)

Actually, for sickly smells, the jury's still out on whether custard or Hangsen RY4 (aka Golden Syrup Sponge Pudding) is worse. I'm leaning towards the RY4, if only for the amount of ethyl maltol they put in it.

It's still only a smell, though, much preferable to "stranger BO on the bus."

Chronos

Re: Well

Lloyd wrote: I also buy Vegetable Glycerin from a baking supplier

Don't. Only use pharamceutical grade VG. Boots sell it for ~£1.30 for 200ml. Using food grade VG is a little risky, especially if it is sourced from overseas.

Chronos

Re: Sigh...

Salts wrote: Yesterdays report advised vaping reduces health risks of smoking by 95% wonder if the other 5% goes away with nicotine free juice?

The 5% is probably acrolein production, aldehydes and other toxins caused by overheating the liquid or taking a "dry hit" where there is not enough liquid in the wicking system to regulate the temperature of the coil. If your wicking is good and your atomiser within reasonable limits you should never see the 5%, at which point we're back to several orders of magnitude less risky than smoking burning leaf.

The Evolv DNA 40 and 25 systems take away the guesswork here with coil surface average temperature limiting (it's not temperature control as the set temp is a hard limit, above which the control logic will back off the power until it settles below that limit) which means you will never singe your cotton, let alone produce nasties from the liquid if set up correctly.

Chronos

Re: Does anyone know...

John Robson wrote: Because they stink, and we don't really know what is in the fumes.

Tommyrot. We do know what is in the exhaled vapour, there have been numerous studies including one on vapour's effects on cells. You're just repeating the anti-vaping lobby's pet excuse.

What you've typed stinks worse than any e-cig I've ever used - and I have vaped vanilla custard!

Note: Vanilla custard: Just say no.

Chronos

Re: Who should take the credit for this?

Linda McAven MEP was the rapporteur for the TPD2.

Chronos

Wales

E-cigarettes are not banned in Wales. Drakeford would like them to be, so he can go down in history as the Assembly health bod who saved us from ourselves (history is probably going to disagree here - pompous ass is more likely) but they're quite legal.

Interestingly, my e-cig doesn't contain any nicotine (man 'flu, been hitting the menthol pretty hard for some respite from a sandpaper throat and throat hit is something I can do without) so they can all go swivel, it's not a tobacco product even in the misguided, loose sense that e-cig nicotine is derived from tobacco leaf.

The real issue is that this is driven by the users. There's no place for do-gooders, interventionists, healthcare leaders or big pharma gouging. We've taken back control of our lives with a simple technology. They only like technology when it cements their control, not ours.

Sony Xperia M4 Aqua 4G: The Android smartie that can take its drink

Chronos
Pint

Moto G 3rd gen LTE

Available for £149.07 on Jeff's own tat emporium. So the natural order is thus restored.

Must say I am tempted by the 128GB capacity of its SD slot, though. If Cyanogen ever becomes available for the Aqua it would then be a no-brainer.

Windows 10 market share growth slows to just ten per cent

Chronos
Holmes

Lies, damned lies and statistics

If that relies on the browser being truthful, good luck with those figures being accurate. Mine, for example, will identify as Firefox 39 on Windows 7 on every mechanism, not just user agent. It even fools Google, the de-facto kings of analytics - I get an e-mail on the rare occasions I actually use my (utterly fictitious) login to watch something Ogle has decided is age-restricted on the 'tube like vaping vids with "New sign-in from Windows 7" as the subject. That it isn't what it is pretending to be is a given.

I know, I'm an arsehole and I'm deliberately making my OS look less popular than it is. If you check with the EFF's Panopticlick, you'll discover why I do this. A *nix browser is just far too easy to track for comfort. Even with my settings, it's still one in 2.9 million.

Yet another Android app security bug: This time 'everything is affected'

Chronos
Trollface

Re: Android 7.0: Fisherman's Friend

Android 7 will be "Nougat." Pronounced "nugget" :-)

...because nut brittle, given this embuggerance of exploits, is too obvious.

Chronos

Tip o' the hat to Mr Pratchett

"An embuggerance of flaws."

Stardock’s Start10 brings the familiarity of 7 to Windows 10

Chronos
Mushroom

Just so you know...

This, and the other start replacements, will not stop Cortana running in the background. Task mangler will reveal TSDB still watching your every move. There is only one way to stop TSDB running and that's remove her from C:\Windows\System Apps\ - you have to kill her process and quickly move the whole folder out of the path before, true to her gaming roots, she respawns, at which point the WinX start menu breaks spectacularly so you must have an alternative loaded and enabled. I'm fairly sure she'll come back with an eventual Windows Update, so keep an eye on task mangler.

Me? Sod this malarkey, I'm sticking with something that doesn't treat me as the product.

CAUGHT: Lenovo crams unremovable crapware into Windows laptops – by hiding it in the BIOS

Chronos

The elephant in the room

As if MS need any more bad publicity, they actually have a "standard" mechanism for doing this. Lenovo are the ones who got caught using it. I'll be very surprised if others aren't being a bit more sneaky rather than being more ethical.

Microsoft vacates moral high ground for the data slurpers' cesspit

Chronos
Thumb Up

Why did you drive your business off a cliff?

"The SatNad told us to!"

That's not an Ofcom email about your radio licence – it's a TROJAN

Chronos

Lots of attempts in the log

relay=81.202.228.103.dyn.user.ono.com

relay=ip-address-pool-xxx.fpt.vn

relay=[182.48.83.74]

relay=[59.97.5.152]

relay=bba416802.alshamil.net.ae

relay=[213.226.18.242]

relay=[59.92.110.24]

relay=[109.99.224.215]

relay=[113.163.159.63]

relay=[116.105.72.33]

relay=[109.166.128.1]

One of the users targeted has no amateur radio licence. He does, however, have a marine licence for his boat which uses the same OLC system. Looks like something is a bit leaky.

Windows 10: Buy cheap, buy twice, right? Buy FREE ... buy FOREVER

Chronos
Facepalm

The answer is simple...

...and it's there as soon as you boot into the shiny, new OS: MS are playing catch-up with Google and moving into the targeted ads backed by profiling biz. Check out the number of "privacy" controls in Win 10 and pay particular attention to the names of the bits that they flip. We'll flip them but the Twitfacespacebookerati will probably remain blithely ignorant to their existence as long as they can still watch funny cat videos on Youtube.

Cortana (hereinafter referred to as TSDB: That Spying Digital Bitch), Edge[ofReason], modern apps, they're all gateways for the flow of preference data from you and ingress portals to your eyeballs. Just like these free newspapers we used to get shoved through the door that lined the bottom of the budgie's cage, circulation is everything. That's why they're "giving away" Win 10 and it's also why corporates ain't getting it - because they generally have sysadmins who will come down on this sort of network traffic like a slightly manic, misanthropic ton of bricks.

I do wonder whether the IT media's skirting around this simplest of explanations is due to the fact that most of it is ad supported anyway and Windows' taking revenue right on the desktop is seen as a little bit of a threat. Well, it isn't. It's more like using an H-bomb to open a bag of crisps given MS' market share and, like primitive people trying to avoid mentioning the devil just in case it appears, they're a bit afraid to look at the possible outcome.

Once you get rid of all this dross by adding Classic Shell and Winaero tweaker then ripping out the spyware such as TSDB and OneDrive[sYouMad], it ends up looking remarkably like? Yep, Windows 7.

The underlying OS isn't too bad, as far as I can see with my limited testing. However, don't mistake "free-as-in-beer" with "without cost." The bill hasn't dropped yet and, when it does, it may well turn out to be less of a bargain than we thought.

And that's before we start on the cost to personal privacy.