Posts by Vic

Police reject Labour MP's call for Bristol-wide DNA test

Us, too.

> I can't think of a good P word

The noun you are looking for is obviously "pillocks".

Vic.

Hackers mock North Korea heir-apparent birthday boy

Re: Umm

> The Norks have been raised since birth to believe that conditions in

> the rest of the world are even worse

Which belief is only reinforced by what appears to be periodic aggression from the South and other Western powers.

All Kim $current actually needs to do is to rattle the sabre occasionally and watch the US respond. That's enough to cement his hold over the North Koreans for a while longer. And every single time, they oblige.

The best way to get change in NK would be firm and appropriate use of the term "ODFO" whenever the presiding Kim wants to look downtrodden...

Vic.

Intel: Microsoft's ARM-on-Windows deal no threat

Re: Multiprocessing...

> An ARM core runs the operating system, office suite, web browser et al, and

> legacy apps run on an x86 on the side.

That would limit you to legacy apps that do not need to call into the OS - and that's a vanishingly small market. Pretty much every app needs the OS underneath it - that' s why you can't just take a given binary and run it on a different OS using the same chip.

> If the OS isn't on it, there's no problem, surely?

If it's to do anything meaningful, the OS would need to be on it.

This sort of arrangement *is* possible - I've created several designs along that line, albeit with different CPUs and OSes than you're talking about. But it is quite complex - you've basically got two heterogenous computers that need to talk to each other, and the programming environments aren't even *similar*. This is not for the faint-hearted, and it won't provide the sort of legacy support you're after without some serious compromises.

Vic.

Re: The problem is

> Because MS say Windows on ARM won'emulate t x86 instructions

[ As a total aside, this is one significant strength of open-source software that is *really* going to become important in the coming years. Binary not available for your platform? Grab the source and recompile. Yes, you will be able to. As will your granny. ]

> I expect Windows on ARM has more practical use in servers

I don't think Windows on ARM has any place whatsoever.

It's either doing Windows-type things - in which case, it'll hit the compatability barrier you mentioned above - or it's doing generic browser-type things - in which case, you gain nothing at all from having Windows.

The former dilutes the Windows image - stuff will frequently just be borked. The latter adds cost to the BOM without adding any functionality. Microsoft would look ever more like a leech, and people will tend to experiment with other OSes...

I firmly believe that full-fledged Windows on ARM will remain vapourware. I think Ballmer announced it just to stop people playing with cheapie Android tablets - which 3 months ago were terrible, but today are getting rather good.

Vic.

Clocks sometimes count...

> to handle the 800 megabytes per second of data ... I need a processor

> that can sustain a minimum of 3.4 Ghz

That's related to your choice of processor.

It is theoretically possible to get by with a processor whose clock speed is your target data rate divided by your bus width. Your 3.4GHz need is much more than that for several reasons - some of which pertain to the architecture of the chip. The classic x86 architecture has all sorts of terrible problems - somewhat alleviated by the SIMD instruction sets - that mean you waste many clocks compared to a more efficient architecture.

But with number-crunching, it's always about I/O. It doesn't matter how fast the core can be clocked - if it has no data to process, or hasn't shifted the last lot of results out just yet, that core is idle. Avoiding register re-load and pipeline stall will always get you more advantage than another 10% on your clock speed...

> ARM processors WILL need to be produced that are capable of running at 3Ghz

I doubt it.

> OR programmers will maybe code for them, but they won't use them as

> their native programming platforms.

Says who?

I know a number of companies who compile code on their targets. There is good reason for that, sometimes.

> the quality of the code WILL suffer

You're going to have to produce some sort of, y'know, evidence before making such sweeping assertions that fly in the face of techniques that have been producing mission-critical systems for decades...

> 75% of the job can not be run on more than 1 core given the all operations are

> dependent on previous operations.

You missed out the vital clause "with the knowledge we currently have at work". Have a read of some of the old Transputer literature; most problems - even those that appear fully serial in nature - can be factored across multiple cores if the appropriate techniques are applied.

A couple of years ago, I ran some performance analysis for one of my customers. I produced more performance in that one afternoon than his in-house coders had found in several years. He actually had his brochures re-printed because his systems were so much faster. And I didn't touch the CPU clock speed, nor the number of processors, because neither of those parameters were important - the cores were slow because they were stalled, not because they weren't being driven hard enough.

Vic.

Min of Justice to crack down on dodgy compo claims

No, I'm not...

> The success fee is not a bonus designed to give him a freebie - it is the

> compensatory element on successful cases to balance the cases where nothing is paid.

That's a very positive spin you're putting on it...

An alternative view would be that the hourly charges quoted by the solicitor are insufficient to make this business model pay - so he adds extra charges where he can. IOW, he disguises the true cost of litigation by quoting an unsustainable headline rate which is then bumped up on success.

That's not a good basis for a free market.

And the MoJ agrees that these charges are not part of the cost. For once, government seems to have got something right.

> The worry with these proposals is that solicitors will not be able to deal with CFAs

> without making a loss so they simply won't deal with them.

There will always be a goodly number of cases which are readily won. CFAs will always be with us. But the market will shrink - the chancers will no longer have such a good probability of payout with such minimal risks. So there will be a tendency for the less well-founded cases to fall by the wayside, whilst simple cases with clear liability will still be dealt with as CFAs. This is a Good Thing (tm) all round - unless you are a dodgy CFA solicitor.

> That means that most people will not be able to get legal representation.

Nonsense. Most people will be able to get legal representation - but with shaky cases, they will undoubtedly have to do some of the funding themselves. Again, a Good Thing.

> The ATE insurance is designed to cover the costs of the other side if the case is lost

From http://www.thejudge.co.uk/after-the-event-insurance :-

"After the Event Insurance is a type of legal expenses insurance policy that provides cover for the costs incurred in the pursuit or defence of litigation."

Reading further, at http://www.thejudge.co.uk/features-of-after-the-event-insurance :-

"In addition, most clients also opt to insure their own disbursements, including Counsel’s fees."

I'm deliberately quoting from an insurance broker, because they are selling the product that you claim does not exist.

> It does not benefit the solicitor dealing with the case in any way.

The above reference refutes your point.

Vic.

What are you reacting to?

> For instance, not allowing a successful claimant to recover costs from the defendant.

I've not read the full MoJ docs yet, but the article certainly didn't say anything like that (and, given that it came from Out-Law, I'd expect them to say if the MoJ was preventing the recovery of costs).

What *is* being precluded from recovery is the lawyer's success fee, and the ATE insurance premium.

A success fee is not a cost - it's a chunk of money that a lawyer awards himself for having won the case. He's already billed his hourly rate for the work he's done - albeit that bill is often conditional on a successful outcome these days. The success fee is just an extra bonus, and it is the lawyer who decides how big that bonus will be (up to a statutory maximum of 100% of normal fees). In the past, that bonus has been an extra award against the losing party; the MoJ is now saying that it is not a real cost of litigation, as the hourly rates are already permitted, and so a litigant must pay any such bonus out of his own pocket.

ATE insurance is similar - this is an insurance premium payable so that, in the even of an unsuccessful prosecution, an insurance company pays the legal costs, rather than the lawyer sucking them up. Again, this is not a cost of litigation, this is a method for no-win, no-fee lawyers to offload the cost of risky litigation.

> if I make a spurious claim against someone, and the court decides that I'm

> just a thieving chancer, why shouldn't I be burdened with the costs.

You should be, and you would be. But you will not be burdened with a doubling of the prosecution's legal bills when the lawyer thinks he could do with a big bonus this week, and nor will you be burdened by paying insurance premiums to insure the prosecution legal team against being over-zealous.

These proposals seem, at first sight, to be a very welcome step in the right direction. Now all we need to do is to tackle the myriad apocryphal - or downright false - tales of litigants getting huge payouts for dubious "injuries"; perhaps then, people would do their thinking before they act, rather than after they lose in court. And maybe companies and other organisations wouldn't be so shit-scared of litigation (not losing, just paying to go through the courts) that they might actually do what's right, rather than just what's cheapest. Because that is called paying the Danegeld...

Vic.

NoTW editor suspended as phone-hacking stink persists

Re: Please define hacking

> I'm also interested in what law has been broken.

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

> My reading of the laws regarding phone tapping require the conversation

> to be heard/recorded while it is taking place.

Your reading in incomplete. The Met tried the same tack - it is wrong.

If you read Section 2(7), it specifically *includes* voicemail that has already been heard :-

"For the purposes of this section the times while a communication is being transmitted by means of a telecommunication system shall be taken to include any time when the system by means of which the communication is being, or has been, transmitted is used for storing it in a manner that enables the intended recipient to collect it or otherwise to have access to it."

> Listening to someone else's phone messages is specifically excluded

> from the wire tapping laws

No, it is specifically *included*.

> lawyers tend to get their clients off scottf ree when no law has been broken...

And in this case, a law has been broken. It remains to be seen whether Andy Coulson's proximity to the current PM will cause that to be overlooked.

Vic.

Skype's mega-FAIL: exec cops to cause

@Oninoshiko...

> And, given the example described, on what socket do the clients talk to each other?

That depends on the configuration of the clients. If there is no pre-existing config, you'd use a SIP server to set up the session. Just like I said in my post...

> Neither host can establish a socket to the other

Yes they can.

> because both can ONLY talk to public IPs.

You've not read up on STUN, then?

> Even using TURN, an external TURN relay is still required

So don't use TURN. Use something that does what you want to do, rather than something that doesn't.

The method I described is one way of using SIP. Telling me it can't work is rather silly - I have working phones to demonstrate the efficacy of the procedure (even if I rarely use that exact method - but that's for other reasons). It's the old gag of "those who claim something is impossible shouldn't get in the way of those of us doing it"...

Vic.

Reply to post: Very Wrong

> Routing traffic through a "supernode" is a technical requirement in a inter-nework

> that can contain 1-to-many NATed intra-networks.

No it isn't.

Routing the session initiation through a controller is a requirement - that's how the clients find each other. Once that is done, the session can be handed off to the clients to handle.

That's how SIP works, if you want it to.

Vic.

Pirate Bay mouthpiece disses Assange's legal wrangles

Why would anyone ever take any sort of legal advice from BrokeP?

Whatever the rights and wrongs of ThePirateBay, Sunde hasn't exactly excelled in the courtroom...

Vic.

Double-clicking patent takes on world

You misunderstand patents...

> At least patents expire within a reasonable amount of time.

Whilst the duration of copyright is clearly excessive, there is a fundamental difference that you seem to have overlooked:

- Copyright only covers the specific expression

- Patents cover *any* expression of the "invention", even if the infringer has provably never seen anything created by the patent assignee.

This is why all patents need to be considered *very* carefully before grant. Overly-broad patents[1] and other excessive land-grabs are fatal to a competitive marketplace.

Vic.

[1] Double-clicking, FFS...

Insuffcicient penalty

> Maybe a compromise would be to require the USPTO to refund the fees for

> any patent they issued that was subsequently struck down.

That still wouldn't stop them.

If they issue a bogus patent, then have to refund the fees later, they are no worse off than if they had not issued at all.

So if every single duff patent is discovered and shot down, the PTO is at break-even. If any survive, they are quids in. There is obviously no incentive to reject bad patents, and some incentive to accept them.

To use such a financial tool to get them to do some assessment first, the penalty for having a patent struck down would have to be more than the fee collected for granting it.

I don't expect to see any progress on sorting out the US patent situation until the courts notice just how badly their economy is being damaged by their flawed assessment system. But, given the patent armageddon that seems to be looming, such enlightenment might not be all that far away. It still might be too late :-(

Vic.

Massive new US spy airship 'could be used to carry big cargoes'

All that technology...

It always amazes me that simplistic solutions always seem to be adopted, even when they compromise the outcome.

Rather than trying to manage the quantity of the gas by setting it at launch, why not have a small compressor and pressure vessel on board? As the craft gains height, helium could be extracted from the envelope and stored in the cylinder.

As the craft descends, the stored helium can simply be added back to the envelope to re-establish buoyancy,

This is just the same sort of control that a diver uses in water - except that divers vent gas from the buoyancy cell(s) on ascent, rather than trying to scavenge it. But that's because carrying a compressor would not be feasible. We're not airships...

Vic.

Ofcom proposes UK phone numbers prefix re-org

0845 numbers can be just fine...

> It should be illegal to use a number that costs over the odds for customer service

I'd agree - but many (all?) 0845 numbers don't fit that description.

The phone number on all my business stationery is an 0845 number[1], but I make nothing from it. It would be incorrect to consider this a "premium" number - it's simply a non-geographic. I got it in an attempt to give everyone in the country a local number to call me on - now it seems that Ofcom are going to label that as a scam :-(

I also have on 03 number - but I find many people do not want to ring numbers starting in 03, as they don't know what they are, and suspect a scam...

Vic.

[1] Yes, I have registered an equivalent geographic number at SayNoTo0870...

Assange: Text messages show rape allegations were 'set up'

Factually incorrect.

> Even though Assnage left the country, the investigation went on.

Errr - no.

The case had been dropped against him. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11049316 for example. Have a read of what the Swedish Chief Prosecutor said about the claims; that's the reason why I am pretty much convinced that the whole affair is without merit. It's not often a prosecutor will exonerate a defendant before the trial...

The case was no more, and Assange left Sweden. It was later reinstated - that's part of the reason that political interference is suspected.

Once in the UK, he has liaised with police, and handed himself in once they were finally interested in talking to him.

So although he's undoubtedly a total cock, I think it takes a special kind of blinker to cast him as a flight risk.

Vic.

Logically incorrect.

> Could it be that they felt that Wikileaks became something to feed Assnage's

> ego rather than a site that exposes companies for what they are?

You postulate that as if those two options were mutually exclusive.

Vic.

Really?

> He was never "cleared of guilt" by any prosecutor.

According to the BBC[1], the Chief Prosecutor, Eva Finne said: "I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape."

That sounds decidedly like being "cleared of guilt"...

Of course, the BBC might just be lying. But I generally give them a little more credence that some random bloke on an Internet forum.

Vic.

[1] at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11049316

Prosecutors kick Phorm case upstairs

No comparison

> The condemnation of Phorm ... with the defence of wikileaks

The two are unrelated.

Wikileaks has published information. BT& Phorm have gone digging for information that is not theirs.

The closest you will get is comparing BT's behaviour with Bradley Manning's - and, if the reports so far are accurate, Mr. Manning does indeed have some questions to answer.

The difference is that Mr. Manning has a "public interest" defence - the information he leaked is useful to the population at large, and there is a good argument that the population has a right to see that information. But this is a defence, not a licence to leak.

BT, on the other hand, are just money-grabbing little oiks who invaded their users' privacy for profit. They have no public interest defence.

Vic.

Re: What?

> So they aren't even bothering to consider the fact that the EC are going to

> hammer UK.gov if they don't prosecute?

If it were genuinely against the public interest to prosecute, I would hope they would indeed ignore any such threats from the EU.

But that doesn't describe the situation here. It is *clearly* in the public interest to prosecute to the fullest extent possible, and that happens to tie in nicely with what the EU want as well. We can do All The Right Things (tm) in one go.

But that won't matter to the CPS. If they were genuinely interested in upholding the Law - both UK and EU - the prosecution would have happened a very long time ago. That we are jumping through ever more arcane hoops to try to avoid a prosecution is clear indication that there is a lot of arm-twisting going on.

Vic.

Would this happen in a burglary case?

There is clear evidence that a serious crime has been committed. RIPA allows for a sentence of 5 years per offence, and we have evidence of at least 38,000 individual offences.

The police initially refused even to investigate. Under pressure, they made declarations about the law which are entirely without basis (and well beyond the remit of what they were supposed to be doing).

Now we need a decision "at senior level" from the CPS about whether or not to prosecute.

This wouldn't happen for most criminal activity - why is it even countenanced in the event of crimes committed by rich people?

Oh, hang on...

Vic.

MPs shocked at Taser supplier overlap

Yes it should.

> the licence was revoked because a director of the company gave the police a new type of tazer

The licence was revoked because the company was supplying firearms outside the terms of their licence.

It doesn't matter whether their intentions were good, bad, or indifferent - firearms are dangerous things, and licences need to be respected. What Pro-Tect did is against the law, and they must be held to account for their actions.

They knew what they were permitted to do. They knew they were not permitted to supply these shotgun weapons to the police. They chose to breach their licence. They got caught.

Vic.

Title should be automatic on reply

> Under TUPE regulations, if a contract shifts from one supplier to another, the new

> supplier is obliged to consider employing staff from the previous one.

No TUPE only applies when the business is transferred from on comany to another.

That's not what happened here; in this situation, a company simply lost its licence to sell firearms because it was found to have breached that licence.

TUPE does not apply.

Vic.

US Navy achieves '100 mile' hypersonic railgun test shot

Not a great idea...

> All that's needed is for the tip of the railgun to break the surface of

> the water for a second while it fires.

Something similar was tried with the M1. The idea was to surface, bang out a shell or two, then submerge again.

Trouble is, getting the barrel open at the right time always seemed to be a problem. Most firings of that gun took the end of the barrel off...

Vic.

Not sure that's feasible...

> At long range - even at Mach 7 - the target will be able to see it coming and dodge

200 miles at Mach 7 is a little over two minutes.

That's not much time to react to a pulse which you might detect from half a country away, and which might or might not be a railgun, which might or might not be aiming at you...

Vic.

Air Force blocks access to sites that covered WikiLeaks

Unix wouldn't have solved this problem :-(

> Serves them right for relying on windows

In this instance, the OS used on those computers makes no difference.

The data leak occurred because there was a total breakdown in security policy. They focussed on disseminating the information far and wide, with no regard to the security implications of doing so.

Aside from the negligence implied by that activity, it is really no surprise that the information really was disseminated far and wide - just farther and wider than they intended. Bradley Manning will undoubtedly take the fall for the whole thing - but it is his superiors who actually deserve to be in the dock. Who in their right mind allows untrusted CDs to be played on supposedly secure computers? Have we forgotten the Sony rootkit? And that's just the tip of the iceberg...

The unfortunate part of this whole fiasco is that the US Authorities are focussing their efforts on mitigating embarrassment to themselves, rather than fixing the assorted problems that this leak has highlighted. Thus the world will be a worse place just so that a few people can enjoy a few more years of power :-(

Vic.

Governments stonewall interwebs porn domain

Yep.

> what next? all political parties to be forced onto a single TLD?

An excellent idea. I recommend .local... :-)

Vic.

NASA sells PC with restricted Space Shuttle data

@Graham...

> It's difficult to explain systems in these posts

Actually, it's not that tricky. The difficulty you're having is that the system doesn't work; it's been tried in many differnt guises, and it always fails eventually.

> A clue that I omitted key points for brevity comes from my comment that Win-FS

> only goes part way to solving the problem.

It doesn't actually form any part of the problem - as we'll see from your clarification post.

> would include both encryption and authentication which means that they can be locked (dongled)

*That* is your DRM. The DB-backed FS is irrelevant to it.

But have a look round at all the different methods of preventing software copying that have been tried over the years - how many of them have been successful in the long term?

But as soon as that DRM is removed - the whole system falls apart.

Do you thing you can write an unbreakable DRM? Lots of people have tried. Success tends to be a bit rarer, though.

> specialised systems such as this already exist and have done so for years

But they are not infullible. They are an aid to data security, but they do not work on their own; they need to be backed up by a data-security mindset in those people using them.

> The fact is that even with responsible people in charge you cannot rely on absolutely

> 100.000% of PCs getting scrubbed before sale/disposal every time.

Well, you can. I built part of a system to do exactly that some while ago. HDDs have serial numbers, and it's easy to create a record of successful wiping (I modified nwipe to record to a database). Then - and this is the important bit - you make it clear to everyone dealing with disposal that any HDDs not in the database are company property, and removing them from site is theft, and thieves will be prosecuted. The database is trivially checked by a bootable image (USB stick is faster, but you need CDs for some of the older kit), giving a simple yes/no answer as to whether or not this system is considered "clean".

The strength of this system is not in technology - that's pretty simple stuff. It works because people have a personal motivation not to circumvent the rules.

Vic.

Doesn't work.

> the copying process would automatically update records ... with the locations of all copies of a file.

That fails as soon as the data is passed off such a FS and onto one which does not support the metadata; even if you record the copy (which is certainly not guaranteed in most environments), the receiving machine has no facilities to retain the copying info, and would neither honour it nor pass on any future information. Your solution requires 100% coverage - so all those CDs, DVD, memory sticks etc. all have to go in the bin; each one breaks the model.

A far better solution is to have someone actually being *responsible* for signing off that the machine has been properly wiped. Selling a machine that has not been wiped => instant dismissal, and probable negligence claims (or worse). It is only when such bureaucrats face personal liability that this situation is prevented; having a department or company shield perpetrators from the consequences of their actions means that it's not quite as important to get it right...

Or, of course, you could just not sell any recordable media. I wonder if knocking out second-hand PCs really makes much difference to the budget of an organisation like NASA.

Vic.

Herts cops 'ate the evidence' at scene of crime, court told

Chain of Custody, perhaps?

It's not so much the eating, as the fact that the evidence was not treated as such. It was not logged as evidence, and was not properly preserved.

This makes it much easier to challenge in court. If it is the only evidence placing the suspects at the scene, that might mean a failed prosecution.

Vic.

Apple patents glasses-free, multi-viewer 3D

@Peter...

> Stereoscopic images are only part of the whole picture (pun intended).

They're actually pretty much the whole of the picture.

> One is the act of focusing the eye for the correct distance

That is a very short-term effect, if it happens at all. This is why contact lenses are often prescribed for monovision as people get older - the eye adapts *very* rapidly to changes from "the norm" in terms of focussing. This is why you can put on a pair of glasses with only very temporary disturbance to distance estimation, even if the prescription is really quite strong...

> the other is that each eye moves to focus the object of interest on the center of the retina

And, by positioning each entity within the image, the angle between the eyes is set for that entity, thus creating the 3D view. That is exactly how stereoscopic vision works - and it matters not whether the image is real or synthetic. The eye moves to place the object correctly...

> If you just use separate images beamed into each eye, you can have the

> correct image for an object close to you

You can also have the correct images for an object far away from you.

Here's an experiment to show you how it works: pick an object - any object, at the distance of your choosing. Can you see it in 3D? Good. You're now interpreting that 3D image according to two images - one in each eye. It really is that simple.

> Try to focus on both hands at the same time.

That has nothing whatsoever to do with 3D vision. It is how the human vision system ignores items in the vision path. And it's a temporary effect - wait a while, and you can focus on both.

> Don't do this for too long, or else you will get dizzy

Nope. Do this for a long time, and you acclimatise to it.

> You will see that they go slightly 'cross-eyed'

That's how stereoscopic vision works. The angle between the eyes is used as a reference. That angle is set by correlating the two images, and it happens whether the images are real or synthetic. It's also the reason why aliasing causes strange effects - which is why Ford Escort headliners used to look so odd, and why random dot autostereograms work.

> Stereoscopic vision together with both of these other effects are required

> for the brain to correctly determine depth

Absolutely untrue. Eyeline angle is an *effect* of stereoscopic images, and focussing is a feedback loop - it alters over time.

> If you only get one of them, some people can ignore the fact that the others are missing

Anyone looking at something with two working eyes is using sterescopic vision. That is the beginning and end of it. Look up the term if you don't believe me - it's "stereoscopic vision". Everything else you say implies some deep-seated misconception about how human (and most animal) vision works. But don't take my word for it - look it up. You will see that the separate images are all that is necessary.

> the current 3D TV cannot do this

It's a good job I wasn't talking about 3D TVs, then, isn't it? I'm talking about stereoscopic vision - the sort I'm using right now to look around me - which isn't reliant on any display technology. .

Vic.

Really, it is.

> That's not entirely how 3D vision and Depth perception works

Yes, it is.

You have two eyes.

Any depth perception effects you have are a result of the images coming from those two eyes.

Whatever you might be trying to say about various methods used to attempt to create a 3D display is irrelevant - whatever you see, it comes from a stereoscopic view created by the two eyes in your head.

Any alternative to this proposition would mean that you have 3D view with a number of eyes other than two - and you don't, even if you can infer something about distance-to-object from its size.

Vic.

Yes it is.

> Stereo viewing doesn't work for nearly 20%

Stereo vision gives 3D for every animal with two overlapping fields of vision. That includes all humans with two working eyes.

You appear to be talking about dot autostereograms - but that isn't what is described in the article.

Vic.

So how does this work with multiple people watching?

You'd need to track each person around the room and project a separate pair of images for each one. That scales well...

Vic.

US cable giant Comcast accused of internet video 'toll booth'

Doesn't work.

> This system should be bloody simple; whomever[sic] transmits more information pays more

My ISP transmits a *lot* more data to my network that I do to theirs. Are you saying they should be paying for my Internet access?

Anything else is double-dipping: my ISP would be charging for data transmitted *to* them on one end, and data transmitted *by* them on the other; they'd be charging twice for the same transit.

Vic.

Reg Hardware Reader Awards 2010

Not really sure which category to pick...

I have one recommendation for an award this year - and I don't think it fits into any of the above categories all that well.

The beast in question? PARIS, of course.

A truly inspirational bit of engineering - well done, guys.

Vic.

Ofcom mulls popular number charge

Number changes

> I don't understand why a tiny country like the UK has had so many number changes

Because BT cocked it up.

The reason given for the original "phone day" changes (when most area codes got an extra "1" in them) was that we were running out of local numbers.

So what did they do? They expanded the area code namespace (which wasn't running out). Utterly pointless.

Vic.

Isn't there a very simple solution to this?

Why not just fix the "technical issues" that mean you allocate in 1000-number blocks?

Sure, it'll mean the routing is a bit trickier - but that's what computers are for.

Let companies buy up numbers in whatever quantity they want, and charge them accordingly. If someone sits on 1000 numbers they aren't using, they pay for them.

Vic.

Plasma space-drive aces efficiency numbers: Set for ISS in 2014

Different units

> what does a sustained 5.7N translate to in G?

It doesn't. The Newton is a unit of force, "g" is a measure of acceleration.

If we were to assume a mass of one tonne for the drive unit (it was described as about the same size as a small car), we'd get an acceleration of 5.7mm/s^2, or approx 0.00058g.

Not as quick as my bike, but likely to go a bit further without refuelling...

Vic.

Shuttleworth's Ubuntu makes like Space Shuttle

Nope.

> "Ubuntu has probably drawn more NORMAL people to open

> source than any other open source project."

That would still be wrong.

It might be correct top say "Ubuntu has made sufficient noise to show more people that they are already using open source than any other project has", but I'd need stats to know for sure.

Vic.

Really?

> Please... Ubuntu has probably drawn more people to open source

> than any other open source project.

gcc? Apache?

Vic.

MS drops drive pooling from Windows Home Server

@DutchP

> Beer, because after you've set up LVM you have most certainly deserved one

What?

LVM is *trivial* to set up. Even if you're doing it from scratch - which most people won't.

Vic.

Police to get greater web censorship powers

Re: alt TLD?

> Do you mean, say, an alt TLD? For example: www.theregister.co.uk.alt

Possibly. That's one way of doing it.

Alternatively, if we're just looking at dealing with Nominet, we use an unused .uk zone. So, for example, I could set myself up as the registrar for all .dark.uk domains. I could maintain a simple zone file that delegates to other nameservers[1]. To join this darknet, you either put my IP address in as one of your DNS servers, or use somebody else who does.

Users who are slightly sharper than the average bear can set their resolvers up to query me only for .dark.uk domains. This reduces the load on everyone, but is an optimisation, not a requirement.

Vic.

[1] except for the domain "vic.dark.uk", which would be mine, natch

One zonefile to rule them all...

> the police think that the normal course of law does not apply to them?

If we're being rigidly fair about this, this controversy is not the fault of the Police - not entirely, at any rate.

From the article:

"Police will effectively get more powers to censor websites under proposals being developed by Nominet"

Note that, assuming the article is accurate, this is all Nominet's proposal, not the Police's demand.

Granted, Nominet have faced "lobbying by the Serious and Organised Crime Agency". That might have amounted to "would you like to do as you're told, or would you rather come and have a look at how steep the steps are in our nick?"

Vic.

Not even that.

> All it would require for a Darknet to become an Internet

> is a peering agreement and someone to dish out IP addresses

> and domain names.

All it would require is a single[1] DNS server that enough people were prepared to consider authoritative...

The Internet sees censorship as a fault, and routes around it. DNS is no exception.

Vic.

[1] Granted, it would be shit with just one server - but others could join very easily.

Sex abuse fax leak costs council £100k

It wasn't hypothetical, you see...

> I can think of circumstances in which it might work.

It does work. I've done exactly this on numerous occasions.

> The majority of messages are going to contain sensitive data

If that really is the case, then it is entirely inappropriate to have the ability to export data directly to a general-purpose email system. What is *required* is a management application to control such export - so you might have a handful of addresses qualified to accept any data, but for the most part, each record in the DB is associated with zero or more addresses to whom that data may be sent. Modifications to those qualified addresses is checked (by double-entry, supervisor sign-off, etc.), and attempts to circumvent the system are classified as gross misconduct.

It's not the cheapest setup imaginable - you're adding quite significantly to the database load - but it is foolproof: it can only fail when at least two people are grossly negligent, or someone of sufficient authority deliberately commits a data breach that he knows will get him fired.

We have some fairly strict Data Protection laws in this country. If they were actually enforced occasionally, fewer people would claim things were "impossible" or "too expensive". We have data breaches because the penalty for failing to put in place preventative measures is way, way too low. I'm not convinced that fining public bodies changes that in any way.

Vic.

Brits blow millions on over-priced ink

Cheap cartridges

> I've used cheaper non-branded ink in the past in my Canon printer

I always use el-cheapo ink on my Epson printers (I paid £10 for 12 cartridges last time I bought some). As long as you understand that some cheap cartridges just aren't worth having, it all seems fine so far...

>... however both times I tried I ended up with a clogged prnt head

The only time I've ever clogged a print head was when I didn't use the printer for an extended period of time - and it had genuine Epson cartridges in at the time.

Vic.

Novell keeps Unix copyrights from Microsoft

Re: Unix

> Can't all the open sourcers chip in and buy them from Novell?

What for?

> Mark Shuttleworth would be better chipping in some cash instead of buying a luxury flat.

Mark Shuttleworth has nothing to do with this - saving that he's rich, and could probably afford the deal if he were motivated to do so.

But there's no business advantage for him.

> If Unix copyrights ended up in the hands of a patent troll then there

> would be a lot of trouble for Linux, Solaris and OSX.

No, there wouldn't.

Many years ago, a copyright troll named SCO tried to make trouble using this method. The first hurdle they had to overcome - and failed to do so - was to demonstrate that they owned the copyrights to Unix at all.

In many ways, it is a shame that this case went first, because it leads to so many hand-wringing posts on Internet fora about how dreadful it's going to be when someone richer than SCO owns some of the Unix copyrights.

The next case that SCO needs to deal with - which is currently stayed pending the outcome of the SCO vs. Novell case - is about whether or not there is any AT&T-derived[1] Unix code in Linux anyway. Discovery in that case was long, tortuous, and expensive. SCO found *fuck all*. IBM have a lot of counterclaims that will devastate anything that makes it out of the Novell case.

There is no more mileage to be had from trolling these ancient Unix copyrights around. The FUD worked for some time - but now pretty much everyone knows how baseless were SCO's claims. There is no AT&T Unix in Linux.

What we should be worrying about is the 882 patents that were sold to CPTN - but even those are probably harmless. The implicit patent grant in GPLv2 is probably sufficient, should those patents read on anything in Linux, and estoppel should prevent MS from actually asserting them against Linux users. There is still some uncertainty there - but it is likely that the patent transfer has more to do with settling the WordPerfect suit than anything else.

Vic.

[1] There is a fair bit of BSD-derived Unix in Linux, but that is not covered by these copyrights[2], and is properly licenced anyway.

[2] AT&T's slack approach to copyright notices is one of the reasons why so much of Unix is no longer protectable by copyright anyway.

Jumpin' Meerkats! Ubuntu moving to daily downloads?

Not with you at all...

> Just what any normal user wants, a prompt every morning for updates.

There's no problem with that.

Users rarely care whether or not there are updates - what they care about is whether or not those updates will interrupt their use of the machine.

Updates on a Windows box are always intrusive - often requiring multiple reboots. Updates on a Linux box are not - you usually just hit the button and get back to whatever it is you were up to. It really isn't a big deal.

> I don't want a box continually updating itself like this.

I do. If there are bugs to be fixed, I want them fixed as soon as possible.

> Batch it to a month or 3 months, but not daily.

No, I completely disagree with you there.

If something is broken, I don't want to wait a month to get the fix that someone has already published elsewhere - even if the bug is not security-related. It's pointless putting in arbitrary delays to improvements just to avoid an upgrade procedure that is completely painless anyway,

My laptop is updated pretty much every day - sometimes more than once per day. I barely notice. I haven't rebooted it in weeks. Updates just aren't a problem.

> People have other things to be doing than staring at an Update

> window each morning when they turn their machine on.

Sure - so we don't stare at update windows.

I get an icon appear in one of my panels if there are updates available. I click it, have a quick look at the updates to make sure I want them (I always have done, so far), then click "Install Updates" and get back to what I was doing.

> They simply want to type a letter, surf a web page, read emails.

As do I.

> Not wait until the updates have been downloaded and installed.

But with Linux, you don't do that. An update doesn't mean the machine is unusable for hours at a time - it's predominantly a background process that just gets on with it whilst you go about your business.

> This is techie masturbation at it's worse.

No, this is non-users not understanding just how much simpler it is to upgrade a Linux box compared to a Windows one.

Vic.

Upgradin

> Are there really people out there that have time in their lives to upgrade an OS every day?

Yes. I generally spend less than a minute making sure it's not going to upgrade something I don't want it to, then I pish the "Install Updates" button. Some time later, it is done.

Once a month or so, I reboot the laptop[1] to bring in a new kernel or suchlike.

Vic.

[1] I run Fedora on this laptop. It likes to upgrade stuff regularly...