* Posts by Martin Nicholls

160 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Feb 2008

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Sky News election petition defaced by prankster hackers

Martin Nicholls
Gates Halo

Balance, fairness and bullshit

Yeah please lets have sky doing this, it's not like there's a right-leaning streak with rupert murdoch or anything. Come on.

Investigators blind on P2P child abuse

Martin Nicholls
Pirate

Crypto

"Encryption + paedophiles = strict control on available to purchase (and download) encryption software (UK security services happy)"

Is the beauty of SSL, once you open a pipe there's no way to tell if it's pedo downloading children pictures, somebody buying airline tickets or banks pushing money around.

Also, do I detect them complaining? What exactly did they expect to happen? Pedofiles to suddenly stop being pedofiles because they took down wikipedia?

This is of course the same issue the movie and movie industry are about to get a kick up the arse from, people will just move to darknets, when that happens on a large scale all laws become irrelevent. Stick that in your piracy funds terrerists pipe and smoke it.

Really though, who in the world is predicting anything but all traffic on the internet becoming anonymous and encrypted very strongly?

The IWF are just pissy because they have no legal power and most sane people think they're an utter waste of time, effort and money - and good paper when the media write stories about them.

Foxconn working on 'sub-£100' ARM-based Linux netbooks

Martin Nicholls
Paris Hilton

Duty

"but what import duties are levied - does anyone know"

None on laptops afaik - though PDAs are 3.something%, maybe they'll be bitchy and go somewhere down the middle for netbooks :)

Paris doesn't do tax.

Office online and Windows Mobile: Ballmer's last laugh

Martin Nicholls
Linux

I hate this think of a title game, I'm taking my ball and going home..

Think we're missing the point here slightly, the question isn't that Microsoft lost share, it's that Apple carved out a new section of the smartphone market and old school phone makes like Nokia lost out.

Microsoft probably lost a few people but look at the areas where apple simply can't get into because IT policy won't allow. Microsoft is still going strong.

And it's not as if Apple have even the guy on the street tech gadet market locked up, the likes of HTC and Acer are doing huge numbers in sales on Microsoft-based products, because if nothing else, they have a superior product.

Apple's iPhone loses carriers money, claims researcher

Martin Nicholls
Jobs Horns

Tethering

"Also I was interested to find that you cannot use your iPhone as a pc 3g modem"

Yeah rite, (caveat to what I'm about to say, I don't own nor intend to buy one, ever) - if you can't 'ssh -D' it I'll vomit all over the floor.

UK cops eye shotgun cartridge Taser

Martin Nicholls

Alterantive to live munitions?

It's all very well saying these make a great alternative to live munitions, but the problem is as with all police powers recently it goes from "it's for this" to "when we're bored we'll do this". Terrorism legislation gets used against granny smith taking her dog for a walk and she gets an asbo because the dog barked at somebody.

They should only be used where usually you'd use live ammo, like guy walking down the street sawn-off in hand, may or may not actually use it, not because person carrying it is a firearms officer.

For those that are going to say "what a stupid idea" - they'd obviously be backed up by real armed police or just not using the taser worst-case. This is how tasers are supposed to be used in this country but they're drawn on pissed up people relentlessly. I've had one drawn on me on a night out when completely sober and unarmed, so I know from personal experience that cops are trigger happy with these things.

The taser should be about saving lives not police effort because they just came on shift or they feel like tasering some guy who stole 20p worth of sweets from a corner shop, or because they think a drunk person will cause them hassle.

Lets distance ourselves from the yanks and remember what armed police are for before this stuff gets out of hand.

Boffins in 'let's create black holes in the lab' jape

Martin Nicholls
Stop

I hate titles, I just want to reply.

"it would suck in material fast enough to counteract the Hawking radiation and keep on growing"

Well I like that we're doing experiments like this based on the idea that ANY of Hawking's black hole theory is actually correct, which we don't of course know.

How about we save the black hole experiments for when we can travel to another galaxy far, far away?

EU turns beady eye on flaming iPod menace

Martin Nicholls
Coat

Hush Money

"Even if these few incidents are true it comes out to be like one hundred thousandth of one percent"

You have to wonder how many of these people took Apple's hush money and how many got refunds at their Apple Store/generic apple reseller though. Plus what's going to get reported are the more severe incidents.

"I blame Opera for it. They must have grassed them up too because their browser sucks"

Funny, but that's not the accusation.

The accusation is that Opera are a European business, and Microsoft are American so it's 'easy' for the EU to go after them. Also given the EU's track record with Boeing, Intel and a few others it's kind of plausable. The problem isn't that they're dealing with companies exploiting monopolies, that's all well and good - the question is proportionality, looking after your own, and the relentlessness of attacks on microsoft over IE - even though everybody knows (yes even tech-tards) that IE is a worthless piece of s**t.

It's a blatant response to the argument that if the tables were turned and Airbus were doing what Boeing were doing, would they be so relentless.. Or would the EU hush it up?

I suspect they'd hush it up.

Anyways, I've gone slightly off topic but that comment needed a response. The comptetition comission arm of the EU does a good job but they need to be seen to be *just*. And I'm typing this from a laptop running Linux before you ask.

Boffins showcase do-it-yourself flying spy drone

Martin Nicholls
Thumb Down

Got the t-shirt

There is already automated control systems for UAV around, including some open source options of the set waypoints/photograph this/land here variety around on the internets that you can attach to model fixed-wing aircraft for way less wedge. So this isn't really anything new, and it's not very good - and it's expensive.

Facebook IP protection is only for companies that join

Martin Nicholls
Boffin

Or alternatively...

.. sue Facebook for every penny they have.

Great to see them playing russian roulette with business IP on top of the game they were playing with copyright ownership on say.. people's photos.

Good luck with that.

Government slashes final Eurofighter order

Martin Nicholls
Grenade

Next...

"What next, cancel the F35 and carriers?"

No because it's the answer to where the extra cash is going and why BAE aren't going to care.

The naval air systems are going to be the future of how the UK projects military power. If you can't get aircraft through surrendermonkey [supposed] allies you can put them on ships and hit targets from anywhere.

This is why we're building new carriers at a scale we've never done, that are intended to be competent inside US/UK fleets.

If you start stripping away at budgets the MQ-9 program (through 39 sqn), F-35s and new carriers, and the absolutely critical trident replacement (in ascending order of importance) are always going to win out. Everything else can go - even if you get to the stage where you have no separate Army/RAF/Navy these programs will still be around because they enable us to look and sound like a military superpower even when we're not - in their own right.

I'm not suggesting we'll ever end up being Belgium of course, but I'm saying these are budget priorities going forwards, because they're cheap to keep operational and you can do a lot of damage with them. I doubt the UK will be involved in many ground wars going forwards since the country turned into the USA circa 1974.

Microsoft kills Zune phone talk

Martin Nicholls
Badgers

Management

"Central management means buying expensive MS software. So would still consider BBs for large businesses"

But at least you can do it, which is why many companies are (rightly) terrified of going near the iPhone, not that Apple care - they don't want the likes of you [yes, you] scum near their hardware anyways, as proven by recent reports.

On another note, don't know who came up with this stupid Microsoft phone rumour - but they clearly know absolutely nothing about Microsoft's business.

@Big-nosed Pengie / "If this is what they see their core business as, all I can say is "good luck, fellas"" - see above.

'No more CCTV', cries top CCTV cop

Martin Nicholls

Cart, Horse.

I watched this interview last night, what the cop was actually suggesting is we ensure we're linking them together, using facial/numberplate recognition etc to get maximum value from the ones we have.

He wasn't suggesting we should never build CCTV again - well, it didn't sound like that was the case anyway. Just saying - don't jump up and down with glee too much.

Memory-hogging bug offers universal browser crash exploit

Martin Nicholls

You could...

Write 'exploits' like that till the cows come home.

I wrote one about 4 months ago that does exactly the same thing but faster with simpler code - on 64bit browsers /really/ fun stuff happens. Takes out opera, firefox, ie, safari.. you name it.

Don't see why these guys get credit for stating the obvious.

Kent Police clamp down on tall photographers

Martin Nicholls
FAIL

Midget mafia..

I can't wait until I'm down in London in August.. 6' 10" and 18st you better believe I'm gonna be filling my SD cards with cops, cops - nothing but cops.

Seriously what the hell is wrong with these people. Even if you had a known terrorist taking photos of the security arrangements at Canary Wharf or Parliament or something it's highly debatable if you could reliably use that as evidence in an effort to get that person of the street long-term. So why bother random people taking photos of stuff?

The military don't mind you taking photos of sensitive equipment, personnel and buildings up close & personal. I have some very high resolution photos of the SIS building, but if you take a few photos of the underground and they freak out.

The underground is public property right? I'm usually a bit shy about taking photos of such spaces but there's a line and the too tall stuff has really crossed it, gone round the planet and come back again with me.

This heightist shit is really getting on my nerves.

MP asks UK.gov: Why are you still using IE6?

Martin Nicholls
WTF?

Eeeep

"to the MoD, which has no intention of doing so at the moment"

Oh. dear. god - we're all going to die.

*reaches for the tin foil hat*

Google's vanity OS is Microsoft's dream

Martin Nicholls
Paris Hilton

Come on..

"Think of the old Psion 3 or 5 pocket computer on steroids, offering a lovely QWERTY keyboard for messaging, a screen that's good enough for browsing and a photo album, and small enough to fit in a jacket pocket"

This has already been done again and again and again, just because the likes of you bang on and on and on about the jesus phone and the pre or whatever marketing hype takes your fancy this week doesn't mean that such phones don't exist.

Just look at the stuff HTC are pumping out, about 1/3 of their entire product line would fit that description, so would the S/E phone I can't remember the model number of and probably a whole lot more.

Quit pretending only apple, bb and palm make phones and we won't need to imagine a wonderful world of devices that /could/ exist.

Boomerang attack against AES better than blind chance

Martin Nicholls
FAIL

Idiot browsers and general incomptence.

"ironically on a page that harbors a digital certificate problem"

Cryptographically it's fine, it's just created for a different site. If it's your bank you should care, otherwise - who gives a damn. You'd hope a tech blog talking about cryptographic algorithms would engage brain before reading what their IE install says, but oh well.

As for the who cares guy, cryptographic algorithm strength is measured in the time it would take the world's most powerful supercomputers to break them, as soon as you find weaknesses in them they're technically worthless. There's also a chance that this one weakness could lead to others or be a more serious problem in another algorithm - so it's not like you can put your fingers in your ears and lalalala I'm not listening!

Steve Jobs liver transplant confirmed by doc

Martin Nicholls
Linux

Hm

What do we think the odds are that somebody /so/ rich is the absolute sickest person in his blood type?

F-22 may live on: Cheap secondhand Eurofighters on offer

Martin Nicholls
Boffin

My dad will beat up your dad..

"The F-22 is a worse bomber than the Eurofighter as it can't carry an IR sensor without ruining its stealth"

It's not exactly a show-stopper because new weapons tech tends to use GPS. It's better for a whole list of reasons.

"That said, if it comes down to looks, then either the F22 or the Typhoon have got the Joint Strike Fighter beat hollow - sheesh that plane looks like it was designed with a blunt crayon!"

Luckily it won't but if it did I can't agree, I've always preferred the F-22 on looks.

As for other countries buying the tech - sure the Typhoon is cheaper but it's not as good nor is it as (potentially) flexible - the F-22 is for all intents and purpose a Beta to Typhoon's RTM - you can't compare them like-for-like right now. That being said in a real fight the F-22 will always win because of it's superior weapons load. And yes - that's important because you have to pre-plan for the loads like the Typhoon didn't.

Regardless, the reason there's second hand Typhoons around is because some countries which have access to both (like ours) are flogging them off to smaller countries before they've even been delivered in favour of buying more F-22s, and thank god.

"I'm sure I remember something about a friendly RAF v's USAF contest, Tiffies v's F22, and the boys in RAF blue doing a major clock cleaning"

Indeed, but anybody that's seen both flying will know which is the superior aircraft - what happens when you put our flyboys(/gals) in an F-22 with it's full range of weaponry is the real question.

That being said I have been a bit more convinced recently that the Typhoon is a good platform for the future, I just don't think it's as good as the F-22 - because, well, it isn't.

Microsoft to bomb Europe with IE-free Windows 7

Martin Nicholls
Paris Hilton

Where's My Minority Report?!?

I should probably precede this by saying I'm a Windows user who doesn't use IE but this this whole saga is kinda absurd.

BUT:

To all the guys asking about Apple/Safari, the answer is simple, the EUCC would reply that they don't do pre-crime. They'd say Apple aren't abusing their position /yet/. Thought I'd just say that so people can understand it, not that I agree with what is undoubtedly the position.

They totally are abusing their position with iTunes though, something should be done about that. Monopoly doesn't even begin to describe the apple/ipod/iphone/itunes combo.

The whole Microsoft thing is a bit of a joke though, it's getting to the point where it looks like what it probably is [I'm an EU citizen, and I can see this]: a trade war under a legal framework.

First it was Boeing, now it's Microsoft, next year it'll be Ford or somebody.

Cisco joins Dow, as GM jettisoned

Martin Nicholls
Gates Halo

@Boris

"freeserve(remember them) had a higher stock value than companies like ICI despite the fact their turnover was like about 1% of ICI's and never made a profit too"

It's all about market cap, if /I/ was floated in the market and issued 2 shares they might go for $10,000 each, making my total worth $20,000 - and Microsoft might issue hundreds of billions of shares and they might be worth $0.50 each and they'd still be worth billions as a company. I really hope people haven't been assuming company worth just by it's share price ignoring the other numbers, though it might explain the s**t we're in now if they were...

As for Cisco not being in the DOW before now, it always seemed like a strange omission to me, but really these indexes just rely on the people involved a) wanting to be in them, and, b) that DOW wants them to be in the list, it's not like there's a science behind it.

The FTSE 100 is no different, it's all about who they want to be in the list based on no real logic.

IR35 tax is a huge failure

Martin Nicholls
Pirate

@John Lamb

"I'm a contractor, but I don't feel the need to join a special Group for people who earn lots of money and think they should pay less tax. Isn't that what the Tories are for?"

You're just jealous because you pay more tax than them and don't have a moat.

Seriously though, am I the only person in the country who thinks it's obscure that the Tories are making hay out of the current crop of political faux pas, by not telling anybody they'll cut services and will levy even less tax on the mega-rich (i.e. themselves).

I hate GB as much as the next guy, but lets not pretend Cameron is going to be anything but even worse.

Nvidia punts 3D into Europe

Martin Nicholls

@AC / General Comments...

So do these, the monitor is 120Hz

The problem is that it's a 22" 1680x1050 job so it's utterly useless for the target audience.

I wouldn't step down from my 24" 1920x1200 because I'd loose 1080p, rendering my BluRay useless (so lets forget 3D movies for starters) and frankly, I'd also argue it's too small anyway, I wouldn't get too excited about making it too cheap by using overly small screens - anybody buying into the tech in the next 18 months is that breed of early adopter that have enough cash to pay the premiums.

This isn't my way of saying they should make the 3d tech more expensive or slap a premium on the display, merely that the display is too small for the target market - they're also targeting this at movie people so without the 1080p it doesn't hit the mark.

I guess the problem is with the panel makers - they're waiting to see if the tech catches on before making the big panels but the fact is, they're purposely creating a product nobody wants even though people want the actually product - just not in the poor size, so now doubt in 18 months they can point at the poor sales figures of this useless display and say "look nobody wants it" </try>.

Before anybody mentions DVI bw as a possible motive for the low-res display, which I'm sure somebody is considering, you need dual-link for this display anyways, moving up to 192x1200@120 is well inside dual-link capabilities.

Chip cooler launches liquid nitro at CPUs

Martin Nicholls

@Liquid nitrogen sold separately

Ya, good luck with that. Why not just wait until we get the potato waffle-shaped CPUs we were promised?

Don't really need to mess around with exotic liquids and liquid gasses for some decades yet and by that time we should be well into quantum computing anyways.

IT salaries down and out

Martin Nicholls
Gates Halo

@AC

"Or have I got the wrong idea about salaries in this sector?"

I'd suspect it's a combination of that, getting a bit lucky, where you live and timing.

As an experienced developer I don't earn anything even close to the average mentioned, but my living costs are very very low so I could afford to take a job with an interesting company writing exciting product. I consider myself lucky getting a new job at the pay I got given the current times but I'm fairly sure the numbers in this article are wildly skewed over national numbers - I know for sure I couldn't even dream of living in London on what I get paid though.

Judges rap police over raid on paedo expert

Martin Nicholls
Boffin

s19

"I don't know about GB, but in the US, the local government would be liable (I think, but then I'm not a lawyer) for a HUGE penalty for such an egregious violation of his rights"

There's always recourse of suit, but most people don't care enough to. The IPCC are there for a reason too, if they [police] abuse their powers, which could easily be argued in this case, it's the very role of the IPCC to investigate and deal with such claims. On top of the tree of course is the ECHR as it stands in British law and failing that the other thing EHCR stands for.

But indeed, good old s19, aka section "I'll take that for any reason I choose and there's nothing you can do about it".

ID scheme will cost £400m annually

Martin Nicholls
Pirate

Passport Free?

"British People want a little more for their 400M than our government are (falsely) promising in the way of a passport-free nirvana"

If you use it for that purpose it's not passport free, more a smaller form-factor passport that you can only use in Europe, and it's expensive, and we already have passports... and they could just change the form factor of passports...

Or we could just stick with not having ID cards and use passports where necessary and not have to deal with any of this and the massive outlay and general absurdity.

Virgin wi-fi rolls up two years late

Martin Nicholls
Paris Hilton

3G?

"though with 3G coverage and data tariffs improving daily, the service could find itself redundant before the technology does"

Evidently the writer has never tried to use 3G services on a train going speeds in excess of 120mph.

I use the NXEC regularly which has free wifi services, which can be a godsend but it also sucks mostly, browsing is a pain and don't even attempt to watch a youtube vid or beeb news. Works great for email - maybe virgin's service will be better with wimax kit.

Phorm moves beyond privacy - except when slating rivals

Martin Nicholls
Boffin

Forced titles are for losers

"but I'm struck by the fact there's some people who seem to be quite intent on not understanding how our system works"

The problem for Phorm is people /do/ understand how their system works, which is why we know it's illegal under British law directly, under European law and a combination of the above, which is why if the government don't do anything about it they're going to end up costing the British tax payer millions upon millions in fines.

Just because the police haven't read RIPA, the Data Protection Act and the Telecommunications Act (among others) and hence don't know that what they're doing is a criminal offence which involves prison terms for directors of years in prison for each offence, doesn't mean it isn't. If this stuff ever gets rolled out I'll be calling the police to report a crime, I don't know about other people.

I personally don't need false assurances, I know what they're doing is a criminal offence (yes officer, a /criminal/ offence - not a civil matter), and when it's committed against myself I'll be calling the police and complaining to the IPCC when they do nothing about it.

Vista to XP 'downgrade' lawsuit revised

Martin Nicholls
Boffin

Analogy & Metaphore

This whole story is pretty silly and there's a lot of analogies flying about in the comments, just thought it might be sensible to point out that:

"If you sue for damages because somebody backed into your car in the car park you do not have to prove that they profitted from the bump, just that you lost out and that the other driver was responsible for your losses."

Is actually incorrect. This is like if you bought a new car, decided you didn't like it then lets say, Ford, were kind enough to offer you an older model for free, as long as you pay the delivery charges. The extra 130 is like you then decide you don't like driving so get somebody to drive you around - then sue Ford for damages saying your driver should be provided for free because you didn't like the newer model.

Because it's oh-so-complex technology they're trying to obfuscate it, but this is what is happening. Then they're trying to bury it in a class action because they know they'll loose and be liable for costs.

Come on people, hate Microsoft and Vista or not, I think we can all agree this is a pretty stupid lawsuit. The plaintiff should just be grateful Microsoft didn't tell them where to go and if they don't like it, download a Linux distro.

Apple prices MacBook Pro battery surgery

Martin Nicholls
Flame

Apple and batteries..

"If batteries are indeed a 'consumable' to be replaced, then HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo etc are all equally culpable of shipping timebombs"

Because it's just not true. I have 3 batteries for my laptop so I can run for about 15-20 hours without looking for a power socket. Why? Because I can flip out the dead one and put a new one in.

If Apple want to lock people into batteries made by them, without competition authorities caring - this is the only way to do it. But it's completely nuts; Apple are notorious for grossly over-estimating how long their batteries last in both charge and before they need replacing.

People will still shill them, I say good luck if you bought one.

Martin Nicholls

Also..

The other issue is, instead of just replacing the battery what happens to your laptop when it needs a new battery?

You loose it for a few weeks.

I can see this ending well and not in a class-action..

Windows for Warships™ reaches Royal Navy frigates

Martin Nicholls
Gates Halo

Hrm

"France's defense system runs mainly on a Linux derivative."

And now we know why the MoD went with windows. How do you want to surrender today?

Martin Nicholls
Gates Halo

Sensitive Technology..

"I would fully expect that a lot of the critical stuff is classed as restricted technology (or whatever the weasel-words de jour are) by the US gov"

Aside from the fact nothing about windows itself is classified, and when I last saw there was talk about access to windows source code being part of the contract negotiations for this particular project - on the point of classified technology there is precedence for access to this stuff, not least as part of the JSF project. http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSL1278309720061212

I do recall when all this started engineers at BaE were very unhappy at the prospect, especially considering all their experience was with UNIX systems. The problem is *UNIX* you're not going to get any better terms than from Microsoft over support, license terms, source code access nor pricing. Apple is more the same, and Linux has no real go-to backers, and worse, at least at the time - Linux systems were uninsurable with regards to business continuity.

What you have to remember is that this stuff project has been going on for a number of years now, and that you can't just throw a copy of Ubuntu on these systems and expect to be waiting for a forum reply when xorg segfaults.

Make all the funny comments you like but even if they started this project today I'd still call them nuts if they picked *Linux* out of the bunch - Apple won't do anything for you and Unix developers or no better. So what is it you want?

And also, this is a British government IT project - and it's ahead of schedule and actually works.

Ballerinas and fish-gutters beat techies in UK immigration race

Martin Nicholls

Meh

"will no doubt stun IT employers, who are seeing their wage bill rise as they compete for competent UK-based techies"

Maybe, but it won't stun those of us who are perfectly compitent but can't get an IT job in this country for love nor money because there are non available.

It got to the stage last year when I just said "enough is enough" and became self employed. Now I earn more than I could have possibly hoped for with *any* IT job working for a UK company by servicing clients mainly in the US, where they /actually do/ have a skills shortage. Best part is I can do it from pretty much anywhere in the world if I want to, all I need is an internet connection of 2.5G-ish phone speeds and a computer. Take *that* HMRC.

That password-protected site of yours - it ain't

Martin Nicholls
Boffin

Clueless Tardchange

"i've accidently clicked on so many "experts exchange" (lol) links in my time i could fsking scream"

Indeed, behaviour like that should be grounds for a google ban. I find it hard to believe anybody visits that site by choice or worse actually pays - you have to wonder how they get things like pagerank when they're hated more than myspace.

And worse why google see various tricks mentioned in their rules as suddenly fine when it's 'Experts Exchange'.

Hacker unearths young Chinese gymnast scam

Martin Nicholls
Pirate

@ Ignorant Anonymous Coward

"Christina Ohorogu or whatever she is a cheat (read the papers if you care)"

Think you'll find, if you read the documentation - and got a clue - that she was suspended due to missing out-of-season testing. Asside from the obvious fact that nobody, even the governing bodies, *ever* suggested she took drugs, also pointed out by the fact she is indeed allowed to compete in the olympic games.

The testing she was subject to and missed, which she was suspended for, asside being one of if not *the* most stringent in the world (people on police bail have an easier time of things), works in a way that it's very easy to miss testing by being like say - on holiday.

The fact of the matter is she made a mistake, was pushed for it and is now time-served.

As for the other guys, yeah no argument - these people aren't celebrated now, the fact is that at the time nobody knew.

If you want to talk about current drugs cheats lets look at all the IAAF suspensions of the Russian women's 1500M runners..

Michael Dell mulls 'Newcastle Utd investment'

Martin Nicholls
Coat

Tens of millions?

"Newcastle needs many tens of million of pounds to take a real shot at Man Utd and Chelsea"

They need that just to avoid relegation tbh, hundreds of millions to play catch up. Look how much Chelski spent in that first year and they still fail - and they started with a top-5 team.

Mines the one that looks like a zebra.

Virgin Media ADSL punters suffer 2-day email meltdown

Martin Nicholls

Staying with VM

"Maybe there is a good reason for staying with Virgin as an ISP, but I have no idea what it might be."

As a cable customer that would be 20mb/sec without living 3 inches from one's nearest exchange. Really can't remember how long ago I used an ISP's email service (they shouldn't provide them at all imo - but how many people use gmail yet would complain if VM stopped providing such services?).

But yes I don't understand why VM have an ADSL arm all all - the only thing it does for them is win them bad publicity, they should dump all their customers on somebody like zen or be.

Reg hack insults the Parachute Regiment

Martin Nicholls

Where the army goes, the..

Nah but seriously - skilled parachutists that you are - but I know which I'd prefer to look at on the ground, no offence indended guys.

Exploit code for Kaminsky DNS bug goes wild

Martin Nicholls

If..

"When they typed bankofamerica.com into their browser, they'd have no way of knowing whether they were being directed to the real site or one designed to steal their money. Trust on the internet, as flawed as it may be now, would completely break down."

Assuming bankofamerica.com doesn't use SSL or their browser doesn't bother to tell them the cert doesn't match the IP?

RSA domain glitch derails UK online retailers

Martin Nicholls

I'm Not Fat

Seriously I'm not - I was up all night writing code and hungry as hell - leave me alone. If I was fat I’d weigh as much as a small moon – I’m 6’ 10” I can get away with eating lots of pizza :)

But seriously it's not the most exciting story in history but there’s a few reasons it being down got my attention.

Firstly you have to wonder at the final significance of it being down for a few hours - a large chunk of internet transactions in the UK (and I'm pretty sure Ireland too) go through this site, and it's a good thing.

As somebody that's suffered from card fraud in the past every extra measure is a good thing, there's some that would say (and I'd probably be included in those people) that would argue it isn't enough but I do get annoyed when I see a site that doesn't use it when I use my card online - simply because it is an extra step between your card numbers and fraud.

But back to the point - yeah if you imagine how much cash would go through this system in that period of time on a normal - I wouldn't like to guess but I can imagine it was a decent ammount. We have to be talking multiple millions here?

I asked some people if it was down and somebody pointed out that the domain expired. This is what piqued my interest - for RSA to miss a domain like that with it's likely financial importance I'd argue is a big thing, I think it was at that point I sent el reg a quick email just saying it was down.

For obvious reasons I didn't hear back until the next day but basically I was forwarded an email which made me ask some serious questions as to what exactly happened. I'll quote a section of it and let the readers decide what it says compared to the reply given quoted in the final article:

"RSA has checked it out and there is still DNS resolution, so

securesuite.co.uk is still a functioning domain name.

"RSA is unaware of any service outages for our customers and have not

received any complaints from card issuers, and all our diagnostics have

passed."

Compare that with

"RSA 3D Secure within the United Kingdom was partially unavailable to certain customers and some transactions were delayed or blocked due to a domain name registration issue. The issue was identified and remedial action was taken. At the time, all Payment Card Issuers were immediately notified of a service interruption and they received continuous updates throughout until resolution"

Now come on - those replies are polar opposites. How can you have no issues and everything checks out yet at the same time have transactions blocked and oh "by the way we did tell card issuers". That would have been great if it happened, but obviously you won't get a bank or card issuer to confirm that.

So what's the truth? Did RSA lie to save embarrassment hoping that there'd be not enough evidence for a 'printable' story or did they just not know at all?

Either way doesn't look good (to me at least) which is why when I saw that reply I chased it down a little with Google and saw other people had the same issue. As for percentages of customers affected - well - I asked various people and it had a 100% "yes, it's down" rate, not totally scientific I'll admit but still you have to ask questions again.

So back to why it's important. It's important because this is credit card security. When the domain system breaks like that (no matter who's fault it is - it could be that say Nominet is the guilty party here) - there's at least the possibility that somebody could pick it up in an after-sales domain clearance auction if nobody is paying attention and do who knows what with it – okay, that's a little bit out-there but what I'm saying is that this is stuff you have to get right otherwise people end up getting defrauded.

Plus lets be fair you'd kind of expect RSA to know better.

Jeremy Clarkson tilts at windmills

Martin Nicholls
Boffin

No but..

What you can do it drive part way at 160MPH, stop for a coffee for ten minutes then carry on driving again 160MPH.

For the love of all that's holy, they won't be happy until they fit everybody's cars with trackers.

Speed doesn't cause accidents and speed cameras don't slow people down - look at the statistics and how they're recorded. They installed a speed camera at an accident hotspot just down the road for me - didn't work so they altered what was a blind junction on a blind hill into a large roundabout - the accident rate dropped like a stone (surprise) and the stats attribute the drop in accidents to the speed camera (which legally shouldn't even be there anymore). This is the kind of crap we get these days.

App Store clean-up follows allegations

Martin Nicholls
Jobs Horns

Haha

"Before accusing Woz of queue jumping, I seriously suggest you check your facts as gizmodo has eventually done:

[..]

They referred to the original cnet article done with little or no fact checking. Cnet even changed their article title to suggest they were wrong along."

Yeah come on el-reg - check your facts or face the consequences: wrath of fanboy.

The actual story is irrelevent, as long as wozniak's name isn't dragged through the mud by lowly internet reporters like yourselves.

Ofcom flashes cash guarantees at BT for fibre investment

Martin Nicholls

Break it up..

"all fibre work has been done / will be done since BT became a private company and as far as I am aware" - no, they're fibre, or will be to the exchange. You won't get any better unless you're a business where BT can make more profit from you by giving you IP-based services - enough hone lines = less cost for BT if you're on fibre, but you don't get lower prices, they just make more cash.

As for the whole EC regulations thing it's all BS - the issues go away if you put it up for tender - we give you xBn, you go away and install the fibre and reap the profits under x conditions - as long as it's for tender i.e. anybody including BT and like, even comcast could come and do it there's no issue. The problem with that is OFCOM and the government like to spend as much time as possible protecting BT and it's shareholders so we couldn't possibly do that.

You could even break the country up and put fibre up for tender - everywhere that's fibre has their BT exchange ripped out and killed, and a company could bid on certain sections and build a network, in return for certian capacity and pricing structures and even SLAs.

Oh wait we have that - it's called the UK cable network pre-NTL. With all the bitching about NTL/VM, it's easy to forget that it's an experiment that worked well until the VM days which could be repeated if the removal of BT and a bit of infrastructure cash is in the offing (which should have happened from day one), and it would be well accepted if fibre connections are on the table.

If you broke it down you could possibly open the door up for people like VM to come in and fibre properly - their network is in place so it'd be cheaper for them to do it, a little more still for BT but there would be nothing stopping them bidding also.

How to beat AVG's fake traffic spew

Martin Nicholls

@Anonymous Coward

You account that a percentage of your users is going to do that - still more accurate by a long way and hopefully the same degree across all browsers (it isn't, really, but it inflates your IE, and more importantly REAL IE6 users to enough of a degree that it's more useful than log parsing).

Martin Nicholls

This is why..

Some people think there's a soul on this planet that actually uses IE6. Well not just *this* but things that pretend to be IE6 when they really aren't.

It's also why you shouldn't EVER trust server logs for visitor metrics. Use javascript to tell you about real visitors, server logs are utterly useless.

Court slaps UK BitTorrenters with landmark damages award

Martin Nicholls
Paris Hilton

No win big fee

No win no fee until the counter suit which will happen one day. When I first saw this I had to check it wasn't April 1st again already. Suing over an 8.99 game which is utter shite anyway?

These lolsuits are daft, how do they expect to ever win one in the UK when they have to prove damage to business when what's at stake is a bunch of people that wouldn't buy the damn thing anyway?

What's even worse is maybe a few people actually enjoyed the game and bought it - so not sharing would be damaging to their busines.

Even paris could figure this one out. In fact she did - and made a packet on the DVD sales - go figure.

Virgin Media ads throttled by peak time bandwidth squeeze

Martin Nicholls
Go

Erm

"Actually you'll find BT has the strongest national network with the largest capacity, far higher than VM could dream of. It also uses fibre, just not FTTP or FTTK, yet."

You're not seriously trying to claim that are you? 21CN - or 20CN as I like to call it - doesn't even come close to bringing BT up to a technical level playing field as VM. And to expect that BT will /ever/ fibre you up is absurd. Even if they wanted to (they don't), they couldn't afford to do it because of the years of decay of their network. What's more they're absolutely terrified of you having access to fast IP-based services because they won't be able to reap you for every penny they can.

I think many people miss the issue here. The VM network is made of of many old providers, some of higher technical quality than others, and some have had higher uptake than others - so it might be easy to offer 20meg/fully used to everybody in one area, another area might be so over-saturated or badly put together that all they get from another is compliants.

There's another issue I've seen with VM where people are using 10 meg network cards/switches and then worse Wifi and USB to connect up and thinking that it's somehow somebody else's fault.

That's the kind of thing that causes people general slow bandwidth 24x7 issues, I've seen it so many times now. As for bandwidth limits, I'm not a fan. Hard to see that it's VM's network that's at fault though, the real issue is likely because of UK wholesale IP bandwidth costs which are frankly sky-high compared to most of the rest of the world. Wholesale bandwidth costs about 2-3x here what it does in the US and even they have throttling issues.

The real problem here is that VM has to be a viable business whereas people relying on BT's ageing/ailing network don't. VM has to keep it's wholsale IP costs down which is frankly a nightmare in the UK. That said being a VM customer I don't like it particularly, but I do understand the issues involved and accept them. Also helps that I'm a night-owl and do my downloading at night :)

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