* Posts by Wayland Sothcott

423 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Feb 2008

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'Vista Capable' plaintiffs seek class action revival

Wayland Sothcott

Windows Anytime Upgrade

The first Vista machine I sold was a sweet little Acer laptop. It had 1GB RAM and ran Vista fine. The customer was very pleased. However they wanted to watch something on YouTube and the browser said it needed a plugin. So they thought, rather than down load it, lets install the Windows Anytime Upgrade CD that I unwittingly supplied with the laptop.

Having installed the CD Windows became dead slow so they called me. Clicking the start button took about 10 seconds before the menu popped up. Everything went at this speed.

Fortunately the laptop came with a partion on the hard drive to wipe the machine back to factory default installation.

I agree with the court case because Vista was sold on the aero features, the rest is just XP, or at least the same as XP.

I expect Windows 7 will be the good bits from Vista added to XP which will be re-skinned. Why make a big thing of a new OS, no one wants a new OS, we just want to run our programs.

Microsoft talks open-source love amid TomTom Linux 'war'

Wayland Sothcott
Boffin

Windows CE ve Linux

"MS sees Linux as a serious threat in the future (it's no threat just now) and so it is beginning this campaign to target OSS. The OSS out-reach is just a ruse to muddy the prior-art waters and steal IP from the community."

If you look at the embedded market there are a number of embedded operating systems. Many of these started as librarys of assembler and 'C' functions. Most companies making a small device with a CPU would have started from scratch and ended up with a set of tools they could re-use. The better ones of these went on to become embedded operating systems.

Along comes two things, more powerful CPUs and Linux. This is replacing most of the bespoke embedded OS and Windows CE.

The Windows in everything motto of Microsoft is losing. So what do Microsoft do about it? The little bit of Windows that is still in these devices is being attacked by Microsoft themselves. Once FAT32 is replaced then Windows will have to adapt to make it self compatible with the devices rather than the other way round.

IT admin stole students' nude Facebook pics, cops say

Wayland Sothcott

Daily mail readers?

Go and read the comments made by Daily Mail readers on their website. The odd one is a typical Daily Mail reader comment but the majority are Reg Reader type of comments.

This either means

1. they have a lot of Trolls.

2. the readers actually are like this

3. that people on the Internet who comment are not like typical Daily Mail readers.

Just talking to ordinary people it seems that not many of them are like Daily Mail readers either. I actually think there has been a shift of opinion in the UK. People are more prepared to defend freedom and bash the government.

BT reprograms biz customers as hotspots

Wayland Sothcott
Jobs Horns

Home Hubs too

The BT Home Hubs regularly update their firmware. The later versions have the FON feature installed but not active. They use V-LAN or virtual local networks to separate one WiFi from another although it's all going through the same radio. They also have BT Fusion which is WiFi for mobile phones.

It's pretty cleaver stuff. My customers would have no idea that this was going on and would assume that they better let BT do their thing. Only a small percentage will have the smarts to actually opt out.

It's also an amazingly smart business move, with Open Zones or FONs popping up all over the place then people are bound to use them. It will make the likes of Orange and 3 Mobile look a bit sad.

You can bet BT have done their homework and have written this into the T&C's. They have been deploying these hubs for ages. In fact any company that gets a large base of it's own gear installed and connected to their servers is in a very powerful position.

Wayland Sothcott
Thumb Down

Not an open hotspot

You need an open zone account to use this so they know who you are. Also they know which hub you connected to. So no, it's not a good way to look at terrorporn.com

McKinnon's UK trial bid rejected by DPP

Wayland Sothcott
Alien

UFO's the next Pear Harbour

The Merkins may want all the UFO stuff to come out in a big showie trial. That way we will need DNA tests and ID cards for the world to prove we're not illegal aliens.

Eircom to block Pirate Bay

Wayland Sothcott
Black Helicopters

This is a Trial for the world

Once they have a working method of implementing this then it will spread everywhere. I am sure there a lots of organisations who would like to block access to stuff.

Regarding ORANGE UK

They block SMTP in all it's usual ports including the secure ones, so you are stuck with their SMTP which means they can read what you are sending on another ISP's email service.

Home Office plans to force CCTV on shops and pubs

Wayland Sothcott

Go 1984

What a superb Windows program that is. It records only when something happens. You can get years of coverage on a hard drive. However the police are asking the licence holder to install equipment which can be used to incriminate themselves. It is quite possible to go back and delete scenes, especially the ones with the underage selling.

Now answering the question of why CCTV is so popular, it's because the police won't investigate a crime unless it's on CCTV, so if you want their help then you had better record some evidence. This was a double edged sword, until they made it illegal to film them. OK so that's now unavoidable so it simply won't be admissable in court because admitting you have the police on tape will be admitting to a crime.

Now we still have sensible people in the police but they are coming up for retirement. They will be replaced by young thugs and smart evil graduates who will find very creative ways of using these new all encompasing powers.

We already have the doublethink which says children should never be exposed to alcohol, backed by increasingly bizzar government health advice.

Most people on this site can see this happening, infact most people can see this Police State crap happening. However some people are still rationalizing it by saying it's not that bad and it's already here (as if that makes it ok). It's incremental.

The next thing has got to be the linking of the cameras to government approved monitoring station due to the problems of licencees tampering with the data and the benifits of better CCTV coverage. Oh it's not here yet but it's clearly down the road just a few years.

A change of government won't help, it's not really Labour doing all this. It is at the moment because they are in the driving seat, but they are not planning the journey. A change of courty won't help becaue this crap is being directed globally. Anyone who is glad they are not in the UK, just watch out, you're next.

Straw slaps ban on Iraq debate docs

Wayland Sothcott
Pirate

Nothing To Hide Nothing To Fear

so since they are hiding stuff from us in such and obvious way, they must be crapping themselves with fear.

Icon, gang of looting crooks.

Snowstorm swallows GPS skiing gizmo's creator

Wayland Sothcott
Go

I am just going outside....

....I may be some time.

Info chief slaps Met on CCTV in pubs

Wayland Sothcott

Make it easy on yourselves

Or rather go along with it because it helps the police.

We used to use Windows with 64MB of RAM but now most computer professionals would refuse to deal with such a machine until it had been upgraded to at least 512MB. It's not impossible for us to work on a 64MB machine but you would think so based on our reactions.

And so it is with the police. They used to be able to solve crimes based on what witnesses saw. Now because CCTV is avialable, the only crimes they will work on are the ones on CCTV. So if you want help from the police you had better gather good CCTV evidence.

Speeding, driverless Nissan finally stopped by US bombers

Wayland Sothcott
Thumb Down

US Navy attacking civillians

Why would the US Navy be practicing bombing ordinary cars?

UK 'bad' pics ban to stretch?

Wayland Sothcott
Boffin

Open Prison UK

The UK is not like an open prison, it is one.

There are more cameras and authority figures the the open part than there are behind the bars. Logical really since when someone is locked up they can get up to less mischif.

In Essex our Traffic Wardens are now Civil Enforcement Officers and wear black uniforms with stab proof vests with refective yellow signs with blue writing on them.

The POLICE (comunity support) officers wear black uniforms with stab proof vests with refective yellow signs with blue writing on them.

The (real) POLICE officers walk arround with the plastic ones and wear black uniforms with stab proof vests with refective yellow signs with blue writing on them.

They also carry Tazers and threaten to Tazer me.

The BLUE icon because I miss the days when we were protected by the men in blue rather than armed fascists in BLACK uniforms.

Unless you piss them off by not cowering to their superiority then you're OK. (Yes officer, I am sorry officer, please don't taze me) Unless that is they are trying to meet targets, then they are likely to get you for whatever crime is in fashon that month.

Routing instability causes net traffic chaos

Wayland Sothcott
Pirate

Evilkity.tv

Essex based Online Underground Music Television station http://evilkitty.tv would suddenly lose it's stream from the SHOUTcast server in the USA. This was happening for an hour or so on Sunday and Monday and a bit yesterday. The ping loss was up to 75% but it seemed to begin playing again when the ping got down to 50% loss.

Has anyone else noticed this sort of thing with services based in the USA?

It's not really Pirate because it's licenced music and not played on the FM.

Vatican endorses Darwin, slights intelligent design

Wayland Sothcott
Boffin

Survival of the Fittest

It makes a lot of sence, it's like leaving things to market forces.

Although, I can't help seeing the hand of someone meddling in both evolution and the market.

FTC gives behavioral ad punters one last chance

Wayland Sothcott
Black Helicopters

Problem, Reaction, Solution

Problem: The government has spotted a problem, companies are playing fast and loose with peoples data.

Reaction: Oh no! The people cry, please Mr Obama can we have some laws to protect us?

Solution: Cirtainly, we have drafted this plan (sometime before you even knew there was a problem) that ensures that all data is collected securely and can be monitored directly by the new reglitory body out of the FBI/CIA/MI5

Is there nothing that escapes the black helecopter icon in these troubling times?

UK.gov to tap BT as data harvester

Wayland Sothcott
Black Helicopters

sleepwalking into a surveillance society

It's time we woke up from this trance!

It seems to me we do have some forces of our own. BitTorrent, VPN, SSH, TOR, PGP.

The government is propsing to spend vast sums of money monitoring who comunicates with who. Even pubs are being closed, in favour of clubs where your attendance is logged.

In typical UK government style they will get the businesses to do the spying and enforcement. (Is that what fascist means?)

Burglar alarms are linked back to the alarm company and contracted in by your insurace. CCTV is going the same way, the technology is available and I know businesses offering this service. How long before the government passes a law that says firms operating such systems must link with the government system?

The components of T.I.A (the Total Information Awareness spy network) are being connected, just as networks became the Internet.

The article sights the 7/7 bombings for the reason why we need this extra monitoring. The cameras on the bus and the trains were actually broken that day. Watch 7/7 Ripple Effect to see that the 7th July 2005 bombings were a done by a private security firm working for the government. The suicide bombers actually had alibis.

Photography rights: Snappers to descend on Scotland Yard

Wayland Sothcott
Thumb Down

Everything is illegal but...

they only use the laws against the bad people. If you are doing nothing wrong then even if it's technically against the law you will be OK.

Weeeellll, generally this is the case, BUTon occasion police do things which really are not right. The police we have now are not the same as in the past.

Example, during this weeks floods, traffic was having problems navigating through the deep water where the river had flooded onto the road. What was needed was someone to control the traffic flow to make it easier for people to drive through. Ofcourse the (plastic) police were on the next street with a speed gun looking for speeders to nick.

Armed cops contain Wild West Leicestershire toy gun menace

Wayland Sothcott
Black Helicopters

Sending a message

This looks like and example of police "Sending gthe right message".

The message is obviously, we will not tollerate any form of gun culture, we have a zero tollerance policy.

Pretty soon this sort of thing won't be news. We will instead think anyone with a toy gun is an irrisponsible idiot asking for trouble. Like street hocky in the middle of the motorway is irrisponsible. We are being trained to accept this.

US lawmaker injects ISP throttle into Obama rescue package

Wayland Sothcott
Thumb Down

Clean WiFi

You can have your WISP (Wireless ISP) but you must clean all the bad stuff off it.

If you want proper Internet move to the City.

MP wants Welsh text on ID cards

Wayland Sothcott
Coat

How far off the point can you get?

Surely we don't want ID cards? Who cares what language they are written in?

Jacqui Smith cracks down on gangs via computers, closets

Wayland Sothcott

You just don't get it

Jacqui is sending out "The Right Message"

None of this will actually happen.

Clicked NONE icon.

Jacqui Smith ecstatically ignores more scientific advice

Wayland Sothcott
Happy

Sending the wrong message

Professor Nutt was accusing of "sending the wrong message".

Not that his message was inaccurate, since clearly he had done lots of scientific research from which he based his conclusions. The results of that research unfortunately did not equal what the government wanted it to. Surely Professor Nutt could have just ignored the research and sent out "The right message" ?

Smilie face obviously.

Evesham Technology confirmed dead

Wayland Sothcott
Unhappy

A sad day

Another UK company bites the dust.

You're barcoded: The sneaky under-25 route to compulsory ID

Wayland Sothcott
Black Helicopters

@Can't blame the shops

It's Fascist!

There is so much wrong with your comment that it's almost text book example of how this stuff works.

The government has got the shop assistants enforcing this indirectly via the employers. I was asked my age when buying superglue at BnQ. I was 43 and she was in her 50's. I said are you seriously expecting me to answer that? I never actually told her my age. We both knew it was stupid but that's not how it works.

They are only doing their jobs. They are following orders. You can't go wrong if you do as you are told. You can only be a bad person if you break the rules. In fact that's the definition of a bad person, someone who breaks the rules.

The fact that this is such a mundane activity, popping to the shops to buy some beer. It's just to stop underage people getting drunk and knifing people. Who could be against that?

We are seeing incremental change.

Ubuntu shops believe in Ubuntu

Wayland Sothcott

Linux ve Windows

Windows servers have some important features that seem to be missing from Linux. Once you have the server doing it's job you reaally don't have much to do. The hardware will break at some point, how easy it is to recover from that is vital.

Now the users PC's are a different matter, they alway seem to be going wrong.

Iranian rocket puts satellite into orbit

Wayland Sothcott

Iran the 2nd nation to launch one satellite

The UK is known as the nation who launched just one satellite. Having proved we could do it we lost interest. Why bother developing it when we can buy them from the USA.

Iran is no allowed to buy them. They have achieved this dispite having to source most of the parts in Iran and not having any tame german rocket scientists.

I don't know much about rockets but this one looked small and effective. It did not blow up on the launch pad. With electronics getting smaller it's probably plenty big enough for decent satellites.

It's possible that this was not live and they had to launch several before they got one that did not blow up. It's also possible that it did not launch a sat into orbit. Has this launch been independantly varified, or don't we care?

One reason to not check if this was a real launch is that now Israel can nuke Iran, all that's needed is a report that proves they can hit Israel in 45 minutes.

Apache gunbird used as robo kill-chopper fleet command ship

Wayland Sothcott
Black Helicopters

It's difficult to fly all those little birds

Why risk all those other helecopters by not having pilots in them?

Put someone in every helecopter then let them fly it. That way it can be flown properly. There must be plenty of good helecopter pilots training on their X-Box 360's who would do it for nothing.

Lucky Mancs could get ID cards first, Jacqui declares

Wayland Sothcott
Coat

Problem, Reaction, Solution

Problem "Course, we may be far more sappy now days and just roll over and suck some New Lab pole becouse we're so scared of illegal immigrant, gun totting, alcholic, drug dealing, identity stealing, peado, terrorists."

Reaction "The government does not even know how many gun toting, identity stealing, paedo, illegal imigrant terrorists are in the country"

Solution "People can't wait to get an ID card"

It's in my pocket next to my knife.

Passport RFIDs cloned wholesale by $250 eBay auction spree

Wayland Sothcott

Pinch Points

Chris Paget suggests that at a pinch point such as a door way the credit cards could be scanned as well. I can see that a security camera could also snap your face there by putting a face to a number.

I am completely stunned that such insecure technology is used. If the number was written in plain view most people would regaard that as insecure. However having it as a radio signal makes it far easier to read. The amount of info given away at any one reading is tiny, but accurate. If that's multiplied by the thousands of reads a day possible in some locations and the thousands of locations where the reading is done, then it's clearly a very worrying issue.

Stop'n'search gets touchy-feely

Wayland Sothcott
Coat

Terror Storm - Alex Jones

Carry a DVD of Terror Storm in case they stop you. They can then watch this and learn that the 7/7 bombs were not in rucksacks but planted underneth the carrages.

Mind you if they had stopped and searched Jean Demendez then they could have let him on his way. So in a sence the new police policy of searching people before decicing to shoot them is reasuring.

I am just taking out everything from my pockets before entering London.

New Jersey sysadmin gets 5 years for Cisco scam

Wayland Sothcott
IT Angle

Realtech network cards

I was speaking to a sysadmin who said he ordered some network cards for some cisco gear and when he unwrapped the huge expensive gold plated packaging it was just a pair of ordinary network cards. So he sent them back for a refund and bought cards for £5 each instead.

Ubuntu's Shuttleworth praises Windows 7, welcomes fight

Wayland Sothcott

Acer Netbook runs Linux

People just want to be able to use their computer. The problem is that some programs are only available on some of the operating systems. With programs like Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, VLC then you can actually use any operating system.

Far from making themselves important, operating systems should fade into the background where they belong. Unless you class such functions as office software and media players as part of the operating syste.

Many of my customers ask me if the computer comes with the full version of Windows XP because they need to write letters and edit spreadsheets. They have assumed that MS Office is Windows XP. This confusion is the norm.

Texas profs use AI news-ware to ID terror groups

Wayland Sothcott
Thumb Down

What a load of bollox

It's so nonsensical that I am lost for words!

Robot set to replace science teachers

Wayland Sothcott
Flame

Chemistry?

Our chemistry teacher used to set of explosions. Robots are routinely used to handle explosives

US to postpone analog TV death

Wayland Sothcott
Alien

They Live

It would have been a bit reckless of the government to allow 6.5 million people to go TV cold turkey. Won't people be able to see their lizard masters.

"We've got one who can SEE!"

25 years of Mac - the good, the bad, and the cheese grater

Wayland Sothcott
Thumb Up

Xerox Parc

In 1979 I visited Queen Mary Collage London. They had a pair of graphics workstations operated using mice. One user was shuffling a deck of cards on screen using the mouse.

I believe it was the Xerox Parc machines that Apple saw that inspired the Apple Lisa and the the MAC. Then the whole W.I.M.P interface thing took off.

Circuit City goes titsup

Wayland Sothcott
Thumb Down

Nerds needed

You have to staff your shops with various types of people, you need some nerds. You need people who understand the products and can get this accross to nerdy customers and technophobes.

I was in PC World and a staff member helpfully asked if I needed any help. I asked for a memory card reader that could do a cirtain two types of card. "Oh I don't think one like that exists" he said.

I went and looked anyway and found exactly what I needed.

These shops run on the pretense of knowing what they are talking about but you don't have to have any brains at all to be smarter than the average consumer electronics shopper. They make all their money on the overpriced HDMI leads anyway.

UK.gov 'to create anti-net piracy agency'

Wayland Sothcott

@Simplest is best- the solution to electronic slavery

"The BBC news website today is carrying a story that HSBC is now going to scrutinise all credit card transactions rather than the current 25% to detect fraud. This will involve matching it against your 'normal pattern of transactions'. They've admitted more legitimate transactions will be rejected as a result, but 'people will just have to put up with it'. What happened to our flexible friend? Avoid the inconvenience, just use cash."

Clasic: Problem, Reaction, Solution

The question is, "How do we get people to accept having every credit card transaction investigated?"

The answer is: Create a problem, have inadiquit security on the card so it gets scammed occasionally

Wait for the reaction from the card holders and shops "this is getting out of hand, something must be done!!"

The solution is exactly what you needed to answer the original question. Close inspection of every transaction.

The solution to everything is to tighten security in our minimum securty open prison. When the prisoners misbehave take away the priveledges you gave them. No more Internet for you sonnie.

Demon ends porn-less Internet Archive block

Wayland Sothcott

@Piggy and Tazzy

Demon used to be the company who allowed child porn news groups so that you know which ones to avoid if you did not want to look at child porn. They reasoned, correctly in my opinion, that if you blocked the child porn groups that the posters would simply splat the stuff into every group. It's a separate task to tackle those who are posting it.

The web works by following links or running searches in a search engine. You go to sites of your own free will. The creaters of the sites want to make sure you can find the site but the only visitors who count are the ones who want to look at your site. I object to being taken to a site I don't want to see, but I don't seem to have this happen, unlike spam which is pushed at me.

A filtered Internet is a great service to offer but not a good idea if it's manditory. It will lead to sneekier ways to get people to look at stuff they would rather not see. Like spam it will be pushed at people rather than letting people find it themselves. It is already difficult to run your own SMTP server at home since most of the spam filters are expecting very strict criteria to be met. In future there will be two types of website, big corporate ones and illegal porno pervy ones using ever more complex methods to get noticed. Anyone running a small private website will be blocked by most of the filters or have to follow very strict guidlines so their ISP does not get blocked.

Experts trumpet '25 most dangerous' programming errors

Wayland Sothcott

don't use malloc()

Dynamic Memory Allocation screws up eventually. If you can write the program without using Dynamic Memory Allocation then it will run for years without a reboot.

National Safety Council seeks total* cell-phone driving ban

Wayland Sothcott

There will be a day when we look back...

and wonder how we ever let humans drive cars.

EDS pays for tax failure

Wayland Sothcott
Alert

I thought it was a success

Tax Credits put people into debt and made their lives worse. Surely that's the aim of government?

Ofcom warns telcos over hidden customer penalties

Wayland Sothcott

Not just Broadband

As the broadband market gets tougher they try to have as many hidden costs as possible whilst supplying you with the least amount of service possible whilst making it look like they are supplying the most service.

The answer is simply, pay decent money for your broadband from a niche company.

Private firm may run UK spy über-database

Wayland Sothcott
Coat

Give up our liberties for freedom

As the East End London woman tells Alex Jones "Yeah I think it's right that we should give up our liberties for freedom"

I think that technically it's a monumental task to process all this info but where there is a will there is a way. £12billion buys a lot of will.

To those who are trying to analyse this based on what the government say this is for, forget it. Any intelegent person can see it won't do what the government say it's for, but that does not mean it won't do what the government want.

I hear spain is nice.

Spinning the war on the UK's sex trade

Wayland Sothcott

I gave this top rating "Orgazmic"

Superb analysis of the situation. It does seem there has been a policy U turn. Most people object to prostitutes on the streets; residents and those concerned for their welfare for instance. We used to read that organisations concerned with the welfare of prostitutes wanted them to work from brothels.

It seems that broadly the results of government policy are to make matters worse in every possible way. Could this not be the purpose as well?

UK.gov to push Obama for tougher rules online

Wayland Sothcott
Linux

Works like the smoking ban

"Burnham told the BBC any new rules would be run on a self-regulatory basis by the internet industry."

A website owner does not get prosecuted but the ISP that hosts the site or allows access or host the domain name would be threatened by the law. Since the laws are deliberately vauge the ISP's won't take the chance. Self censureship and self regulation.

Has any smoker been prosecuted for smoking in a pub? I don't think so but I know a pub who allowed smoking got fined £2000. Once government licences are required to operate a service then they have a threat to hold over you.

Unfortunately I think this will work to a large extent. However there will be those who avoid regulation. The real unfiltered Internet will be maintained using priavte networks, vpn and other technologies. It will be like prohibition, a very successful time for that which was prohibited.

TUX symbol of Freedom

Ohio prof develops CCTV people-tracker 'ware

Wayland Sothcott

Richard Random Thoughts

"3. I think automated facial recognition is quite easily defeated. Ask any hoody, or beardy, or someone with sunglasses, a hat or a scarf. The best trained police officers in the Met anti terrorism branch mistook an innocent Brazilian electrician for a suicide bomber with fatal consequences. Imagine the match had been done by machine and politicians and managers trying to get away with that one."

That's if you accept that the police made a mistake. There is a great deal of evil being done deliberatly and passed off as a mistake. It's more likely they had the right target just that they mishandled the assasination. Or was it even misshandled? They seem to have things pretty much sewn up so there are no serious conequences for their 'blunders'.

Oh we seem to have let the terrorists blow up the trains.

Oh we seem to have no CCTV footage, just a still picture that looks like it was done in photoshop by an idiot. We must tighten the regulations on hiring idiots.

Oh we seem to have shot the wrong terrorist.

Oh we can't allow the police to be charged criminally since they already said it was a mistake.

Meanwhile:

Oh we seem to have left those disks on the train.

Oh we seem to have broken the economy.

Oh we seem to have given the banks too much money which they are forced to pay out in million pound bonuses to top staff. What bad luck.

You see, I don't buy the excuse of it all being a series of unfortunate accidents by highly paid, highly qualified people in top positions of power who cannot be brought to book.

British Standard explains how to store data for use as evidence

Wayland Sothcott

Does that rule out data from Laptops?

Most people don't store their data securely behind passwords. Pictures in cameras could be edited or deleted. People may let others use their laptops. Does this mean that ordinary computer evidence is not admissible?

Virgin Media to dump neutrality and target BitTorrent users

Wayland Sothcott

@Paul the peckerhead, and the Virgin overseller

I totally agree with your analysis.

Put simply

"Unlimited" really just means unlimited emails and web browsing. As soon as you start streaming,, sharing, downloading or uploading then things become limited.

They should never have said 'Unlimited' if that was not true.

They don't know if your Torrent is illegal, there is just a good chance it is.

They want you to connect at 50Meg so they can sell you TV and other services, not so you can get your own stuff from the Internet. Doubtless they will sell super fast access to their subscribers to other companies.

This seriously could be the end of the Internet and the beginning of the global Intranet.

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