Posts by Robert McGregor

Elderly Bletchley Park volunteer sacked for showing Colossus exhibit to visitors

Re: Not sure I understand this...

New grounds for sacking due to Gross-Misconduct:

"The employee appeared to be doing his job in an extremely efficient and helpful way"

Jolly rogered

Luckily...

... once I realised Virgin had barred access to the site, I used Google to find 35 other sites offering the same information. Then I turned to my encrypted VPN to reshare said content with some lovely friends.

In addition, three of the people with whom I shared the files have gone to buy original copies of the DVDs/BluRays because they liked it so much they wanted all the extras.

So it's good to see that the sterotypes about file-sharing and the people involved being scum that infringe copyright without a care have been confirmed there.

I for one would like to see the court order that states that The Pirate Bay is actually an illegal site.

iPhone 4 splashes down on both sides of the pond

Indeedy

You have it nailed there... you can hover using my tablet PC, but then that is because the stylus is capable of differentiating between the light touch of moving over the surface and the harder touch of an intentional press.

Here's the thing... How many websites use either :hover or mouseover or some variation? Apple must now expect everyone to change just to make their site compatible with the iPad.

Sounds like a serious case of "We know better than everyone else".

Moron's in my humble and ignorable opinion.

But...

Been on 3 since they began so I can't really understand why the video calling feature would be seen as anything but just catching up with the rest of the universe.

Also on a side-note, just read a post about how :hover is now basically useless (as is javascript mouseover) thanks to the bright sparks at Apple not realising anything about how people interact with the web and choosing to enforce a new 'standard' because they are clearly our new Gods.

Call me a troll if you like but I chuffing hate Apple and the way the iPhone and iPad work.

Tories will scrap 'pre-crime' vetting

So hold on a minute...

The real issue underlying this is information or rather knowledge.

The gaining of knowledge allows people to organise and lead others. Those with that knowledge know that to stay in power and control, they need to limit the knowledge gathering of everyone else or they will be get taken out of power.

So in the pre-internet/pre-computer days it was easy, to gain knowledge, you read books and people could monitor your book intake and it was a chore and it was easier to spot people who planned to subvert.

Now we enter a world where getting hold of information is easy, anyone can send anyone else anonymous information about such interesting things as manufacturing bombs, attacking Policemen, drinking moonshine, hacking phone systems, manufacturing heroin...

You might want to question the good character of someone who might be talking about such things as those above but that cannot imply that everyone who seeks to learn about 'stuff' is a ciminal. In fact, I would suspect, that it is very close to profiling of an illegal nature. Surely those people who make design bombs for the MoD are just as dangerous, if not more so, yet they hold a position of power.

I have to say that for me this boils down to protecting knowledge from the uneducated and doing it in such a cack-handed way that it just makes everyone out to be a criminial. Surely we should be looking at educating rather than hiding information. Explaining the risks of life and not sticking fingers in ears or over eyes and shouting LALALALALALA at the top of our voices.

This whole story just tells us that those in power have finally realised that knowledge is out of control and is turning everyone against those who lead. This is bad and we apparently must all pay the price with our freedom.

Police make a mockery of data protection

Its just more of the same but it should scare everyone

I'm helping campaign for the release of a close freind of mine who was wrongfully convicted and there is a shocking item that came out during summing up...

Quote from www.justiceforandymartin.org.uk - "When Andy’s barrister pointed out, at the end of the 2-month trial, that there was no corroborative evidence to link Andy to this conspiracy; the judge remarked 'Well of course we know that, but what we are dealing with here is circumstantial evidence – he could have done it!'"

So the inference that you could be guilty (if only someone had actual proof) was sufficient to send my friend to jail.

Further to this, there have been comments made elsewhere that are equally shocking:

"The late Lord Denning said ‘It is better that a few innocent people remain in prison than the integrity of the British legal system be impugned’."

Surely this goes against all that we believe 'British Justice' to uphold. This erosion of rights is getting worse and the Police now feel that they can rightly hold any old crap information about people and then use it to show that a person has a mind for being a criminal is so beyond ludicrous that it tears at the very fabric of our society.

We should all be wary that we are not arrested just for saying that the system has problems. In fact I'll have to into hiding after this - wish me luck.

Please visit http://www.justiceforandymartinorg.uk/ and http://www.mojoscotland.com/ for more information about the mess our politicians and senior police officers are making happen.

Conviction overturned in MySpace suicide case

Eh?

Surely coercion to commit suicide is a crime...

German hacker-tool law snares...no-one

@Anonymous Coward

... or perhaps a Dangerous Politician Act.

Seriously, there are so many politicians that avoid learning about technology but still have control over the legislation that governs the use of technology.

I suppose that using existing laws has become boring and involves too much thinking. It's like the law about driving while using a mobile, which criminalises someone because they might be capable of doing something dangerous rather than actively going after plain old dangerous drivers that can be seen on roads every day...

If the lawyers need some advice on how to look for the dangerous drivers on the net then i'm sure we'd have many volunteers on el reg...

Student charged after alerting principal to server hack

@Steve

Er... intrusion testing a computer system cannot be equated to stabbing somone to see if it kills them or not.

The lad done good and if I were the school admin i'd be apologising and beggin them not to sack me. I would also be standing up for the kid.

I would like to see what evidence they provide that he intended to profit frmo this. I can only imagine that his full email contained a linie similar to...

"Let me pass my course or i'll post this secure info on the internet."

If so then he probably needs some lessons in social interactions...

However, he did tell them there was a flaw and also told them what was wrong - thus negating any chance of him being able to use the security flaw against them.

I say "let 'em crash..."

Watchdog hits 070 swindlers with big fine

@ Anyone saying Fraud = Prison

Fraud is not a very well legally defined term and so it is not a criminal charge. Anyone that can confirm otherwise would be welcome to post as I know laws do change...

As far as I know there is only the Tort of Fraud that allows deception to be labelled as fraud and used in civil cases only.

So unless the Telecoms Act is changed again we will not be able to put any of these arseholes in Prison, but will just be able to use the regulator to fine them.

The 'green' car tax grabs that don't add up

But...

... don't we also have to consider that if taxation were an effective tool, it would also mean that people would stop a particular action altogether, thus reducing the amount of tax collected, thus making that tax pretty pointless and showing it for what it really is... another lie.

It is currently not a morally unacceptable thing to emit large quantities of CO2 in excess of that amount that the surrounding natural and man-made mechanisms can soak it up and deal safely with it keeping all things in balance.

If the government were truly against high CO2 emissions then they would be moving us to being morally against them.

Of course where money is concerned, morals do not follow, so big business will always ignore these tax hikes and either pay them or find a way round them while keeping on the high emissions.

The result being that the little guys end up paying over the odds and seeing no benefit. Darling could have added £1 a litre to fuel and it would not have amde a jot of difference to the amount of CO2 in broad terms. But the average Joe would no longer be able to get to work etc...

It is a real shame that we have such a weak governament in the UK. They could do so much yet really are just a wolf in sheep's clothing and will always seek to raise taxes to control the little guy.

Next chance you get, vote anyone but Labour, Tory or Lib Dem. They are just looking after each other and until we get real change that brings people into power with the foresight to make beneficial change then we are nowhere near solving the problem.

Paris Hilton, cause i'm sure she'd like erm... like wanna see all the erm... dolphins live in like harmony with all the like erm chickens...