Posts by Pascal Monett

Portrait of an (alleged) cyber bully as a young man

Why worry ?

"why worry if he's guilty or not he plainly is"

Well, what a great way to enforce the "innocent until proven guilty" clause that is desperately trying to hang on to its ledge in the judicial system nowadays.

I'm glad you are so good at determining guilt. I am even gladder, though, that a real judge is actually going to require proof before condemning someone, even if the guy in the pic has a face worthy of wearing a bag all day long.

I totally despise what the person guilty of these actions has done, but before I start despising a guy named King for those acts I prefer having read proof that he is indeed the one who did it.

Scientist punts anti-snoring pillow

Great idea !

I can just imagine what a pleasure it will be to have a Vista machine noisily putting away under the bed in order to control my Snorillow.

Not to mention the surprise beeping at 3 in the morning when the PC does a self-reboot because the control app - or Vista itself - knackered the OS enough for it to crash.

In any case, given that my wife has permanently forbidden all computer equipment from our bedroom, this is not likely to have a chance in my house.

Texas patent holder sues Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft

One question

Where has "Performance Pricing" implemented its code ? Where is it actually USING its "patent" ?

Because if it is not using it, then it should not complain about it being used. I've been hearing of Google, AOL and the rest for years now. Performance Pricing is a name I heard for the first time today.

Patent troll is their true name, and like SCO and Darl McBride, they should be strung up by the short and uglies and left to dry.

Pascal.

Braindead obituarists hoaxed by Wikipedia

Well he did admit it

"R J Campbell [...] admitted to selling counterfeit software and so-called "parallel importing."

So he admitted it in Court. Why then should there be a disclaimer ?

Right after that, there's a reference to the legal issue. Let me quote it also :

"Under EU law, parallel imports describe branded goods bought in one country and sold elsewhere within Europe at a cheaper price than the trademark holder intends."

May I also bring your attention to this paragraph : "Microsoft seems to think folks going around higher European software prices are destroying the market."

Notice the use of the word "seems", indicating that what Microsoft thinks may not be reality.

Finally, there is the Court decision in its entirety, which clearly declares that Campbell was condemned for trademark and copyright infringement, and passing off.

So what would you want, Mr Anonymous WikiTroll ? Would you prefer that El Reg, respectable news source, publish an article that showed Campbell under the light of innocent victim ? El Reg understands quite well, but the guy admitted and got condemned. Those are the facts.

But don't worry. I don't expect a Wikizealot to worry about piddling things like facts.

Pascal.

Terror police lock down Soho to smoke out 9lbs of chillis

That would be

"who hate us because we used to be free . . once upon a time . . in distant memory . . somewhere around the middle of last century as far as anyone can remember"

Freedom today is at the top of the Endangered Species List. None to be found here, move along now.

Kiwi boffins prove that booze makes you clever

Endless fountain of well-being

Alcohol under all its forms is continuously being proven to remedy many ailments. Cholesterol, heart conditions, and now, stupidity. Could it be that the Fountain of Youth is actually at the bottom of my bottle of Vodka ?

I'll let you know when I get there.

3Com - a company built on ether

Simple is good

The collision management system adopted by 3Com over Ethernet may be an insult to intelligence, but the fact is that other protocols with more complex schemes and much more thought and money poured into them do not do better and have just as many collisions to manage.

So what is the use of paying more for the same ? Ethernet is robust and scalable, which is more than many other protocols can boast.

eBay: Botnets are Linux-happy

Taking the proper approach to security

So EBay is starting to think that whoever contacts them is working from a compromised platform ? Good news then. The first step of security is to trust no one without proof. The second step of security is to trust no proof you haven't verified yourself.

I hope that, with such an approach properly implemented, EBay will be able to show to the rest of the world just how security is done over the Internet. And I would be interested in seeing EBay become a real bank - with a bank's obligation to manage people's money and give it back if the person wants it back.

US Special Ops buys hydrogen droid strato-comms tech

Not to rain on a parade or anything

I know that liquid hydrogen is not all that difficult to store and transport, and no more dangerous than fuel, but liquid hydrogen does have to be kept very cool, right ? Whereas fuel can be stored at room temperature without difficulty.

Doesn't that complicate the use of this bird a bit ? Especially given the fact that this spy plane is not really meant to be used in temperate climates at this time and in the current political situation ?

I'd think storing liquid hydrogen when the ambient temperature is 45°C will be something of an interesting challenge to the troops, in the same way that the flamethrowers of WWII were regarded as just as dangerous to their user than to the target.

But maybe I'm just exaggerating things.

Chinese internet security response team under attack

Shoot the messenger, eh ?

"most of those sites are *run* by Americans" - but since they hijacked Chinese servers, it's China's fault !!

And if China didn't offer the infrastructure, it would be somebody else taking the blame. Anyone, except the poor Americans responsible for the whole mess in the first place.

This is one thread where we won't hear about how it was the US that invented the Internet !

American space self-monitoring plan delayed

Sure they won't

"no intention to begin operations until we address your questions"

Gosh, if they say so then it's obvious they won't, right ? Or is this the same kind of "no we won't" than the wiretap fiasco ? Somehow I can't help but imagine some journo being cuffed, beaten by black-suited thugs with big fists, and pushed out of the CIA van with the words "talk about satellites and you'll see us again, but we won't be so nice next time".

Really, from the government that gave us "torture is legal", asking me to trust their word is REALLY stretching credibility.

Given the current track record in domestic surveillance, I wouldn't be surprised if satellite surveillance has already been put in place since 2002. After all, there is no law against it now, is there ?

Mr WebTV skewers US patent bill

Something I'm missing here

I seem to remember that a Patent is a full description of a procedure by which one is supposed to be able to produce an exact replicate of the thing patented. A Patent should be an industry how-to for the fabrication of something, or that's how I understood it.

In which case, I fail to see how one can file 25 patents on ideas that have not yet the light of production, much less proper description.

If a Patent was only submittable when it indeed fully described a process, step by step, without any generalizations or missing parts, then we wouldn't have patent trolls because patent trolls have never invented anything - they only file a paper saying "I've thought of this thing !" and then go hunt for victims to sue.

And I'll bet that would also seriously cut down on the number of patents a given company has.

Dutch pull the plug on e-voting

The sirens of technology becon again

It is easy to think that all of our current activities should be transformed into some electronic form or another. Easy and wrong.

It reminds me of the argument about magnetic bearings vs ball bearings. Yes, magnetic bearings are highly efficient, and highly technological things, but pull the plug and they are useless. Besides, engineering specifications call for a back-up bearing in case the magnetic bearing fails. Ball bearings are EMP-resistant, work in all types of weather and atmospheric conditions, and need absolutely no power source to work. Additionally, ball bearings can be extremely well manufactured, to the point where their efficiency is just as good as magnetic bearings.

The voting issue is the same kind of subject. We have an existing technology that works very well, is reasonably foolproof, and needs next to no investment or technology to function as intended. Some absolutely want to replace that with an unproven, unsecure technology that not only has trouble doing what it should do, but also gives no guarantee that it will produce results that are strictly in accord with the actions of the voters.

Sorry, but e-voting does NOT get my vote, not by a long shot.

Would-be politician fails in Yahoo! and Ask.com lawsuit

Landmark decision here

I believe this decision will be heavily referred to in the future, either within a court context or even outside of one. Indeed, I cannot begin to count how many times I have read that, by censoring forums or somesuch, such-and-such a company or website is guilty of restricting free speech.

Well now it's official people : private companies have NO OBLIGATION to uphold free speech.

This is one bookmark I'll certainly be referring to in the future.

Boffins: Dark times for application development

Personally, I see a bigger issue

Tools may be in the Dark Ages, but programming practices are in the Stone Age. Everywhere I go I see programmers "doing their thing" in their own way. Is there an industry-wide accepted coding practice ? Nope. Is there a coding methodology taught as soon as someone first touches an IDE ? Nope.

Today, in an industry that works with arguably the most technologically advanced products that Humanity has ever made, the methods used for creating code range from "quick and dirty hack" to "convoluted, committee-managed, process-based humongous monolith".

Everyone has his own manner of programming, his own manner of commenting and his own manner of documenting his code (including NOT documenting it). And each and every one of us have been moulded by whatever mentor we had in our youths - be it a human being, or an Internet chat room. There is no consistency between programmers. The only similarities you find is when both have enough experience in their trade to know how to avoid the most common pitfalls in programming and user management. But that is only because they have both hit their heads against the same wall - not because someone taught them about it in a consistent manner.

Oh, and I do know about this and that methodology that is available on some web page somewhere. The issue I have is that it is not taught along with the basics at school, and knowledge of it is not mandatory when one undertakes the responsibility of coding a business project. Once upon a time, being a software developer was a job for engineers. They learned this new subject along the way, shared their experience with their pairs and ended up writing the first programming manuals.

That time is long finished. Today, a 14-year-old can buy himself a web site and start banging PHP code however he likes, gradually rooting himself in disastrous coding habits that he will bring with him in his professional life, and will take years to teach himself out of, if ever he manages to do so.

I don't see this changing any time soon either. So bring on the tools of the New Era. Bring on the Renaissance ! After all, it can hardly be worse than the standards & practices we have now.

Pascal.

Opportunity goes panoramic on Victoria

Thanks Steve

For putting those numbers into proper units !

;-)

IBM virtual strike goes ahead in Sadville

Another thing missing

Insert inevitable rant about how it's not Sadville but Second Life, as if we cared.

US Navy to remodel Hitler's San Diego bunker

It was NOT frog-marching

It was called the goose-step, you insensitive capitalist invader !

And this is the Internet, made specifically so that people who want to "get all up in arms over something" have something to get all up in arms over.

So, who wants to get all riled up about goose' rights ?

New euro coin stuffs Turkey

That's a stylized map ?

Gosh, I would have thought that something stylized would look a little less like an actual geographical map.

I would think that a stylized map would be more like one big square for the Russian side, next to a smaller square for the western part of Europe, with a small line to represent the dangling bits of Italy, and one stonking big middle finger representing the UK.

THAT would be stylized.

This is a bloody world map with bits obviously missing, nothing less.

Chemical-weapons hysteria causes cholera

How to fuck up a country - Step 7

Just ensure that education levels drop to such a dismal point that vast numbers of people cannot correctly decide when to use "their" compared to "they're", nor realize what a contraction is and what it means, or be able to understand that the word "hysteria" following "chemical weapons" might just be the actual subject, and not the chemicals weapons themselves.

Why, in such a country, I'll bet that they would spend a lot more time discussing the potential consequences of a Presidential blowjob then they would spend wondering if it's a good idea to invade a country that hasn't attacked them.

They might even accept a President who openly lies to his people without impeaching him.

I know, it sounds hard to accept, but trust me, it's possible.

If users are a security threat, how do you manage them?

Management is the weakest link

You can have all the procedures you want, you can educate all you want, you will never avoid the day someone at a higher level than you comes in and says "I need this" in complete violation of standards that he might have suggested himself.

I agree with all the points that the article makes, and I mostly agree with the comments that have been made as well.

But what you really need to plan for is what you will do when said managers laptop comes back from home full of viruses, smutware and other threats, and gets logged back on to your network.

And your plan needs to answer one single question : will you lock out his access until he has asked you to purge the stuff, or will you shut your mouth and deal with the hundreds of infections that will inevitably follow ?

In one case, you might well get fired if the offender is high up enough (some people simply cannot be blamed for anything). In the other, you might not get fired, but you'll certainly rack up overtime in an impressive way.

All other contingencies are Nice To Have, but ultimately it all boils down to whether or not you are powerful enough in your company to keep your network safe.

If that is not the case, a speedy exit strategy is a must.

DARPA code teams compete on same K9 robot

Why you don't want real animals on a battlefield

Especially not dogs - they can bark at the most inappropriate times (you won't sneak anywhere, or remain concealed, with a barking dog at your side). Aside from that small inconvenience, it probably takes a lot of training to not have an animal run in terror when the shelling starts.

And finally, soldiers will have a hard enough time coping with the deaths of their fellows. Throwing a live animal in that kind of hell will probably add to the psychological misery and unfairness of the battlefield. I mean, soldier or not, people have a tendency of getting attached to animals, all the more ones that help them.

Seeing the pack dog get blown away will not help morale.

Three Gorges Dam an 'environmental catastrophe'

@China needs the power

Ooh, how appropriate to compare 50-meter waves and 2 billion rats to some smog.

Dear Lord, please spare us the Evils of Pollution ! We will accept anything if we can avoid Pollution !!

Well I would much rather deal with a bit of smog than have to fight more rats than there are people in China. I'd like to see you find a way to deal with 2 billion rats.

2 billions rats. For Heaven's sake ! I can't even imagine what damage that amount of hungry critters can do.

Adwalker awarded US patent

Closed down ? I like that idea.

Besides, I'd like to see how durable those things are. For example, are they made to resist a jaunt in the Underground without poking out a kid's eye ? Will these wearable screens rip or tear easily in the crowded sidewalks of Manhatten ? And just how much push and shove will they take in Tokyo - where there are three people per square meter all day long - and twice that in the metro ?

And if it can survive normal, day-to-day use without making everyone but the wearer bear the cuts and bruises, what about those who get mugged for the screen ? And what if the hoodies decide that they like the sound of breaking ad screens, and go on a rampage ?

Right. It's time I took my medication. If you'll excuse me . . .

Acer plans renewed effort to drag up PC prices

Well that does it for me

No more Acer purchase from me, thank you. Now that it's all over the map, it can only mean bad things for reliability and usefulness of their products.

I'll wait a few years for the dust to settle before I go back to using Acer motherboards and such.

Vanessa Hudgens net smut: your children are at risk

I second the motion

Where is the bloody link ?! Surely we must be able to judge for ourselves whether or not Disney was justified in its outrage ?

THE LINK !!

Ninja she-devils rob Pennsylvania gas station

@Morely

Brilliant comeback ! Although I might have issues with the notion of tank-sized people being "well" fed, I still have a great smile as I type this.

Thanks for lightening the day !

LAPD patrol cars to get sticky-GPS-tracker cannon?

Re: Zap! not all that likely to work.

"the current would harmlessly short out across the metal body of the car and directly to ground"

Um, through rubber tires ? Should I specify, naturally-insulating rubber tires ?

The current won't go anywhere near the ground, that's for sure. Whether or not it will zap the car's onboard computer or somesuch is another issue, but current leakage to the ground is not.

Unless, of course, the guy has one of those anti-lightning grounding thingies - made of rubber as well. But the issue is probably moot because at 90mph the thing won't touch the ground either.

NY probes Facebook over pedophile controls

Can't help but wonder

Technically, it is perfectly feasible to restrict profile viewing of adults to only other adult profiles. If that was done, then said 24-year old could simply not have sent a message to pseudo 13-year old since he would not have seen the "girl's" profile.

And if, for the sake of argument, one had to admit that sometimes adults should be able to view underage profiles, it could be restricted to requiring that the younger one initiate contact first, by sending a request to that effect. One could also imagine that parents could have automatic access to their offspring's profile for parental control.

If this measure was implemented, the only real issues we would have is with the real pedophiles posing as underage teens and trying to catch a new victim. Prosecution would be easy, because there is no way an adult can pretend that he didn't realize that he was creating an underage profile. Once caught, he'd be hooked for good.

So now, if this is technically feasible and not all that difficult to implement, why isn't it done ?

Jack Thompson sets about Halo 3

Disaster strikes

Oh my God ! He has reproduced ! His DNA is going to survive ! This is a major disaster.

On the other hand, now that he has personally sent his own offspring to get a copy of Halo 3 - meaning that there already is an XBox 360 at the home, or I hope - what is the kid going to do with it ?

Is he going to forbid his kid from playing with it ? Or is he going to allow his kid to play the game ? On the one hand, one could accuse him of sadism, and on the other, well he has no business blaming other parents if he does the same.

So which is it, Jacko ? Sadist, or hypocrite ?

Thailand menaces YouTube - again

Stop dreaming

Google, Yahoo, et al will certainly not stop kowtowing to various dictatorship requirements - it's a question of ad revenue, in other words, MONEY.

Stand up for free speech ? Hey, these are companies we're talking about. The shareholders will never agree.

Iraq fiasco creeps into NSA surveillance controversy

@Huh !

Double Huh ?!

"To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself"

So basically what you're saying is that Bush is right to exempt himself from any and every law he wants ?

Do you realize that, if Bush were to have his way, you wouldn't be able to make that kind of remark anonymously, like you so courageously did ?

Human or Hobbit: it is all in the wrist

@Boldman

Don't worry, the people won't understand either.

Still, what will be easy to remember is that "it's all in the wrist".

Right, I've got my coat . .

Dismantling gas giants with nanotech

The Precautionary Principle

I don't know who this Marchant is, but I must say that I agree with him on that point. If we were doing biological weapons research like we do GM crop "research", then we'd all be dead.

I fail to understand how, in the name of Heaven, anyone was able to get a license to do open-field GM crops before all lab-environment tests were concluded. Well, actually I understand very well how this happened : Monsanto poured a few billion dollars into the right ears and all went the way they wanted.

Thanks to that disastrous decision, we now have GM crops cross-pollinated with non-GM crops, and God only knows what is going to happen tomorrow.

This GM stuff should have been grown under vast, environmentally-sealed white domes, just like in the X-Files film. Any precaution-taking at this point is closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.

Sony delays launch of PS3 virtual community

@Cosser

"People really need to look at reality not just make things up."

I totally agree with that sentence, but

"PS3 games are cheap" is totally wrong on a variety of levels.

In reality, £10 for a game is cheap, not £40. Please avoid suggesting to SONY execs - and other game makers - that they can sell their games at £80 or more.

Turkey stuffs YouTube (again)

Going out on a limb here

and I just might get into trouble for it, but for a country that shoots from the hip when it comes to disparaging remarks about the Founding Father (which I personally rather admire), Turkey apparently isn't so keen on keeping His Legacy live and well in the political arena.

I'd like to see a bit more dedication to stamping out integrism, and a bit more effort in educating the rural areas, two things that Ataturk brought to his country by sheer force of will.

California returns once more unto the breaches

So now we know what the cost is to tell people they blew it

So it's $15 to tell people their confidential data has been compromised. That begs the question : how much is it per customer to properly secure the whole thing ?

After all, if it's marginally more expensive, or even twice as expensive, it only needs to be done once, whereas notifying can happen multiple times and will happen again unless nothing is done.

So, any figures ?

World of Warcraft smites den of orc and elf sexual delinquency

Sorry, but I cannot agree

Free speech is NOT the right to do or say anything in public in front of anyone. With that kind of argument, there is no reason to keep people from shagging like rabbits in public places, malls, or on the sidewalk during rush hour.

Free speech does not mean you can insult someone or talk rubbish to anyone who can hear you.

Free speech is meant to defend the right to think differently and talk about it in places and times where that discussion is needed.

Therefor, I agree that these pervs should have kept their grinding and pseudo-erotic key-banging to their own Guild house and their own forum.

I have no problem with what they are doing, I much prefer that they do it virtually rather than go rape a kid, but I do believe they should use restraint when they are not between themselves.

And I really don't get why they don't go to Second Life. Technically, SL is ideally suited for exactly what they want, WoW is most certainly not where they can get their kicks.

Finally, I'm sorry but Blizzard has no obligation to defend free speech on their own servers - it's a game environment, not a political forum. As such, Blizzard is totally within its rights to censor anything they so choose. They are not restricting your right to free speech, since you can go and spout your nonsense in many other places. They are, however, keeping their forums centered on their games, and that is perfectly legal AND desirable.

Censorship is something to rant against when it is done by the government, not when a game company tries to keep people on the game.

Fossett search 'downgraded'

Utterly ridiculous ?

"It's utterly ridiculous that the U.S. taxpayer is funding these searches"

No it's not - it's called Search and Rescue and it is a cornerstone of civilization. You know, the help thy neighbor thing, bringing aid to your fellow man in need and such.

The fact that Fosset was a millionaire does not enter the equation, searches have been conducted in this manner before for entirely unknown people, independant of whatever monetary wealth they might have had at the time.

The fact that search time is being respected is the best way to respect people's tax money. He had his chance, it didn't pay off, they stop.

There's nothing to rant about here.

BitTorrent-busters busted by BitTorrent

Indie is probably good

The one thing I look forward to is originality. Hollywood is always the same drivel, more or less well thought out, and acting is sometimes iffy. Indie films may be lame at the beginning, but at least they will quickly evolve.

Personally, I like the Harry Potter series, and I am a great fan of Star Wars and of Star Trek (Original Series only, and the good films). Even so, there is precious few occasions where I feel motivated to go to the cinema these days. Most of the DVDs I buy are of films I already know, some are quite old.

Between the films that are nothing but actor placements (Ghost Rider, anyone), the films that have a cool premise but totally lack anything called logic, and the films that insist on using stone-age catchlines, stereotype characters and situations, Hollywood is really running on fumes.

It is high time for the Indie groups to come on scene and rock the boat. Natural selection and market forces will do the rest.

Chinese bloke games himself to death

Never been abroad either

The remark about obesity made me smile. Any American who thinks the whole world is just as fat is one who hasn't set a foot out of his borders. Obesity is a rich-country problem, and morbid obesity as purely an American problem.

The rest of the world is rather trim, often starving, rarely overweight. Especially in Asian countries - have you noticed how they are mostly fit and young ?

That's because of their diet, and because their life expectancy does not go over age 60 - whereas in France, Germany, Greece, Spain, Italy and many other European countries, life expectancy is over 80.

I doubt obesity was the issue. On the contrary, I think the guy was thin as a stick and wore himself out.

Build malware protection into operating systems

Even the borged can be right - once in a while

Amid all the brainwashed drivel, there is one thing right in what Steven said : users click on attachments all too readily and without paying the slightest attention to where it came from or why it was sent.

I don't care what platform you are on, this is a basic problem and there will always be someone to find a way to take advantage of it.

For the rest, I'm sorry Steven, but UAC is a joke (ceaseless nagging is NOT security) and Windows Defender is an insult. Besides, even if you could get ALL European and North American users to update their platform correctly (with patches that don't break the OS), you're still left with all the Chinese users, most of whom are running on pirate copies that MS does not update anyway and don't even know what "patch" or "update" mean.

It's going to take generations to sort this out, and Vista is not doing anything to help.

US mercenary outfit shoots 11 Iraqis - and self in foot

Well whaddya know ?

How ironic. The puppet government Dubya set in place is actually growing some teeth. Who'd a thought that Iraqis would actually want peace ?

In any case, it seems clear that they have understood that no US-based organization is going to provide it for them.

SCO files for US bankruptcy protection

"US laws . . .allows bankrupted company to continue abuse the law"

Well, now that you mention it, yes.

ESO galaxy hunters come up trumps

20 Suns per day

Given that these galaxies are vary far away, we are simply seeing star creation near the beginning of the Universe as we know it. Somehow, finding out that stars were popping up like popcorn seems quite reasonable to me.

Aussie politicos in a froth over naval boob jobs

Standardization everywhere !

Soon to be seen on the recruitment panels : "Join the Army and you'll become a 34D !"

Right, I'm out the door already.

Vista attacked by 13-year-old virus

Oh ! Thank Goodness !

Microsoft : preserving compatibility with your script kiddie code since 1998.

Microsoft sets spinners on court verdict

"litigation capital of the world"

Sorry, but the USA is light-years ahead in that domain and will be holding that particular crown for centuries to come. No worry for the Commission on that point, at all.

German police raid home of man who operated Tor server

Ahh the wonderful smell of limited liberty

"where's smoke there has to be some fire too"

There goes the "innocent until proven guilty" bit. There is no more innocence anymore. You'll be strip-searched until we find you weakness !

Ooohhh, random search turns up a pic of an underage girl naked next to the pool. This guy has to be a perv ! "But it's my daughter, officer" "You pig ! Doing that to your own daughter ! Take him in, Sergeant !" Cue twenty years of legal strife to regain one's liberty, to say nothing of honor, and a whole family wasted.

But there was a picture . . and where there's smoke . .

Where there is smoke there may well be a smoke canister, carefully planted to make sure the search would turn up something good. I'm getting sick of this "where there is smoke" attitude. Use it on criminals that have a record, I can understand that, but when you approach a random citizen without any criminal record I would suggest you NOT consider beforehand that he IS a criminal.

Unless, of course, you want the whole country to become one big jail.

Oh wait, you from the USA ? Already done then, forget I ever said this.

Hackers infiltrate TD Ameritrade client database

Well gee, I'm soooo reassured

"We can conclude because of our intelligence that the TD Waterhouse information was never accessed."

You can conclude whatever you damn well want, it's not like we have any proof of the contrary, nor the means to find it. And you're not offering to go over the logs, now are you ? As for your intelligence, well if you really had a lot of it, you would have avoided getting hacked in the first place, no ?

The only thing we can reliably conclude is that Ameritrade doesn't have a clue.